farm fun

Today we went to a pumpkin farm where we went two years ago.  The girls had a GREAT time and didn't want to leave.  Enjoy the millions of pictures!  (And here's a link to the pictures when we went a few years ago to compare....Rebecca's changed the most!)

http://worldofweed.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-farm-fun.html

drama girl

Oh, my sweet, crazy Rachel....I love this girl so much.  We've been going through some hard stuff with her lately, though.  I mentioned over the summer that we had to cut dairy out of her diet to try and figure out what was causing her stomach pain and discomfort.  We didn't notice a huge change, except she started losing weight, so we put her back on the dairy.  She continued to struggle with discomfort now and then.  She eats a few bites, feels bad, usually burps, and then can eat some more.  But this takes time, plus she's a slow eater anyway, so when school started and she had a limited time for lunch, and friends to talk to, which takes up some of that limited time, she started eating only a few bites for lunch and throwing the rest away (because it was already opened and wasn't re-packable.)  So she continued losing weight.  Her clothes started falling off her tiny waist.  I did finally get her to not open the applesauce and yogurt at school and bring those home and eat them when she got home, so at least she eats that now.  

A month ago she had a bad few days with her stomach and missed some school.  We went to the  doctor and they took an X-ray and determined it was likely constipation.  We took care of that problem and it was a little better for awhile, but not completely gone, but then over the weekend it started up badly again.  She was miserable on Sunday.  So Monday we went back to the doctor and this time she decided we need to start digging deeper to figure out what's wrong.  Yesterday we went to the GI clinic at Children's Hospital, where they ordered lots of blood tests and an upper GI.  Rachel was terrified of the blood test.   She is so scared of doctors, needles, tests, being prodded and poked, and all of that kind of stuff.  She shed many tears leading up to the appointment, knowing it was coming, and I was fearing having to hold her down, like I've had to do for throat cultures, dentist visits, and the one other blood test she had when she was much younger.  But she did it!  Yes, she cried, but she didn't  kick or scream or carry on like she's done in the past.  She was so proud of herself and wore her sparkly bandaid on her arm like a badge of honor all day yesterday.  She did tell me, "That's the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my WHOLE life!"  Such drama.....

She's just started taking Zantac to see if it would help, and her extreme pickiness makes taking any new medicine an issue, too.  For a couple of days it was a battle twice a day to get her to take it, but she's gotten better, and even though she still hates it, she does it without complaining now.   So  we've made progress.  She also has to drink two Carnation Instant Breakfasts each day, trying to add calories, protein, and vitamins to her diet.  I was afraid of how she'd react to that, too.  She started it this morning, and she liked it heated up like hot chocolate, so I guess maybe that won't be so bad.  She also has to drink juice mixed with Miralax every day, and that, too, was a battle at first, but now she doesn't mind it.  Finding time for all of these drinks, though, is rather difficult!  

So that's the drama we're going through with dear Rachel.  On top of that, Rebecca's been sick (some sort of stomach flu), so that's been no fun.....  But she's on the mend today.  

The Upper GI test is next week, and then we'll just have to wait for all of the results.  I really want my girl to feel good again....and to stop losing weight (she's in the 2nd% now for weight).  She and Rebecca almost weigh the same amount now.  That's just not right.

more progress

Rachel met her goal yesterday of doing all of the monkey bars at school - 16 monkey bars.  So proud of her!

Rebecca's still got a nasty cold, but it's still just a cold.  No fever or anything.  She's slept well, with the help of Benadryl  the first few nights, and without any last night.  Rachel's got some of the same germs, but hers is mostly a cough.

I'm better, but still not great.  No more face pain, but still dizzy and a head that feels full.  I guess it could take awhile for it all to drain.  It sure is annoying!

Rebecca's currently setting up a checker board and wants me to play checkers with her.  She has no idea how to play, so this will be interesting....

progress

Rachel succeeded in doing all of the monkey bars!  Her goal is now to do the whole circle of monkey bars at school.  she can do half the circle right now.  She's done the so much that she now has a blister...she says, "but I try to ignore it."   Ignoring pain is not one of her strong suits, so you KNOW she's determined about this.

In other news, I found out yesterday that I have an ear infection in both ears and a sinus infection.  It all started last week when I started feeling dizzy.  It happened off and on, but many times throughout the day, and it wouldn't go away.  Really frustrating.  Then on Saturday my face started hurting and was super tender in my cheeks.  Then Sunday I felt lots of pressure inside my head.  The weird thing is that I didn't have a stuffy nose, cold, cough, sore throat, sore ears, or anything like that.  Strange.  The dizziness has been the worst thing.  The doctor said I should feel better starting tomorrow,  on the medicine, so we'll see.  I felt a tiny bit better today, so hopefully I'm on the upswing.

