Raelee and Rachie's Sleepover!

I've been promising Raelee a sleepover for months so now that tax season is over, I was able to take Friday off. She came over on Thursday and we did a puzzle and played with any stuffed animals she could find. Yes, that's the Christmas Chihuahua you gave me that sings Feliz Navidad! She loves it and I need to find a better place to hide it when it's not Christmas!

We put together one of her puzzles, a Barbie one of course!

The next day she woke up around 6am telling me it was morning outside. I, being the morning person I am, told her it was not morning and to go back to sleep. That only worked for about 20 minutes so then I told her to color while I tried to sleep a little longer! Later that day we went to see the movie Hop. It's about the Easter Bunny's son who is supposed to grow up to be the next Easter Bunny but wants to play the drums in a band instead. It was a cute movie but had real people and cartoons and Raelee was only interested in the cartoon part. And the popcorn of course!

This is us at the theater.

I set up the ball pit, which she still loves playing in there. She made up a new game where she hides the stuffed animals in the balls and then I have to find them all. Then it's my turn to hide them and she has to find them.

She also loves doing somersaults down the slide, then she ends up with crazy hair!

We also made some cookies. Now, you know I don't love to cook but I was going to make sugar cookies and use my mom's Easter cookie cutters but I had to run to the store anyway so I got the premade cookies with Easter bunnies and chicks on them. This worked out well because when it was time to make them, she wanted to color so we just put them on the pan and cooked them. We took them to my parent's house for Easter dinner on Sunday.

The bunnies are one the left and the other ones are yellow chicks in pink eggs.

While the cookies were baking, Raelee and I called and sang Happy Birthday to you! Then she wanted to draw you a picture. She worked on it for quite a while and I was impressed with her coloring skills - they are much better than mine!

This is the only time she sat still the whole day!

We had a lot of fun together. We also took a walk and had a dance party! She is such a fun girl and growing up so fast. It's fun to be able to have conversations with her and then for her to still be a little girl who loves to giggle! We love you and hope you had a great birthday!

Love,
Rachel & Raelee

THE YELLOW PAGES

For Halloween last month, Rosie, Missy and I dressed up as the Yellow Pages! We got the idea from our Page grandparents who did it years ago. People, of course, didn't get it right away but we ended up winning funniest costume. I designed the t-shirts online but we couldn't find yellow pants (I'm gonna be honest, I was not excited to wear yellow pants so I didn't look too hard!), so we got these ugly yellow hats that were way too big instead. My definition of a Halloween costume is something you would not normally wear so those hats were perfect. We even painted our fingernails yellow!

The shirts say "I've got your number...want mine?"
They also say "Page" on the back for people who didn't know us.

We also made some fun Halloween treats but I don't have a picture of all of them. Missy made Jack-O-Lantern cheese balls. She used bell peppers to cut out the eyes and mouth so it looked like a pumpkin. Rosie decorated a few dozen cupcakes to look like webs with spiders or pumpkins or witches. I made little smokies wrapped in crescent roll dough to look like mummies.

Halloweenies!

Love you!
Rachel

Happy Tax Day!!!

It's finally over!!! I took Friday the 16th off, turned off my phone and didn't do anything I didn't want to do - all without feeling guilty! I could literally feel the stress leave my tense little body!

I really enjoy this cartoon but it has another meaning for me this year. I think of it not as the IRS but more as my bishop calling me to be the RS president during the busiest part of tax season. He was nice about it and told me he knew I was busy but that tax season would be over in about a month and I just needed to pick good counselors to help me out! I can honestly say that I did get good counselors but none of them have helped with the thought that pops into my head every few minutes "Oh no! You're the new RS president! What are you going to do?!?" Followed by, "I need to get this tax return reviewed before the client comes in tomorrow, so focus!" I'm relieved to have time to actually sit down and figure this whole calling thing out - hopefully without all the voices in my head!

Don't you worry, though. I do have good counselors so I am planning to visit you now that I don't have to work weekends anymore. I'll let you know when I have it figured out. See you soon!

Love ya,
Rachel

Sorry, I forgot to finish this post from back in October!

Hi Grandma! I just got back from upstate New York today. I went with my friend, Kehaulani, from my ward and we went all around the area enjoying the fall colors. It was a little cold but we missed the freak snow they got so we were happy!

BUTTERMILK FALLS:

WATKINS GLEN:

Love you,
Rachel

Arcadia Beach

Hi Grandma,

The singles ward had a beach trip a week ago and we went and took some pictures for you. The whole drive out there looked like it was going to be a typical cold, windy day at the coast but right when we got to Highway 101 the clouds broke and it was a beautiful day. It was sunny and around 70 degrees with only a slight breeze. We were just south of Cannon Beach and we had a BBQ and then took a walk to some tide pools. Here are some pictures from the trip:

Aren't we cute?

You couldn't dream up a more perfect day at the Oregon Coast!

There were lots of seagulls of course!

There were lots of pools of water from where the tide
had gone out and they were warm and your feet
would sink right in. I had fun walking through those!

The tide pools had tons of mussels, sea anemones and starfish
of all colors - red, orange, purple and green.

Did I mention LOTS of starfish?

Missy's first time touching a starfish!

We climbed this rock because I thought it looked like the
one in the movie The Lion King so this picture is for Blake too!

We tried to help Missy up but that didn't work out so well!

That was our day at the beach. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! If not, we will have to drive up and put some sand in your underwear drawer so you can get the full experience!

We love you Grandma!
Rachel & Missy

Silver Falls continued

I didn't take my camera on our hike so I've been gathering the pictures from my friends. Here are some more pictures of the waterfalls. Now you can enjoy the beauty of the hike without the sweat and tired feet!

This is Upper South Falls.
We started here and you get to hike around behind the falls.

Behind Upper South Falls


There are lots of creeks from the runoff.

I think this is Twin Falls (not the one in Idaho!)
You can tell the water levels are down in the middle of the summer.

Speaking of lower water levels, this is Winter Falls.
As the name implies, it is MUCH larger in the winter time.

Hope you enjoyed the hike!

Love,
Rachel

Silver Falls hike

Hi Grandma!

I've been trying to think of some fun things to tell you about but I was having a hard time so I had to just go out and do something fun last weekend just to be able to write to you! Don't you feel special? So, on Saturday I went with a couple of friends to hike around Silver Falls. It's down near Salem and we did about a 6 mile loop and saw 7 different waterfalls! Some of them you even get to hike behind the falls. It was a perfect day for hike so we took our time and took some pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

Love you,
Rachel