September - Disneyland, Steve's 28th B-Day, Dance Studio, Parks

 First time at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo.  Happy Hollow is a small zoo, petting zoo, small amusement park, playground, shows, and much more. It's totally catered to young kids. We went to the park with our friends the Curtis family.  Their daughter Hailey is Andrea's best friend.  They are so cute together.  They never fight and copy everything that each other does. This is a picture of the two of them on the lady bug ride.  After a few minutes at this park I knew it would be worth it to buy a one year membership for our family, so I did. We will be going many more times now.

 Andrea's funny new sun glasses. They were in the clearance section at Michaels. :-)

 Rachel is now at the age where she climbs into all the cupboards and pulls everything out.  She can reach pretty high now, because she loves to stand up. She is such an adorable baby. Always happy and smiley, and really easy going. She is very self entertaining too.

Labor Day

 Labor Day was spent at the beach with a bunch of friends from the ward.  We went to early and it was actually pretty cold.  We spent most of the time huddled up in our towels, because most of us were expecting warm weather and didn't bring coats. It did warm up a little bit at Steve made this cool sand castle with Andrea and Hailey.

 Here are the two girls playing together again.  Andrea insisted on wearing this swimming suit with a tu tu even though it really is too small because she wanted to look like Hailey and Hailey's swim suit has a tu tu. :-)

 We tried to get a family picture of us at the beach, but Andrea was off playing with Hailey. Rachel ate so much sand on this trip that she pooped sand for three days after.  Poor girl.  I really thought I was watching her, but this little girl is like an octopus.  The second I move something away from her she's already grabbed another thing with her other hand. This is such a fun age though. She is so excited about everything. If only we were all like little children and so the world with such a positive attitude and being so grateful for everything that's around us. I learn so much from my girls.

Our Disneyland Trip.

Scott, Stephanie, and Casen were going to Disneyland, we hardly ever saw Steve because he was in his busy season, and Andrea was still free until she turned 3, so I decided to take the girls to Disneyland with Scott and Steph.  We drove 6 1/2 hours down to Anaheim on Sunday and met up with them at their Disneyland hotel.  We stayed in the Castle Inn and Suites hotel.  Andrea was so excited to be able to sleep in a castle.  Scott and Steph's hotel was pretty awesome.  We ate pizza and planned our itinerary while the kids jumped on the bed and played under the sheets. It was fun for Andrea and Casen to get to see each other again. There are several pictures below. 

 Ariel was adorable. She gave Andrea the biggest hug.

 Rachel with Alice and All of us with the Mad Hatter.

 Scott and Rachel just after dinner. So adorable. We ate dinner in a a little restaurant outside on mainstreet.

 The parade was great.  This Ariel on her float and Andrea watching. She absolutely loved the parade. She got so excited each time a new character came by, especially the princesses.

 A group picture just after the parade. The drummers were fantastic. In fact, the whole parade was great.

 We played so hard the first day that both kids were completely out by the time we left the park.  I think they definitely loved their first day at Disneyland!

 Second day at Disneyland we went to California Adventures first.  This is the Luigi's tire ride at Cars Land.  It was insane, every single person entered the park and went straight to Cars Land because it is brand new.

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 Stephanie and Casen in the bumper cars bug ride.

 Andrea with a character that I believe is called Handy Mannie or something like that. We've never seen him before.

 Andrea went on a big girl ride with Uncle Scotty. She was so brave.

 Rachel LOVES ice cream!!! She's definitely my daughter! Scotty carried her in the front back for a little bit. He was so cute with a little girl.

The World of Color. It was like the Bellagio Fountains at Las Vegas on steroids. They not only had color with the fountains, but they projected video onto a thin mist wall of water. It was pretty cool.

Scott held Casen and Andrea up to watch the show for a good ten minutes. I was pretty impressed with how long he was able to hold both of them.

Disneyland in front of the big Farris Wheel.

Scott, Steph, and Casen in front of the big Farris Wheel. Our favorite rides were Peter Pan, Carousel, Buzz Light Year, and Splash Mountain. We had a lot of fun with Scott, Steph, and Casen, but we definitely missed Steve though. Thanks for letting us go honey and thanks for letting us go with you Scott and Steph.

Tausha's Music and Dance! 

We decided to turn our front room into a dance studio. I was so excited. This is a dream come true for me. We made a fyer and sent it out to ward members and Kerry Rhyerson from a different stake.  Each person passed it on to their friends and I now have 13 students including Andrea. I teach two classes right in a row on Thursday morning.  Right now I just teach 2-4 year olds.  I just wanted to use my talents and skills to bless my children's lives and the children in the community.  Plus, we definitely could use a little more money in this area. :-)

We painted the room turquoise and replaced the outlet covers and made them white.  We bought mirror panels at Home Depot to create a beautiful dance studio. It took a few days and was done over the course of a week.

