Aquarium and Hiking

We went to visit my dad and his wife yesterday, and we took the girls to the Living Planet Aquarium that is right by their house. Lizzy LOVED it. She was squealing with delight and trembling with excitement. It was a really neat aquarium. There was even an octupus in a tank. Lizzy was afraid of the sharks, and also there was a tank with really large "river" fish that she wouldn't go very close to, but her favorite was the tank that had "Nemo" and "Dory" fish. You can watch the video to see her reaction. This morning we went hiking with the girls in their hiking backpacks. They had a super fun time on the hike. Lizzy would point out that the trail looked like a "V" every time we hit a switchback, and when we got close to a river she said, "I hear a waterfall!" When we were still close to the bottom, and you could hear the road, a car with a really rumbly engine went by and made a funny noise, and Lizzy said, "I hear a cow!" It did sound like a cow, too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! The Easter bunny visited our house Friday night, because Jason had to work today, so we did Easter on Saturday. Lizzy woke up and immediately spied a colorful Easter egg that I'd hidden. She then had a really fun time searching all over the house for her eggs, and then when she found them all, she got her Easter basket, which had a chocolate bunny, an Easter pez dispenser, some silly putty, and a new Thomas train, "Duck." She ate the chocolate bunny for breakfast, and then ate most of the whopper eggs which I'd put inside the plastic eggs in her basket for lunch. Luckily, she did eat a very large helping of spaghetti for dinner, so it wasn't a total nutritional fiasco! Rachel just got a basket with empty plastic eggs to play with. She was very happy with that! Today, the girls are dressed in their beautiful matching Easter dresses (I love having 2 girls!) and we're all ready for church. Lizzy would not sit next to Rachel for a picture, because lately, whenever Rachel is close enough, she pulls Lizzy's hair. So, the pictures are separate. They're still cute, though!

Hiking Backpack

We used our REI dividend and got a hiking backpack for Rachel yesterday. Since it was rainy out, we just went for a walk around the block with the girls during a break in the drizzling. Both girls LOVE to ride in their backpacks. Lizzy rides with Jason, and Rachel with me. Lizzy kept saying, "I'm bouncing like Tigger!" It was funny. Rachel was just kicking and making happy squeals. We look forward to taking the girls on a real hike on Jason's week off, starting Wednesday. Hopefully we'll have some good weather!

Bathtime, and Standing Up

Here are my bathing beauties - I'm finally confident enough in Rachel's stability to let her take a bath with Lizzy in the big tub, instead of making her bathe in the baby tub. Rachel LOVES it, and surprisingly, Lizzy was very nice to Rachel in the tub; sharing the rubber duckies and teaching her how to splash! In further development, Rachel has figured out how to pull herself up to standing on stuff. She got this fun play cube from her great grandparents for Christmas, and she just LOVES it! She's also crawling now, much to Lizzy's chagrin, and so there is a constant yelling of, "hey, that's MINE!" and then Lizzy proceeds to rip the hard-earned toy from poor Rachel's fingers. Sometimes, Lizzy will add in a nice shove or whack to the head, and then Rachel will cry. One time, Lizzy looked at me and said, "I made Rachel CRY." In a very matter-of-fact voice. I put her in time out for 2 minutes, which made Lizzy cry, and then she said, "I want to go to Grandma's!!" Sheesh.

Surgery Pictures

Here are the pictures from surgery number 2! In the larger single picture picture, it's the before. You can see the white scars from the last surgery. Then, you can see the two pictures of where he burned today. So now I just have to go back for a checkup to look down my throat in 6 months, and then after that, annual check ups to check for re-growth.

Surgery #2

Well, I go in for my second surgery tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to it! In fact, I'm dreading this one more than I did the first one for some reason... anyway, wish me luck! Hopefully this will be the end of all of it.