But Rebecca is now getting sick.  This morning she sneezed a couple of times.  I dropped her off at my friend, Emily's house, where she goes on the days I work, and when I came to pick her up, her face was a mess, and I could tell she had been wiping her snotty nose over and over, all over her face, so it had obviously progressed from sneezes to stuffy/runny nose (I'm sorry, Emily!  I honestly didn't know when dropped her off, that she was full of germs...it was just a sneeze or two this morning!)  so I brought her home, put her down for her nap, and 45 minutes later she woke up (she usually sleeps about two hours, sometimes more), crying her head off, gasping for air, unable to breathe because she had so much phlegm in her throat.  She threw up/spit up the junk in her throat, all over her pillow, I ushered her in the bathroom, and she did it again all over the floor. But at least after that she was able to breathe.  I was able to get her to calm down.  It was gross and scary at the same time.  We'll see how she sleeps tonight....

determination

Determined is not a word I would generally use to describe Rachel.  She's never really been determined about anything.  She can't ride a two wheeler because she's been too scared to learn.  Never mind that almost every other seven year old she knows can do it.  She can't swim because she's scared in the water.  She gives up easily when things are the least bit difficult.  

But yesterday she finally showed some determination, and I was (am) so proud of her, and if I can't brag here on my own blog, then where?!

Last week her friend Taylor finally figured out how to do the monkey bars at school.  This was one of those things Rachel wished she could do, but it was hard, so she never tried long enough to learn to do it.  But since Taylor could do it, she evidently decided she wanted to learn to do it, too.  So she spent the whole week at recess working on it with Taylor and a couple of other girls (the other girls would hold her legs so she could get across...I'm glad I wasn't there to see it, because I'm sure it probably wasn't very safe, and I would've likely had her stop!  

Well then yesterday in our backyard, all on her own, she decided to work at it on our monkey bars.  She did it over and over and over, until she finally was able to move one bar and then drop.  She was so excited!  But she kept working and eventually she could go two bars!  And then three bars!  The look on her face was priceless.  She was SO proud of herself.  She finally had to stop because her hands were on fire, but she really didn't want to stop.  Throughout the evening she'd go out and try one or two more times (her hands hurt too much to do it more than that).  She didn't get past three bars yet, but I actually have confidence that she'll keep working at it, since she's finally got some motivation.  

So proud of my girl!

picnic

Our church picnic was also last weekend.  Rachel looks forward to it every year.

Not a great family picture, but the only one we got all afternoon.

Rebecca and Mommy on the hayride

Rachel and her best friend, Taylor, being silly in my sweater.  They started calling themselves a two headed girl named "Taychel."

Holding our friends' daughter, Sadie.  Rebecca wanted to hold her, too, but I told her she was too little.  So she admired, instead.

camping

My husband's been talking all summer about taking the girls camping.  I'm not a camper, so I didn't really want to go, but I'm thrilled that they're interested.  He finally decided to take them last weekend.  I went along for the evening, but came home once they got into bed for the night. 

Things didn't go very well, apparently.  While I was there the fire wouldn't start, then was really smoky, Rebecca tripped and fell twice, I tripped (but didn't fall, but did mess up my neck pretty good and had to go to the chiropractor this week to fix it!), and on and on. 

After I left Rebecca couldn't sleep and he was up with her for hours.  Rachel slept through it all. 

At 4:00 AM they were both awake and wanted to get out, run around, and play (it was dark....he said no).  I'm glad I wasn't there!

But the girls enjoyed it, and here are some pictures to prove it.  I'm sure they made lots of memories.

monarch day

A couple of weeks ago our local metropark had Monarch Day.  We've gone before and Rachel has really enjoyed it, so we tried it out again.

long time, no blog

I've been a little busy.  That, and I can't seem to get pictures onto my laptop or ipad anymore, which means I have to go up to the desktop if I want to do anything picture-related.  So I have pictures to put on the blog, but they're upstairs on the other computer, and I'm never up there to do anything with them.  One of these days I'll get around to it and you'll have pictures to look at.

I started teaching this week.  The day was completely exhausting and I found myself wondering how in the world moms who also have a full time job do it.  My head was spinning for days with details.....getting Rachel's school picture money into her backpack on picture day.  Getting the snack ready for Rebecca's preschool class.  Figuring out what Rachel would wear for picture day (snack day and picture day also happened to be my first day, just to add insult to injury).  Then doing all of my planning, getting everything ready (since we don't have a physical school I have to take everything and bring everything home....even a stapler, tape, paper clips, scissors, paper....anything I might need during class, I have to take with me).  The day flew by, and I didn't accomplish a fraction of what I had planned.  I guess I'm out of practice, planning, because I completely underestimated how long things would take.  But so did the other teacher, so I didn't feel quite so bad.  It'll be a lot of trial and error for awhile.

