zoo trip and more

It was a beautiful day for the zoo yesterday (judging from the huge crowd, I'll say everyone else was sick of being cooped up for the last month, too!).  Rachel's been asking and asking to go, and I wanted to make sure we got there before school starts. 

Rebecca made lots of animal noises as we saw the different animals.  She makes a barking noise for pretty much every animal she sees, until I tell her the correct sound. 

She was scared of these goats at first, but it didn't take long for her to muster up enough courage to go touch it. 

Then she plopped down behind this sleeping goat and petted him to death (until some other kid came over and purposely SHOOK the poor goat awake!)

Yesterday afternoon we played outside  (making up for lost time, I guess, and all of the time we've had to spend inside over the last month of soaring temps).

Enjoy the pictures!

swinging and sisterly love

Rebecca adores Rachel.  Sometimes the feeling is mutual, but sometimes it's not.  Overall, though, Rachel enjoys playing with Rebecca (in small doses). 

Other times, she feels more like this.

(Actually, they both were enjoying this, but Rachel didn't want me to take a picture, and Rebecca smiled AFTER I took the pictures.)

And here's a happy Rebecca--finally able to play outside after weeks of it being too hot and humid to do much of anything outside.  She LOVES swinging (keeps asking for more whenever I try to take her out of the swing) and just doing about anything outside.

This is just a crazy Rachel.  She loves this swing and lays in it forever, asking me to push her.

cleaning house

How anyone with a one year old has a clean house, I'll never know.

This morning we had an appraiser coming (we're refinancing) and needed the house clean.  We spent several agonizing hours yesterday afternoon, evening, and this morning cleaning it (it hasn't been this clean in a long, long time!), and every time we'd do something, Rebecca would come along and destroy what we had just done.  She cried whenever the vacuum was on (Rachel is STILL is afraid of the vacuum and hides in her room whenever it's on), and spent a lot of time hanging on my legs while I tried to get something accomplished, wanting me to pick her up.

So not only is the actual cleaning process VERY hard, but KEEPING it that way is probably even harder.  This morning it was almost completely clean, but I had to follow Rebecca, aka "the human tornado," and put away everything she moved out of its place.  I couldn't wait until she was down for her nap so I wouldn't have to worry about her path of destruction.  And as soon as she got up from her nap we all left the house (I needed to get milk and bread anyway) so she couldn't destroy it!  We got home and the appraiser was already here, doing what he needed to do outside the house.  I let him in the house and then we went in the backyard to play, again, so she wouldn't destroy the clean house. 

So he's been gone for about a half hour, and already the house is no longer clean!  (Cleaner than usual, yes, but already on its way to Rebecca-induced destruction!) 

Sometimes I wonder why I bother trying to keep it clean!

thank you

Thank you to everyone who left a comment or sent me an email over the last couple of days, assuring me that you enjoy reading whatever I post on my blog.  It's nice to know you're still interested in what goes on with us, and appreciate my efforts.

I wasn't planning on stopping or anything, but it's just nice to know someone wants to read what I have to say (or at least see pictures of my cute girls!).

so proud....

Rachel won first place in her age group in the coloring/drawing contest that our favorite ice cream store held in July!  (it's the place that starts with a G for those of you who know the area....)

We're so proud of her, but not half as proud as she is of herself for winning the blue ribbon!  She loves it!  (I, on the other hand, love the gift card she won!  YUM!)

In case you can't tell in the picture, she had to draw herself into the circus-themed picture, and then color it, so she drew herself doing a handstand on the pedestal, with ice cream cones balancing on her feet!  She LOVES to draw and color, and really wanted to win (I don't know how many times she talked about it that first week after we turned it in, but then we both forgot about it, and we just got a phone call today telling us that she had won!).  She started over about three different times to get it just right, and was so excited to finally hand it in when she had finished it.  I'm so glad for her that she won.

noteworthy?

Not much new going on around here, which is why I haven't posted anything.  Sometimes I wonder if anyone really wants to read the stuff I put on here....  Mostly it's for the few family members who read it, and for myself and my girls in 20 years and we want to reminisce.  If there are any other readers out there these days, thanks for sticking with us!  I know our lives aren't all that exciting!

Here's what's going on....don't know if it's particularly noteworthy, but here you go.

Rachel got a haircut.  She wanted it short, so short it is.  She keeps looking in the mirror saying, "I look so different!"

