What's a few inches??? At least that is what I keep telling myself!

When I asked for something a little shorter this is not exactly what I had in mind! Hair grows back...just not fast enough. Rachel told me she wanted her hair cut like mine. Bill likes it...I just wasn't ready for the "mom" cut.

I am the only me...

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 1 or fewer people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I found this on another blog...I was curious to see if anyone shared my name. Needless to say, it's pretty unique.

Giants Game...

My dad gave us tickets that he got from work for the baseball game on Friday. The Giants vs. the Padres. The seats were awesome! We sat in the Toyota Terrace, right about 3rd base...they have attendants that take your order and bring you your food & drinks. I don't know if many of you know this but I am a huge SF Giants fan. My dad took me to baseball games as a little girl and I even had a crush on the first baseman, Will Clark. Anyway....the game was a lot of fun. Even though the giants aren't much of contenders this year we got to see Tim Lincecum pitch, he is a rookie and is pretty incredible. He will be in up for the Cy Young award this year. Friday nights game he had 11 strikeouts! The game went into extra innings and the Giants were able to pull it out in the end and win!

Birthday...Parties...Friends...Family...Fun

Rachel had 3...yes, 3 parties for her Birthday! She had birthday dinner at my parents house because they were going to be gone for her b-day, so they celebrated it before they left. Then on her actual birthday she had a pool party with her friends (which I will have to post pictures later because I left the memory card for my camera in the computer and had to borrow my brothers camera which I will have to wait for him to send me) Then we had a family party and invited a couple of our good friends, my siblings, and Bill's family to share it with.

Getting Ready to Sing Happy Birthday!

It's so GREAT Rachel can read her own cards now!

My family is infamous for our singing Happy Birthday! It's gotten to the point were "some" people. (I won't name names) Try to make is sound as awful as possible. View at your own discretion.

She got a bike from Grandma & Grandpa Mayfield! How lucky is she!

Rachel could barely contain herself. She loves Camp Rock, Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana...The Day of her birthday she informed me that she wanted a Camp Rock Birthday Party. That would have been nice to know a couple of weeks ago not a couple hours before friends are supposed to start arriving. Every time we came across any of this stuff Rachel would beg me to it for her. I kept telling her that her birthday was coming up and to wait to see what she got. She was convinced she wasn't going to get anything with Hannah Montana or Camp Rock...thanks to everyone, she now has more than what she know what to do with!

These are our good friend the Jensen's from Temecula. We don't get together nearly enough!

This is Rachel's B-day Cake.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Happy Birthday RACHEL! She is now SEVEN! What an amazing young lady our Heavenly Father has entrusted me with. Rachel has such a good HEART. She is so WILLING to go the extra mile. Sometimes she will surprise me and make my bed without me knowing. Rachel won't even tell me until I discover it! She truly wants to make others HAPPY. She is so SMART! She has the ABILITY to grasp and catch on to things very quickly. She works HARD. Rachel will alway put 100% into something whether its homework, helping her sister, dance. or just coloring a picture. Rachel is so BEAUTIFUL on the inside and out. Her whole face lights up when she smiles and her Big Brown eyes sparkle. We love her so much.

Pioneer Day...

Pioneer Day...For those who don't know. Every year we celebrated the early members of our church fleeing persecution and making the arduous trek across the plains and entering the Salt Lake Valley to find peace and freedom to worship God.

The kids dressed up and they had fun activities and games...they made butter, washed clothes with a washboard, played the pull the stick game, and flung cow pies(mock cow pies, thank goodness) Rachel & Jared both beat out the older kids in the cow pie flinging contest. They were all excited...they probably have no idea what a real cow pie even is.

WATER PARK

This will be a highlight of our summer. What a fun little place to take the family. Rachel and Jared were all over the place. Guess where Ellie was? If you guessed wrapped around my leg for all but the last 5 minutes. You guessed right. She is such a cautious little thing. Right before we left she decided it was actually fun and didn't want to go.Rachel and Jared are climbing up the rope ladder.

