Our Baby is ONE!!!

Happy Birthday Rachel Emma!! I just can't believe she is a year old. I can't believe that last year at this time I was in the hosptial having a baby! Her first year has just flown by. She is funny, noisy, happy, so beautiful and has such a sweet spirit. I feel so lucky to be her mommy. We had a family party tonight for Rachel with the traditional messy cake- she loved it! Lizzie was not so happy that all the commotion and most especially the presents were not for her. One more month, Cinderella, and you'll get your day.

Rachel Walks

I have tried putting this on a couple of times now...always unsuccessfully. Here I go again. She has been walking for about a month now. This is at Camp Lo Mia where we had our ward campout. The video is in the lodge where we stayed. Last year we were there about 2 weeks before Rachel was born. Needless to say I mostly sat around in the lodge. This year we did a lot of hiking, and the kids did the zip line, built rockets, swam in a swimming hole, etc. We had a few injuries this year- Jon had a very weird looking bite on his thigh that looked like a bruise that started peeling (spent about 4 hours in the PCH emergency room getting this checked out) , Lizzie fell of a bench and cut her head open, and Meghan fell running down a hill and got a huge bruise over her new kidney. So far it still seems to be okay!! Over all it was a great trip. The weather was great and it is so nice to let the kids just run free with all the other kids up there. We are always so glad to be able to go.

Barneys in DC

A few months ago Meghan entered a drawing contest put on by the American Kidney Fund where 13 winners(have to pediatric kidney patients) would have their pictures published as part of their yearly calendar. In May we found out that Meg was one of these winners...she was so excited. Besides having her drawing in the calendar, she and a parent got an all expense paid trip to Washington DC. We decided Dave would go, and we bought a ticket for Michael, thinking he was old enough to enjoy the sights. They went last weekend, a quick Thursday - Saturday trip. They had a blast. They did a lot of touring, went to several museums, and saw the famous things to see there. Dave survived a weekend alone with his oldest two, despite having to do hair (Meg), medicine, (also Meg), endure all day bickering and other small details of kid life he doesn't usually attend to.