Our Little Fish

I signed Rachel up for swimming lessons, you know the kind where the parent is in the water and you sing songs and splash and pretty much just try to help them be comfortable in the water. She loved it. So did I.

She liked "swimming" after the rubber ducks, singing the songs, "jumping" off the wall into the water, and watching the other kids. She did not like "floating" on her back very much. Some days she liked blowing bubbles and splashing, other days she did not.

Since swimming lessons have been over, she has found her swim suits and said "swinnin" almost every day. I think we will be spending a lot of time in the pool, lake, or wading pool this summer.

Who Wore It Better?: 25 Weeks Edition

Who wore 25 weeks pregnant better? Pregnancy #1 Sarah or Pregnancy #2 Sarah?

The details:

Pregnancy #1 Sarah

• is happy to finally look pregnant instead of slightly fat.
• has a round belly.
• has an old school phone.
• is having a girl.
• has no acne and crazy leg/armpit hair.
• feels great.
• is freakishly pale in July.
• is making a soft, "madonna and child"-like smile.
• is looking forward to her new baby.

Pregnancy #2 Sarah

• has been looking pregnant for a while, but is happy overall about how she's carrying the baby.
• has a lumpy belly.
• has a phone she wants to upgrade.
• is having a boy.
• has horrible acne and is almost a naked mole rat in shaved areas.
• feels sick and tired.
• has a tan in May? in Washington?
• is sticking her tongue out because she is sick and sassy.
• is looking forward to her new baby but does not know how she is going to manage two kids.

So----who wore it better?

Honestly, I do not know. I think I'm currently looking pretty great for being 25 weeks and feeling horrible and in my second pregnancy. And what you can't see in my bathroom selfies is my legs. I think my legs are in better shape this time around than last time. But the first time, I was not all lumpy yet. I am currently lumpy thanks to pregnancy #1.

You can tell me what you think of how I look if you want to. My feelings truly will not be hurt! I have a pretty positive self image and body image. But you don't have to say if you don't want to. ;)

Easter Fun

This is my 350th post on the blog! Wow. That is a lot of posts. I am also trying something new with pictures. It takes more work, but it will take up less space.

As you know, it was just Easter weekend. We had a fun time celebrating in many ways, mostly in egg hunts.

Ward Easter Egg-stravaganza

Rachel chilling at breakfast; throwing a fit because she wants to go outside NOW; finding an egg; a full basket of eggs; finding a sneaky egg.

She also learned how to say "egg" so she had plenty of opportunity to practice.

Finding her basket at home

It's Easter morning!; searching for the basket; found it!; and there are treats; eating a Reese's peanut butter egg for breakfast; showing dad what she got; too cute.

Rachel seemed pretty excited about the things in her basket. We did not go crazy with gifts from the Easter bunny. Thanks to my parents, we did not have to buy any candy.

HOA egg hunt

I'm on our HOA board and headed up an egg hunt for children.

Finding eggs strewn about on the grass; a plethora of eggs; the kids who came; on the hunt with mom; an egg in a tree!; family Easter picture.

The other people helping me with the egg hunt thought we needed about 400 eggs. And then only 7 two-year-olds showed up. By the end, the parents were saying, "If you get five more eggs, we can go home."

And Rachel's dress is a size 18 month dress. It looked more like a ball gown because she is barely into 12 month clothes.

We also tried to remember the reason for Easter---our Savior, Jesus Christ. We had a wonderful stake conference on Sunday. I was in the choir. It was nice to sing songs about Him and feel the Spirit testify of His resurrection.

And The New Baby Is...

VERY CUTE! And also, A BOY! And he sure wasn't shy. He was sleeping, so he doesn't sleep in a very shy way.

Baby Boy

We were excited. Andrew was smug because he guessed it. He just knew it. He was especially smug because he "knew" it two for two. We'll see how smart he is in the future.

Rachel is disappointed there isn't any chocolate in the bucket.

I was pretty sure it was a boy, but I wasn't positive like Andrew was.

Of course, every pregnancy is different, but this one seemed very different.

I broke out. My belly seemed lower. I wanted to eat hamburgers instead of curry. And those are the not gross differences between this pregnancy and the last.

I did hope for a boy. One of each would be nice---and I had wanted a son first, so second will be great. Hopefully this pregnancy continues to go well!

Blogging Woes

So, I am having some blogging issues and it is not necessarily because I am lazy or don't want to get on the computer. It has to do with images.

I ran out of space to upload pictures to blogger a while ago. I opened a flickr account. This works OK, but people started added some of my pictures to their favorites or whatever. I don't know these people. So then I started making my images private and that worked for a while, but then suddenly you couldn't see them. Then I made the images in my last post public and a bunch of people marked them as favorites. I still don't know those people who are favoriting my sweet little girl. And the main point of this blog is so you who I know can see pictures of my sweet little girl and future sweet little baby (coming in August, I haven't mentioned that). As of late I have been using Facebook to share pictures (I know, the safest and most private place on the internet---not).

Pretty much I will have to explore my options but I'm thinking I might need to delete some earlier posts and maybe make my blog private. Sorry to those who have private blogs, but I really hate private blogs. I hate checking them, I hate that I have to be logged in. I am pretty much 90% less likely to read your blog if it is private. I will keep thinking about this and exploring options but input from my readers would be appreciated.

That's all for now!

February Photo Dump

Andrew got a new camera, so if it looks like he doesn't do anything with us, that is not true. He is playing with his fancy pantsy camera.

In February, we didn't do anything big. We lived our normal lives.

We went on lots of walks in the cold.




We bathed.




We napped and awoke from said naps.






We went to the zoo and hung out in a meerkat hole.


We learned how to climb things.




We celebrated Valentine's Day. Thanks Andrew!



(You can see that I'm not good at the new camera)

We read books.


We practiced the piano.


And brushed our teeth.


Pretty uneventful but also really great!

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow (in February)

We had a pretty good snowstorm a few weeks ago. Andrew and I were on a hot date at the Stake Valentine's Social/Seminar/Dance. That was pretty fun. Especially because Rachel was at home, sleeping in her bed. We looked at the window and the snow was coming down! Beautiful. We both really miss the snow. It doesn't feel like winter (especially Christmas) without snow or general freezing conditions. We drove home after doing a few donuts in the Church parking lot (CURSE YOU, SUBARU! Not conducive for donuts). And while driving home, we were amazed and laughing and horrified as we watched Washington drivers who did everything you aren't supposed to do in the snow. (I realize that it does not snow here very often and that they don't have these things pounded into their heads, but it was still amazing.) One of my friends described it as "a clumsy ballet." Yes.

We saw:

• Slamming of the breaks
• Overcorrecting
• Sharp turns
• Hitting the gas

Wow. Who knew driving in the snow was such a skill?

The next morning, we went out and played in 2 inches of the white stuff.


Rachel seemed pretty interested.


Her boots collected the snow so she was walking on platform boots. It was hilarious.


Going down the hill with Mom.


Rachel raising her arms in the sled with Dad.


A beautiful baby who loves the snow.

I think Rachel really liked it. Every time we are in the garage and she sees her snowboots, she grabs them and drags them everywhere.

I hope that it snows again soon!