jack-o-lantern

A week or two ago I bought a pumpkin for the front step. She's been in love with it and pats it or gives it a hug when we go in or out.

Last weekend she got a Halloween book from my mom and she learned that a pumpkin with a face is called a jack-o-lantern. She's been excited about that all week.

So last night we decided to make our pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. Neither my husband nor I had carved a pumpkin in years and years, so not only was it a first for Rachel, but it was also a pretty new experience for us, since it had been so long.

We drew the face on first before we cut (but we really didn't end up following our lines very well!). Rachel wanted to draw on it too, so we gave her a crayon. You can see lots of scribbles on the side of the pumpkin if you look at it in the light.

She enjoyed scooping out the insides at first, but gave up after a minute or so, and I had to finish the job.

While Daddy cut the face, she enjoyed playing with the triangle pieces (excuse my husband's psychotic-like face, please....)

Afterwards I put the candle in and all she wanted to do was blow it out (She tried, but all she did was spit all over the inside of the pumpkin!).

She was so excited to see him this morning when she got up. She said, "It's ready, Mommy!" I said, "Ready for what?" And she answered, "It's ready to eat!" I told her we don't eat jack-o-lanterns. She said, "Yeah, it's just puh-ten (pretend)." That's her new favorite word.

She's also learned about costumes, and knows what she's going to be for halloween and that she's going to go "twick or tweet!" She doesn't know what that means yet, but I'm sure she'll love it once she does. And yesterday she had overalls on, and out of the blue she points to them and says, "I hab fah-muh (farmer) costume on, Mommy!"

cheeseburgers and babies

Sadly, Allecia and Kaden left this morning. But it was a great visit and I'm already looking forward to a few weeks from now when Rachel and I go visit them and the brand new little baby they'll have by then. Rachel just found out this morning that Miss Allecia has a baby in her tummy (I told her so that next time we see them and she has a baby, she will at least have been forewarned!). Later today after they left, she lifted up her shirt and told me there's a baby in her tummy, too. When I told her that only grown up ladies have babies in their tummies sometimes, she said, "I big girl. I go potty." I guess she thought that qualified her to have a baby in her tummy, too.

We had a great night last night. I had been planning for several weeks to surprise Allecia with a baby shower while she was here. It took lots of planning and a few little white lies while she was here, but we pulled it off and she was completely shocked. I was thrilled to have made her so happy and given her such a great time with friends she wasn't expecting to see while she was here. (Unfortunately in this picture I'm sitting closest to the camera because everyone's feet were in the way, and therefore I look 10 times bigger than everyone else in the picture! Ugh! It's the only picture we took!!)

After dinner last night (before the shower) Allecia and I were in the living room playing with Rachel and Kaden. Rachel and I had built a wall with her big building blocks, and there was a window in the wall which Rachel was pretending was a fast food window. She was buying pretend chicken nuggets and french fries, and we were taking turns being the one ordering. After several rounds of chicken and french fries I decided to ask her for a cheeseburger instead. When I did, she waited a minute, looked at me with a blank look on her face, said, "Okay," and proceeded to stick her finger up her nose and hold out a pretend 'booger' to me as my cheeseburger!! After I stopped laughing so hard I had tears coming out my eyes, I realized that she's never had a cheeseburger and really doesn't know what one is. She really thought I said booger, and she does know what those are! Oh.....my funny girl.

homecoming

Not the type of homecoming that usually comes at this time of year, where you go see people you graduated with and haven't seen in a million years....




But the sweet reunion with friends type, where they come "home" to visit after moving away.


Allecia and Kaden are here!!!


Rachel was so excited when they drove up that she threw herself down on the floor and squealed with delight (it's normal...for Rachel, anyway....That's what she does when she's overcome with excitement--she does it often when Grandma comes to visit, too!).


The visit started with the two of them playing duets together on the piano.



Last night they got to watch a show....a highlight for us all (them because its probably their favorite time of the day and us because they were quiet!!).
(I told Allecia that 30 years from now when they're married to each other and laying on the couch in this same position we can take another picture and compare the two....)

And this morning they serenaded us with more duets (this time in their PJs).

Last night Allecia and I went shopping like old times after we put the kids to bed and hung out at Starbucks (staining my new tooth with a Pumpkin Spice Latte....) talking and enjoying the time together.



