Let's not forget the birthday girl...

The day that we got the phone call for Reed from our caseworker was also Rachel's birthday. We don't want to neglect the special day it was for Rachel, even though the news about a new baby was so exciting. So here's what was going on earlier that day!

This was actually the Sunday before her birthday. We just had a little family party for Rachel with cake, ice cream, and a few gifts. It was fun watching Rachel try to blow out the candle.

Mmm, cake!

She's getting pretty good at opening presents now, too. Christmas will be really fun this year!

She got this really cute doll from Grandma and Grandpa and was hugging and kissing it. :)

Much of the ice cream ended up in her lap. All part of the fun!

On Rachel's actual birthday, Mike was at work, so Rachel and I decided to go down to the natural science museum at BYU. Also great was that it's free! And since I wasn't paying anything anyway, we stayed only as long as Rachel wanted and I let her run around wherever she wanted to.

One of her favorite parts was just going up and down the stairs. We spent about 20 minutes just going up and down. Talk about birthday fun! (And a workout for Mom).



Our city has their annual summer festival and the carnival was going on - what perfect timing! So when Mike got home from work, we walked downtown to check it out.

Riding the boat. She liked to ring the bell.

She had only a marginal amount of fun on the rocket, however.

Rachel's face always goes beet red when it's hot outside, and then goes back to normal when she cools off. And she was enjoying sticking and unsticking the lollipop to her lip.

You know these slides, where you go down on the burlap sack? Well, Rachel loves slides, so we took her down this (on one of our laps, of course). We weren't sure if she'd like it or be terrified.

This is a big grin. She LOVED it. We had four tickets left when we got to this ride, and she kept saying "Again!" every time we got to the bottom, so she rode this monster 4 times! What an adventurous girl!


One of Rachel's presents was a set of bathtub crayons. She loved them.

After her bath I got her dressed for bed, and just as I was about to put her down to bed is when my phone rang and our world turned upside down. I'm glad Rachel got to have her special day before all that though. She is such a special, beautiful, wonderful girl and we love her so so much. Oh, and today was her 2 year checkup - her height and head are in the normal ranges, but she only weighs 21 lbs 10 oz. She's not even on the growth chart anymore. (Just barely). But her Dr. isn't worried - she's just a skinny little girl. :)

Happy Birthday Rachel!