  I went to IKEA and bought the white shelving unit to be exactly how I wanted it.  Our neighbor helped me get it into the house and Steve helped me put it together. The top shelf holds my piano music, the second shelf holds speakers, and the bottom shelf holds my CD player and IPod and then the drawers contain dance props and piano treats/rewards. It turned out perfectly!

The first day of dance class was the day after we got back from Disneyland.  It was kind of crazy and I didn't have stickers, but for the most part it went really really well.  All of the moms said that they and their girls loved it.  As a teacher I saw everything that went wrong or that needed to be improved, but I take that improve and try to become a better teacher.

 

Here are some of the girls. My classes are now really huge.  I have 7 girls in one class and 8 girls in the next.  Andrea takes both classes right in a row and she's fantastic. She really has improved so much. I'm really proud of her.  I can tell that she loves it and that makes me so happy.  I want her to love just like I do so that it can be something that we share together, but at the same time I don't want to push her to do something that she doesn't really love just because I love it.  That's a fine line as a parent and I'm hoping to keep motivating in the right way. These girls are so adorable aren't they.

We made an obstacle course in our backyard. Andrea climbed up the stairs, jumped on to the blanket, log rolled or piggy loafed down the blanket, and jumped in her circle and then back around and started again.  It lasted for about ten minutes, but it was really fun for those ten minutes. :-)

She's getting so big. She's 2 and 3/4 and she will tell you! :-)

Andrea loves to do any craft including painting.  She made a beautiful picture with her easle and awesome green apron.

Daddy's 28th Birthday!!!

Grandma and Grandpa Bentz sent Steve two Kringles for his birthday. They were soooo delicious!

Andrea helped daddy blow out his candles and Rachel was ready to eat!

Rachel loved Kringle.  Rachel loves pretty much everything.  She loves to eat and she is a great eater.  Look at that adorable face. One of my dance moms was watching Rachel while I taught dance and afterwards she said, "Rachel is really sensitive isn't she?"  I thought she was talking about the fact that she was teething, but she said, "She is very emotionally responsive." When people do something to make her laugh or share a toy with her she gets soooo happy and excited. Or, in the opposite case if someone takes a toy away from her her heart is broken.  She is just so pure.  I can tell that she must have been close to her Heavenly Father in the pr-existence. I hope that I can keep her that way by being a good mother for my girls.

Andrea eats all of the frosting off of the kringle. In fact, she eats all the frosting off of everything: cupcakes, cake, and cookies.

To celebrate daddy's birthday we went out to dinner at Olive Garden.  We gave daddy a sunglasses case and a gift card for 6 paint ball games.  We'll be having some fun with our friends at the paintball field here shortly. :-)

We go to the park every Friday with several friends in the ward.  We love it. This is a fantastic park with plenty of toys including this little space ship.  Andrea is a natural leader.  Maybe a tad bossy, but definitely a leader.  She suggests things to her friends and they all follow. Then she comes up with a new idea and they all follow. :-)  We will definitely try to make sure that she keeps that, but doesn't get too bossy.  Rachel loves playing on the steps and slides.  She loves doing whatever Andrea is doing.  So, I hold Rachel's hands and she walks up the steps and then slides down the slide with me. So fun.

We had a family day on Saturday and went to the park with daddy.  They all climbed inside of the rocket ship.

Look how adorable little Rachel is in those sun glasses!

August - Crawling, Standing up, Beach trips, San Francisco

 Rachel loves to play the piano. She can sit up and play by herself now.

 Andrea likes to help mommy do everything including feeding Rachel. And Rachel loves everything that Andrea does, so she lets her feed her.

 Rachel also loves the sand. In fact, she loves to eat the sand.

 Our two beautiful girls. Rachel is 6 months old and Andrea is 2 1/2. We're so grateful for my two beautiful girls.

 The day Rachel started crawling she crawled so she could get to something that would help her stand up.

 The girls play together so well now. It's so cute to see them laugh and giggle together.  It's really fun for them.

