Hannah is such a big girl!!!

We went on a walk Sunday and took these adorable pictures. Hannah is now 2 1/2. She likes to be Mommy's big helper and doesn't have much interest in eating anything but pasta, peanut butter sandwiches, and toast. She will eat other things but those are the three things that she asks for every single day. She likes to play with the toy kitchen she got for Christmas including bringing the dirt in from outside to 'cook' her meals. She likes to see pictures of herself and Mommy and Daddy. She likes to name everyone in the family photos as well. She loves to go to Grandma's house and always throws a fit when it is time to go home. She also recently did the same thing at Aunt Rebekah's house, so she just must have more fun with other people. I am not exactly much fun these days being pregnant. I don't seem to be able to do much of anything and I have very little energy. Hannah also really likes to wear skirts these days. Every day she has to put one on and sometimes it is the same skirt for three or four days. She is definitely all girl!! She also tries to be very independent. She likes to dress herself and gets frustrated if you try and help and she likes to try things on her own. She has also recently learned how to open the refrigerator and so if I am not fast enough when she says she is hungry she goes in and pulls out the peanut butter and bread and starts to make herself a sandwich. Thank goodness she can't actually open the jar of peanut butter.

She is talking so much more. It is often still hard to understand what she is saying, but she jabbers on and on and on. She has even started talking in sentences. And you should see her with a cell phone. She pretends that she is calling everyone from Daddy to Grandma to Aunt Heidi to her imaginary friends. It is so hilarious to watch. She likes to dance and sing and play the piano. She loves to sing all the time. Like today she kept singing 'I Am a Child of God' all day long. She loves to sing 'Wheels on the Bus', 'Popcorn Popping', and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. She has also started singing in the car and I find that if I sing with her or get her to sing when she is upset then everything goes so much better and she calms down faster. I also find it easier to get her down for a nap if I spend a few minutes singing with her. Sometimes she will even fall asleep to my singing.

She is just growing up so fast. Soon enough she will be a big sister!!!

Felt the Baby kick!!

On Wednesday, March 25 I felt the baby move. Rachel has been feeling the baby move for at least a month now, but I was able to put my hand on her tummy and feel the baby move.

Hannah Loves Gadgets

I've concluded that Hannah loves gadets!! I'm not sure if it is because I have always been fascinated by them and try to play around every chance I get, or if it has something to do with the generation she was born in and how important it will be for their generation to know how to use and quickly adapt to the changing technology. So, we went into a Mac store in the mall a few weeks ago. Here are a couple of videos of Hannah playing with some of the gadgets at the store. She looks so darn cute and grown up. She is "working" on the computer and talking on the phone at the same time. Totally adorable!!!



Don't know how well you will be able to see the videos. They seemed a little dark on my phone, but I'm hoping that they will show up better on here.

We are such slackers!!!!

I guess it is time to do at least a little updating to the blog. We have been total slackers. I was going to put up a post about my birthday (including a lame video I tried to get of Rachel carrying the lit cake into the room and me blowing it out (See video below).



We had another Doctor appointment. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat, but no more pictures yet. Rachel is starting to show some, so I will try to get a profile picture so we can track her belly size on the sidebar of the blog. We have another appointment tomorrow, and I think if we don't have more ultra sounds we will be making arrangements to have those since Rachel is almost 20 weeks!! Man how time flies.

We have been having a lot of problems with Hannah's routine. Things have been off and on. One week or for a few weeks she will be fine and do really good with portions of it, and then the next thing we know she isn't doing so well anymore. We have decided that since we have not done a great job of having her brush her teeth that we would try to incorporate that into the bedtime routine. She gets really excited about brushing her teeth, so we have been using that as her "reward" for sitting still during scriptures and prayers. It is working so far. I think she enjoys it because she gets to turn the water on. For evidence of how much she enjoys the water, here is a video of her combing her hair.



Well, maybe that is enough for now. I will do a separate post in a little bit. We will try to be better in the future. I have asked Rachel to take over the blog, or to at least start the posts and that I would revize them and upload them.

Sick, Sick, Sick

Big S, Little S,
S, S, S
Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got ....

SICK, SICK, SICK

We have all been sick for the last week or so. It started actually two weeks ago with Hannah getting pink eye. From there we have all ended up with a cough and a lot of congestion. I think Hannah and I are on the downward side of it, but Rachel seems to just be getting it.

We found out about 10 days ago that Rachel's best friend (Rachel Bush) has Leukemia. The doctors are still trying to figure out what kind exactly, but they don't think she will actually need chemo, and right now they are saying that she won't need a bone marrow transplant either. They are giving her meds and blood transfusions and are hoping that the combination will solve everything. We will update you more as we find out, but if y'all could remember her in your prayers it couldn't hurt.

9 Days and counting

Last Saturday Hannah was at Grandma Billeter's house before going to Jesse's birthday party. We thought that Grandma still had her pacifier. We didn't get it before they left the party so we had to go to their house to get it. We couldn't find it at first and had to tell Hannah that it was lost. We eventually found it before we left but didn't tell Hannah. She has been without day or night ever since. I am so proud of her. It has been a struggle in the past trying to get her to give it up. We have only had a couple of small problems with her at night since, once on Friday when we let her get over tired and for about 15 minutes last night. She is doing a great job!! Next thing to learn.....using the potty.

I'm a Big Girl Now!!!!

So, with our goal of trying to get Hannah potty trained before the new baby comes we decided to go ahead and get her a potty to train on. Here are a couple of pictures of her first time on the potty!!

Baby Ultra Sound

This was taken on Thursday, January 8, 2009 (not January 7 like the ultra-sound shows). Rachel was 9 weeks 3 days at that point (plus/minus 6 days). Baby was a little over an inch long.

My Little Peanut!

So, I managed to get the new printer hooked up and everything installed. I haven't had a chance to play around with it yet, and I won't until tomorrow sometime since it is after midnight now and I have to go to work early. The first thing to scan....the ultra-sound from Rachel's Doctor appointment a few weeks ago. It is just a little peanut, but that's okay. Hopefully I'll get that up tomorrow.

Work will be interesting tomorrow. One of my "customers" changed. There is a new Director in the Visitor's Center now. The change happened today. I was actually tempted to go into work just to meet the new couple and introduce myself, but that can wait until tomorrow or sometime this week. Things have finally slowed down a bit, but I'm sure they won't be that way for long. We had a little over 700 events take place from the middle of June through the end of December. That projects to approximately 1,200 events per year. Temple Square in Salt Lake does about 5,000 in a year, but they have a crew (staff & volunteers) of nearly 30 people to help with the coordination of planning of events. I have myself to do all the scheduling and coordinating. I still have not been able to get a couple called to be Church Service Missionaries to help me out. Oh well, I don't really want to complain. I have a job, and a very good job at that. There is a lot to be said for that in the current economic climate.

Good night everyone. More tomorrow.

Christmas is over

So, we finally got all of our Christmas stuff down and put away. Finally!! It has been a bit busy the last few weeks with getting back from Disneyland and going back to work and Rachel not feeling well; it has been a bit difficult to get back into the swing of things. But, we finally got around to getting all of the Christmas stuff taken down.

While putting away the lights from the tree I realized that we had nearly 300 linear feet of lights on our Christmas tree!! Now only a few more things to finish getting put away and reorganized. I am hoping to get Rachel's new printer hooked up soon so that we can scan a few things. Hopefully that will all get done today.