But things went fine, and I enjoyed it, even though it completely wiped me out.  I'm so glad it's only one day a week for now!  

Rebecca has been doing physical therapy for about a month (because of her severe in-toeing).  She calls it "physical bearapy" and she really likes it.  The physical therapist makes everything into a game, so it's just one big play session for Rebecca, but she's usually pretty tired by the time she's done.  They've been working on strengthening her hips and core, helping her jump and balance (she's got a delay in those areas because her muscles are weak), and going up and down stairs the right way, with alternating feet.  She's getting better.

Rachel's just being Rachel.  She enjoys school, has a lot of homework (45 minutes a night in second grade??  I didn't even have any homework until third grade!), and fits in playing make believe with her sister when she has time.  But she's become a great reader.  Once in awhile she asks me what a word is, but for the most part she can figure it all out for herself and enjoys it.  Math is another story.....  It's not her strong suit.  She loves science, music, and art, especially.

And that's the news from our world.  I'll try and post the pictures soon.

official first day

Last week's "first day of school" for Rebecca was an orientation and Daddy stayed with her.  Today was the first day that she got dropped off at school. 

She was so excited for her Hello Kitty backpack and outfit. 

I don't think I've talked about her current love of Hello Kitty.  It all started on her birthday when her cousins gave her a Hello Kitty book.  Then over the summer Allecia daughter's, Marin, had on a Hello Kitty shirt, and she loved it and kept talking about it.  Then Grandma got her her own Hello Kitty shirt (this one), and now every time she sees Hello Kitty, she goes berserk.  She even has Hello Kitty shoes on, though they're kind of hard to see in the picture.

Waiting outside with her friend, Luke. 

Luke's mom (my friend, Emily), will be taking Rebecca and picking her up from now on, since Tuesday is the day that I work, and also the day Rebecca goes to school.  I'm happy that she has a friend in her class.

She went in the room without any hesitation, sat down, and started doing a puzzle.  I told her goodbye and she barely said goodbye back, completely engrossed in her puzzle, and excited to be at school.  She was ready!

When I picked her up she told me they had popcorn for a snack, went to see the puppets, which was about Abraham, and went outside to check the weather.  I asked a few more questions but didn't find out much else about what they did for two hours, but she assured me that she had lots of fun.  They did make a tree craft, which she brought home, and it had family members names on it, so they must've talked about their families. 

I'm happy that she enjoyed it and hopefully she'll be just as thrilled to go next time!

ingenious

This morning after we took Rachel to the bus stop, Rebecca was playing with blocks while I ate my breakfast.  She made this "thing," for lack of a better word.  

I asked her what it was and she decided it was for scanning her tickets (her play money that happened to be sitting there on the table, too).  She started sticking the "tickets" through the hole, saying, "ssssssssscaaaaaaaaaan!"  

After a few scans she said, "I'm ingenious!"  I laughed and asked her where she had heard that word.  She said, "the professor on Mickey Mouse is ingenious."  

See, letting her watch TV has its benefits....what a vocabulary!

Love that ingenious girl!

big day!

It was a really big day around here....

And it was Mommy's first day at her new school, too.

All went fine.  We both had orientation today, so we'll know more in a few weeks (I don't actually start teaching until the 17th, so I DO get to take Rebecca to preschool next week and meet her teachers and so forth--Daddy took her today for her orientation). 

I have six students.  A class of four girls (2nd and 3rd graders) and a class of two boys (a fourth grader and a fifth grader).  They seem really sweet. 

The good part about it being such a big, crazy day was that I didn't have time to stop and think about the fact that my youngest is starting preschool!  So there were no tears or anything this time around, unlike when Rachel started.  I was too busy worrying about my own day to be sentimental.  With me, that's a good thing. 

mountain climber

Last week my husband was gone, attempting to climb Mt Rainier.  (I took this picture from his Facebook page....) The weather didn't cooperate, so he didn't make it quite all the way, and no one from the company he climbed with has made it to the top in the week since he attempted.  The weather has been that bad!  He's disappointed that he didn't make it, but knows it was out of his control.  But I'm very proud of him for all of the hard work that went into training for this adventure.  

But mostly I'm glad he's back home safely!

mail

I was gone for a couple of hours this afternoon and came home to this on the table.

I opened it up to find this

It took me a little while to figure out what it says.  It says:

I love you a lot.  As much as shapes.  2D or 3D.  Your daughter, Rachel.

Wow, she loves me as much as she loves 2D or 3D shapes!  :)

Then she made me a dollar....I especially like the pyramid she drew, with an eye in the middle, just like is on the back of a real dollar.  

Love that crazy girl.....