Rachel has started Tee Ball and is very excited and is enjoying practice and can’t wait for the games. I, on the other hand am not so excited. While Rachel is playing, Josh is helping coach, so Sarah and I get to sit on the stands and watch. Well there is another little boy about Sarah’s age that gets to watch too. So Sarah and this little boy were playing in the dirt, they made big piles in the dirt and then Sarah decided to roll around in the piles. So of course I freak out because my little girl is rolling around in the dirt (not grass but dirt). So I tell her that is yucky and to stop. So the next time I look over at her she is laying on her back in the dirt making a ‘dirt Angel’, can you say YUCK. The worst part is that we were suppose to go to a birthday party straight from the ball fields. So I brushed her off the best I could, she reminded me of Pig Pen from Charlie Brown, with a cloud of dirt surrounding her the rest of the night. This may be a long season for me.
I actually wish I did have a picture to post so you could see how DIRTY that little girl was but of course, the camera was at home.
Josh and I decided that we would take some of our tax return and get a new dishwasher, our old one had LOTS of issues and they kept getting worse. So over the weekend Josh decided to install our new one. I was so excited, he actually had to build a wall on one side of the dishwasher to close it in and finish off the cabinet. I never understood why it was completely open on that side but now the cabinet has an end wall and the new dishwasher is completely closed in.
So while Josh was installing the dishwasher Sarah really wanted to play with all of his tools. I had to tell her several times to put them down and not play with them (especially since she was scratching the finish off of the cabinets under the sink). So finally after I told her to leave daddy’s tools alone she looked at me and said, “I have tools” and ran out of the kitchen . She came back a minute later with her tool box filled with plastic kid tools. So she sat there next to dad and played with her tools while Josh finished installing the dishwasher. It was just so CUTE!! I just love this little girl so much, she brings so much joy into my life!! 
Oh yes, and if you were wondering the new dishwasher is heavenly!!! I love that I can put dirty (very dirty) dishes in and they actually come out clean!! I thought a dishwasher that actually washed dishes was just a fairytale!
Rachel had her first slumber party and boy was I nervous, isn’t 6 too young? I know that I went to slumber parties at that age but this is my little girl we are talking about. I was worried about everything. One of her friends from school and soccer had a sleepover for her birthday party and Rachel was excited from the moment she got the invitation. I know the mom fairly well and trusted her to keep a constant eye on them and to actually make sure they went to bed. She sent her other kids away to grandma’s house so the only kids in the house were the party guests and she slept down stairs with the girls.
Rachel just had a blast and did very well. She had a hard time falling asleep but other than that did great. They played games, painted fingernails and even did sleeping bag races down the stairs. I was a little worried that she might be a monster the next day but she willingly took a nap that afternoon and was pleasant the entire weekend. I guess I don’t have a good excuse to not let her do sleep overs, well except for the fact that they make ME nervous. I guess moms have to let go sometimes, but I hope she doesn’t have another one any time soon. I wish I had some pictures but since I wasn’t there I don’t, oh well! I am glad Rachel had such a good time!
Rachel is just loving her new ‘no bangs’ hair style. She has always wanted to just wear headbands and barrettes and stuff like that but her hair has always been too long, it doesn’t stay back with that stuff. So we decided that it was time for a hair cut. Rachel has been begging me since before Christmas to get her hair cut short, well I was only willing to do one change at a time. We started with growing out the bangs and now that I am use to that we can cut it shorter. I was not ready to let her cut her hair as short as she wanted but we both really ended up liking the length we compromised on. So we took Rachel in and had 5 inches cut off, I know that sounds like a lot but her hair is still fairly long. I just LOVE this length on her. The lady who cut her hair pulled it back really cute which I have had to duplicate several times since then, and Rachel lets me know that the other lady does it a lot faster than me. I love that crazy little girl! 
Our Church tries to have family activities for the different holidays and one of the things they do is a family Valentine’s dance. This year they did a Hawaiian themed dance (not sure how they decided on Hawaiian but it was lots of fun). So the day of the dance I went to Party City and bought grass skirts for the girls and leis for the rest of the family. They both loved dressing up and had a great time!! Josh and I are not huge dress up people (I know party poopers, right) but I broke out my flip flops and wore a lei, it was too cold to go any more Hawaiian than that and Josh wore his lei all night too. The girls just looked adorable and had so much fun. I took several pictures at the dance and when I got home realized that I didn’t have any of Rachel dressed up. I felt really bad until I realized why, she ran to be with friends the second we walked into the door and stayed on the far side of the dance floor the entire night. So I might not have gotten a picture of her but she had an awesome time dancing and being with friends, (I know I am still a bad mom but don’t tell her that).
Well I do have pictures of Sarah and she also had a blast. She tried being independent and dancing by herself on the floor but there were WAY TOO MANY bigger kids running around the place and not paying attention to smaller children and she got knocked to the floor. So after that she wanted Mom or Dad by her side the rest of the night.
Hawaiian Sarah
Festive Josh, doesn't he look happy?
Doing the Hokey Pokey, put your left elbow in and shake it all about
Josh and I have been toying with the idea of moving Sarah out of the crib and into her ‘big girl bed’, aka: the toddler bed in the garage. If she doesn’t go straight to sleep in the crib she makes some scary moves but we have been dreading letting her out. The more freedom you give a child…….well you all know how it can turn out.
