at Grandma's house

We've spent a few days with Grandma and Grandpa and are going home later today. Here are some pictures from our visit.

Sunday morning we went out to the lake. There's a new wildlife refuge visitor's center out there. Rachel had fun playing with these furs, which they had in the children's area.

Daddy left Sunday afternoon to go home so he could work this week, and Rachel and I stayed here for several days.

Sunday night we went to an outdoor concert, where the theme was Disney. They played lots of songs that Rachel knows from the various princess movies she adores. She had a ball conducting, marching, singing, and running back and forth. We sat in the back so she could move around to her heart's content.

Waiting with Grandma for the concert to start

The concerts are held at the zoo (after hours). We didn't tell her it was the zoo, because she'd be disappointed that she didn't get to see the animals, but she did enjoy this butterfly display. She needs to grow into her wings a bit.....

Here are wings that are a better fit....

She was playing her "trumpet" with the band

She liked standing up on the bleachers, but I held onto her shirt while she did because they were pretty narrow seats and I didn't want her to fall off. She thought it was funny to have me hanging onto her and kept turning around and laughing.

Watching the band while Grandpa sang

success

This morning I was at a garage sale with Rachel. While I was digging through a bin of toddler clothes Rachel came up and told me, "Mommy, I hafta go potty." She hardly ever tells me that (once in a great while when we're in a store somewhere, but that's it). Usually it's me telling her to try to go OR her making a mad dash to the potty, barely reaching it in time. So I told the lady whose house it was that I'd be back because my daughter needed to go potty. (She offered to let Rachel go in her house, but I didn't feel right doing that--especially when she told me that the bathroom was all the way upstairs.) Though I felt like I had a ticking time bomb in her car seat, I strapped her in and we drove to McDonald's up the road a bit, went into the bathroom, and she went. I couldn't believe she held it that long! I was so proud of her and told her over and over what a big girl she was. Now let's hope this is a trend that continues.

fuzzy

Tonight Daddy came in to kiss Rachel goodnight as I was putting her to bed. He had taken off his sweaty shirt from the gym because he was going to go take a shower. Rachel saw his bare chest, which she doesn't see very often, and said, "Can I itch you, Daddy? You're fuzzy!" She touched the hair on his chest and laughed, declaring, "That tickles, Daddy. You're tickly."

no news

For the last few days I find myself thinking, "I really need to update my blog," but every time I think about what to write about, I come up with a blank. We've been busy, but not with anything that's super funny or anything I know people would enjoy reading about. So here's a bunch of unexciting non-news for you, just because I know you're checking my blog hoping for something new to read.

*For the last four weeks I've been teaching a scrapbook class at a day camp. I did this last summer too, but I've decided not to do it next summer, if they ask me again. The first two weeks were pretty fun--it was nice to get out of the house, get paid for doing something I enjoy, and work with about seven little girls (they were first through third graders) who were excited about learning how to scrapbook. But the second two weeks it wasn't so fun. The first group of girls were gone and were replaced with older girls (three of whom were in the class last year and thought they knew everything about scrapbooking, so didn't want to listen to what I had to tell them). It still was nice to get out of the house and get paid, but I didn't really enjoy the teaching part of it. The class ended last week, and I'm glad it's done.

*Rachel spent most of those mornings with our babysitter, an almost high school senior from our church named Britney. We live about 20-30 minutes away from our church, and from most of the potential high school babysitters we know, so I was thrilled when I found out that Britney (whose mom I'm friends with because we went to Honduras together several years ago) lives not even five minutes away from us. Rachel loves her and did great. She was so excited each time I told her Mommy had class today, because she knew she'd get to play with Britney. She was excited to see what clothes Britney had on that day, and always told me which way to drive to get to Britney's house every time we'd go pick her up. (The girl is amazing with directions!)

*One day Rachel had to come to class with me because the people who run the camp messed up and changed the day for scrapbooking without telling me, so I wasn't able to have a babysitter scheduled that day. The counselors at the camp agreed to watch her for me, but after about a half hour I saw them--without Rachel! I was really worried and asked where she was. Evidently she had seen a group of kids outside and asked if she could go outside, so they sent her out with that group (made me a bit angry that they hadn't asked me if that was okay, but it all worked out in the end, so I guess it's not a huge deal). Rachel had the time of her life and when she came back in and found out she wasn't going to get to go eat lunch with the kids she had been playing with, she cried. She didn't want to go home.

