Snowman

"No-man, no-man. Tall, tall. Mehtud mehtud, mah mah." Translation: once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman tall, tall, tall. In the sun he melted, melted, melted. In the sun he melted small, small, small. Rachel does it complete with actions. And at the most random times. It's funny.

good times

I still haven't remembered to get the pictures from our camping trip from my family (could you guys email them to me?). So I'll get around to posting about that one of these days. In the meantime, here's a few pictures to tide you over....

When Rachel is really moody, I've found that playing with these felt faces that I cut out help her calm down. She'll change the mouth from smiling to frowning and back saying "boo hoo" in a really sad voice, then "happy!!" If they're out and she's playing somewhere else and starts throwing a tantrum, I can just take her over to the faces and change the mouth to a frown and talk about being sad and she calms down pretty fast. I think she may be a budding Picasso, judging from her 4 noses and extra eyes and such.
When she gets done with the felt faces she'll say, "uh oh" then throw everything on the floor. After we clean the faces up, I'll take out the letters and shapes and she'll play with those for another little while. She actually knows almost all her letters, though some of them she'll say the sound instead of the name of the letter (like *cuh* for C)--this is entirely thanks to her dinner-time babysitter, Leap Frog Letter Factory, the DVD I throw in when I need her to be out of my hair to make dinner.

Our garden is starting to have some tasty produce. We've gotten a few cucumbers already, and lots of peas, some onions, and even the tomatoes are starting to ripen now. Rachel loves our garden, maybe a little too much. Every time we go outside she goes over to the strawberry plants and either picks one, or if she's being good, she'll stand there and say "Mommy, taw-bay pees" (strawberry please). She also loves her fresh peas from the garden, but who doesn't. They're so tasty. Here's the remaining pods from all the peas she ate for snack (she doesn't particularly like the pods, but loves picking the peas out of them to eat):
This girl loves her veggies!

quick update

A couple of weeks ago our internet was acting up and the tubes got clogged, or something, so we moved the modem to try to see if we could fix it and this computer, with all the pictures got left in the dark for a couple of weeks until we got around to putting things back how they were. So that's why there hasn't been an update in a while. And because things have been busy.

Last Saturday we had a big fundraiser garage sale for the Young Women in our ward, and my house was one of the 2 locations. The fundraiser was extremely successful, surpassing our goal by more than $1000. And I (and the other leaders, I'm sure) were so glad to have that done with. Now I get to park in my garage again! Rachel got a kick out of a few of the leftovers and cool finds from the sale:
These high heels that no one bought, she was walking around in for a good while. I'm impressed at her high-heel-walking skills.

Rachel loves Mr. Potato. He has lots of cool stuff, like a handlebar mustache, and buck teeth, and more.

And this kitchen I made from a big box that was hidden behind all the garage sale stuff. I spray painted one side and the top, then Rachel "helped" me paint the oven door and the other door. I cut out a little place for a sink/tupperware container to hold her kitchen stuff. And she loves it.

(Yes, her pants were MIA for a little while)

I let her eat some of our peas from our garden on her mini plates, and now every time she's playing at her kitchen she asks for peas. This time she got carrots, too.

Also, this week she had her 18 month doctor's appointment. She's doing great and is a healthy, smart, growing girl. She's such a blessing to us, even when she's in her tantrum mode. :)
Upcoming....pictures of our camping trip with my parents and brother and sis-in-law once I get them all together.

Preston Knight

Last Tuesday morning my nephew, Preston, was stillborn. We were so excited for him to be born, but instead our family has been working through this sad time. Justin and Marie are doing okay--they're sad, understandably, but the Plan of Salvation is such a strength and it is good to know that God loves us and strengthens us in our trials. Today they are having a graveside service in Georgia. I wish I could be there, but our thoughts and prayers are with them. They have both been a good example to me the times I've talked to them--they express hope and faith and speak positively. I still get teary about it, and I'm sure they do, too. I just keep thinking thank goodness for the light of the gospel. We will go forward with hope in a day when we will get to meet that precious little boy.

