to the fair

The state fair is going on right now, and we decided to take Rachel for the first time this past weekend. She had a great time.

Before we left she was asking about all the things we were going to see there. We told her there would be animals. "Will there be monkeys?" she asked. We told her they were farm animals, not zoo animals. So she asked, "Will there be silos? And a windmill?" No, we didn't see either of those.

But we did see pig races, lots of sheep, and even more cows. Some real, and some made out of butter:

We saw the state fair band (which I was in when I was in high school--it brought back fun memories). Here she is listening to the band, which she really liked.

She loved watching the rides and wanted to ride everything we saw. We didn't ride anything, but told her when she's older we'd go to another place and she could ride rides (meaning an amusement park). She seemed content with that answer.

She was so excited to see this character, whoever he/she is. She gave it hugs over and over and over! Now I'm really sad we're not taking her to Disney World next month--she would've LOVED seeing all of the Disney characters!

There was an environmentally "green" bus on display, which she was excited to get on.

She told us her favorite part was feeding the animals. They had a petting zoo. She liked how it tickled when they ate the food right off her hand.

Just before we left we found the Habitat for Humanity display, which had this building area for kids. She loved building with the oversized lego blocks.

It was a fun morning.

catching up

I downloaded pictures off the camera this afternoon and found some I had forgotten about, so this is going to be a random post of random pictures from the last couple of months.

For Mother's Day my husband and Rachel bought me tomato and basil plants. A couple of week ago my first tomato was finally ready to pick. It was just a cherry tomato, but doesn't it look delicious? It was! (and incidentally, just today my husband picked my first full sized tomato-I can't wait to use it!)

A few weeks ago my husband stained Rachel's swingset. We bought it used, and knew from the start that it needed staining. He finally tackled the project one weekend, and it looks almost brand new now!

A couple of weeks ago Rachel wanted to 'make someping, Mommy," so we made banana mini muffins. The camera was handy, so I snapped a couple of pictures.

And way back in June we celebrated my older brother's 40th birthday. No 40th birthday party is complete without bubble blowing....

...and light saber fighting....

(notice Rachel's light saber in this last one is a plastic baseball bat....)

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.....

eight years

Eight years ago today was my wedding day!

I wrote a lot about that day here last year, so I won't expound upon it much today.

But look what my great husband brought home for me at lunchtime!!!

It's THREE DOZEN!!! Three Dozen??? I don't think I've ever even gotten two dozen before! They're beautiful. And they won't even all fit in one vase, so that's why I put them in two. He wants them in one, though, so I need to go buy one.

Happy Anniversary, B. I love you!!

Rachel says--edited

EDITED--If you read this already, read the end....I added some.

Sorry I haven't posted a lot lately, but there hasn't been much fodder for a blog going on around here these days...potty training continues (she went a week without an accident until Saturday night; I thought we had turned a corner, but apparently not yet--yesterday was better, though, so maybe....), discipline abounds (whoever coined the phrase 'terrible twos' clearly hadn't had a three year old yet--it's much, much harder if you ask me!), and we're just ensconced in the day to day routine of life, which has been rather frustrating lately.

But she does say some funny things, so I thought I'd record some of them here.

*She was swimming in her kiddie pool in the yard last week. She came over to the edge, put her arms across the side, and quietly said to me with batting eye lashes, "Join me for a swim?"

*Her new phrase is, "Sure is _____," such as, "Sure is hot in here," or "Sure is dark in here," except it's pronounced, "Soor!"

*Whenever we pick her up from Sunday School she runs over and jumps up and down yelling, "Mommy! Daddy! You're HERE!!!" like we're her long lost parents she hasn't seen in weeks. Then the teachers proceed to tell us stories about her antics. Yesterday the teacher said she had taken Rachel to the potty and Rachel looked up at her and said, "You have such beautiful hair!" And when I reached down to pick her up Rachel reached for my necklace and said, "Mommy, I like your necklace. You look simply lovely!" (Another mom then said, "Did she just tell you you looked simply lovely?" I told her yes, that she watches way too many princess movies!) Everyone in the children's wing seems to know Rachel....we were on our way out and a middle schooler told her goodbye. She's obviously quite a character in there.

*She just talks nonstop. I wish I had a recording of her ongoing chatter because right now I can't even remember what she chatters on about all the time. Yesterday in the car I don't think she stopped talking from the time we left home to the time we pulled in the church parking lot, which is about a 20 minute drive. My husband and I just kept looking at each rolling our eyes--what a chatterbox!!

*After a long hiatus from playing in her kitchen with her play food, she's now back in the kitchen again, whipping up some treats for us. She asks us what we want, and after we give our order she says, "Soor, no pwobwem, coming wite up!"