Today we went to the local kids science museum and the kids enjoyed it even more than last time they were there--as they get older I'm sure they'll get more and more out of it.



It's been a fun visit so far and I'm looking forward to more of the same for the next couple of days.

a-hiking we will go...

Every year my husband likes to try and go find fall foilage to admire and photograph, and somehow fit a hike into the day as well. This past weekend we went up north, not far from where he used to live, and enjoyed the cool (frigid, actually!) fall morning and hiked. Rachel rode in the backpack for about half of the trip and actually hiked herself the rest of the way.

She absolutely loved it (much to her Daddy's delight!). She started climbing these rocks....



...and then showed us how proud she was of herself.




She didn't want to pose for this picture...she'd much rather be climbing!




Then we went to this waterfall.




You can see what she was really interested in here....





Here's a little better one.





We left the waterfall and she enjoyed walking on the wooden path by herself.




Then she started marching ("Mahch, two, fwee, fow....Mahch, two, fwee, fow...." is what she was saying!)






This is a view of the waterfall from the other side.






And here she is after lunch....a full tummy and just as happy as can be.

insomniac

*Updated at the end*

Notice the time stamp on this post? It's no mistake. It's 4 AM. I've been awake a lot lately at 4 AM. This problem first started when I was pregnant. Apparently my bladder never recovered from pregnancy, and I frequently wake up around 3:30 or so, much like I did then, and have to make a trip to the bathroom (yeah, sorry...probably more than you needed to know). And then I can't go back to sleep. For the rest of the night. Unless I've taken something at bedtime to help (my meds of choice? Tylenol PM, Advil PM, Benadryl....it doesn't matter much....they all help). The problem is that I don't want to take something every night, and I never know ahead of time which nights will be the rough ones. I went through a phase where I did take something every night. The sleep was nice. Worrying about my liver, or the lining of my stomach, and those sorts of effects, was not, so I stopped. So here I sit at 4:10. I can hear my husband snoring, even though I'm downstairs and he's upstairs in the room above me, happily sleeping (his snoring is one of the reasons why I can't go back to sleep). When I come downstairs I escape his snoring (almost....like I said, I can still hear it, faintly), but then I hear my daughter on the monitor. Every little whimper. And there seem to be plenty of them. At least when I'm in my own bed I can only hear her when she really needs me and is crying. I can't stand sleeping with the monitor next to me.


So anyway, this has become a regular part of my world lately. I hate it.


But I'm sure you didn't stop by here to read about my sleeping problems. So I'll give you what you came for:





Yesterday I was cleaning up Rachel's bookshelf a little bit, which meant there was a brief period where there was an empty shelf. She seized the opportunity and said, "I sit in there, Mommy," and crawled right on in. Then she said, "I go nigh night," and this was the result. My husband came home for lunch right about at that time, took a look at what she was doing, and shook his head. That's our girl.

The last few days she's been full of fun. She's just started laughing and laughing out of the blue several times, turned to me, and said, "I just so HAPPY, Mommy!"

Yesterday was the end of an era. Twenty years ago, on a Friday night in the fall of 1988, I was a freshman in high school, marching in my first postgame victory "Snake Dance" on the football field of CHS. Because it was my first time, I didn't know that when you spun around, playing follow the leader, you were supposed to put your instrument down, not continue playing until the spin was finished. I found that lesson out the hard way, as the extended bell of my trumpet hit the bell of Julie Vance's trumpet as I spun around. When they hit, my trumpet was forced back into my mouth, and something happened to my tooth. I didn't know what--I stopped playing and just marched, using my tongue to try and figure out what was going on in my mouth. By the time we arrived back to the band room and were dismissed, I was crying because I thought I had lost both of my front teeth. In actuality, I lost a small piece of one of my front teeth. I was so embarrassed that I kept my hand over my mouth and went straight home in tears with my parents, instead of out for pizza with my friends. My mom made an emergency call to our dentist and he called back, telling her to bring me in the next morning (Saturday morning--what a nice dentist!!) and he would fix it. And fix it, he did. You couldn't even tell there had been a problem. (The ironic thing? That very same day at school, during band class, my new friend, Carly, was commenting on how great my teeth were, telling me how straight they were, and asking if I had ever had braces (I didn't....I had some retainers for a couple of years, but never had to have braces).)

