New Rules

News from Rachael's world...

"One day Alex stepped on Blake like a step to climb up in the chair.

Then we got a new rule."

The new rule is: step over or around Blake. Not on him.

Good thing Blake is a tough kid!

Primary Program

We finally had our Primary Program. We pushed it off a week because more kids were able to come if we waited one more week, and it was worth it. I was so proud of all the kids! They all did a fantastic job. Everyone remembered their parts (or their talks), the senior primary kids all did a fantastic job giving talks they prepared themselves, and every one of them remembered when it was their turn. Everyone did a great job with the singing, too. I was so pleased to be part of it!

Rachael Prays

Ryan put Rachael to bed tonight, and said that she made a special mention of me in her prayer:

"Please help Mommy to do what I ask."

Apparently, I'm having some trouble with obedience lately...

C is for Crayon Cupcake

The letter of the day in preschool today was C, for which the kids made cupcakes in Kitchen Class. They also gave all the kids a crayon-shaped candle to take home. Rachael wanted to use her candle that afternoon, so we made some cupcakes at home. It wasn't entirely for her... I got a new Wilton 1M tip and I wanted to see how it would frost cupcakes. Plus I had never made buttercream frosting from scratch, so it seemed like a great opportunity.

We both had a lot of fun! I'm thrilled with how the 1M tip works... fancy cupcakes in no time.

Pot Pies

We had another busy weekend. Friday night we babysat for our friends the Tippets so they could go to the temple (we take turns each month, it's working out great!). Saturday I hosted a bridal shower for a cute girl in our ward getting married next month (she's the Activity Day leader in our ward, and she's fabulous). Then Sunday we had more practice for our Primary Program next week. By Sunday afternoon I was beat... so we threw in some pot pies for dinner. What did people eat before they could toss in something from the freezer???

Fun Parties

Anytime you can dress your friends up in toilet paper is a good party, right?
(Congratulations to Ammie on her upcoming wedding!)

Camera Phone

I have a love/hate relationship with my camera phone. I hate the quality of the images... but how else would I get totally random shots like this without it?? (Rachael wants to know how long it would take us to eat that Blizzard...)

Great Minds

Last year the city made some "improvements" to the road our neighborhood is on. They widened it slightly, added a serious amount of water control (sewer, gutters, etc) and of course repaved when they were finished. It's nice that it's wider but they didn't change the curve of the road at all so it's not much of an improvement.

Along with these changes they left a large mountain of earth at a critical two way stop (the intersection of Four Mile Road and the Fieldstone neighborhood, if you know the area). The mountain nearly completely blocked the view of Four Mile from Ival James; so much that by the time you pulled out far enough to check for oncoming traffic, you may as well make the turn. I had several near-miss accidents, usually when I was on Four Mile. Anyway, I though to myself several times that it wouldn't take much to scrape that hill down a little, and especially how many accidents it would prevent.

Imagine my surprise when this morning they started work on that very project! It took one whole day, but they scraped the hill down, then put down some new grass seed.

I'm just still so surprised that no one had to get into an accident before changes were made. But I like it!

Nana

Happy Birthday Nana!
(You are still my mother no matter how many people think you are my older sister.)

Secret Recipe

Ryan made pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. He has never done pulled pork on the BBQ before, so of course he consulted the Grilling Bible (the big Weber book). He also made barbque sauce to go with it... with lots of secret ingredients.

Great job blocking, Ry! I don't think we can see every one of those ingredients. :)

A Couple More

Just a couple more pictures from the weekend.

Pretend Photographer

My friend Jenny asked me to take a few family pictures for her. It was fun pretending to be a real photographer! Here are a couple of my favorites.