Hailey as Miss Hannigan

In February Hailey starred in her school play - Annie Jr. - as Miss Hannigan. She stole the show!! Even we were amazed by her, and we are her parents! She did a great job both singing and acting. We are so proud of her! Here are a few pictures of her before the play started.



Giving her best "Miss Hannigan" look for the camera! When she yelled "shut-up" to the orphans Kasey and I looked at each other and thought "Wow, we've heard that before...."

Here we are backstage after Hailey had her hair and makeup done. Jenna was just there for the picture!!

Catch Up Time!

It's been a long time since I've put anything on here, so I guess I have a lot of catching up to do! I'll see if I can fit everything on here - and remember everything that should go on here!

I'll start with Rachel's one year appointment. Everything went fine. She weight 16 lbs 2.5 oz at her appointment in March. She is still in the 0.6% percentile for her age! She certainly didn't inherit her small frame from her mother!! :) She is doing great - still trying to get brave enough to walk on her own. Her cute little personality is showing through more and more lately. She really is so much fun to be around!

We found out in April that we are expecting another girl! Kasey and Spencer were (bitterly!) disappointed, but I think we've all come to accept that there will be way more estrogen in our house than we really need! Everything in the ultrasound looked good and they said she looks healthy. I'm not sure how exactly they can tell, but I guess that's what they go to school for! We're excited to have another cute little baby in our home, and here's hoping that this one will come on time or early rather than a week late like her big sister!!

Pictures from the Trip!

I guess I messed up and published my post before I added pictures. Ooops!! Anyway, here are a few pictures from our trip.


This pretty much sums up our experience at the beach...Rachel hated the ocean, hated the sand, and pretty much didn't want to be there. It didn't help that her dad put her down in the sand and then left her alone while a big wave washed up and knocked her over! He keeps telling her that he saved her life, so she's feeling pretty lucky....

This is us and the Williams' family who we got to visit with while we were there. Todd and Kasey work together. It was fun to hang out with them and also our good friends the Bennion's. Here we are in the Blue Mountains, standing in front of the Three Sisters.

Everywhere we go Rachel is the center of attention. Strangers will ask if they can take her picture because they think she's so cute. (So do we!!) This was no exception - all of the little kids wanted to play with her!

Rachel and Daddy petting some kangaroos. Rachel didn't mind looking, but she didn't really like touching!!

I don't know if you can tell, but those are bats in the tree. They were huge!! And when they flew around at night it was so disgusting! Kasey was freaking out and I was laughing. The ranger said there are 20,000 in the park. Nasty!!

Rachel and Daddy on the ferry to Manly. This was Rachel's first boat ride, and she loved it!

Rachel and Mommy with a koala bear. Again, Rachel liked to look, but not necessarily touch! The koala bears were surprisingly soft.

Here we are in front of the Sydney temple. It is a pretty temple, even though it's small.

Rachel swimming for the first time. The pool was 4 feet deep through the whole pool, so Mom had to hold her the whole time. She loved the pool, so I'm not sure why she hated the ocean...but we had fun anyway!

This is at the Syndey Aquarium. They had one crocodile, and luckily it was right by the glass. You could also go up above it to look at it. There was a sign that said "Don't jump in the crocodile's home. If the fall doesn't kill you the crocodile will." I thought it was kind of funny.

Here we are in front of the Opera House. We thought the Opera House is prettier in pictures than it is in person, but we saw it!

At Circular Quay we saw an Aboriginal man playing the digeree-doo (probably not the correct spelling but you get the idea!). It was pretty cool to listen too.

Rachel's first plane ride!! She did great, even though it was a really, really long plane ride. She may have even done better than her Mom!!

The one thing we didn't get a picture of was our rental car. When we got there they gave us our car, which was a Toyota Camry. Forget the fact that there was just a giant recall on Toyota's because they are killing people, but the steering wheel is on the right side of the car and you drive on the left side of the road there. This spelled nothing but death trap to me!! Kasey drove like a champ but I was a nervous wreck any time we got into the car. That is until we took a cab ride with an insane cabbie, who was all over the road and had nothing to say whatsoever! After that crazy ride I didn't complain about Kasey's driving again!

We had a great time and are so grateful for the opportunity we had to go see a land that we never thought we'd get a chance to see!

Australia!!

Kasey, Rachel, and I had the opportunity to go to Australia for 10 days. We had a great time! We got to see so many things that we'll probably never see again - like kangaroos and wombats and koala bears. Rachel had a lot of firsts on this trip - first plane ride, first boat ride, first time swimming, first time at the beach, etc. She did great on the plane, loved the boat, loved swimming, and hated the beach! She also got two new teeth while we were there. The best part was that it was warm there!! We loved it and we're so glad we got to go!

9 Month Checkup

Rachel had her 9 Month Checkup today. She weighs 14 lbs 12 oz and is 26.25 inches long. She is in the 6th percentile for her age! I always get a little worried when I see how small she is, but the doctor said he isn't concerned. He also said that someone has to be in the bottom percentile - I guess that's Rachel!! He said since she is proportional (head to weight to length) he wouldn't worry about it right now. Hopefully she'll start growing some. At this rate she'll be in a rear facing car seat until she's 2!!!

Christmas

Christmas was so much fun this year. We were able to have Hailey, Spencer, and Jenna for a few hours on Christmas Day, so it was really nice to be able to celebrate Christmas with everyone on Christmas Day. Rachel had a lot of fun on her first Christmas. She loved the wrapping paper way more than any of her presents! After a little while the novelty of all the paper wore off and she was done. Luckily we were able to get a few good pictures before that! Here are just a few of the many, many pictures we took that day!


This is actually taken on Christmas Eve. We had Christmas Eve with Grandma and Grandpa Walker, and Rachel opened one present from them and one present from Gram and Gramps.

This is Rachel on Christmas morning. She opened one present from Santa. It took her about two hours....

Here are the girls opening presents. You can see my new blender in the background!

Spencer with his new BYU hat. I searched high and low for a BYU ball cap that was fitted. That hat better last him a long, long time!!

Spencer got a shirt at his mom's that says "Awesome ends with Me". It's a very fitting shirt for him! Christmas was great for us. We are very, very blessed.

Christmas Programs

This year the kids school did a few Christmas programs, which was a lot of fun. Jenna and Hailey both did one, but for some reason Spencer's grade didn't. Anyway, here are a few pictures of them at their programs.