things Rachel says...

::The other day she asked me, "Mommy, will you get my shoes, please?"  I told her that she could get them and she replied, "But if I say please you have to do it!"

::She asked me, "Mommy, where's heaven?"  I told her I didn't know and that we wouldn't know until we died.  That answer didn't satisfy her, so she asked, "What kind of country is it?"

::Along the same lines, she asked me, "Mommy, what's inside God?"  I told her I didn't know (why does she always ask me these hard questions I don't know the answers to?) and that she'd have to ask God when she sees Him in heaven.  "But I don't want to die," she told me.  I said, "I mean when you're old.  Everyone gets old and eventually they have to die."  She said, "But I don't want to get old.  I want to stay your little girl forever.  But I just keep growing!"

::My husband was leaving to go to a meeting.  He gave me a kiss goodbye.  Rachel saw this exchange and said, "Mommy, you're falling in love!"

::She was playing with her stuffed animals and told one of them, "Your prince is going to come and sweep you off your feet!"

::This one requires some backstory....  When I was pregnant, Daddy and Rachel went on lots of outings to give me a break.  One thing they did quite a bit was walk at the park and then play on the playground.  During their walks Rachel would ask Daddy to read her the little plaques along the way.  Many of them describe the type of tree nearby, and one of them was "Shagbark Hickory."  Rachel came home several times and told me, "Mommy, we saw Bagshark Hickory trees!"  We kept correcting her and she finally got it right.

So a couple of weeks ago we were at our church's fall picnic.  We took a hayride into the woods and Rachel calls out for all to hear, "Look!  That's a Shagbark Hickory tree!"  And she was right--it was!  She then proceeded to tell our wagon everytime we passed a Shagbark Hickory tree.  I'm sure they were thrilled with the nature lesson.  What other 4 year old knows what Shagbark Hickory looks like?