Rachel Turns Four

Our little princess celebrated her fourth birthday recently. The festivities were a welcome change for all of us since Rachel was in the hospital with a bad case of pneumonia for the first part of October. She gave us all quite a scare but after 12 days in the hospital and lots of antibiotics she is doing much better.

Since Rachel loves every kind of princess we had a princess party for her birthday, with everything princess, even the blowers!

Rachel and Carson enjoyed frosting the birthday cake. Daddy's homemade frosting is a real treat and what fun to smear it all over a cake (and their faces).

Grandma was here for a visit during Rachel's birthday - the kids had lots of fun playing with their Grandma. Below are pictures of the kids burying Grandma in stuffed animals. Then Rachel had a turn getting buried with stuffed animals. This is our play area in the basement which came complete with lots of toys and stuffed animals, and even a little trampoline which the kids love to jump on.

East Coast Adventure

We are now east-coasters for a year or so due to a great job transfer opportunity that John could not pass up. We moved into our rental home in early September so this blog entry is long overdue, but better late than never. Our rental home is furnished not only with couches, beds and chairs, but more importantly, with TOYS. The first few weeks here were more exciting than Christmas - new toys were discovered in every nook and cranny of the house. Below is the doll house that came with Rachel's room, the life-sized Bob Builder stuffed doll that Carson found and loves to play with, and the tool belt that Carson found in the basement.







Rachel started preschool about a week after our arrival. The first few days of preschool were an adjustment for her, but now she looks forward to going to school and seems to enjoy it. Here she is heading out for her first day of school!



We caught the tail end of summer here and discovered the beach very close to us has fun rides for kids. Below are pictures of Rachel and Carson riding the bumper boats. We've also enjoyed the merry-go-round and the playground at the beach, as well as splashing in the water and making sand castles.

We heard about the Audubon society's Educational Center nearby and spent a day exploring there. On the way back we discovered an outdoor festival which had pony rides which Rachel and Carson enjoyed. We also found a petting zoo nearby where the kids enjoyed feeding some goats.

One of the nicest things about our new situation is less travel for Daddy. Which means more opportunity for family time, even family naps.

Cape Cod Vacation

We recently ventured to Cape Cod for our first family vacation. The kids had so much fun exploring many new things. We decided that 'vacation rules' apply which means that nearly anything goes and ice cream is the order of the day.

This was the kids first trip to the beach and they loved to explore in the sand and collect things in their buckets. We found a little beachcomber shack which Carson liked to play in.






Here are the kids practicing their 'yoga moves' at the house.


Carson dropped from a helicopter - fortunately Daddy was there to catch him.



We made a visit to Provincetown where we found pizza and ice cream for lunch. Carson always amazes us with his ability to get more ice cream on him than in him.





Our contribution to artwork in Provincetown.



We rented bikes one day and headed down the bike trail with the kids in tow. The motion was enough to rock Carson to sleep after just a short time. We stopped for lunch and once again Carson was covered from head to toe with ice cream.








The kids torturing each other in the shopping cart at Super-Stop-N-Shop.






Since there is no bathtub at Pine Lodge the kids had to learn to deal with showers for our vacation. Here is Rachel in all her shower get-up: swimming goggles, shower cap, and lollipop. Anything to make the shower more tolerable.



Carson stealing strawberries from Grandad's cereal. And more amazingly, Grandad letting him.


Grandad attempts to disassemble the little oven with an assistant. Carson is mesmerized by the tools.


Carson and Daddy headed to the beach.

Park and Zoo

We are enjoying wonderful weather here and trying to take full advantage of it. The kids love to go to parks and there are plenty of them within a short drive. We have our own names for each park (i.e. "Shady park", "Firetruck park", etc.) so the kids can take part in deciding where we go. Below are pictures of "Sandy park", so named because it has a sandy bottom vs. wood-chipped bottom, which makes it fun for digging and sandcastles. Sandy park also has fun dinosaurs which swing back and forth, lots of fun to ride.











Last weekend we took the kids to Salt Lake City's Hogle Zoo. The highlights were the zoo train and the merry-go-round. And oh yeah, we saw some animals too. When I asked Rachel which animal was her favorite her response was, "The merry-go-round!". Carson loved it too and screamed in protest each time we had to get off.