*We're still potty training. She went about a week and a half without an accident a couple of weeks ago, but that's as long as she's gone. The biggest problem is that she's lazy and doesn't want to stop what she's doing to go, so she has accidents. We usually have to insist that she goes. I've started keeping a change of underwear and pants in the car (it's a good thing--she had two accidents while we were out over the weekend). I hope by the time school starts in a month (a month?!?!) she's a little further along. Hopefully an occasional accident won't get her kicked out of school (or ridiculed forever). (Don't get me started talking about school. It makes me sad when I think about it. I know she'll love it and it'll be good for her....and me....but I'm just not ready to send my baby away into the world!)

So there you have it....told you it was unexciting, non-news! But that's what's been going on with us lately. I'll keep my eye out for more exciting material this week!

when I'm bigger

One of Rachel's favorite phrases, when we tell her that she can't do something is, "When I'm bigger?" But she uses it in other conversations, too, lately, in talking about marriage.

Yesterday afternoon she was laying on the couch, still waking up from her nap, with her feet in my lap. "When I bigger I can marry you, Mommy," she told me.

Last night at dinner (we went to Bob Evans and she was eating her usual kids meal of five little pancakes--and ate them all!!) she started talking about getting married again when she's bigger. Daddy asked, "Who are you going to marry?"

"Mommy and Daddy!" she immediately replied.

After her bath last night she was wrapped up in her hooded giraffe towel. She started twirling around telling me she was wearing her wedding dress. I said, "You don't need a wedding dress, you're too little!"

"When I'm bigger?"

"Yes, when you're bigger and you get married, you can have a wedding dress."

"Then I can marry you, Mommy!"

I really don't like all of this talk of getting bigger and getting married. Time is already flying by way too fast. But at least she's going to be married to us, so she won't go too far away! :)

goin' to town

Tonight at dinner Rachel said she needed to go potty, which she did, quite independently, I might add (hooray!). When she was finished I told her she needed to come back to the table to eat her dinner. She told us, in no uncertain terms, that she, um, needed to do something else in the potty.

"Great!" I told her. "Go ahead!"

"Okay," Daddy said, simultaneously. "Go to town!"

Rachel replied, frustrated, and in all seriousness, "No, Daddy, I don't want to go to town! I want to stay home!"

(If it hadn't been so darn funny, she would've gotten in trouble for talking to her Daddy that way....but we were too busy laughing! I was crying, I was laughing so hard!)

fancy

Why does it not surprise me that this is Rachel's new favorite book?


We read it multiple times a day.

parade

In honor of July 4th yesterday we took Rachel to the parade downtown (downtown is relative....we live in a suburb, so the downtown is very small). It was her first parade. We told her there would be bands, so instead of calling it a parade she kept saying, "When we going to the band?"

So we finally went to "the band." But before it started we walked around the area called "Creekside." There are fountains and paths along the a creek. Her favorite thing to do is throw pennies in the fountain. Her Daddy told her she's supposed to make a wish so her wish is, "I wish I could fwoh dis coin in da water!"

After "fwohing" her coins in, we posed for a picture.

Then we got set up for the parade. We waited for about 15 or 20 minutes for it to get down to where we were.

The band came first.

She was so excited, but when they were close, she started doing this.

She doesn't like loud noises.

They were the only band, so I guess that was good. The rest of the parade was lots of fire trucks, including these old ones,

lots of politicians, business people, child beauty pageant queens (who Rachel called Princesses because they were wearing tiaras!), and sports teams. They threw candy, but Rachel was never fast enough to go get some. There were two kids next to us who kept getting it all. Their mom kept making them give it to Rachel, though, so she had plenty. She ate Nerds for the rest of the parade (one at a time, so the box lasted a VERY long time--until well after the parade was over!).

It was a fun morning. We were going to take her to the fireworks last night for her first time, but it was raining off and on all evening and we didn't know for sure that they'd do them. We didn't want to keep her up way past her bedtime if we didn't know for sure that they were going to do them. There will be other years for fireworks.....