Another Birthday and lots of Mud

Rachel celebrated her second birthday last week. We wanted to invite people over and have a fun dinner, but due to the weather and the fact that our driveway was a muddy mess, that wasn't going to happen. I wish I had taken pictures of the driveway earlier in the week. For those of you who don't know, we put our house near the edge of what used to be an alfalfa field. Now if you know anything about growing plants you know that in order for the roots to go down and the plant to go up the ground needs to be nice and soft. Where our house is is no different. We put gravel down where we wanted our driveway and during the summer all the comings and goings help to pack it down, but when winter and spring comes and brings with it snow, rain, and ice, that grounds gets all mushy again and that gravel works it's way down. So right now all of our gravel is about 2 feet underground with a thick layer of muddy clay on top. We had some really nice ruts coming into our driveway. We also warned any friends and family that might be coming over. My mom did get stuck one day and I have almost gotten stuck a couple of times. On Saturday my father-in-law brought over his tractor and he and Robert got the driveway mostly smoothed out. It is a lot nicer now. Before when you came in it was like going mud bogging and sliding right in front of the porch. Actually, it was kinda fun, we enjoyed the ride if we didn't think about needing to get out later. As soon as things warm up we have ordered a load of gravel to be delivered which will help out, but last I heard the gravel pile was frozen, and we don't want the truck delivering it to get stuck in the mud either.

So, back to Rachel. We didn't do much for her birthday. We had story time that day and some of her friends gave her a cute little present. It was a Dora bath set that included body wash, shampoo, lotion and chapstick. She immediately wanted to go and take a bath. She got a hooded lady bug bath towel from her Grandma and Grandpa Newey, so the bath thing was a lot of fun for her. From Grandma Emmy, Grandpa Eddie, Uncle Luke and Aunt Nemo she got file folder games. These have been a big hit! Mommy has taken them, however and they are for special times like at church or when we are waiting for an appointment. Hopefully this will keep the pieces from getting lost too quickly and they can remain special and fun. She also got a new outfit which she loves.

They had a family reading night at the school last week. The girls were begging me to take them. Robert wasn't feeling great so he stayed home with Rachel and I took Taylor, Lindsey and Michael. It was a lot of fun. We first got a "passport" which we had to get stamped at each destination (classroom). Each classroom had a different focus. The Kindergarten room talked about word families such as the -ig family. Works in this family include pig, jig, wig, you get the idea. Another classroom talked about phonics and how if you change one sound it changes the word, like changing "Mom" to "Tom" or "Short" to "Shirt". In Taylor's class they had a lesson on Inference. There were pictures of animals and insects on the tables and you were given a card with inferences and had to figure out what they were talking about. We were told that Taylor had a lot of ideas on things to put on the cards, she just knows a lot of things. One of the favorite rooms was the one where they got to pick a book to take home. Michael and Lindsey had to have the same book, oh well. At the end of night we showed our passports at the gate and got a cupcake and a little toy glider. It was a lot of fun for the kids.

On Saturday, Robert and I got to both go to a Relief Society activity. They had a dinner and had a presentation planned about Temple work. It was really touching. It was also so nice to go out and spend some time with my sweetheart. My brother, Luke, came over and watched the kids for us. I think all couples need some time to just be together and I am really grateful for Luke being willing to watch the kids so we could do that.