Christmas Around the World

Last night was Rachel's Christmas program at school. The theme was Christmas Around the World, and the kids were asked to dress in a costume that represented their family's cultural background. Only some of the kids actually did, but Rachel was all decked out in a Scottish kilt, sash, and tam, in honor of her Daddy's side of the family. Grandma made it for her (without even having a pattern, might I add! She used one of Rachel's cousins kilts as a guide and scaled it down to Rachel's size--what talent!!!).

Of course, we're not biased or anything, but she was the cutest one up on that big stage! (doesn't she look so small???)








You could tell when she'd spot us in the crowd because she'd break out into a huge smile. She didn't do anything embarrassing, like I was afraid she might do, and was quite serious and intent on what she was supposed to be doing.

Sadly, none of the pictures came out all that well, but you can get the idea. We couldn't have been more proud of our sweet little girl.



Afterwards she was wired, and kept telling us how much fun it was.

say cheese

Rachel's school picture

According to her teacher, it wasn't easy to get her to look at the camera and smile at the same time (I would believe it!), so though it's a fake, cheesy smile, and her eyes kind of look like a deer in the headlights, I'm happy she did manage to look at the camera!

o christmas tree

Last year for Christmas I received an advent calendar with little doors for each day of December. My plan was to start using it this year with Rachel to help her count down the days until Christmas. So we started on Tuesday. She opens up a little door in the morning (she wakes up each morning immediately asking to open the next door--she's so excited about it!) and there's a little piece of paper inside with a different activity for the two of us, or sometimes all three of us, to enjoy that day.

So far.....

Dec 1: Put up Christmas decorations

Dec 2: Watch Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer

Dec 3: Paint in a special new book (a Rudolf paint with water book--she painted every single picture in the book that day!)

Dec 4: Make a snowman craft (which we had to do immediately, which means by 7:30 in the morning we had already done a craft!)

Dec 5: Go Christmas shopping with Daddy

Dec 6: Put up the Christmas Tree

Dec 7: Play with a new Christmas sticker book (she opened it at 6:40 this morning and by 7:00 AM she'd put all the stickers in the whole book--all 16 pages were done!)

So yesterday was Christmas Tree day. She's been looking forward to it for well over a month....ever since she started seeing Christmas trees in the stores.

And it didn't disappoint. She's been ooohing and aaaahing over it ever since.

(Yes, she was playing dress up while simultaneously decorating the tree, and yes, she had on a different dress up outfit a little bit later when I took the other pictures!)

This morning she was so excited to come downstairs and see the tree. She tells me over and over again throughout the day, "I LOVE Christmas, Mommy!" It's so fun to watch her enjoy everything so much.

not at all shy

We were out running errands this morning, but part of the time I decided to let Rachel do what she wanted to do for a little while. As we walked into a department store at the mall a worker said hello to us. Rachel looked at him and said, without any prompting from me, "Hi, I'm Rachel!" He said, "Hi, I'm George, how are you today?" It was so funny, and I couldn't believe how NOT shy she was!

We walked through the store and she saw all of the Christmas things on display and went crazy. We went out into the mall and she played at the indoor playground a bit. Then we went to the Disney Store because she asked to go to "The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!" (That's what she calls the store because it has Mickey ears on the outside around the store front). We just looked around and she was in heaven, playing with all of her favorite stuffed animals, touching all of the beautiful, sparkly princess dresses, and dancing with the princess dolls.

As we were leaving there we saw Santa down below on the first floor of the mall (we were upstairs). He was leaving his little area and he came up the escalator right by us. Rachel was SO excited and just kept walking over toward him, staring. He waved at her and then as she continued to walk toward him in awe, he opened up his arms and she went right into them and gave him a huge hug. He said, "Ho Ho Ho!" She continued to watch him (as he walked into Starbucks--he was on a break, I guess!). She wanted to know what he was doing. I said he was thirsty and was getting a drink. As we walked away she said, "I LOVED seeing Santa, Mommy!" I don't know where she gets her boldness (certainly not from me, and not really from her Daddy, either!), but it sure is sweet!

the diplomat

Last night Rachel evidently told Daddy that he gives the best hugs. When they told me this I asked her, "Daddy gives better hugs than ME?"

She paused for quite awhile, looked at Daddy and back at me, and finally said, "Daddy AND Mommy give the best hugs!"

family resemblance

So does she look like me, or what??? Our mouths are a little different, but if you cover that up, we could be twins.