Rebecca makes animal noises.  She's now got her own versions down of a dog, cat, cow, lion, and sometimes a rooster.  They're quite comical.  She's working on learning body parts.  She can point to my nose, but not her own.  She can point to her ears, hair, and sometimes her feet.  She's learning.

Rachel starts kindergarten in three weeks.  THREE WEEKS!  I feel like it's the beginning of an era.  An era I'm not ready for.  And one that I know will go by way too fast (the past five years have gone by in a flash).  We've been doing lots of school shopping.  She picked out her first outfit completely on her own the other day.  Usually the things she likes aren't things I would pick, so I don't buy them (I know that will have to soon change, but for now she wears what I buy her without much comment--unless it's tan!), but this time I liked what she chose, so we bought it.  And she was so proud.  She told the cashier that she picked it out all by herself for kindergarten.

dreams for the future

So yesterday as the girls were playing outside (yay for low humidity so we could actually enjoy being outside for awhile!) I was thinking about what they may be "when they grow up."

Will Rebecca be a soccer star on the World Cup team?

Or maybe a coach or teacher?

Or maybe she'll be an opera singer.

No, I think it'll be a cheerleader.

Rachel is pretty sure of her career path.  She told me as I took this picture that she is a surfer.

No, actually, Rachel changes her mind all the time.  Sometimes she wants to be a vet (even though she's scared of most pets), sometimes a teacher, sometimes a mom, sometimes an astronaut.  And she talks a LOT about getting married.  She said the other day that maybe in kindergarten she would meet the person she is going to marry.  Then she said she's going to marry Blake, our neighbor.  I told her she'd better not tell Blake that, or he probably wouldn't want to play with her.  When she asked why, I said that boys don't like to think about getting married until they get a lot older, so she shouldn't tell a boy that she wants to marry him.  I'm a little bothered that at five years old she thinks so much about these things!

an outing

Today we checked out a new children's museum in our area.  I recently found out that with our membership to our children's museum, we could get into this other one (about a half hour away) for free, so we tried it out.

It was small, but for free, it was definitely worth it!  :)   We'll definitely go back sometime--it would be great for a rainy day (or a hot day, like we've been having!).

The girls had a great time.  The pictures are blurry because they were always moving!  I couldn't get either of them to hold still or take the time to get a decent picture because I was constantly chasing Rebecca, but you can still get the idea.

Rachel, my dress up queen, loved all of the costumes.  She was a train engineer,



...an eye doctor...

...and also a firefighter and police woman, but I didn't get pictures of those.

Rebecca spent a LOT of her time climbing in and out of chairs.

See what I mean??





Rachel loved the farmer's market section

...and she gave me a news broadcast (with no help from her little sister, who just got in her way).

She was painting at this construction site, while Rebecca played firefighter for awhile with the fire extinguisher (which ended up in her mouth over and over)...

...and the fire hat, which she kept taking on and off so fast that I couldn't get a good picture (this one I snapped as quickly as I could from standing up because by the time I would stoop over to take it, she always had it off!).

It was a fun morning, and both girls behaved really well, which makes it so much easier to go places!  Now they're both resting.  Ahhhh......rest for me, too! 

the fountains

Rachel's been asking to go play at the fountains at our nearby shopping area all summer.  We went once, a month or so ago, but they were closed.  I've been wanting to take her ever since, but was hoping to find a time when my husband could stay home with Rebecca, since it's really not a very good place for her to play yet.  So today was finally the day. 

This was the first time she actually played in the water and didn't just dance around, watch, and run away when she got a little bit wet. 

She had a great time, and I had fun watching her.

learning language

I think one of the most enjoyable parts of seeing a little one grow up is watching them develop language skills.  It's also SO fun to watch her learn to walk right now, but that is a relatively quick skill to learn, in the scheme of things, and then it's over.  Developing language is a longer process, and one which I find fascinating.

Rachel is still learning to use words correctly, and sometimes I correct her, and sometimes I don't, depending on how glaring the error!   One of her common phrases right now is, "There are none people upstairs right now," or whatever it is she's talking about.  I keep correcting her, "There are NO people upstairs...."  or, "There aren't ANY people upstairs," or whatever.  She's learning. 

It's also amazing to me to listen to her tell stories (she tells them all the time--some she's made up and some she's retelling from books we've read or stories she's listened to--quite the imagination this girl has!!).  When she tells these stories she uses words I know she wouldn't know, except from hearing the stories, which has so enriched her vocabulary!  I can't wait until she can write her stories down! 

