Chicken Dance

We think Rachel could be a good Latin dancer one day...if she wanted to. Look at those hips move! As a side note, Rachel has all of a sudden become terrified of going down the drain. Which makes bath time a nightmare!!! Does anyone have any suggestions that we can try to help her get over this fear?

He can make his hands go clap, clap, clap..

First.... Like Father like Son? Marc was an early climber and walker and I think Benjamin might be taking after him. I catch him trying to climb on anything: the beanbag chair, the couch, me, books, etc. He also cruises along furniture all day long or walks around the house with the toy walker. I don't know if I'm ready for this yet!

AND one day last week a friend offered to take Rachel for a couple hours so I could have a break. Ever since we had her plant her nook she has been refusing to take naps, so needless to say I'm dealing with a crabby kid in the afternoon/evening and it is NO FUN! Anyway while Rachel was gone I had some one-on-one time with Benjamin and discovered that he could clap! I don't know if has been doing this for a while and I totally missed it or if it just clicked at that moment. But it's super cute! I love how his arms so wide open and then come into clap every time. What a cutie pie!

Pool Party

I'm not sure what the temp was today but I'm sure it was at or near 80 degrees...in April! It was AwEsOmE! So of course we broke out the pool for the first time this year. It was so much fun that I invited several friends and their children over. We ended up playing and visiting for almost 4 hours!! Rachel was so excited to play in the pool with her friends that she wouldn't take a nap so naturally we had a few tantrums during the afternoon but overall she did really well. Benjamin must have known what was going on too because he only slept for 1 1/2 hours not his normal 3 hours. When I tried putting him in the pool he didn't like it so much, I think it was still a little cold for him. He did enjoy walking along the outside of the pool squealing at Rachel.

Here is my cute Benjamin with the adorable baby Kylee. Can you believe that Benjamin is only 3 months older than her!? They are like the same size!! I love this little girl, she is so adorable, I am going to miss her a lot when she moves to Australia.

Here are some of the kids playing in the pool with Chelsey (Kylee's mom). Funny thing: Benjamin was the only boy there today! There were 7 little girls and him, at least he has many girls to choose from :)

Another big hit (besides the pool) were the bubbles!! What is a pool party without bubbles?

Yes, we went to the Zoo again...

The cousins had spring break this week so they invited us to go to the Zoo with them today. It was a BeAuTiFuL day and we all had a blast. Rachel, Ally and Brook had a grand old time sitting in the green wagon squealing at the top of their lungs. They are definitely related.

Rachel wanted a drink from this neat drinking fountain but we talked her into just having a picture and then she drank the water we brought. You never know how clean those things are...

I just love this picture of Aunt Amy and Rachel, it's just dang cute. Okay the bears are kinda cute too.

Benjamin started off the day in a pretty happy mood. I took him in for his 3rd antibiotic shot this morning and he slept on the way down so that was good. As a side note: Benjamin broke out in an itchy rash last night from the antibiotic shot so they didn't give him the 3rd dose they just made a note in his chart and now we are pumping Benadryl into his system to get rid of the itchy rash.
While we were there we took a ride on the Conservation Carousel of course. Rachel was actually okay with not riding on the elephant. Instead she rode on the peacock with all the girls.

Here is Benjamin by the end of the day..all tuckered out. If you look closely you can see his spotty spots (aka rash) all over his head..

Before calling it a day all the cousins took a ride on the little train...a favorite among everyone. And of course they played in the water fountain there, what a great way to cool off.

And in case you were wondering what penguins do and say, here ya go.

Planting a "Nook"

Now that Rachel is fully potty trained we have decided to tackle the "nook". I read in a parenting magazine how one mother had her daughter plant a "nook tree" to encourage her to stop using one. So we decided to try this with Rachel. We talked to her about what we were going to do for a while now and with planting our garden we thought this would be the perfect opportunity. So today I let her pick a spot in the garden to plant her nook.

She gave it one last big suck and dropped it right in. No second thoughts what so ever. Then she covered it with dirt and walked away. She seems pretty excited to find out what the nook will turn into. Of course I went back when she wasn't looking and planted some Zinnias with the nook, so I know what it is going to be. Now, lets see if this works.

