Silver Lake- Part 2

My mom came to visit over her birthday weekend this month. We took her to our new favorite spot and were a little surprised to find snow! It was much cooler on the mountain that we expected and Rachel wasn't in the best mood, but we made the most of it and still had a great time! Michael snuck up behind Hannah and scared her right before this picture was snapped! And Rachel cried on the same rock, like I mentioned, she was not having a great day...I love this picture!Hannah called this tree stump her new home!She was determined to have Rachel come live there too, but she wasn't going for it!We decided to take one of the hikes off the Silver lake path. We headed up the trail to Solitude Lake, but never made it. We were very slow moving since Hannah needed to climb on every rock we saw and Rachel started losing it, then we hit snow and decided we had seen enough of the beauty God created and headed back down. Maybe in a year or two the girls will be big enough to do more hiking!

Silver Lake

The last post was about the scenery, now you get to see my three favorite people in that pretty scenery! :) Hannah just couldn't resist putting her hands in the water:Michael helped her out on the rock-such a good daddy!My girls sitting by the lake...So proud of herself standing on the fallen tree!She loved walking along the path like a big girl:Hitching a ride on dad:Sitting on the rock cliff side she climbed up, she is always happy when she gets to climb on things!Yes, sadly this is the best pic I got of the three of them sitting on this log:My blue eyed baby!Playing with a leaf she found:Cheese:She sat on the bridge watching both sides of the water for fish:Walking along the path of one of our new favorite spots! Rachel kept feeling all the textures and looking at all the colors, learning more about the world around her:

One of the many reasons fall is my favorite...

Michael and I drove with the girls up Big Cottonwood Canyon to look at the leaves changing a few weeks ago. We walked around Silver Lake and it was absolutely beautiful! We also went over Guardsman's Pass and down into Park City on the way home. The colors had started changing and the weather was amazing, it couldn't have been more wonderful! I didn't do any editing to these photos and they were all taken with my iPhone...I have to say, the beauty of living here does make the fact that we are SO far away from family a little more bearable...sometimes! :)

Rachel's first sucker...

When Michael's mom (Grandma) was here, while we were at Gardner's Village I got Rachel a sucker at the candy store. She loved it! :)

Preschool

Some of these posts are a little out of order, but at the beginning of September, Hannah started preschool. She goes once a week for an hour and a half, just long enough to have fun and give me a short break, but no so long I miss her too much! She is a non-delayed peer at a school for kids with developmental delays. They need peer models to strive to catch up to and it is good for Hannah to realize not everyone can do what she can. She is having so much fun and loves wearing her back pack to school! Here are pics from her first day:They read Spot Goes To School and colored Spot on the first day. This was her picture:

Grandma and Daddy Zoo Day

The same weekend as Rachel's birthday was the Scrapbook Expo. It comes to Utah twice a year and it is a HUGE event! Thousands gather to shop and scrapbook and since Cindi was in town, we went as much as we could! I will have to steal her pictures of the expo for another time. However, while we played, so did our husbands. Grandma, Michael and the girls met up with Tom and the boys for some zoo fun. These were all pictures from Rhonda's camera, so she isn't in any of them, but I am glad that she got some pics of the memories! I also wasn't there, so I don't have much back story to share with you, but it looks like they had a blast!

The Birthday Party

After naptime, we worked on getting Rachel in her party dress! I based her cupcake theme party off her dress! Cute huh?I had the hardest time getting her to sit still for a picture!So we worked on trying to get some cute ones in the high chair! I tried really hard to get some with her hairbow on, but she had that headband off faster than I could step out of the way. I probably have 20 pictures of her with her hands up or her bow already off...I finally took it off the headband and attempted clipping it in her fine, short hair. It was the best one we got!Once the guests arrived and we ate pizza, she got to open her presents:The other kids loved watching and trying to help!Then it was time for the cupcake! Here we were singing Happy Birthday!Then we took off the cute dress for the real fun!Caedon, Taylor and Hannah eating their cupcakes!

Then we got GiGi and PaPa on the computer so they could watch via Skype the rest of the cupcake fun!This is the final picture of the mess before the bath!We went down to our basement playroom so the kids could play and tried to get a pic of all the kids. Nothing is more complicated than trying to get six kids this little to look and smile. I have no idea how the Duggars ever get a good family pic! Here are Taylor, Caedon and Cole Meyer, Hannah and Rachel, and Eli Day! As you can tell, it didn't work too well! We had a great time celebrating our little Rachel and this big day in her life. I know that she will have no memories of it, but I will have pictures to scrapbook and show her how we celebrated her first birthday!