*She finished her lunch (which is noteworthy in and of itself....she FINISHED her lunch, meaning she ate it ALL! That never ever happens--almost every meal is a battle) and said, "Mommy, I'm still hungry (again, hardly ever happens). I asked her what she would like to eat. She said, matter of factly, "Chicken a la King!" Now I have never made Chicken a la King, she's never had Chicken a la King, and we've never, to my knowledge, talked about Chicken a la King, so this was quite shocking to hear (I don't even know what Chicken a la King really is....do you?). Her dad and I started laughing hysterically and finally asked, "Where did you hear about Chicken a la King?" She answered, "In my princess book!" Oh yes. It always comes back to the princesses. She settled for a Nutri Grain bar instead.

the music truck

When my nephew, Ethan, was little the music truck would drive through their neighborhood. It wasn't until Ethan was much older that he finally learned that the music truck sold ice cream and was generally known as the ice cream truck, not the music truck.

So Rachel has also grown quite fond of the music truck that drives through our neighborhood almost every afternoon (she has yet to learn that she could actually stop the music truck and buy some ice cream, and we plan to keep it that way for as long as possible). She gets so excited just hearing the music, and stops whatever she is doing to watch it drive by.

A couple of days ago a different music truck drove by. We knew it was different because the songs it was playing were different than the couple of songs we usually hear. It played Old MacDonald, London Bridge, and a couple of other well known children's songs. And then, out of nowhere, it played "O Come All Ye Faithful!" What????

(and then it played the theme from "Love Story," also a very uncharacteristic song for a music truck to play, but O Come All Ye Faithful definitely takes the cake as the weirdest music truck song ever!)

up and away

For Father's Day today we decided to take Rachel to see her first movie--we went to see the Disney movie, "Up." We haven't gone to a movie in the past because she's pretty scared of loud noises, and doesn't like it when the TV or music is turned up very loud, so we figured it would scare her. We warned her ahead of time that it would probably be loud and that Mommy or Daddy wouldn't be able to turn it down. We also told her it would get dark when the movie started so she would get scared about that either.

We hadn't anticipated several things, though.....

*she's too light to keep the flip up seats in the down position!! When she'd scoot back in the seat it would flip up and her knees would practically be in her face! She thought it was great fun to rock back and forth to make the seat move up and down.

*the previews add extra time before the movie actually starts, so by the time the movie started, she had already been sitting for at least 30 minutes and was starting to get a bit antsy.

*she always stands at the coffee table and plays with a toy or a puzzle when she watches a video at home. Why didn't we think that she would want to stand instead of sit to watch a movie in a theater? She kept getting down off her seat and holding onto the seat in front of her, bothering the woman sitting down below.

*at home she can talk and ask questions....so why not in a theater! She would talk in a regular voice, often during the quietest parts of the movie. We kept telling her she'd have to whisper, so she would, but then forget again the next time she had something to say.

*at home when she's scared we can skip that scene and go onto the next. Since we couldn't do that in the theater she screamed twice during the "scary" parts and yelled, "I don't LIKE this part!"

I was ready to bury my head in the sand. It was a good movie, but sadly, I'm sure we probably ruined it for the people sitting around us. So much for their happy father's day. Rachel, on the other hand, loved the whole experience. All during the movie, as she ate her popcorn, she'd sigh and say, "This is GREAT!" But it will be quite some time before either of us wants to try and take her to see another one!

camping

My husband enjoys camping. Read this post for more back story about this.

But despite his trying over and over to get me to go, I still hadn't agreed. I just didn't see it working very well with Rachel.....trying to get the complicated tent set up while trying to supervise her in the wilderness, trying to get her to sleep when it's light outside (her bedtime is strictly enforced....8:00!), having a campfire (open flames!?) with Rachel running around it, trying to cook in an unfamiliar place without a kitchen while trying to supervise Rachel....just lots of unknowns and difficult variables I didn't want to deal with.

But he kept insisting, and I knew it was important to him. So we made a compromise. We'd start out by trying it in our backyard. That way if things went awry, we could come inside.

So last Friday night was the night.

We bought Rachel a new sleeping bag (she had her choice of Tinkerbell or Princesses....you can guess which she chose!). We bought supplies for s'mores. We put up the tent (with Rachel safely within the confines of our fenced in backyard, not running wild in the wilderness--she actually did really well, wanting to help us so badly!), blew up air mattresses, and resigned ourselves to the fact that she'd be up past 8:00 and we'd be going to bed earlier than normal.

S'mores were a huge hit.

So was the sleeping bag,

except that once she was in it, she didn't like the feeling of being "stuck" in it, so she really didn't sleep in it.

She and Daddy had fun with the headlamps:

Her air mattress was on one side of the tent and ours was on the other. She wanted to be right up next to us. I moved her a little closer, but needed some space. We all got in bed at 9:00. 9:00!!!! I figured it would take her awhile to fall asleep, and then I'd get up and read awhile (I brought a book and book light out with me). My husband fell fast asleep, as he always does within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. I pretended to be asleep while listening to my daughter sing and toss and turn. At 10:00 she needed to go potty (no, she hadn't been asleep yet), so we went inside. Around 10:30 she finally stopped making noise.

