Eight Years

This was the day that Rich and I were married. Rich is the best thing that has ever happened to me. When I met him I never knew how great life could be. I was happy when I met him and happy with myself. With him, I am content, blissful, and striving to be the best person, wife and mother that I can be for him. Our marriage has had its ups and downs, but they have been the best ups in my life, and the downs that have taught me the things that I have needed to learn. I am so in love with the man that I married and more in love with the man that he has become.

After eight years you can almost forget about the early part of your relationship. So I put up a few pics of the beginning. This was at our engagement party.

This was at our one year anniversary when we were sealed in the Oakland Temple. We went home and ate the top of our wedding cake. Since my mom had requested that not smash cake at the wedding, we got a little violent at the anniversary, you know all that pent up cake-smashing-frustration for a year.

Which leads us to know. For our anniversary we went to a cooking lesson at Sur La Table. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. We have always wanted to do that and finally did it. We took a grilling class and it was awesome. We made tri-tip, ribs, porkchops, and tuna. We made a few side dishes but the best things we made were, was two BBQ sauces. THEY WERE SO DELICIOUS. But we just had so much fun and ate really good food and met fun people, and had a really good time. I love my husband and the time we spend together. Happy Anniversary Muffin.

This is our Roscoe Cheese Face.

Cheese Fries

One night I was watching on of my favorite trashy reality shows and they were eating cheese fries. I have not been able to stop thinking about them ever since. Not the kind of cheese fries with shredded cheese melted on top, but the kind with melted cheese poured on top. These are hard to find, let me tell you. I tried to satisfy this craving by eating hash browns and melting american cheese on top, eh. Not the same. Finally one night Rich and I went to the Star Cinema Grill which for those of you who do not live in Houston, is a movie theater that also has a full restaurant menu. AND THEY HAD CHEESE FRIES. Specifically, they had "say hello to my little fries, add queso" And they were the most delicious thing I had eaten in my whole life. OMG. I was so happy. Rich loved them, we made sure that the other person was not taking more bites than the other so it was equal. They we so good. Then the other night I went Cheddar's with friends and got cheese fries again and they were okay, but they were the shredded-cheese-melted-on-top kind of cheese fries, but they also had bacon and a side of ranch. BUT I HAVE NOW FIGURED OUT HOW TO HAVE THEM ALL THE TIME. I made queso the other when we had tacos for dinner, and had some left over. That night I sent Rich out for a pregnancy craving of a banana cream pie blizzard from frosty and with inspiration asked him to get me some fries, heated up the queso, and viola. I have the good kind of cheese fries. I have done twice since. You may ask, why in the world is Rachel taking up an entire post talking about cheese fries? Because I am pregnant, they make me happy and I LOVE CHEESE FRIES.

Baby Update

I am almost 26 weeks and feel about 36 weeks. Actually I am doing okay but I am to the point where I feel pregnant and waddle and have changed the way I get up. Things are doing really great. The baby looks great and he is looking pretty big, the ultra sound Dr had fun showing us his big fat thighs and also his big giant Hamm head. I will be starting at a new school this year and that is exciting. I plan to take off until christmas break. Rich plans to take off the month of January. Then my mom and Richs mom are going to come out and help take care of the kids through part of April. We haven't figured out after that, but that gets us pretty far.

This is one of my close friends out here in Houston, who is due in about 3 weeks. I am excited that we will again have kids the same age. Roxy and her daughter Savanna are the same age and best friends.

Fourth of July Traditions

I am happy that we have been able to make our own traditions here in Texas. Our fourth of July traditions include the Friendswood Parade with Babbi and Liisa and a BBQ at the Dunns.

Gotta love donuts with red frosting

Here is our group. Liisa is to the far left and Babbi to the far right. They are sisters.

Roxy became the photographer of the day and took tons of pics. She took this one of her BFF Savannah.

Her is one she took of one of my BFFs Babbi

All of the ones of the parade she took herself. She did a pretty good job and I never had to get up.

We were pretty hot and tired by the end. Too bad Rich has yet to make it to the parade. After the parade we went home for naps and to make treats to take the Dunns. I saw these in a magazine and copied them. How cute right.

the steak is a caramel and milk candy.

the hot dogs are hot tamales

and the cabobs and cut up gum drops.

Now the Dunns have been doing this party for years and they do it up right, they rent a HUGE water slide...

they have THREE trampolines...

they rent a snow cone machine...

and a friend brings over their horse.

Needless to say the kids always have a great time and go home all tuckered out.

FLORIDA WITH NO KIDS

Can you believe that we got to go to florida with no kids for 3 days. It was amazing and relaxing and I slept in everyday. This was the view from our room, which was just yards from the pool.

We went to down town Disney twice but never made it into a Disney park because of the weather. It was rainy and unpredictable so we did not want to chance spending so much on tickets and only getting to go then turn around because of the rain.

So the main reason for the trip was that Rich had a volleyball tournament there. The last day it was held at the Sports Center complex which was pretty cool.

Here is the team and they placed top 30 in the nation. GO AVA!!!

Roxy turns 4

This was this the first year that I did not throw a big party for Roxy for her birthday. A bunch of Richs family had flown out, so we just had two families over and made it pretty small.

My friend Amy made this adorable outfit. I bought the shirt, and then she bought the material and ribbons, and then made the skirt and bows to match. She was the cutest birthday girl EVER!!!!

Look how good kids can be when candy is involved

I love that Rebekah is trying to blow out the candles in the background. You can't see it, but Roscoe is trying to do the same thing on the other side.

Roxy's first bike!!!

She looks safe and happy right?

We didn't want her to mess up her birthday outfit, so she changed and the other kids had brought their bikes and everyone went outside to ride their bikes.