 Andrea helped mommy make cupcakes for a Relief Society Activity.  It was a pool party in someone's backyard.  I have been dieing to take the girls swimming to a real pool, but there just aren't any city pools here that you can pay $3 and go swimming. Most people have one or they live in an apartment complex that has one, so we were ecstatic when we found out we were having a pool party.  So, we showed up in our swimming suits and covers and we were the only ones who came in our swimsuits.  I had been telling the girls about it all day, so we went swimming.  We were the only ones who got in the pool and I was the only one there with kids, but I didn't care.  It was supposed to be a pool party, so by golly, we were going to swim. :-)  We loved it.  They had an absolutely beautiful backyard and beautiful pool. It was so nice to be able to cool off from all the extremely hot days in our house with no relief.  In fact, our house was so hot that Andrea got a heat rash on her cheeks and couldn't get rid of it for an entire month, because she couldn't cool off enough.  Also, our thermostat always read between 85-89 degrees inside the house.  I don't know how people can live in Mexico in little cardboard houses with 120 degrees outside. I could barely handle almost 90 degrees with fans.  We'll have to figure out something different for next summer or just go visit family all summer next year. :-) 

 Again Rachel loves to stand up. She pulled on her daddy's hair to get to standing position in this picture. The girls were enjoying some precious time with dad. They didn't get to see him much. He finished the Bar Exam and then started his busy season, so most nights he got home after they were asleep.

 We want to take advantage of living in this area, so we took a trip up to San Francisco with our friend Rikki Bezzant and her sons Clark and Henry. It was a lot of fun. This is a picture of the girls at Ghirardelli Square in front of the mermaid fountain.

 This is just above some of the piers across from Ghirardelli Square looking over to the Golden Gate Bridge.

 We had a picnic at one of the parks in the middle of the city so we could see the pretty town houses that were some of the ones used in the filming of Full House. They were actually very pretty in their own city type way. San Francisco reminded me a lot of the movie The Lorax where the whole city is made of plastic and cement.  There is very little ground showing. Houses are connected wall to wall or separated by a cement walk way. There are no yards. People just have potted plants on their porches and go to the parks that are spread out throughout the city. Streets are very narrow and cars are parked all along the sides of them. It was absolutely claustrophobic, but pretty in it's own unique way.

 Here's a picture of the beautiful town houses.

 One day while mommy was trying to cook and get things done in the kitchen Rachel got a hold of the puffs case and dumped them all over herself and the floor. It was pretty hilarious.  Both girls laughed and laughed.

 This picture explains everything.  Rachel has an obsession with Andrea's hair and Andrea freaks out anytime that she touches it, because she knows what could possibly happen.  Andrea always runs in to Rachel's room the minute that she wakes up and says, "Rachel, you're awake you cute baby."  And Rachel gives her the biggest smile and quickly climbs up the bars to try and play with her.  It makes me so happy to see that my girls love each other and like to play together.

 I take the girls to the park a lot.  I help Rachel climb up the slide backwards while Andrea climbs up the stairs and then they both get to slide down the slide together. They have a blast doing this together.

 We had lunch with Daddy two different times.  The first time was at a Mexican Restaurant just south of where he works.  This time it was at the Children's Discovery Museum which is just across the street from where he works.  The girls needed some time to see their dad, so we though having lunch with him would give us a little time with him and a little break for him from work. Andrea is eating a mint orea.  We have a new obsession with these cookies.  I buy two packs a week and we go through them every week.  Our friends Brad and Heather introduced us to them when we came out to San Jose in February to look for housing and we have been addicted ever since.  Don't start, because you might not stop. :-)

 Our neighbor Gonga, originally from India gave us a ton of apricots so we decided to make apricot jam and fruit leather.  Andrea is my little helper in the kitchen. Every time I make anything she grabs the kitchen chair and drags it over to where I am working and says, "Can I help you please mom?"  Of course I let her help and of course it takes twice as long and makes twice as big of a mess, but it is a lot more fun as well. And Andrea is getting to be a pretty good cook.  She can crack and dump eggs, stir food, grate cheese (sort of), scoop and stir measuring cups, and stir food.  I'd say that's pretty darn good for a two-year-old.

 Andrea also has an obsession with forts. The girls made this fort in the dance studio by draping the blanket over the piano and her play chairs.  They had a lot of fun playing in it.

 So cute. Rachel loves to talk with her hands.  She talks and makes noises all of the time. She says, "Momma and Dadda now."  And she knows it's our names.

We went to a San Jose Giants game with a bunch of people in the ward.  It's a AAA baseball team for San Jose. They had a bunch of blow up toys and games, so I took Andrea, Hayley, and Gabby on them.  They went in the bounce house, hit the baseball, and went down the giant slide.  Those girls are already such great friends, especially Andrea and Hayley.  They are inseparable.