A few pics

Here's a few cute pictures for your viewing pleasure. Rachel still loves to "blink". Here she is scowling-I mean "blinking"-at me.

And here is spaghetti girl. Mmmmm pasta (or as Rachel says, "nyum, nyum papa").

Fight FOCA

I was just reading about this and I thought I'd pass it along to anyone who hadn't heard about it yet. The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is a bill to legalize abortions nationwide, overturning any state laws and basically nullifying the will of the majority in many states that have enacted laws limiting abortion, or requiring underage kids to notify parents. It also will force doctors and nurses to perform these acts even if they feel it is against their own beliefs (allowing someone else's beliefs to overturn the doctor's or nurse's freedom of religion, basically).

The Catholic Church has made it clear to President Elect Obama that if the bill passes (which he publicly promised Planned Parenthood would be the first thing he does in office), they will close their hospitals rather than allow this. Obviously this will go beyond just affecting abortions, but will affect the economy, with many workers losing jobs if those hospitals close. Healthcare in many places will go down the tubes because the remaining hospitals will be overrun and emergency room waiting times will get even worse.

No matter what people believe about abortion, this bill should not pass. Isn't that why we have our government organized how it is? So states can allow their citizens to decide what they think is best for their state, not so the national government can overturn any state laws?

I put a button on the side of the blog which will take you to the website to sign a petition, and support those who oppose this bill. So spread the word, and support our freedoms.

our weekend

Jake is on a business trip for the weekend-yeah he gets to spend my birthday in another state. Fun. Anyway, he requested a few pictures, so here's a few of our activities yesterday and today:

The cat from next door came to visit and was having so much fun laying on top of this pot--the plant that used to be growing in there is long since dead. Rachel, of course always has a ball when Leila comes to visit.

Leftover donut holes from a baby shower I helped with yesterday. Nyum, nyum, nyum (she says it all the time, especially when she's pretending to feed a doll or stuffed animal of hers).

I got some birthday money from my inlaws and went and spent it yesterday at Ace on garden stuff (thanks!). Rachel found this cute watering can so I got it for her to "help" me with watering the plants.

My visiting teacher brought over some rice krispy treats for me after church and Rachel walked around eating one. I was in the other room and heard a bump-thump and when I went to investigate this is what I found:

Rachel is really in to sitting on things now, or climbing on things so she can sit on them, and she tried to sit on the box, but there was no top so she just chilled in there eating her rice krispy treat. When I helped her out she went back and tried to sit there again so I turned the box over so she would have an actual seat. :)

Tagged x 8

Well, I've been tagged.
The Rules:

1. Post rules on your blog.
2. Answer the "8" items.
3. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving them a comment.

8 Favorite Shows: (We were without a TV for a year after we got married, and then didn't get it hooked up to an antennae until a few months ago, and haven't gotten back into the TV habit since then. I guess here are the shows I remember liking, but don't ever watch now.)
1. CSI
2. Without a Trace
3. Law and Order
4. Numbers
5. 24 (we rented these from Blockbuster-I imagine that's way better than waiting week by week for the next hour to come)
6. hmmm... basketball games
7. the news (does that even count as a show?)
8. I've run out of ideas... Rachel likes Clifford, so I guess that'll count for me, too

8 Things I Did Yesterday
1. Woke up early to say adios to my hubby leaving to go to Colorado
2. Went back to sleep
3. Went on a walk/hike out in the desert with Rachel in our new backpack
4. Went shopping with my mom for my b-day present
5. Had frozen yogurt. Mmmmm.
6. Ate pizza at my parents' house
7. Sewed a nursing cover for a baby shower today
8. Read some Artemis Fowl

8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Jacob getting back from his trip
2. Church
3. The 4th year hike (I get to go this year as a leader! Woohoo!)
4. Our ward's roadshow
5. Rachel not having tantrums
6. Rachel being out of diapers
7. Rachel's cousins being born
8. A nap

8 Favorite Restaurants
1. El Paso Grill
2. Little Anthony's
3. Panda Express
4. On the Border
5. Chili's
6. Macaroni Grill
7. Marie Callendar's
8. Subway

8 Things on My Wish List
1. A productive garden with minimal effort
2. New landscaping in our front yard
3. More food storage/space for food storage
4. A paper cutter
5. A really cool sewing machine that does embroidery and stuff
6. A longer right leg (or shorter left leg)
7. A potty trained 14 month old (her diapers have been nasty the last couple days)
8. My loving hubby back home

8 People to Tag
Whoever would like to: Tag! You're it!

Blinking

We went to the library storytime for babies the other day and sang "jump jump went the little green frog one day..." and at the end of one of the verses it says "and his eyes went blink, blink, blink." So Rachel is trying to imitate me when I blink and it is so funny! She can't quite figure out how to blink, but she gets a really good angry, scowling face when she tries to blink. I tried to get it on video this morning, but she mostly wanted to do pat-a-cake, though I did get her to "blink" once or twice. I edited out the first minute of doing pat-a-cake over and over again, so you just get the last half.

She is quite the chatterbox these days and is pretty good at trying to imitate a lot of the words we say. No one else has any idea what she is saying, but I'm a pretty good translator. That's what moms are for, right?

Christmas fun

We went up to be with Jacob's family in Provo for Christmas and had a really great time. Rachel loved it up there, especially the snow and the cats even though they spent most of their time hiding from her. She had lots of fun with all the people around--so much better than being stuck with only me all day every day. We spent almost a week up in Provo, then back in Tucson we had our Christmas here with my family on New Years Day, since we had all been out of town on Christmas. Here are some pictures showing our fun Christmas.

If you click on it you can see the captions telling a bit more about our Christmas fun.

butterscotch chips

The other day I was making dinner while Rachel was entertaining herself in the kitchen. I heard "mmmmm" and looked down to see that Rachel had gotten a bag of butterscotch chips out of the pantry and had managed to tear it open and was enjoying it. You'll see her sign candy in this video (which she thinks is anything sweet--she also thinks fruit snacks are candy).

And no, my floor was not clean enough to eat off of, but Rachel doesn't seem to care much. It builds up immunity, right? :)

On a different note, we're headed up to Provo later today to spend Christmas with Jacob's family. We're looking forward to it despite the cold. It's our first time driving that far with Rachel, so we're going overnight, hoping she sleeps the whole way. We'll see how that goes....

We don't have many warm clothes so we'll be spending most of our time in a nice heated house, but my very nice neighbor just gave us a bunch of her daughter's old clothes that she was going to get rid of, so we actually have a few semi-warm clothes. Isn't Rachel cute in this outfit. The hat is from Target, but the clothes are from our neighbor.
I'm guessing we won't be posting on the blog while we're in Utah, so everyone have a wonderful Christmas!