father's day 2009

madeleine loves her dad. she loves to follow him around and play with him. daddy is the only word she says and she frequently chants it around the house, even when randy is not home.

i think that randy is a wonderful father as well. he is incredibly patient, loving, and sweet with madeleine. i never worry about leaving madeleine with randy because he takes such great care of her and i know that they will have a blast together. one of the reasons that i wanted to marry randy is because i knew that he would be such a great example to our children and he has definitely lived up to that vision. i wouldn't want to parent with anyone else at my side.

okay, enough cheesy prose. here are some more pictures:

so i've been bad about blogging lately

a trip to the zoo

madeleine and i took a trip to the zoo with a friend from our ward today. it was the perfect day to go to the zoo. not too hot, not to cold. madeleine had a blast. she has several books that she loves with animals in them and she had a great time seeing them all in person. here are some pictures from the trip:

relaxing

it's been a while since i've posted, but i've been bad about taking pictures lately. here's one of madeleine lounging in our bouncy chair. i got it back out because i've been watching rachel three times a week, but madeleine seems to think that it's just right for her.

traffic jam

we were on our way up to sandy last saturday and all of a sudden the freeway came to a standstill. we figured it was an accident, but didn't realize how close it was until we saw a life light helicopter land about 100 yards away from us.

people's reactions to the situation interested me. people were getting out of their cars and walking up to the accident. several people got on top of their cars to see what was going on. i made randy take some pictures with his iphone:

after the guy in the van in front of us got down and back in his car, i told randy i'd pay him $20 to go climb on top of the guys car. i quickly retracted the offer when i realized that he would do it for $5 and i didn't want to give up $5. but the thought was funny.

more cousin pictures

my mom got the granddaughters matching dresses and since madeleine is rapidly growing out of hers, we decided that we had better hurry and get some pictures of them together. unfortunately, we woke elizabeth up for the picture, so she wasn't as happy. they're still cute though.

it's that time of year again...

where you get more posts about my garden than you ever realized you needed.

i just planted my garden yesterday and am so excited to start harvesting. i'm growing a lot of the same stuff as last year: zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil. but, i've sacrificed one zucchini plant to make room for a cantaloupe plant. i'm a little worried that i won't have as much zucchini as i would like, but am excited for the cantaloupe.

before



after

it helps to have a brother-in-law who has a greenhouse and can grow starts for you. i'm not sure i'm ready for seed planting yet in my vegetable garden. i planted some poppies from seed in the front yard planter a couple weeks ago and gave up on them after the second day when i didn't see any progress. now, i think that they may be coming up, but i'm still not sure they're not just weeds. seeds involve too much patience without enough quick visual results.