Weed, age 3

over the river and through the woods

We're home from our Thanksgiving at Grandma's house. Rachel had great fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa and her cousins. Every time her cousins would come over from their other grandma's house where they were staying, Rachel would smile a big smile and say, "Mommy, my cousins came back!"

We didn't take any pictures, but my mom sent me a few.

A few people either didn't look at the camera or didn't realize they were in the picture, so these aren't the greatest pictures ever, but at least we can see who was there! In attendance besides our little family, is my parents, my brother, his wife and three kids (Rachel's beloved COUSINS!), both of my aunts and uncles (one set on my mom's side and one set on my dad's side), my grandpa, and my cousin.

Rachel and Alex, the two closest in age cousins, played together quite a bit. Here they are listening to Grandma's record player, and watching it go 'round and 'round. She has all of our old records from when we were little, including all kinds of Disney stories, on LP. Rachel loves listening to them, and Alex joined in on the fun, too.

Rachel is wearing one of my old dresses over her clothes--it's her dress up dress whenever she's at Grandma's house. I showed her a picture of me wearing the same dress when I was her age. I said, "Who is this?" She thought it was her! That's how much alike we look (I'll post a picture to show the resemblance in a few days).

She decided last night that she wanted to play football. So here is Princess Cinderella Rachel (what she calls herself when she's wearing the blue dress) playing football!

flag holder

It's like pulling teeth getting Rachel to tell me what happened at school each day, but now and then, out of nowhere, she'll spout off about something random that happened at school. Today after her nap was one of these times. She was still sitting on the edge of her bed when she said, "I was fwag howlder today, Mommy!"

I said, "Oh, really? And what does everyone say when you hold the flag?" (I knew they had practiced the Pledge of Allegiance, but I hadn't ever heard her talk about it or recite it.)

And all of a sudden out of my three year old's mouth came, "I pwedge awegiance, to the fwag, of da 'nited States of 'mahwica." She stopped after that much, but as her daddy and I said a couple more words, she continued. She needed a few promptings, but she basically knew the whole thing by herself, including "wif wiberty and justice for awl!" We couldn't believe it.

We asked her what the flag looked like. "It's wed and white and bwue," she told us. She knew it had stripes on it and stars. Who knew she knew so much!?

Oh how I wish I could be a fly on the wall at school each day and find out what else she says and does that we don't know about!!

my silly girl

Just a couple of Rachel stories....

*Last week was school picture retake day. She was sick on picture day, so we only had this one chance to get a decent picture. I didn't have very high hopes, because I know the struggle we have with getting her to actually look AT the camera and smile a decent smile, but we took our chances and ordered some anyway. Her eyes are always looking off to the side and she does a cheesy grin until you get her to stop thinking about posing and laughing about something else. But it's definitely a struggle. So it was no surprise to me that when I picked her up from school her teacher immediately started laughing and telling me how hilarious it was to watch Rachel get her picture taken. Thank goodness for digital photography, because they never would've done this when I was a kid, but the photographers apparently took twenty-some shots of my silly girl, trying desperately to get her to sit up straight, look at the camera, and smile a decent smile. Her teacher said she was leaning all over the place, saying, "PUPPIES!!" (which they evidently told her to say instead of "cheese") and contorting her face into all sorts of strange, cheesy smiles. I'll be very interested to see what they finally ended up with--she said they finally had two decent ones, so we'll see!

*My husband hypothetically asked Rachel a few weeks ago,

"Do you think Mommy should have a baby sometime?"

"No," Rachel declared, quite emphatically.

Daddy answered, "You don't think it would be fun to be a big sister sometime and have a little brother or sister to play with?"

"No, I play with my friends," she decided.



A week or two later, I was relaying this story to a friend of mine and Rachel overheard. She turned to me and said,

"Yes, I do want a baby. Can I have a baby, Mommy?"

I answered, "We'll see," (we hadn't told her our news yet, and still haven't--probably not until Christmas).

She excitedly replied, "I can't wait to have a baby in my tummy!"



Well, it's not quite what I had in mind, but at least she's a little more into the idea.....

the backstory

Things I haven't been able to write about for the last few months....



*In June we found out we were expecting again (just a month after the miscarriage). I was thriled and so convinced that this time everything would be okay. But in July we lost that pregnancy, too. It was a very, very hard time, but I didn't feel up to writing about it.