So anyway, that was 20 years ago. After 20 years of drinking the occasional Pepsi, coffee, and other staining foods, that piece of composite making up for the missing part of my tooth had darkened and didn't match the color of the rest of my tooth anymore. It's been very obvious for the last several months that something was wrong with my tooth. I have become increasingly embarassed about it, and self conscious about smiling. It was time to get it fixed.

So over the course of the last six weeks or so, I've been whitening my teeth (with Crest Whitestrips, which I HATED because they made me gag and want to throw up every time they were in my mouth) in preparation for having it redone. Of course, whitening my teeth meant they got whiter, which made that little spot look even darker (whitening strips don't whiten false teeth!). I've been even more self conscious.

And yesterday was the day. I was so nervous--nervous it would hurt (it had been a long, long time since I'd ever had to have anything done in my mouth besides just a cleaning), nervous it wouldn't look good, and just anxious about it in general. I shouldn't have been. It didn't hurt at all (just that weird feeling that comes from having your mouth numbed), and it looks great again! I can smile without feeling like everyone is staring at my front tooth (which I'm sure you probably weren't....but I wouldn't have believed you if you had told me that). I do have to go back, though, because there's a rough spot on the front that needs to be filed off, which is driving my tongue crazy, as it keeps going up to rub against it.

So.... 20 years....I wonder if that means I won't have to have this done again until I'm 54?? Unfortunately I drink a little more coffee now than I have over the past 20 years (I still don't drink a lot...maybe a few times a month...but I didn't start drinking it at all until about 10 years ago), and I'm sure that contributed to its demise, so it's likely to turn colors a little more quickly this time. Only time will tell, I guess.

Well, I've managed to pass almost an hour now telling you random stories. Maybe I'll try to fall asleep on the couch, in between Rachel's noises on the monitor. I haven't heard any for awhile.

Hopefully you won't hear from me in the middle of the night for awhile (whoops....I just heard her. I guess I spoke too soon!!).

*UPDATE*

Rachel's been waking up at 6:45 like clockwork for weeks now. When did she wake up today, the day I was exhausted and trying to sleep on the couch? 6:00. There was no sleeping. I've been up since 3:30 this morning.

I got my tooth fixed today--and had to take her with me. I tried to make an appointment after my husband came home, but she said, "You can bring the baby, it's okay." I said, "She's not a baby....She'll be running around!" She said, "Oh, it's okay. It won't be the first time." She told me it would only take about 5 minutes, so not to worry about it. But I did worry. I took several toys for her to play with and kept telling her she needed to be a good girl and sit still while the dentist fixed Mommy's tooth. She sat down in the corner and smiled at me as I sat in the big chair. She drew on her magnadoodle and played with her magnetic paper dolls. But then the dentist (who is a friend of ours from church, and whose son is even in her Sunday school class) came in, and she got nervous. A strange man is not her favorite thing (she doesn't know that that's Micah's daddy!). She stared at me with big eyes as he tilted the chair back and I was suddenly laying down. I looked over at her and smiled and said, "See, Mommy's okay! I'm just laying down now." Then he started the drill-like tool, which would sand down my tooth, or whatever they call it in dentistry. She started to cry and said, "Mommy????" (She hates loud noise...the sweeper still terrifies her, so this strange thing making noise going into her Mommy's mouth was very scary for her, apparently!) I looked over and said (with gauze stuffed in my upper lip....) "Ith okay, Rathel! Ith okay!" She whimpered and held her hands over her face the whole time, every so often saying, "Mommy?" and I would try to reassure her that it was fine and I'd be done in a minute. And then we were done. And she was relieved. She smiled as the chair sat me back up again--the sweetest tears in her eyes and runny nose I've ever seen. Poor thing....sympathetic and scared for her Mommy.

But she was so good and sat still in that corner the whole time, just like I had asked her. What a relief. She happily picked out a Mickey Mouse sticker as we left and played with it the whole ride home. When I asked her if she liked the dentist she said, "Yeah!"

Rachel-isms

Here are a few of her latest words and expressions....



