yesterday I told the girls to go put church shoes on. I am always scrambling at the last minute to get out the door. When I got downstairs Rachael was wearing my high heels. Well, they were church shoes, lol!

Here's Rachael playing with her animals. She is the truest animal lover I have ever known!
Emma reading her scriptures

Roosevelt elk we spotted on our Father's Day carnick (car picnic)

Happy Father's Day!!!

Another beautiful day in paradise. Sunny, but not hot! How did I get so lucky?

Anyhoo, Rachael brought me an old ballerina barbie thing last night. I got so excited! Anytime she shows interest in anything resembling a human I get excited. So, she hands me the doll and asks me to take off the ballerina costume. She then puts the costume on one of her stuffed bunnies. I should have know, lol! The bunny did make a cute ballerina.

Emma has discovered Scratch and made her first animated video. She asked me to save it for her and I proceeded to accidentally delete it. She was, understandably, devastated. Poor girl is already sensitive and then her mommy deletes all of her hard work. That was a "going down in history bad mom" moment.

I got my 2 new cricut cartridges in the mail yesterday. I got the 50 states and zoobaloo cartridges. My cricut machine is a die cut machine. I have been wanting these cartridges forever to use in our home school curriculum. Now I can print out millions of states to do cool geography lessons with Emma and the zoobaloo cart is an alphabet with an animal for each letter. I will use zoobaloo with Rachael for our preschool lessons.

Love the inversion layer!!!

It is evening here on the north coast and the fog is rolling in . I love walking outside at night into a lovely mist.

Rachael picked out some dinosaurs from the dollar store today. They were little triceratops. She found her big t-Rex which then became mommy dinosaur. She even put the "baby" dinosaurs into "mommy" dinosaur's arms to be rocked to sleep. She also put some Polly pocket clothes on the little dinosaurs. She is so funny!

Rachael also spent a good hour floating feathers above our air filters. They really stayed up a good long time.

Emma had fun shopping at our annual neighborhood yard sale. She came back with gifts for everyone. She has such a generous heart. I love that she is always thinking of others.

It's Father's Day again. Happy Father's day to the best dad I know, my super hubby!!! He is always available to his girls for hugs, tickles, and long talks. He is always sharing his testimony with the girls, which I love. He continues to be an amazing provider of physical and emotional comforts for all of us. We love you!!!

Cloudy day fun

It's a beautiful cloudy day here on the north coast. Many around here are dying for a glimpse of the sun. While I do enjoy a sunny day here and there, I love love love our coastal weather! It's about 55 degrees today and totally gray.

So, we don't have a typical summer here. It's great! I am using my fresh berries and making cupcakes! Cupcakes in the middle of June with no air conditioner on. I made the jam recipe from this months FOOD magazine. They are pretty good. Without the jam and frosting they remind me of cornbread a little bit. Not what I am going for in a cupcake. But, once you scoop out the middle, add some homemade raspberry preserves, and swirl fresh chocolate butter cream all over the top they are a great little snack. Rachael really loved all of the scooped out cupcake leftovers.

What's the point of having a blog if...

...you never blog? I thing I will make a goal to blog on a more regular basis. I can keep friends and family in the loop while keeping a record.

My girls are growing up so fast! Emma just finished second grade and had a very productive year. I am having a tough time finding books that match skill with maturity level. Thank goodness Grandpa B just sent her a box full of books! She is tearing through The tail of Desperaux and the Little House books.

She is still so creative. Yesterday she made some amazing jewelry for herself and her American girl doll. She also found some fabric scraps and made a little cat pillow. It is shaped like a cat! She is counting the days until swim lessons and enjoying her time on the computer. She has recently decided to become a computer programmer when she grows up. Though we have had a few, ahem, slow practice weeks with the violin, she is really sounding great!

Rachael is not our baby anymore! We keep trying to remind ourselves that she is 4 and a half! She is in the joke telling phase and we are getting a lot of "why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes. She is as creative as her sister. The other day I found her making a frog catapult out of bristle blocks. She spent a happy afternoon painting bats and leaving them all over my friends refrigerator! She is really into counting and asks me to count up to different numbers at various times of the day. She loves counting everything she finds. We are still doing a great job learning to read and she loves surrounding herself with books.

Bob and I are as busy as ever. Bob just got a prestigious award at work. We are very proud of him! He gets to rotate back to the lab for a few months and then to traffic ( I am not sure what that entails, but it should be interesting). He is still compiling tons of genealogy. I am busy canning, sewing, crafting, weeding, cleaning, reading, etc.

Bob and I got to take an overnight trip to the Medford temple a few weeks ago which was refreshing and lovely.

Everything is great here!