Cake

Rachael is still loving her Easy Bake Oven from Aunt Lynne.  

Today's treat: yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and sprinkles!

Scratch Recipes

Ryan made up a recipe for pan fried chicken tenders (the flour mix part). 

They were so yummy!

Friday Night Burger Night

As close as you can come to In N Out at home.
(These were seriously the best caramelized onions ever.)

Room to Move

Empty floor space is... highly overrated.

Snow

How can people not like something that makes the trees this pretty in winter?

Ingenuity

This is a rubber ball that got broken - I'm not sure how.  Rachael wanted to put it back together (she explained to me later), so she got some white glue and glued it back together.

Too bad it didn't work - but an A for effort!

Taking a Leap

Goodbye, land line...

The Team

My two cameras: the DSLR is a Canon EOS Rebel xTi and the point-and-shoot is Cannon Powershot S3IS. I love them both.

Concentration

This is an art project where we painted clothespins.  

I love her concentration.

Friday Night Breadstick Night!

Homemade breadsticks!

Getting creative with the pizza dough.

Happy Birthday Blake

We loved celebrating Blake's 2nd birthday with him!

Daddy's Home!

Ryan was able to come home a few days early! We are excited!

He is a great dad: he brought Rachael a hat and some princess chopsticks

from Disneyland Hong Kong.

Blowing Kisses

The picture I have been meaning to get since the beginning of the school year:

Rachael blowing me a kiss from the bus!

Skills

Rachael has been tying a blanket around herself to be a princess lately, but it never stays tied on.  She liked the blanket because 1) it was open in the front so her feet didn't step on it, and 2) it trailed on the floor.  So I did what every self-respecting stay-at-home mom would do: I made her a dress up skirt. 

Bonus picture: while shopping tonight we stumbled across a Rapunzel dress-up dress.  It was totally worth buying for the smile on her face the rest of the day.  Here she is with her Rapunzel collection.

Friends

This is the bowl

that held the trifle dessert

that we took to the Tippets

who invited us for dinner

because Ryan is in China.

Thanks for the good food, great playmates, and great conversation!

Girls Day

We took in a movie today for something fun to do.

She is just so darn cute with her kid-sized 3D glasses

and giant bucket of popcorn.

Babysitting Swap

We regularly swap babysitting with our friends the Tippets so that we can take turns going to the temple.  Tonight was our turn to babysit.  We started getting ready for bed on time, but to let the kids kind of stay up a bit, we took turns reading books for awhile.

Project

We needed a project for our snow day, so we made a Valentine's Day pillowcase. It joins the collection of other holiday pillowcases, the rest of which were made by her wonderful Grandma. I think all we need is St Patricks Day and Rachael will have a full collection!

Snowflakes

We had the most beautiful snowflakes today, great big giant ones that you could see all the details if you looked closely.  (It made me wish for a really good macro lens.  This telephoto just doesn't cut it.)

Six Hands, One Piano

Still a favorite toy.

FHE

For Family Night, Rachael decided we should do a puzzle.

And have refreshments.

Even though there were only two of us.

(Which is no reason not to have FHE.)

Sunday Sundae

Rachael memorized Articles of Faith #1-#8 and #13 to earn

nine toppings for her Sunday Sundae.  

Way to go Rachie!

Snow Angel

We finally got some snow!

Snow Day

I got up this morning and thought how lovely it would be to have a snow day. However, at our house, we didn't get much snow, so we got dressed and ready to go to school and work.

The exact moment I was snapping this picture of Rachael shaking the snow off the tree, the phone rang.  It was the school, saying that afternoon kindergarten had been canceled.  (Apparently the roads were pretty slick in some other parts of the county).  I was thrilled! Rachael was sad.
I salved the wound by buying her a new movie for pizza and a movie night.

Oreos

I told Rachael she could have any treat she wanted for 'Girls Week' while we were at the grocery store, and she picked Oreos. 

I meant to take a picture of them, but apparently I can't get to excited about them, because I didn't even remember I wanted a picture when we got home.

And if she eats Oreos as quickly as I do, there will still be some left when Ryan gets home.

Christmas Cards

I love Christmas cards.

I love that little bit of Christmas cheer waiting for me in the mailbox. 

I even like finding a reasonable picture of the three of us to send out.

And I like to take a picture before I take them all down.

Back to School

Three favorite words of parents everywhere:

Back to School.

She was so excited to go back!

She's waiting here with Blake and Alex, who usually come over

to play on Tuesdays.

Girls Week

It's girls week (well, weeks) while Daddy is in China, so we made chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting, sprinkles, and red M&Ms on top.  Calling it Girls Week kind of takes the focus off missing Daddy so much.  Well, for the little one, anyway. The best part of the evening was when the cupcakes were cooled but I had not frosted them yet, and Rachael looked at them and said, "Those aren't cupcakes.  Cupcakes have frosting and sprinkles on top."

More "girls week" adventures to come.

Time

Church doesn't start until 11:30, so most days we have a little time to make ourselves fancy for church.  Today we did two french braids.  (And I wasn't going for the 'artistic' angle, it just worked out that way.  But I'm happy with it!)

Happy New Year!

Plan for this year: take a picture every day, kind of like the Flickr: Project 365, except I'm going to try to photograph moments that capture events, things or people I am thankful for.

Wish me luck.

With that in mind, here is today's offering:

Ryan giving Rachael a hug at the airport before he heads out for a three week business trip to China.