*Whenever we're both doing something (eating breakfast....taking a walk....sitting on the couch) she'll say, "Rachel bwekfiss, Mommy bwekfiss. We ALL bwekfiss!.....Rachel wawking, Mommy wawking.....we ALL wawking!"



*Something we've heard a lot of in the last week (because she's had a cold) is, "I need Kweenex. Mommy, can I hab Kweenex pweeze?"



*She loves it when I call her "Silly Rachel." So sometimes she'll get me to say it by doing something dumb and saying, "Siyee Rachel, Mommy. Dat's Siyee," wanting me to repeat her and tell her she's silly.



*One of her favorite new books is Angelina Ballerina, who she calls "Anjayeena Bananeena."

*One of her favorite songs is still "Ochidama Hab a Fahm." Now the animals that live on the farm are usually actual farm animals....not monkeys and elephants like she used to include.

*The girl watches too much Dora, because when I fasten her into her car seat she says, "Seat bewts....so we can be safe!"

*Speaking of her car seat, she now wants to get in it "Aw by MYsewf." (My is always emphasized.) We have to put her in the truck but she can climb up into her seat by herself now, and it makes her feel like a big girl.

*She also enjoys sitting in the "big guwl chay-ah" (big girl chair) to eat a snack or a meal instead of her booster seat/high chair.

She constantly tells me that she's a big girl....but every so often she calls herself "Baby Rachel," so I think she's not quite sure she's ready to be a big girl. I tell her she'll always be my baby....

two and a half

Two and a half years ago today someone arrived in my life and forever changed my world.

It's hard to believe that a little girl who looked like this only yesterday,

now looks like this!

And is starting to use the potty!

And is asking for things using manners (sometimes without even being reminded)!

And knows almost all of the letters and their sounds!

And can sing a whole song.

And can carry on a conversation which we can understand!

And has and expresses her own opinions about things (this is only the beginning of that....).

It's all going so fast. Too fast. Slow down, sweet girl! I want to keep you like this.

hide and seek

A couple of weeks ago I watched one of my friend's little girls, Jillian. She's four, and taught Rachel how to play hide and seek. Except Rachel didn't really understand it and kept talking so Jillian didn't have any trouble finding her, and consequently gave up and didn't want to play anymore.

Rachel, however, had a ball, and asks every couple of days for Mommy to go hide so she can come find me. I can't make it too hard because she gets really scared when she can't find me after a minute or two! Once I hid in the bathroom, behind the door, but with the door still part way open. I thought it was a pretty obvious spot, but she came in the bathroom, didn't see me, and left. So she didn't try the bathroom again, and then almost was in tears because she couldn't find me. So now I make it a little more obvious. It's easy to be obvious because you never know what she's going to count to--sometimes it's 10, but sometimes it's two, so I really don't have much time to hide!!

I try to get her to take a turn hiding, too. Except she usually doesn't leave my sight--she'll go to the couch next to me and cover her eyes, so she thinks I can't see her!! Or sometimes she'll venture out to sit on the stairs...five turns in a row so I'll know exactly where she is. She doesn't understand the concept of finding a new hiding place yet.

But it's a fun indoor pasttime which gets us both laughing, even if she has a lot to learn about the fine art of playing the game.

fall or winter?

Yesterday was definitely fall. Leaves are on the ground, it was cool, overcast, and it just felt fall-like all day. I was also getting a cold. You know fall's here if I have a cold. Today it's here full in full force.

But that's not what I wanted to write about.... I saw sidewalk chalk on clearance and wanted to replace Rachel's, since it's almost gone, so I got some yesterday while I was at the grocery. She was with me, so she knew all about it and couldn't wait to use it. As soon as we got home she asked to use it.

So here she is doing one of her favorite things, coloring--usually not a fall activity, but I'm sure she'll be trying to do it in the winter, too!

It took several shots to finally get her to stop and smile for the camera, but here's the result.

So this morning Fed Ex delivered this hat and mitten set I had ordered on clearance from LL Bean. She saw me open it and immediately wanted to wear it to "pway in snow!" I kept telling her that there wasn't any snow, but she wouldn't let it go, and really thought there was. All morning she kept talking about wearing her "gwubs" (gloves) to go play in the snow and make a snowman. I finally let her put them on, but instead of playing in the snow she decided to play the piano.