Rachel's Birthday 2...

We have a lot more pictures from this special day but here are some favorites that show Rachel's blossoming personality. What a cutie pie she is!

Playing with some of her toys the day after.

Father and Son time

Josh and Daddy got to attend a Build and Grow free class at Lowe's back in June. It was a great outing for the two of them. Also, Josh went to his first movie "Toy Story 3" at the end of July with Daddy too! It was a celebration for being potty trained. Josh had a wonderful time. He also got spoiled and got to have popcorn, a hotdog, and fruit snacks. Apparently he ate it all by himself. I'm looking forward to when it comes out on DVD so we can all watch it again. Maybe we'll have popcorn too : )

Rachel at 2 years

Playing with Mommy's espresso cup and saucer.

Notice the pinkie placement : )

All smiles!

Her favorites pajamas mixed.

Having fun with our neighbor, Miss Anya.

It's amazing how time flies with little ones. We just celebrated Rachel's birthday last weekend. I will post her birthday party photos sometime this week, but these were just some cute ones I found on the camera. What a sweet little girl. Also, her check-up went well. She's 28 lbs. 68%, 34.8 inches 75%, and head is 18.8 inches 57%.

Last day of School (from May)

This past year Josh was in a 2 year old preschool class at McKendree United Methodist Church. He loved school and enjoyed all the activities that they did their. I decided to keep both kids at home with me next year and do some school at home. We'll see if we can do it! Here's some pictures from a picnic we had on his last day of school.

Enjoying their first ice popsicles!

Notice the matching band-aids? Rachel needed one because Josh had one. So funny!

New babies

Congratulations to Lucy Elaine Alphin born two and a half weeks ago and Eliza Abigail Long born one week ago. They are all doing well and we are excited to have some new babies to visit and love on.

Here are some photos from our last visit to Columbia to visit my cousin before she had her second daughter. Rachel and her cousin Julia had a great time playing together. They are both very girlie-girl. We enjoyed a wonderful brunch while their. Thanks for all the yummy and local food!


We also got to visit with Baby Brooklyn some. Rachel enjoyed helping me feed him : )

Meatless May

We survived our attempt of having a Meatless May. This wasn't too difficult since we included seafood in our diet. We had several people ask why we were doing it and all I said was "My husband wanted to try it so, I guess I will too." His reasoning was that he wanted to see if he felt different without meat and then when he added meats back in he also wanted to see if he could tell a difference from them too. So, that sums it up. We did allow the kids to eat meat if they wanted. They got to enjoy cold cuts, bacon, sausage and all that yummy goodness.

Now that May is over we are slowly adding good quality meats back into our diets; for example, grass fed beef, DeKalb Farmer's Market chickens, and local pork sausage. What we noticed last month was that we experimented with a lot more foods. Shrimp was probably our favorite since the kids love it, it's very easy to prepare, and is affordable. We should have eaten more fish but I never came across that many recipes with or for fish. Maybe next time we do this I will be ready to venture out a little more and learn how to prepare fish other ways. I know it should be easy but truth is I haven't prepared good quality fish much. We mostly eat grilled or baked salmon, frozen Mahi-Mahi from Whole Foods, and marinated fish from Trader Joe's.

One of my favorite dinners last month was Oysters Rockefeller. I really could eat raw or broiled oysters every week and not get sick of them. Recently I was reading on the Weston Price Foundation about how good they are for you- lots of vitamin B12 and zinc. We were able to find some easy to prepare from The Fresh Market. Next time, I hope to prepare some from a closed shell. We'll see. I've only done this once with my Mom and it was fun but still kind of hard to open if I remember correctly. Sounds like a fun food challenge for this summer!