Well Sarah and Rachel are so different. When Rachel was younger and moved to a big girl bed she was so excited that she actually stayed in bed. After a while we had some problems with her getting out but apply the right threat and she stayed in bed. Well as I am sure you all know nothing is that easy with Sarah. She was very excited about her bed and wanted to sleep in it but there wasn’t a threat in the world that will keep her in it. We actually left the crib up in her room for a while as a threat but one day I put her in it and she liked it. The next day I told her that if she didn’t stay in bed I would put her in the crib and get rid of her pretty big girl bed (which the day before she was so upset that the covers got messed up on it because then it wasn’t pretty anymore). Well that totally backfired and she told me she didn’t want her big girl bed anymore, she wanted the crib. Don’t you just hate it when threats backfire on you?
Anyways, she loves her big girl bed and we took the crib down and out of her room (since it was no longer a good threat). She loves the freedom she has about getting in and out of bed. She is slowly doing better about going to bed and not getting out. She wakes up WAY too often in the middle of the night and comes into our room to say HI. She is so sneaky too, you don’t even hear her but open your eyes and there she is staring at you!! This too is getting a little bit better. The only good thing about her waking up all night long is that she is actually taking good naps in the afternoons so I am able to get more accomplished (like catching up on my blog).
Here are some pictures of Sarah in her ‘Big Girl Bed’. 
We had a fairly quiet New Year’s Eve this year. Sarah was still very weak and sick so we weren’t going anywhere. We had junk food galore to munch on: cookies, muddy buddies, Peanut Butter Balls and I know I am forgetting something yummy too. What else are you suppose to do to ring in the new year but eat yummy sugary fattening foods? NOTHING!!
We also rented a movie and watched a movie together while enjoying our snacks and unfortunately had to put Sarah to bed very early but she was kind of a downer of the party. I had bought tiaras for us girls and some streamers to throw and some poppers to pop. So after the movie we had an early count down to the new year for Rachel and celebrated with our streamers and poppers. Rachel loved it and kept throwing the streamers in the air and tried to get them to land on my hear or hers. It became a fun game of throwing streamers at one another. We did save a couple of poppers for New Year’s Day so that Sarah could share in some of the fun. The girls just loved it and we had streamers strung all over my house for a couple of days (then I couldn’t take it anymore and had to clean them up). What a fun way to ring in the new year with our small children!!
Rachel and Grandma in their Tiaras
wearing her streamers
The only reason that we were able to survive not going home over Christmas was that both my mom and Josh’s mom came to visit us over the month of December. My mom came the first week and Josh’s mom came after Christmas. So much fun to have Grandmas come to our house and play with the girls.
Here are some pictures of the girls celebrating Christmas and opening presents with Grandma Leckbee.
Sarah opening her 'Toodles' from Grandma
Rachel with the blanket Grandma made her, Abby has a matching one too!
Sarah with her Mickey Mouse blanket grandma made
You can’t really tell that Sarah was sick in the pictures but about 15 minutes after she was done opening presents she started throwing up and was very sick for several days of Grandma’s visit. It was really sad because Grandma was looking forward to seeing Sarah and playing with her (she just changes so much between each visit) and then she was so sick for days. It was so sad and Grandma was afraid that Sarah would associate being sick with Grandma coming, but thank goodness that was not the case. After Sarah finally got better (it took a good 3-4 days) she loved having Grandma around and wanted to play with her.
Reading with Grandma right before bed
Rachel LOVES having visitors at our house and the best kinds are her Grandmas!! Before Grandma Leckbee got here Rachel made a list of all the things she wanted to do with her. I am not sure that they accomplished all the stuff but then once they opened presents priorities did change. Grandma got a big box of bendaroos for the girls and they loved them!! Rachel and Grandma played with them daily for hours at a time, it was a huge hit. I actually can’t believe that I don’t have a picture of them playing with the Bendaroos, that was almost all they did. I guess I was too busy dealing with a very sick Sarah. One of the other things that Rachel wanted to do with Grandma was bake something special with her Easy Bake Oven. I thought that would be a great idea since Grandma Leckbee is such an awesome baker. I think by the end Grandma thought the Easy Bake was more work than making cinnamon rolls from scratch! Here are some pictures of the girls ‘baking’ with Grandma.
The last thing we did with Grandma before she left was celebrated her birthday. Grandma flew home the day before her birthday and the girls wanted to celebrate with her so we made a yummy Red Cake. I figured that Grandma normally doesn’t get cake unless she makes it so I thought this would be a nice change. Rachel just loves celebrating anything and Birthdays are a big deal!
Happy Birthday to Grandma, Happy Birthday to you!!
So Rachel got a (knock off) American Girl Doll from Santa for Christmas and I was surprised how much the doll looked like her. If the doll had green eyes they could be twins!! Rachel named the doll Abby and has enjoyed playing with her and dressing her up.
Rachel has wanted to grow her bangs out for a while and we told her that after Christmas we would let her grow them out. Well when she got Abby and Abby looked just like her but without bangs we had to do Rachel’s hair to match Abby’s that day.
Rachel and Abby
Dressed alike
I love the excitement of Children on Christmas morning. They just get so excited and make you realize that the past months agony of shopping and finding the perfect gifts was totally worth it. Sarah was so excited to wake up and find presents under the tree from Santa.
Rachel with her stack of presents from Santa
Sarah with her presents from Santa
wearing their new jammies that mom and dad gave them on Christmas Eve
Rachel with her 'American Girl Doll' (she doesn't know it is a knock off)
Rachel with her Easy Bake oven
Rachel with her Santa loot
Sarah with her Santa loot
Sarah feeding her Panda Bear she got from Aunt Jody and family
puppy love
Hot Dog Dancing Mickey!
