Rachel's Dress Up

Another one of Rachel's many different get ups that she came up with.

Gold Fish

I think she likes gold fish.  I don't know I might be wrong. :-)

This is what I found when I came downstairs.  Yes she was hungry and took it upon herself to get something to eat.

Apple Picking Field Trip

Rachel's preschool went to an apple orchard out in Kuna today.  On the way out there Rachel and I got stuck behind a train that wasn't moving.  So I got the pleasure of figuring out if there was another way around this railroad track to get to the orchard.  Luckily Kuna isn't very big so we found another route.  We got there and waited for all the other kids to show up also.

 She is so excited to be here.  Here shirt is huge but oh well.

Doesn't surprise me at all that the 1st thing she did was pick up a stick and play in the dirt.

 

  The kids sat on the hay bales and sang their welcome song.

The lady who owned the orchard then talked to us about the orchard.  The frost in the spring ended up hurting their orchard and so they have very few apples growing this year.  

 Rachel walking through the orchard picking apples. 

 Here was one apple we found that was a good one.  They were definitely few and far between.

 I got Rachel to actually let me take a picture of her actually picking apples.

Showing off her apples.  We ended up finding about eight apples that we picked.  We didn't have anything we were going to make out of them so we only bought apples that we could eat.

After we paid for our apples Rachel and her classmate Zane hung out eating popcorn and playing on the hay bales.  I then took Rachel out to lunch at Garbonzo's.  It was a fun adventure for us both.

TOFW Logan

I headed to Logan with Kammi and we went to Time Out For Woman.  I ended up hooking up with Scott's sisters and his mother while Kammi hung out with her friends.  We spent the night at the Econolodge and it was a good thing it was just one night.  I wouldn't have wanted to stay there very many nights it wasn't that great of a hotel.  We ate at a cute little diner on main street.  Everyone's food looked so good and we all liked it.  The Friday night line up was awesome.  We got to hear Hudson Lights, Sheri Dew, and Terryl and Fiona Givens.  Hudson Lights rocked and was so fun to hear in person.  Sheri Dew talked to us about the new verses of the Sisters in Zion song that Janice Kapp Perry penned and then went over to the piano and played for us all to sing the new verses about sister missionary work.  She is an amazing piano player also.  The Givens are so well versed in the gospel I was blown away. I thought it would be fun to be at dinner at their house but also pretty intimidating because they are so knowledgeable.  After Friday night's meeting we went out to Walmart to shop but then ended up getting some more food because we were hungry.  Our dinner had worn off.

 Jamie and I like self portraits.  Turned out pretty good.

Our group picture with our bags.

Saturday we got there a little bit early and almost ended up sitting in the same seats.  We had a great morning session.  We of course had Hilary Weeks as our musical performer.  She was awesome and we got to hear lots of her new songs from her last two albums.  One of the songs was her dancing in the rain song.  Here is what happened during that song:

Umbrella's opened up all over the place.  It was awesome.

The rest of the presenters were Mary Ellen Edmunds(totally hilarious), Sandra Turley(talked about infertility and adoption), Jennifer Brinkerhoff Platt (a seminary teacher), Kris Belcher(always funny when she talks to us), and Brad Wilcox.  I ended up seeing my friends the Axford sisters and talked with them for a little bit.  After the Saturday session I hooked back up with Kammi and we hung out with her friends all night.  We spent the night on the couch at her friends house and then the next day after just hung out for awhile talking we finally headed for home.  We got home around 5:00 Sunday night.  It was a really fun weekend and very spiritually uplifting.  So glad I had the opportunity to go.

Daddy Daughter Date

Rachel and I went on a Daddy-Daughter date one Saturday.  We went to Pojo's which is a fun zone with arcade games, rides and a carousel.  She had 4 rides on the carousel and 40 tokens to use in rides and games.  They also have a little air hockey table there so we played a few games of that because she thought that was a lot of fun.  We spent several hours there using the 40 tokens and we could not leave until we had used them all. 

 Couldn't get a good picture of her on this ride either it or her were always blurry.

 

 

 

After we were done at Pojo's it was time for dinner.  I asked Rachel what she wanted for dinner, her reply was "Steak" so off to Texas Roadhouse we went. 

Here she is chowing down on her roll.  We ordered a big steak to split as well as a salad and some french fries.  She ate most of the salad, a roll, and a couple of fries and only 5 or 6 bites of steak.  She had filled up on all the rolls and salad. 

It was a fun day!

School Pictures

Today was picture day at school for Rachel.  She looked so cute I just had to take pictures of her.  She wanted her hair like her cousin Lexi so I did it the same way we did for the Schaffer Family Reunion this year.  Isn't she just the cutest ever.

 Her school shirt is a little bit big but I love these shorts with this shirt.

This is what I got when I told her to smile.  She is so silly.

Ward BBQ

Scott and I were put in charge of the ward BBQ this year.  We had a committee of five people but for the most part it was just me and Scott doing stuff.  I used the leftover food from the Calico Picnic to help get the food cheaper.  I was only given $150 dollars to feed 250 people.  I didn't think I could do it but the committee decided to do hamburgers and hot dogs instead of sub sandwiches.  I was also able to get the hamburger buns donated from Franz Bakery.  We had it at Storey Park in Meridian.  The bishopric said the committee can decide what to do but yet they wanted to put their hands into everything. I was about to tell them they could just do it themselves but eventually they gave in and I was able to get things done.  We ended up having two BBQ grills there and had the food cooking 20 minutes before it was time to start.  We would have started on time but there wasn't any bishopric members there.  After 15 minutes we just had the Elder's Quorum President get it started for us.  We were able to get 250 people fed in 30 minutes.  We did an awesome job.  I was glad with how it all turned out.  I ended up getting to play some volleyball and we had the kids do gunny sack races.  Scott got these pictures of Rachel.

 Getting ready

 

Someone has figured out how to hop in these things.

It was an awesome success.  Hopefully they won't ask us to do it again. ;-)

1st Day of Preschool 2013

I'm so excited for this day to come.  Not just because I get a few hours to myself but because Rachel is going to a Montessori Preschool.  I really feel like Rachel is going to thrive in this type of schooling.  She is so independent that she likes to learn new things and has a great imagination. 
We started the day by getting stats:
Age: 4 years 6 months 22 days old
Weight: 34.4
Height: 39 inches tall (She's actually grown 3 inches from last years 1st day of preschool)

Scott decided to go into work a little late to help get her off to school and go with us.  It was so nice having him home to help.  He also gave her, her 1st school father's blessing today.  Rachel did so good sitting there and listening to what was said in her blessing.  She was so good when we asked to get pictures of her for school.

 This was our 1st one but you can't read her sign.

 So we took a close up of the sign.  I love what she wants to be when she grows up.

 Yes this is me doing the happy jump.  I'm so excited for the both of us.  I will get to have a clean house for a few hours and some alone time 3 times a week.

 Heading up to the classroom.  

 She was excited to see a cat there.  She just loves animals.

 She's got her shoes off and she's heading off to wash her hands.

Hands are washed she is ready to play with play doh.

When I picked her up so was happy.  I was glad because when we came to visit this school last year she said she didn't like it and didn't want to go back.  I think they changed it just enough she doesn't remember ever being there.  :-)

 This is her teacher getting them lined up in a choo choo train to come out and get their parents.

 The train.

 Rachel in the train.

See she is still smiling.  It was a great day in preschool.