*In September we got another positive pregnancy test. We couldn't believe it, but were very, very cautious. I hardly told anybody. I couldn't get excited about it. I just couldn't bring myself to get my hopes up again like I did the last time. It's been a rough couple of months; very down because I couldn't be excited about possibly having another baby, and also feeling sicker than I've ever felt for a very extended period of time. I've had morning sickness almost 24/7 since the end of September. October was a very, VERY long month. I couldn't cook (smells and food have been completely unbearable, so my poor husband has been fending for himself for a long time, and Rachel's been eating lots of PB&J, mac and cheese, and turkey, cheese, and crackers!), couldn't sleep, couldn't do much of anything but think and worry.



*November 5th couldn't have come soon enough. In April we went in for the ultrasound thinking everything was okay, but were completely surprised to learn that there was no baby in the sac. I was so afraid that the same thing would happen this time. When we got to the doctor's office last Thursday morning we found out that the doctor had just been called to do a c-section, so we had to wait about an hour! Here I had waited all of this time, and I had wait another whole hour! It was the longest hour ever. My doctor's office is attached to the hospital, so we left the office and took a walk around the hospital grounds and through the halls--it brought back so many memories of the night Rachel was born and we had to walk the halls for two hours, waiting for my labor to progress!



So finally we went back to the office and the doctor had just returned. They took me right back and when the doctor came in she said, "I'm sure you must be on pins and needles and thought this day would never come, so let's take a look." I was so thankful that she understood and got right down to business! As soon as the picture showed up on the screen we saw the most beautiful sight in the world.....our little baby moving ALL over the place! It was so wiggly and active and wonderful! I started crying immediately, SOOOOOO thankful and relieved to finally, after all of those unsuccessful ultrasounds since April, see an active, healthy baby on the screen! I don't think I've ever been so thankful, so relieved, and so excited (well, except for April 9, 2006 when Rachel was placed in my arms for the first time....but this was pretty close!).



*The baby measured bigger than my original due date indicated it should have, so she moved my due date up by 8 days. I had been due June 7th, but now I'm due May 30th. In just a moment's time she skipped a week of my pregnancy, and I'm now one week closer to being out of this horrible first trimester! I'm 11 weeks today. And hopefully my morning sickness (which actually isn't too bad in the morning, but is worst in the afternoon and early evening) will go away soon.



*I've been on cloud 9 pretty much ever since Thursday. I feel like a 100 ton weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I know the journey isn't over, and there are plenty of other concerns between now and the day I get to hold this baby in my arms for the first time (and then a whole new list of concerns take over), but I feel like we've made it over the biggest, hardest hurdle, and I can relax and breathe a little now.


So when I said that a picture is worth 1000 words in the last post, I meant it....1000 words of thanksgiving and relief are all wrapped up in that one little picture. I think it's now my favorite picture ever...well, until the next one in January (when we can hopefully find out if it's a boy or a girl!).

a picture is worth 1000 words

Baby #2 due May 30th!

(look--the baby can already stand on its head!)

Happy Halloween

Here's Rachel modeling her halloween outfit from Grandma. She won't leave the headband in, even though it looks really cute.

Also notice her big girl bed. It's finally popped up in the "up" position. She loves it and feels like such a big girl with it like this.

One of these days we'll finally get her in her big girl room (a much bigger room with room for toys in it, now that she's old enough to play in her room). But there are many steps to that process (one that involves stripping wallpaper--probably our very least favorite thing to do!). We'll get there sometime. In the meantime, she doesn't know the difference, loves her room, and loves her big girl bed.

And here are some pictures from yesterday, playing outside in the SEVENTY SEVEN degree weather! Now it's 48 degrees. Crazy. At any rate, she loved jumping in the leaves.

trick or treat

Around here we have "Beggar's Night," which is often on a different day than Halloween. If Halloween is on a weekend, as it is this year, then Beggar's Night, when the kids go trick or treating, is the Thursday before Halloween. Strange, I know, but it has to do with trying to keep kids off the street on the weekends, apparently.

So trick or treating was last night. Rachel couldn't wait.

Here she is with our neighbor, Batman (and his little brother in the background, Robin, of course--and their mom was Batgirl and their dad was the Joker--even Batman was scared of his own dad's costume and wouldn't go near him if he had his mask on!).

