What have we been up to? All sorts of fun.

There are lots of pictures in this post, but it's so worth it because we are so beautiful. And the scenery was great. We got to go to the Arches last week. We also went to Canyonlands, Goblin Valley and Mesa Verde. We loved every bit of our time off.

Sophie tells the statue of a Raven to stop biting.

Look at us! We're the royal family of the rock! Anna commands you to look at more arches.

Playing with the best sand in the world at Sand Dune Arch.

Lovely Delicate Arch.

Swimming. This picture got out of order. There will be more swimming pictures later.

Handsome boy.

It was beautiful timing for wild flowers. There were all the colors of the rainbow in flowers.

I love the twisting trees of the desert.

This is why it took us almost 2 hours to walk less than a mile. Every 2 feet Ryan had to stop and play in the sand. He said he "was fixing the sand."

Sophie liked the ants. And I guess we could also blame her for the time it took us. She walked every foot of every trail. Good thing we weren't on a schedule and could just enjoy every last detail of every rock, ant, grain of sand we came across.

Beautiful.

Cute. Grandpa and Grandma Rawlins came with us. Sophie found a buddy.

Looking at a ladybug. Like I said, we enjoyed everything.

This girl does not slow us down. She ran ahead to see what was coming, then ran back to tell us. She would go back and forth and back and forth, never stopping. Here, she is practicing her dance for her upcoming recital.

Striking a pose by the Anasazi house.

Cute family. Look up, Ryan.

Shoulder rides for all, just make sure to take turns.

Here's some more swimming fun.

What a handsome little fellow.

And, here we are in the Canyonlands. I guess I didn't upload any pictures of Goblin Valley, but you get the idea.

A few weeks ago, we went to Thanksgiving Point to enjoy the animals and the flowers.

This little guy was only a half-hour old. He was born while we were there. He was still wet and wobbly. It was pretty exciting. The mommy was very protective of him. If he exposed himself to the crowds, she would push him back behind her. We were lucky to get a picture.

There you go.

I've been getting some not-so-subtle hints that I should post more often. So, here are a few new posts for your enjoyment.

Our weather independence

Several weeks ago, Megan published a post on her blog about declaring independence from the weather. She mentioned going to the zoo in January, going to Arches in the snow, and having a picnic next to the snowman. Well, my little girls have today declared their independence from the weather. As soon as it started raining, my little Anna went running out to dance in the rain. She had to put on a dress to make the dancing more glamorous, and she was barefoot. Sophie did not want to be left out, so she took her dinner outside and danced on the deck with Anna. Picnic and dance in the rain. It couldn't be any better.

Josh thought that perhaps it wasn't a good idea because Anna is still getting over pneumonia, but they were having so much fun. I convinced him it would be okay if we got them into a warm bath as soon as they were done. Hopefully I'm right and we're not back at the doctor by the end of the week.

Better late than never

Emma had a birthday over a week ago. She is 9. I can't believe it. She is wonderful. We love her. Her celebrations started on Saturday with a birthday party with her friends. It was an ice cream party and she found the idea and helped carry it out.

We decorated party plates with colored paper. We played pin the cherry on the sundae. And we had a treasure hunt to find all of the toppings for our wonderful sundaes. They were really quite tasty. She got some great craft projects from her friends, including scrapbooking supplies, sandart, paperoni, and foam shape crafts. Her friends are good to her.



On Sunday we all stayed home from church sick. It gave me plenty of time to decorate her cake. I was surprised that she didn't want her fancy cake for her friend party but wanted to save it for her grandparents. But that eased my stress considerably, because I could focus on one thing at a time.

Anyway, on Monday we woke up to very sick kids. I had to take Anna to the hospital for chest X-rays and found out she had pneumonia. We took her to the doctor for a new prescription (she had been on one and had an allergic reaction to it). While we were there I had the doctor look over the other kids too. They found Sophie's ear infected. Emma was really not thrilled about spending the day running to the hospital and the doctor. Luckily, she got to play with Trevor instead of going with us to the doctor. As soon as we got back from the doctor we got to have cake with Grandma and Grandpa Rawlins. Then Emma got to go on her birthday date with me to Build-A-Bear Workshop. We had a blast. She got pajamas and a blanket and pillow for her dog. I think it turned out to be a good day, even though all the other kids were miserable.

I couldn't ask for a better daughter! We love Emma.

St. Patrick's Day

This is my latest creation. I'm still trying to learn how to make a cake and not have it start to sag and sink. I was pretty pleased with this, though. It was very tasty as well. That's all.

Emma's poem

Emma was given a poetry assignment today. I just came to check on her work. This is what I found:
When I look up in the sky I see giant cottonballs floating in the air.
What a lot of pillows unstuffed to put up there!

I guess I'll just title this one "Sophie"

Our little Sophie Rae is growing and communicating so well. She doesn't have many words, but she lets us know what she's thinking. Every night we read scriptures with the kids, sing a song and say a prayer. Sophie has the routine down. The kids have a couple of favorite songs, including "I Love to See the Temple," "Follow the Prophet," and "I Am a Child of God." When we sing "Follow the Prophet" everyone marches around to the beat and then at the end after singing "Follow the Prophet, He knows the way!" everyone shouts out "Yes he does!" It's very fun to watch Sophie jump down and march, then reach both of her hands in the air and shout "aah aah aah" in the same rhythm as the kids do their shout. When we sing "I love to see the temple" her eyes always brighten, she starts singing and leading the music, then she takes one of us by the hand and leads us to the picture of the temple where we can finish singing the song while she looks at the temple and smiles. When we sing "I am a child of God" she takes us by the hand and leads us to a picture of Jesus, where she will say "Jesus" and then blow him kisses. What a sweetheart. She has always been a singer, and can usually hit the notes pretty well. Now if we could just get her to use the words.

Sophie also loves school. She sits on my lap while we all do our French lesson and copies the words we say. Many of her French words are clearer than her English words. She's got the routine to preschool down, also. She chants in her language as the children do their counting. She stands with her hand on her heart as we do the pledge. I usually write the letter of the day on the kids hands to help them remember. Sophie loves to have her letters, too. One day, the letter was I. I wrote a big I and a little i on their hands. Several hours later, I was spelling a word for Anna that contained the letter I. Sophie heard us and ran over, pointing to her hand. I said, "Good job, Sophie. That's an I." Then she pointed to her other hand, and I had to acknowledge her success with that one as well. Then she pointed to her own eye, knowing that it also fit in with the subject. Once I had praised her for that, she was on her way again. I was very impressed that she would remember what letter was on her hand so many hours after preschool.

Sophie is also getting kind of fiesty. Ryan likes to tease girls. The girls in preschool egg him on by crying and running away from him. (We're working on getting along.) The other day I noticed that as Ryan was teasing, the preschool kids were hiding, Sophie came over and punched him. I guess she's not about to put up with any of that from him. We love our little Sophie.