Books

Lately I see a lot of this:

Rachel loves to read and is continually bringing us another book to read to her.

I guess there are worse things she could be into than books.

Geocaching

Jake and I took the Beehives geocaching yesterday. Some couldn't make it, but those who came had a lot of fun. I think we'll have to do this again, maybe with all the young women next time.

Here they are finding the first cache.

And exploring the contents of the cache.

The girls and Jacob after a failed attempt at finding this cache near the park.

Of course I accidentally left the camera in the car when we found the best cache, so I don't have pictures of that cache, nor of our fights with the cholla cactus that attacked two of the girls' shoes on our way back from that cache. Luckily we all walked away with only minor scratches.

Caught

The other day I was on the phone in my room and Rachel wandered in to our bathroom. After a little while I heard what I thought was the garbage being moved, and thought I'd better stop her from digging through the garbage, so I went to get her out of the garbage. This is what I found instead:

I'm just amazed that it's taken this long before she's finally made it through an entire roll of toilet paper. In our other bathroom we took the roll off long ago and keep it out of her reach, but we haven't bothered in our bathroom because she's usually only in there when we are (except when I'm distracted by the phone, I guess). At least she had some fun.

Rachel has learned how to cross her fingers. But her pinkie and ring fingers, not the normal ones you cross. When her hands are slimy she must like the feel of it and does it a lot.

Here she is talking to us with her fingers crossed--it almost looks like her finger is broken, sticking up at an unnatural angle, if you enlarge the picture.

Election day

Election day is in a day and a half! With all the stuff I read I sometimes start getting a little worried about how everything will turn out, but I keep remembering general conference last month and so many speakers who basically said, you do what you know is right and no matter what is going on around you, you and your family will be fine. Let's hope so.
I was just reading some articles about the marriage amendments that are up in Arizona and California (and Florida) and again realized how important it is that these pass.

I'm passing out fliers tomorrow, and hoping for the best. It's been a really organized effort coordinated within ward boundaries throughout the state here, and I'm pretty sure the vote no side hasn't had the same level of organization and I know their funding was way less, so I'm hoping that's indicative of the way the people feel. I really liked a video I saw of Elder Bednar in a Q&A session and how he responded to the tolerance question, basically saying that tolerance is not a one way road: we will tolerate others' decisions about how they want to live, but they must also tolerate our beliefs and allowing a small minority to redefine an age-old definition of marriage will affect how we are able to live our beliefs. (If you haven't seen this NPR article, it's worth reading.)

Ladybugs

Did you know you can buy ladybugs online and get them shipped through the USPS? I got mine in the mail today. I've noticed aphids on my lettuce and tomatoes in our garden lately and looked online to find out how to attract ladybugs since they eat aphids. I found that you can buy 1500 ladybugs for something like $6. I definitely didn't need that much, but that was the smallest amount available. I guess they figure 10% die in tranist, then most fly away, so with that many, at least a few will stick around to eat your bugs.

So here's how they showed up today. Notice the holes in each side of the box.

They suggest letting them go when it's dark so they'll stick around a little longer.

They were accompanied with sawdust.

I scattered them around a bit. We'll see how many stick around for the aphid feast.

PJ's

We got Rachel new pajamas a few months ago and she LOVES them. I think it's the bright and contrasting colors. But she doesn't just love them when it's time to get ready for bed; if she sees them out during the day, she'll try to put them on. She's also recently developed an affinity for things on her head (unless it's a hat or barette). So combine the two and this is what you get:

She does this quite a bit. She'll just walk around the house so pleased with herself, thinking she looks so cool. It's pretty funny. Half the time she gets it so the pj's are impairing her vision, but she doesn't even seem to notice, just bumping into stuff as she goes.

Cereal

I like cereal. A lot. Especially when it's on sale for $1 a box, or sometimes a little more than that. So I stock up. I sometimes think I go a little overboard. Does everyone use a whole cupboard, and on top of their fridge, and on top of the cupboards above the fridge for cereal storage? Maybe I just need a bigger pantry.I think I counted 29 boxes here, plus the oatmeal and pancake mix. Then I got 3 more boxes at the store yesterday. :)