The GRAND Canyon!

Rebecca and I just returned from an awesome trip with my parents to the Grand Canyon. I took tons of pictures for all my good friends who have never been there, so here are a few! Rebecca in her ranger hat that her Papa bought for her.

Rebecca loved to pull on my poor dad's ears every time she was in the backpack. It was actually kind of funny (to my mom and I)

Here we are at Slide Rock National Park. It was a really cool place, it is a natural waterslide, pretty shallow and people just slide through the water over the rocks. The rocks are red and really smooth. It looked like lots of fun!

So many cool red rock formations everywhere we went. I think Arizona is a really beautiful state.

We went to a town called Sedona one day, and it is such a scenic place. I wish I would have gotten some better pictures of it. Rebecca was just so cute this day I had to snap some pictures while she was checking out the menu. While we were in this town, a lady stopped to tell Rebecca that she is the prettiest thing she'd seen all day! What a compliment, considering the beautiful scenery there. Rebecca is a darling baby and she was sooooo good on this trip. We did so much driving around, and I was so proud of her. She did much better than I thought she would.

Beautiful Sedona

My Dad and I at some volcanic mountains

The Waputki National Monument! This place was really cool, it is the ruins of some Indian tribe out in the middle of nowhere. Crazy to think people actually lived here.

The weather was so nice the whole trip too. It was so nice to have jacket weather and be away from frozen Idaho for a week!

Our bathtub at home is....let's just say it's not normal. So Rebecca gets showers at home and baths are a treat when she visits Grandparents. So on this vacation she took plenty of baths and on this night I let her go "swimming" in the spa. She loves to splash around, and she was so happy in there. We just watched her for so long, which probably sounds silly, but she has had so few baths in her life that it's like a new experience for her, so it is really cute. Isn't that sad! We need a new tub for sure. Someday!

Here is the house we stayed in, it was awesome! This is the way to vacation! It was so nice to have a nice place to sleep and play games and watch movies and cook. Just perfect.

On the way home we stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam by Lake Powell. It was pretty cool!

Thanks for the fun trip mom and dad! We had a great time. Seth had finals that week, so we missed him. It is good to be back home, even though it is snowing today, grrrr.

Fun in March

Well, March is almost over! What a fun month it has been. We had a fun St. Patrick's Day...here is Seth the Leprechaun, and Rebecca in her festive shirt.Here are my lovely glasses I wear every year. Rebecca's not too sure what to think. She'll be begging to wear them next year, I'm sure. :)
I invited some friends over and the little girls played while we made a GREEN lunch! It was great-green pancakes, green eggs, green grapes, and cookies and brownies with green frosting.

The girls loved it...kind of!

But they did have fun playing together.

And, here are some other things that we did this month. Rebecca needed to blow her nose, I guess. When I came into the room, here is what I found!

My little sweetheart. Rebecca is 20 months old and getting smarter all the time. She is talking so well. She sings along with me when I sing to her. She can count to 10 by herself. She is learning her colors and right now, everything is black or yellow when I ask her. She is so fun and I love to be with her every day.

Rebecca and I went to Utah to visit my parents and had a great time. We were able to go to the Draper Temple open house, which I loved. What a beautiful temple. I feel so blessed to have been able to be there and feel the spirit of that special place.

The days are finally getting warmer and we've been able to play outside more. Rebecca loves her bus and bike and the slides and swings. One day we played outside with friends for almost 4 hours, and it was sooooo nice! I can't wait to do that more.

If I would let her, this is how Rebecca would be dressed every day...no pants and wearing her fancy white Sunday shoes. She wore these shoes to the grocery store a few days ago. Funny girl, already has an opinion on what she wants to wear. It cracks me up.

TIP TOES! Rebecca LOVES music and I have gotten used to this loud piano being on all day and my little girl dancing around to the music. It's funny when people come over and ask if we can turn it down...I don't even notice that it's loud and obnoxious anymore!

Some more pics for our family...

Whoa, closeup! Rebecca is getting to be a good little helper! She takes her dirty clothes to the laundry basket every night.
She even SLEEPS with her hands in her pockets!