Idaho

Last week Jacob had to go to England on a business trip, so I decided it was good timing to go up to Idaho with my mom for my Grandpa's wedding. My grandma died in 2007 and Grandpa has been pretty lonely since then, but now he has someone to spend time with and he's happier now than he has been since Grandma died, which is great. It was nice to get to go meet Pat and see family that I haven't seen for a long time. And Rachel LOVED the ranch! Every morning she would wake up and climb the stairs, then run over to "her" chair by the window, climb up and say "moo," pointing to the cows outside. Even though it was pretty cold the whole time we were there she constantly wanted to go outside to see the cows.

Here are a few highlights that I caught on camera: (if you want to see captions, click on the slideshow)


It is so beautiful up there with the fields and the mountains as a background. And it was fun for Rachel to get to do things most kids don't ever experience. We fed a calf its milk, and Rachel let the calf suck on her fingers (whole hand, really) once, then decided she didn't really like it much, so she wouldn't do that again. She loved feeding the cows hay. She even got to go ride the tractor with Grandpa when he was taking hay up to feed the cows in the fields and she thought it was so cool how they all lined up following the tractor to get the food. She even does a pretty good impression of a cow chewing.
Rachel had a good time riding the 4-wheeler, too. She liked to pretend to drive it herself. Who knew that going 5 mph could be so thrilling?
She had a ball playing with my Aunt Reah's grandkids-Rachel's second cousins, I guess? She thought it was so cool to have so many kids around. She and Sophie are about 6 months apart and they were so cute, both in pigtails for the wedding, hanging around together in the yard afterwards. It was a lot of fun.We're looking forward to the reunion in July.

Pima County Fair

Yesterday Rachel and I went with my parents to the Pima County Fair. Unfortunately Jake is in England for business, so he missed out. Rachel went on 2 rides and we all had a good time. Here are some of the highlights.
We got a ride from the parking lot to the entrance being pulled by a tractor.
Rachel and I got to ride an elephant, which after a few steps she kind of didn't like it and was asking to get down. So I just held her in my arms instead of having her sit on the elephant. She thought it was pretty cool after that. She's pretty good at making the trumpeting sound that elephants make.
Then Rachel and Grandma went on the train ride, which she loved. Especially because it played one of her favorite songs: E-I-O (or Old McDonald for those who don't speak Rachel).
I rode with her on the Merry-go-round and she neighed most of the time, apparently having a grand ol' time with all the horses.Then we went to look at all the animals. She liked looking at the sheep, but if they came close enough to touch she backed away.
This friendly pig wanted to give her a kiss, but Rachel wasn't in the kissing mood. But she did like his snorting and grunting.
And here are the cheesy photo ops:And with the grandparents, too.

We also went in the petting zoo, which was fun. They had lots of goats, a donkey, chickens and a rooster, 2 llamas, and 2 mini kangaroos (I think they're wallabies). Justin, this picture's for you. Rachel was a little intimidated by the big llamas. This one had some cool hair and a mustache going on.
Overall, we had a really fun time. I'm glad we went. Especially since it was discount day--only $2 to get in. :)
And now I'd better finish packing. We're flying up to Utah tomorrow, then driving up to Idaho on Thursday for a few days. Colder weather here we come.... (It's been more than 90 the last few days here.)

Week in review

This last week we've kept ourselves busy. We've been to library storytime, the zoo, the movers and shakers class (which Rachel loves), the park, and more. We had a YW campout that I just got to go to the first night that was pretty good. Then Saturday I had a stake 4th year pre-camp hike that I went on that had some beautiful views. Here are some of Rachel's fun times this week that I captured on "film":

Helping with the laundry

Helping "cook" some PB&J's (hers we cut into the shape of an airplane with a cookie cutter).

Painting! So fun and messy.

Yes, that painting smock of hers is my good ol' "Feel the Power" t-shirt from my BYU days.