And of course, here is a cute picture of Benjamin. He actually crawled in the grass today. Usually he just sits there looking confused and unsure about all the green pokey stuff.

Cow Boots

It's been raining here the last couple days and I have wanted to get Rachel some rain boots to splash around in and ones that she can wear when we work in the garden. Today I ventured out in search of them again... This time I actually found 3 different kinds and so I let Rachel pick out the ones she wanted. Aren't they the silliest boots you have ever seen? (they even have little tails!!) Well then of course on our way home from the store it started to snow! No I'm not kidding. Either way, rain or snow, they work great and she loves them.

Dino Pals

Rachel had a play date yesterday with Allen (a boy from our ward) who loves dinosaurs as much as she does. First I read books upon books about dinosaurs to them, then they played dinosaurs for 2 hours!! At one point the T-Rex (Allen) was chasing the Stegosaurus (Rachel) around and around and around... It was pretty dang cute and I think we will be having more playdates in the future.

Easter Sunday

On Sunday everyone when back to Grandma and Grandpas for...more fun of course!

Rachel and Ally are best buds, they do everything togther, and I mean everything. Rachel even tried to go into the bathroom several times with Ally, she just couldn't understand why Ally was 'going away.'

Here are our "twinners!" Brook and Rachel look, sound and act very similar so whenever we get the chance to dress them the same we do it.
Of course we had some SiLlY fun. Rachel and Ally were walking around making this face for a while. I don't know what kind of game that was but everyone got a good laugh. Rachel was pulling so hard on her lips it looked like she was going to rip them right off!

Bunny Day: Part 2

Bunny Day at Grandma and Grandpas this year was so much fun. Rachel loved, loved, loved being with her cousins so much that she cried HUGE alligator tears when they had to go home. Rachel and Brook were given a few minutes head start to look for eggs, I'm not so sure Rachel really needed that, she got 20 of the 93 eggs!!

Her favorite part about the eggs though was the CANDY inside...especially the chocolate. You can just see the pure glee on her face.
She at so much candy that we had to take it away for the rest of the night because she just wouldn't stop. That night she didn't sleep much, I think it was either from the excitement of being with cousins or too much sugar.

Benjamin wasn't too interested in the eggs. He just wanted to crawl around after the kids. When we put an egg right in front of him, he looked at it then turned and crawled the other way. As if to say "hey don't put that in my way!"

I love this picture of Benjamin, I think it captures the excitement from all the kids that day!

After we took Rachel's candy away she was moping around in her usual fashion then she went and sat between the couch and the wall. Next thing I know I hear this conversation between Rachel and Ally.

R: 'Sigh'

A: Hey Rachel what's wrong? Why are you so sad?

R: I just want a cookie!

Bunny day: Part 1

Now that Rachel is a little older we decided to continue the Bunny Day tradition at our home too. While Rachel was asleep I tied some yarn to her bed, then I made a little obstacle/maze type of of thing through out the house. She had to follow the yarn from her bed to the other end where she would find her Easter Basket from the Easter Bunny. When she first woke up I think she was a little confused because there was this yarn all over the place but after we explained to her what it was she seemed to get into it.
When she did find her basket (in the kitchen cupboard) she was so excited. The Easter Bunny brought her candy of course (which she just had to sample right away...), a rake and shovel to help out in the garden and Mickey slide puzzle.

Benjamin got animal crackers and goldfish in his eggs, a couple balls and this really cool hammer that makes sounds and lights up when you shake or hit it. Rachel loved Benjamin's hammer and Benjamin loved the fake grass.

1 smart cookie

Benjamin has figured out how to take the toy or snack he wants with him wherever he goes.

This is actually Marc's Rattle that his parents got him while they were in Japan. I would say it was Benjamin's favorite toy to play with this last weekend.

Maybe Rachel's nick-name for him (Pluto) isn't so far off!

Can I play too?