Her hair is finally long enough for two french braids and I love it! If only it would last (sigh)

Spaghetti face!

Elmo is on every morning at 10:40 and Rebecca doesn't let me forget it!

Spoiled baby!

Well, February is finally OVER!! I'm so glad. February really drags on for me every year. We've kept busy though, and had some fun visits from Rebecca's aunts. My sister Heidi came up on Valentine's day and stayed with Rebecca while we went out to dinner, which was so nice! I loved not feeling rushed and only having to feed myself and not cleaning up a mess afterwards. Thanks Heidi! I gave Rebecca these sunglasses for Valentines day and she loves to wear them. Here is the rabbit Heidi brought Rebecca for V. day. She carries it all over the house saying, "hop, hop!"
Then last weekend, Seth's sister Kerstin came up and she bought Rebecca her first pets...five goldfish! Rebecca was sooooo excited, and even still she asks to see them all day and constantly reminds me to feed them. Maybe we fed them too much because now, a week later, we are down to only one fish. So sad.

Every night before going to sleep, she has to kiss her fish goodnight. It's a new stalling technique she has come up with lately. She always asks for a book, a song, a kiss, a drink, some chapstick, and now to kiss the fish.

We went to a fun Valentine's party at the church. Here is Rebecca and all her loot! I loved filling out the Valentines! It made me feel like a little kid again. Holidays are so much better with kids around. It really is a second childhood for me, having Rebecca, and experiencing all these fun things again, and I love it!

Here's my little Valentine decorating cookies and Valentine bags. I love you, Rebecca!

Flower Power

I bought these gerber daisies at the craft store a year or so ago, and I've been saving them to put in a vase in Rebecca's room someday when we finished it. Well, the room is finished and I am now seeing that there is no room for a vase of huge daisies, and Rebecca would probably break the vase anyway. So I was sad this little decoration that I had originally thought would be so cute was not going to happen after all. I love gerber daisies, we had them at our wedding. They are so bright and colorful and cheerful to me.

Well! Rebecca and her cute little friend found the flowers and found a use for them. They turn on our keyboard which plays obnoxiously loud music (100 songs) and DANCE, waving the flowers around and laughing. This entertains them for quite a while actually and it is so funny to watch. They like them so much that I made a non-breakable vase by duct-taping 2 big food storage cans together and painting it. The flowers sit in there and are decorative AND they are useful too! The girls LOVE to play with them, it's so cute.
Those flowers are making me happy with their many uses and reminding me of spring...can't wait!!!

Winter

Well, it's snowing again today so I thought I'd blog about it for a while. Here is Rebecca watching Seth shovel. She loved walking in the paths he would make. Then Seth took her sledding in our back yard. She fits perfectly in our little sled. Too bad she hated it. Next year will be better, I hope!
Rebecca saying...LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!

If anyone would like to buy this house, it would make our day. No, it would make our lives!!! Seriously, if you know anyone looking for a house in the $238,000 range...let me know. It's a beautiful home, on one acre in Rigby. 4000 square feet, granite, 3 car garage, half finished basement, built by my husband...it's a really nice house.

Hooray!! One month of school down for Seth! I am so grateful for him and all he does to support our little family-school full time and work full time. I feel like a single parent, except on Sundays, but that is just how it is for a while. I'm so blessed to be able to stay home with our little girl and take care of her and our home. I love it!
So, we never see Seth- literally- but on this one day a few weeks ago, he came home and said he had a surprise for me. He took Rebecca into her room and after a while he called to me and I came in. They were both dressed in black, and he had a plate of black jelly beans, chocolate covered raisins, and black licorice, and chocolate milk to drink. He said,"Happy Martin Luther King Day!! We are going to celebrate the blacks." I laughed so hard. We ate all our black stuff and then he went downstairs to do homework, and I continued laughing all night. Funny Seth. I'm always telling him we need to celebrate holidays and have more traditions. I guess he listened to me. I'm glad he took a minute to make me laugh.