Rebecca is just starting the learning process, and it's so fun to watch!  Right now she says:
-Dada
-Mama
-Nigh'-nigh'
-Nah-nah (this is "no-no" which she hears a LOT from us!)
-Ahhhhhhhhh-Dah (this is "all done" and it's accompanied by waving her hands in the air)
-Bah (ball)
-'es (which is "yes"--this is her latest word, along with a huge nod of her head--a new movement, too)


The rest of her language is conveyed with sign language and gestures (she knows the sign for "more" and "eat.") She uses "more" to tell me all kinds of things--mostly what she wants--she signs "more" and then points to what she wants.  She shakes her head "no" when she doesn't want something. 

Like I said, I find it all really fascinating.

to the dentist

I've been dreading yesterday ever since our last few rough doctor's visits....Rachel's first trip to the dentist. 

I've been asking my dentist for years when I should take Rachel, and he's always said to wait until she's five, before she goes to kindergarten.  I kept hearing about other moms taking their kids when their kids were much younger, but I thought the dentist should know, so I stuck with his advice.  Well, I should've gone several years ago, because years ago she would've loved it, just like she used to love the doctor.

Yesterday, she didn't love it.

And neither did I. 

I thought I had prepared her well.  We read books about going to the dentist.  We watched youtube videos for kids about your first trip to the dentist.  We talked about it.  We practiced.  I purposely took her to a children's dentist so they'd be as prepared as possible for dealing with frightened children, but she was psyched about going (after the initial tears when I first told her about it two days ago).  She jumped out of the car when we got there, so excited to go!  In the waiting room, she was great.  It all started going down hill in the x-ray chair when she wouldn't open her mouth wide enough for the hygenist to get the xray film into her mouth. 

I won't go into specifics, because there are too many.  Suffice it to say that she tried REALLY hard to be good (at one point as we were waiting she said, "My tummy isn't feeling too well," her bottom lip started quivering, and she said, "I'm NOT going to cry!" all while tears started filling her eyes.), but it just didn't turn out the way she wanted it to.  She was so nervous--so nervous, in fact, that she didn't talk at all to the people at the office.  That's saying a lot for my chatty Rachel who will talk to anyone who will listen--especially new people.  But it wasn't pretty.  It involved me holding her arms down so she wouldn't grab the tools in her mouth, her crying and trying to sit up and get off the chair.... not good.  I asked the dentist when I should bring Rebecca in, in order to avoid this with her.  She said pediatric dentists start seeing patients at a year old, so she said to go ahead and make an appointment for her the next time Rachel comes in.  Hopefully we can avoid a fear like Rachel's in the future with Rebecca.

The dentist actually said she thought Rachel did well for her first time and for being very scared.  So I guess other kids must be worse than that????  It gives me a very small comfort to know that at least she's not the only one.  I just don't understand where this intense fear of doctors and being touched has come from.  It was both frustrating and heart breaking to watch.

Hopefully in January it will be better....but I'm not too hopeful.

Oh, the good news is that she doesn't have any cavities.  At least there's that....

all good things must come to an end

We're home...our little mini vacation at Grandma and Grandpa's is over.  As with any trip, I'm sad it's over, but it's always good to go home, too.

Here are some wrap up pictures....

Rebecca ramped up her walking another notch yesterday, walking all the way across the floor over and over.  She was so proud of herself!  She raises her arms up for balance, making it even cuter to watch.

Rachel wanted to go back to the lake, since it was so hot and crowded when we went the first time, so Grandma took her yesterday.

Rebecca isn't the neatest eater, but she sure loves food!

Great Grandpa enjoyed spending time with the girls, and they enjoyed seeing him, too.

Rachel and one of her very favorite people in the world....

Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa, for a great visit!  We'll miss you!

fun at grandma's--part 4

Today is our last full day at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Tomorrow morning we head back home, Rachel has a birthday party to go to in the afternoon, and Daddy will be home late tomorrow night!  We're looking forward to seeing him.  It's been a fun visit, though, and we'll miss getting to see Grandma and Grandpa every day.

Yesterday was a long but fun day.  We went to "Grandma's Zoo," expecting to stay only a couple of hours, but both girls behaved SO well that we ended up staying a lot longer than we had planned.  We were all worn out by the end of the day.

Here are some pictures from our fun day.

Rachel and Rebecca in the beehive

Looking at the new baby elephant with Grandma

Rachel the Elephant....Rachel the Dog.....Rachel the Giraffe

Rachel the Zebra (she loved these costumes in the kids area)