Dress Up!

ELLIE
The past couple of times Ellie has player dress up she comes up with the same exact outfit. It is quite unique. She is too cute and I thought I would share with everyone the little things that put a smile on my face and makes being a mom so fun.

Favorite Summer Pass Time

We have spent most of the Summer living in my parents pool. Thank goodness they live so close. Everyday my kids beg me to take them over to grandma's house to go swimming. Ellie even stopped getting dressed in the morning...she would wake up and immediately put on her swimming suit.

Jared decided he was done with the floaties one day, took them off and started swimming. He is very confident in his abilities. He will jump in, dive for things at the bottom of the pool and swim with his head in the water. Sometimes as a mom it is hard to watch your kids learn by trial and error but the outcomes are usually rewarding for you and your kids!

I think Rachel was born to be in the water. She has loved it since she was a baby. She just had a pool party for her birthday and had water relays, I think she beat just about everyone, including a boy in her primary class that is a year older. She might be quiet as reserved but she is VERY competitive. Rachel could swim for hours.

This is Ellie in action...Last summer she HATED the water. She would barely stick her feet in the water. My parents got Ellie a vest floaty and now she thinks she is one of the big kids. She swims around just like Rachel and Jared. She will even jump in and go under the water. I'm glad she has made this advance...summers wouldn't be very exciting watching everyone else have all the fun.

Rachel is so funny. She always has to plug her nose. She is afraid of getting water up it. Rachel got a snorkel set for her birthday and loves it because the goggles cover her nose and she can swim without plugging it.

Here is Jared...

Visit to the Firestation

For our playgroup we went to visit one of our local fire stations. The kids really enjoyed it. The firemen showed the kids how the truck lifts the ladder, what they look like with all their gear on and they let the kids sit inside the truck. It was cute because a couple of the kids wanted to know where the pole was they slide down on (most west coast fire stations don't have one because they are only one story...) and they wanted to see a dalmatian dog. Even with the couple disappointments it was still fun.

This is Jared & a couple of other boys trying to pull a dummy, it didn't budge!

Rachel saves the dummy!! With Rachel's help they were able to pull the dummy to safety!

These are all the kids that showed up for the tour

Jared trying to drive the fire truck.

Rachel & Ellie taking a turn in the fire truck.

Summer Fun!!

The best part of summer is having fun with family and friends. This was one of those days. I watched my friends kids in the morning, and then my best friend from high school came over with her two little girls and spent the day with us. It was so much fun. It's great to know that after all of these years we still have a wonderful friendship.

Here is a picture of all the kids together. After swimming and playing in the sprinklers they were all eating otter pops. One of my favorites as a kid, nothing like an otter pop on a hot day!

New Job...

Many of you know that Bill has been looking for work for almost 5 months now. He started a new job on Thursday!!! He really enjoys it and I hope it leads to more opportunities and opens other doors for him.

MISSING...

On Monday afternoon around 4:30 we discovered our Mazda had been STOLEN right our of our driveway while we were home. We were going to go swim over at my parents house and we went to load up in our van and Jared came running back to me (I was getting the last minute things in the house) and said "where is our mazda?" I told him that it wasn't funny to joke around like that. (He is always playing jokes) "I'm not joking mom, our Mazda isn't there!". Sure enough it was gone. I loved that little car. It was one of the few nice things we had. Well, it's just a car. We are hoping the police will still be able to find it. But as the days go by...So Sad.

It's about time!

I haven't had current pictures of my kids in a long time. So I finally broke down and took some current pictures. Even when you make your children "pose" for pictures somehow there personality still comes out in them. Here are a few...

4th of July!!

For the 4th of July we went to a parade with Bill's sister Amy, then to a movie to get out of the heat, we watched Kung Fu Panda. My children thought it was hilarious. They were belly laughing. Then we went over to my parents for an awesome BBQ and swimming. And No, my two year old does not have a drinking problem, Old Town has a Root Beer Shop. Ellie was finishing off everyone's root beer so I had to get a picture of it.