MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Alright, let me begin by saying that in no way am I giving up the yearly tradition of snail-mailing Christmas cards, it has been one whirlwind of a holiday season and this elf has run out of time to mail them! I want to tell everyone Merry Christmas and that I love them, so I am blogging an e-greeting this year.

We have had a fabulous year! It has also been extremely busy!!! The best part of our year was Emma's baptism. It is the most wonderful feeling as a parent to see your child participate in the gospel. My husband and I were full of the spirit on that special day and will never forget it.

We hope that you and yours are well and happy. We have so enjoyed keeping up with all of you through our blog, facebook, etc. We have been priviledged to have been visited by much loved friends and family this year as well. Our cups are full. We thank Heavenly Father for this every day.

May the spirit of Christmas find you! We know that God lives and loves each one of us. We love his son, Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate this month.

Much love,

Rebecca, Bob, Emma, and Rachael!!!

Emma's baptism finally came! It was wonderful. The spirit was strong and she was beautiful. Her dad got to baptize and confirm her with many family and friends present. It was a fun whirlwind weekend. Congratulations Emma!

Rachael swimming at the great's hotel

Kaylen and Emma giving Rachael and Bella a ride

Emma and Kaylen decorating halloween cupcakes

Rachael and her cupcake

Bob and Grandpa eating breakfast at the cookhouse

Rachael happy to see grandpa

Emma is getting ready to be baptized

Emma and Dad after he confirmed her

Emma and grandpa

Bella making sandcastles

Rachael and Bella

Grandma and her big girls looking at their beach finds

frog and grandpa

Wow, the time has really gotten away from me! I have been soooooo busy!

This Saturday Emma will be baptized. We are so happy for her!!! I will be knee deep in cleaning and cooking in preparation for out of town family to come. It's wonderful that she has so many people who want to support her on her special day.

Happy Fall!!!

Life is nuts here right now! I am still getting used to school, violin, and ballet responsibilities after a leisurely summer. Frankly, my our school schedule is kicking my bum! I do love seeing my girls learn and grow, so the craziness is all worth it.

What the?

So Emma had a bugbite that I had been watching for a few days. 1 day it looked like it was clearing up and the next it was silver dollar sized with a huge half in thick ring around it. When I saw it we were on the way to Costco and I changed my route and made a beeline straight to the doctors office. As soon as the receptionist saw her arm she sent a nurse right out to look at it and they fit her right in with the doctor. This is the price you pay for frolicking out in the woods watching the lovely dear race by. That's right, this is a tic bite. She is being treated and it is starting to look better. Her dad gave her a blessing and she will be fine, just needs lots of rest and loves. 10 days of antibiotics beats lime disease anyday.

Back to School!

Back to school time! Emma is a big second grader now. She is so grown up I can hardly believe it! She has two members in her class, which is really great and her best friend from kindergarten.

You can tell that she is as much of a morning person as I am (hahaha) and really doesn't want me to take her picture.

How to be a Supermom when you aren't a morning person!

I grew up with fantasy's of perfect momdom. Cheerfully made up and singing me flipping pancakes. Ha ha ha. As if ! I am such a night person!!! I have come up with a few tricks to still take care of the kiddos in the morning even if I am more of a supergrouch than a supermom in the am.

1. Lay out clothes before bed
2. Make huge batches of pancakes, muffins, cut fruit, etc and freeze or refridgerate them so that Emma can have a healthy breakfast before school.
3. baths at night, always
4. Know where my clothes, shoes, and car keys (especially car keys) are before bed

These are huge guilt relievers for me.

Initiative Update

The doorknocking didn't kill me. It was a worthwhile cause and I am glad I did it. Most people were for gay marriage and 1 person even called us bigots. Mind you, all we did was knock doors to ask people how they might vote. We didn't ask to lecture them or anything. There were a few undecided folks who we left info with. It was all a bit disheartening, but I know Humboldt is extra liberal and I still hope and pray that we California voters can pull this thing off.

