This one's for you, Grandmas!

1, 2, 3 or is that 6?

From soonest to latest due (all in July) we present to you...Liz (Benjamin), Mandy (Cole), and Amy (Sophie). These are the wives who let us borrow their husbands for the evening. Thanks gals!

Many hands make light work

Thanks to technology and great friends we were able to dominate any roots or random bricks in our path. That's Aubrey using a Saws-all and Luke being the foreman.
Here is Marc, Luke, Aubrey and Joker setting the fence posts with concrete. I think this is Marc's better half...
Here are our heroes of the day. Thanks Luke and Aubrey; with out your help we couldn't have gotten the last 13 posts in so fast!!
While the boys were busy working Rachel and Ellie were busy digging in our garden. So cute!!
Thanks to our large driveway Clay, Charity, Ellie, Emma and Rachel (not in the picture) were kept busy drawing us beautiful pictures with sidewalk chalk. By the end of the night, the kids were filthier than the boys, but they had so much fun!!

My latest creation

We had our pinewood derby race last night for Cub Scouts and I was put in charge of refreshments. So I made 2 derby cars out of cake with Oreos for wheels. Everyone thought the cakes were awesome, even the boys thought it was cool. It must have been yummy too because every last bit of the 'cars', the cupcake 'people' and the spare tires (extra Oreos) were eaten up in no time. Pretty neat idea huh?

Looks like we made it

To celebrate another year that we survived Grad school I made a yummy strawberry parfait today. Everybody likes parfait!

Watch out Mozart!

Everyday Rachel 'practices' the piano, and I finally got it on film (without her knowing).

Today's Field Trip...

Today after eating a second breakfast of dry cereal and chocolate milk at a Rachel size 'table'...
Rachel and I went to the Tree House Museum. Here she is showing off her amazing bridge crossing skills,
her home-making skills(which includes 'sampling' the "food" before she gives you any),
And her artist skills. The paints were messy but she had fun!

"Here comes our next pilot"

Rachel and I took a field trip to the Hill Aerospace Museum today because we needed something to do in this beautiful weather. We live so close to the base that we hear and see planes and helicopters all the time which adds to Rachel's excitement of them. As we were pulling up she got so excited she was trying to take off her car seat belt so she could 'get it' as she says. When we walked inside and saw all of the planes her eyes got huge and she kept saying "Wow," "Neat" and "More." They have a section now of mostly helicopters (which I think are her favorite) and when we got there she ran towards them screaming at the top of her lungs "COPPER, COPPER!" There were two volunteers there who saw her and got a kick out it. They told me, "Looks like we have our next helicopter pilot." We got to look inside of the helicopters, we talked about how their blades go around and around and when no one was looking we touched the tail of one of the helicopters. She just thought that was the neatest thing around. Before we left we went outside to see 'grandpa's plane' (a C-130) to have our picture taken. She is so short she didn't even come to the top of the tires and I bet she could have walked underneath it without bending over. All in all it was a lot of fun and we plan on taking more trips back.

Test your might... fight!

75 words

Speed test

"Brother Noah"

After the Priesthood session Marc must have been feeling a little guilty because he came home with flowers for me. I'm not a big tulip fan but these are beautiful. Rachel must like them too because she has been smelling them a ton today. I was kind of hoping he would have ice cream with him too but he didn't, ah well ... a girl can always hope right?

Weekend trip

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Anson's this last weekend to visit. On Saturday we went and saw their new house from the outside. On the way there and back we drove by sheep, horses and cows. Rachel had so much fun looking out the window and saying "other, other" or "eat, eat." It's sad that they are moving but now as we get to the last leg of our drive to their house the kids can have something to keep them occupied. Sunday we tried nursery at Marc's parents ward but Rachel didn't go for that. She wore herself out crying so hard that she fell asleep on what's left of my lap at church. I tried to put her back down at the house but she wouldn't go for it. I ended up having to lay down with her so she would sleep again, that's ok I needed a nap too. That night we had a delicious meal (Thanks for the peach cobbler dad, I've been craving it like crazy now!) and afterward all the cousins played. Rachel enjoyed playing with her uncle Joseph so much that the next day all she talked about was "Joe, ball, Joe, ball." Here is a picture of her and her cousin Brooklyn who will be turning one at the end of the month. It was amazing to see how similar they look! They are almost the same size, they have the same big blue eyes, same hair color...they could almost be twins.

Last week I was reading an article in the Ensign and Rachel was dancing around to her Raffi CD. It got kind of quite so I glanced up and watched her take her shirt off, well mostly off. We have been teaching her to undress herself and I guess it's paying off.