I got out my Viola and Violin yesterday to do some practicing which I haven't done in, well lets just say it's been a while. It felt so nice to play again, I do miss it, I just don't get to devote the time to it that I would like. I still remembered how to play and actually sounded pretty dang good. So good in fact that Benjamin was content to listen, watch and eat his snacks and Rachel sat on the couch saying "that's a really pretty song mommy" for an entire hour. An hour!! That is unheard of in our house. Anyway Rachel really wanted to try it too so I helped her hold my violin and she took the bow (perfectly I might add) and strung it across the strings. Now she will need to grow into it first and need a little more practice but she did a dang good job for a 2 1/2 year old! I was quite surprise. Maybe she will actually want to play when she is older...that would be one step closer to our family quartet!!

Happy Daddy's day?

I know, I know...Fathers/daddy's day is not for like another 3 months but I gave Marc his present early. I got him a cordless, edger/trimmer for the grass. Now he doesn't have to go around with grass scissors and do the trimming anymore! Ya we looked pretty silly doing that for the last few years. When he walked in and saw it I wasn't there to see his face but I sure heard his reaction. He was like "WOW!" and came upstairs with a BIG old grin on his face. Now if only it will warm up enough for to actually be able to use it.

Blog to book

I have had many people ask me about my blog book so I'm passing on information I got from my friend Leah (thanks Leah!!). There are two different websites that she found to be helpful with the process. But really they are 2 different choices, they don't help each other out you just have to pick one.

The first is a website called BLOG2Print their address is: http://serv.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.htmlThis option is very easy, you just put in your blog address and they suck all of your text and pictures into a book. Super easy, super simple but with a catch...you can't edit or change anything when they are done. They put the book into something called a PDF file which is very generic and user (program to program) friendly. But the way it looks is the way it looks. It's nice because at the end they put all of the comments from your blog also. I did not order the book from them however because I wanted to edit some of it. I did this one at first but was not all that impressed with it so I tried option 2.

The second option is off of the website BLURB their address is:http://www.blurb.com/create/book/blogbookThis website has a free program that you download that "slurps" or pulls in all of your blog text and pictures. After I downloaded the program and it "slurped" my blog into the program then came the work on my end. It lets you pick from about a dozen templates to put your pictures & words on each page. So I went page by page and changed the template to fit each page. On a side note, the program does NOT pull in pictures from slide shows or videos (for obvious reasons). Also, when blogger puts pictures up on your blog it "dummies" them down or makes them a very low resolution. Now that is fine for viewing on the blog but will not print out very well. So I replaced every picture in the template with one off of my picture file in our computer, a lot of dragging and placing. But it was really easy after awhile I got into a rhythm. I also thought it wasn't so bad because the pictures were already on the page I knew which one to look for. So the work becomes 1-picking the template for each page, 2-replacing existing pictures and adding additional pictures and 3 editing/adding any text you want to. It is time consuming but well worth it in my opinion.

I hope this helps. Good luck everyone and have some fun!!

2007 is here!!

Our 2007 blog book that is! I'm so excited to have it my hands and see that all of my hard work was way worth it!!

These are just a couple of the many layouts you can choose from. I'm not going to show you all of it on the blog, so if you want to see it in person you'll just have to come and visit me...or I guess you could just look back at 2007 on our blog. I hope that this gets a few of you out there a little taste of what you could have too if you sat down and worked on your own. Now on to ordering 2008, Yipee!!

9 Months already!?

I'm finding it strange that my baby is 9 months old already! Where has the time gone? In 3 months he will be1!!! I guess I need to start planning for his birthday because before I know it, it will be here.

Here are his new stats:
Height: 28 inches (50%)
Weight: 16 lbs 8 oz (5%)

He is still pretty small compared to other babies. Case in point, I saw a 4 month old boy the other day who was the same size, if not larger than Benjamin! I thought he was a big boy until I saw him next to that baby. Our kids may be small but they sure are smart. He has gotten really fast at crawling, he pulls himself up like a pro, cruises like there is no tomorrow and he has gotten walking with a walker down to an art. He hates all of the pureed baby foods and cereals and prefers food right from your plate (though he doesn't have any teeth yet). Some of his favorite foods are peas, green beans, pinto beans, pears, applesauce, toast, crackers and sweet potato fries. He has also had 2 ear infections in the last month, so the doctor looked at his ear really good today. She said it still doesn't look like an ear should and that he will probably be getting another ear infection in a few weeks. When/if that happens that she will refer us to an ENT...yea...another specialist. (sigh) Don't we feel special?