Nerves!

So tomorrow morning I am going door knocking with my stake to help support the marriage initiative in California. For those of you who don't know I live in Humboldt county. Humboldt is extremely liberal. We are talking a sister city to Berkeley and San Francisco. I have no idea what our community will think of a bunch of conservatives knocking on their doors to ask them how they feel about gay marriage. Not to mention the size of my town. Small. You just know everyone here. I guess this is a chance for me to not hide my light under a bushel and let my community know where I stand.



I am feeling really whimpy. I know I knocked on hundreds of doors during my mission, but it was in another country (definately not my own neighborhood). This is such an important issue!

Carrie Mary, superstar!

Our long awaited visit with Carrie finally came! We headed for the beach

Rachael is ready for anything, as usual!

Emma loves her time with Carrie, just catching up.

Rachael sets up house.

Here's my bathing beauties!

Do you love my photography skills here?

Emma and Carrie looking for treasure.

Lazy days of summer

It's getting to the final days of summer vacation. Here's Rachael after a hard days play. She is cuddling with her frogs. No baby dolls for this one. Notice the chocolate cookie crumbs on her face and lack of clothing. This is Rachael nirvana.

Emma is so amazing! She announced to me that she was going to do the dishes for me. She told me that she had been really crabby today and wanted to do something nice for me because she was feeling better. She unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it and started it up. She is growing up so fast!
School starts in about 2 weeks and it's time to try to get back into our daily routine. It will be hard to go to bed and get up early. My girls are like me! They are real night owls.

Mini Me

Rachael decided her bangs were getting too long. She found the scissors. When I found her she had a total mullet. I decided to finish her haircut. She now has a cute bob haircut. It suits her!

I've hit the wall

That's right folks. I have had it up to my eyeballs with summer fun. I am already planning my yard haunt for Halloween, working on Christmas gifts, planning Emma's back to school wardrobe, and waiting with great anticipation for the fog to roll in. It's true, it doesn't get very hot here, but I love cold noses, sweaters, foghorns, and rain hitting the roof as a lullaby.

Summer Vacation 2008

Here we are at the Oakland Temple. It was such a wonderful way to spend our sabbath. We were able to take the sacrament at the stake center right on the temple grounds and then we spent a few hours enjoying the temple.
There were such gorgeous flowers everywhere! There were dozens of birds singing in all of the trees. The temple grounds also have hymns piped through speakers all around the grounds.

This is the view from the top of the temple. Bob was able to zoom in and get a good picture of Oakland and San Francisco.

Here's Emma and Rachael absolutely enjoying the view.

Emma's favorite part of the day was talking with the sister missionaries.

Bob somehow talked her into taking this photo.

Here we are almost 10 years after we got married. It was so nice to show the girls the temple we were married in!

Oakland Temple!

We took a ferry from vallejo to San Francisco on monday.

I have more pictures of S.F. but can't find the folder I uploaded them to.

Emma is watching San Francisco come into view.

Rachael is watching the fish at our table in the Rainforest Cafe.

We spent the next 3 days at six flags discovery kingdom. Here is Emma on her favorite ride, the chairswing. She went on this ride 10 times!

Rachael on the choo choo train

Bob loves this picture because it made Emma so mad to be bothered by "kiddy stuff". She kept trying to avoid the characters the whole time we were there.

One of the greatest things we did at Six Flags was feeding the animals. These exotic birds were landing all over us. Our hands, heads, shoulders. It was awesome.
Pretty butterflies in the butterfly pavilion
Here we are throwing fish to the sealions, man they are funny!
There's Bob heading for some adrenaline
Rachael loved getting so close to all of the animals. She and this huge walrus were really checking each other out.





MMMMMMMMMMMM.
Emma and I are on this ride somewhere.
Can you spot Emma? She is wearing the brightest shirt!
It was so hot at the killer whale show that Emma was in charge of "spritzing" everyone.
Rachael with the dolphins.

Yummy!