At midnight I was still tossing and turning, listening to dogs barking, sirens blaring, people talking, cars driving by.....you name it, I heard it. My husband woke up around that time and asked if I had been asleep yet. "No," I sighed. So he told me I should just go in and sleep, which I gladly did, after taking ten minutes to open and close the zipper on the door as slowly and quietly as I could so I wouldn't wake Rachel up!

Soon after getting inside I heard Rachel have one of her night terror episodes out in the tent. My husband has never dealt with those before and didn't know how to handle it because she's completely out of it. I laid in bed contemplating going back out to help, but there's really nothing either of us can do in those situations except let her settle herself down again, so I didn't. She stopped after a few minutes.

At 6:30 the next morning I heard her little feet running on the deck outside, making her way into the house. It was a successful camping trip....for two of us, anyway! I felt horrible about not making it through the night, but my husband was just glad that I gave it a try. I'm not against trying again (the air mattress made it not that bad, comfort-wise)....but only close to home....and maybe with some ear plugs. And two tylenol PMs instead of just one. But I'm certainly not ready to venture out into the wilderness.

phrase of the week

Just a quick post....

This weekend Rachel's been outside without shoes a couple of times. She finds this terribly funny, because you're always supposed to wear shoes outside, of course. Daddy and I made comments about her being barefoot, to which Rachel responded each time, in all seriousness,

"Yeah, I have a bear foot."

all grown up

My camera broke while we were on vacation. Somehow I managed to crack the screen. It still works, meaning I can take pictures, but the screen doesn't show anything, so I have no idea what I'm getting in the picture. Case in point:

I was trying to take pictures of this, Rachel's new hair do today. I decided to try a single ponytail, since it's long enough now to reach all the way to the back. I think it makes her look so much older.

She's laying in our bed watching a show (while I was drying my hair), which is why she's looking so intently at something besides the camera.

the beach

On Sunday we took an impromptu trip to the beach....of sorts. It's just a reservoir with a small beach, but it's a beach, nonetheless, and Rachel loved it. We didn't have plans to swim--the water was really cold--we just thought she'd enjoy playing in the sand (which she did). But she also plopped herself down right at the edge of the water, so she rode home with a towel in her car seat. But she had a great time.

I couldn't find her beach hat (we were leaving in a hurry) so I had to use this much-too-big-for-her hat that I ran across. I thought it looked hilarious, but she kept it on and it did its job!

a new plan

So for the last month I've been planning this trip to Disney World. But now plans have changed. Instead of going to Disney World, guess who is starting school in August!?

We've decided to send Rachel to preschool.

Back in February/March (when you're supposed to enroll your child in preschool for the following fall) we decided not to send her next year for a variety of reasons. But last week I was watching my friend's two little girls for a few days and it became painfully obvious that Rachel doesn't know very much about playing with other kids. She tried, but was terribly disappointed when they didn't want to play what she wanted to play or do things her way (she's obviously an only child!), and it brought back a lot of bad memories of my own childhood and feelings of rejection, watching her be so disappointed. She kept coming over to me in tears saying, "Mommy, I want to play!" because she didn't know how to enter in to what they were doing.

So anyway, we revisited the preschool discussion and decided it would be a good idea for her. So instead of doing Disney, we enrolled her in school today. She's going to the small Christian school where I used to teach, which I LOVE. They didn't have an opening when I first called, so we were on the waiting list, but the next day they called and had a spot! I'm thrilled. Today when we went she got to see the classrooms and play a little bit, and loved every second. I'm fairly sure she'll be so excited for Tuesdays and Thursdays, come fall!

puzzles

I don't think I've mentioned one of Rachel's favorite past times lately. She's a puzzle fanatic. Our fireplace is covered in piles of them and we're desperately in need of some puzzle racks!

There are no puzzles too hard for this girl. Well, that's not actually true. I bought two 60-piece puzzles at a garage sale a few weeks ago that require a little more help from Mommy or Daddy, but this 48 piece puzzle is a snap for her all by herself.

Sometimes she'll spend an hour going from one puzzle to another (and often the same one over and over and over). And she does them all herself (except for the aforementioned 60-piece Arthur puzzles).

She's such a fan that the only souvenirs we brought her from our trip were five different puzzles--this one and a boxed set of four little ones. (And a Grand Canyon t-shirt, but she doesn't really care very much about that).

She still has trouble with this 48 piece one. But just give her time. A few tries and she has them down pat.

When we went to the Day Out with Thomas, Grandma bought her this one.

We thought it would be too hard for her. We were wrong. She zips through it.

And her all-time favorite is a 24 piece Disney Princess puzzle (of course!). It's a breeze for her, but she does it over and over again. I couldn't find an exact picture, but it's almost just like this,except hers also has Snow White and Ariel on it in addition to these princesses.

I've decided that libraries need to have puzzles to lend--they're too expensive to buy a million of them (especially the wooden Melissa and Doug ones she particularly enjoys!), but most kids would love to have different ones to do now and then, wouldn't you think? But since libraries haven't caught on to my idea, I now scour garage sales for them (hence, the huge mess around the fireplace!). Anyone with a puzzle fan nearby want to have a puzzle swap??