She was more excited about seeing everyone else's costume, though, than she was about actually getting candy. She would've been perfectly happy to just sit and watch everyone and talk about what they were wearing. Her favorites were Spiderman, Thomas the Tank Engine, Woody (actually just a cowboy but she thought it looked like Woody from Toy Story), and all of the princesses (especially Belle). She and Daddy started off the night together and went around our cul de sac. When they came back he asked if I wanted to switch places, so then I took her and we walked around the neighborhood for awhile, going to some other houses. We made it further than we made it last year, but still not all that far. She said she wanted to go home and "west" because her "wings were tired!!!!"

When we got back to our house she sat out with us and ate some m&ms, but didn't want to stay out very long because the house across the street from us was playing "loud, scary music," and she didn't like it. It was a CD of haunted house type music, and it was fairly loud, but it wasn't bad. She didn't like it one bit, though, so she and I only stayed out a little while and then Daddy finished up passing out our candy.

She said she had a great time (except for the scary music).

jack-o-lantern

Last night Daddy and Rachel carved a pumpkin.

I guess I should say Daddy carved a pumpkin. Rachel "helped."

After putting her hands in to get the gunk out, she declared it "isgusting" and wanted her hands washed and nothing else to do with it. So there was lots of watching and question-asking instead.

I took pictures (thankful to have gotten out of the carving process this year! It's not my favorite thing to do, and I'm not very good at it).

Rachel loved it, and couldn't wait to put the candle inside and see it in the dark.

Chuck-e-Cheese

Here are some pictures from yesterday's adventure. A little blurry, but you get the idea.

good news, bad news

Haven't done one of these in awhile...

Good news: We had a fun adventure today--our first visit with Rachel to Chuck-e-cheese. My brother was taking his kids with my mom as a special treat, and asked us to join them there, so we did. It was a little crazy, loud, and overwhelming, but Rachel LOVED it, and it was fun watching her have so much fun--she rode the same rides over and over, and didn't quite understand most of the games, but had a great time. She loved collecting tickets, though she didn't get many, and choosing her prizes at the end. Her favorites were her pink plastic butterfly ring and her grape tootsie roll sucker. My mom took quite a few pictures, and as soon as I get them from her, I'll post them.

Bad news: I'm sure the place was saturated in germs. I used half my bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse on myself and her.

Good news: We had our fireplace fixed this week! After six years of living in this house, we can finally have a cozy fire!

Bad news: We don't have a screen or fireplace doors, and until we do, we can't actually have a fire. We went shopping for them today, but didn't make a decision, so it'll still be awhile before we actually enjoy it.

Good news: We had nice, warm weather most of the week this week. The winter-like weather disappeared for awhile.

Bad news: Rachel was sick AGAIN all week, and we didn't get to enjoy it much. She got better for a few days and then came down a few days later with a terrible cough and stuffy nose. The nose is better. The cough just won't go away. Thankfully, no fever this time. I'm not excited about this winter, and all the germs she's encountering at preschool. Hopefully I can avoid them. (Better use the other half of the bottle of hand sanitizer.)

the power of choice

Rachel generally eats like a bird, especially at dinner time. Breakfast she does okay. Lunch is almost always a peanut butter sandwich (her choice), which she usually eats just fine.

But dinner is Mommy's choice, and it's not usually one she likes, so she doesn't eat much. Almost every dinner has the potential for being a battle.

Unless she gets to choose.

If we go to a restaurant, and she gets to choose off the menu, she eats a ton.

If we're having a free for all/leftover night at home, and she gets to choose, she eats a ton.

Recent examples:

-Tonight my husband and I had Subway for dinner. She doesn't like anything from there, so I asked her what she wanted to eat. She said pizza. I had a frozen pizza in the freezer, so I made it for her. She ate nearly three pieces! Usually, when we order pizza (which she likes!) she only eats one! THREE PIECES!?

-A few nights ago we went out to dinner and used a gift card a neighbor had given us (thanking my husband for his help with some things--isn't that so nice??). She chose mac and cheese off of the children's menu. She ate nearly half of it. And those portions are HUGE, by her standards. The next day she finished the rest of it for lunch. She always likes mac and cheese, but she usually only eats a small dish of it. We couldn't believe how much she ate.

-Sometime recently we had a leftover night, and there wasn't anything I knew she would like to eat leftover. So my husband asked her what she'd like. She thought about it awhile and finally said, "A waffle." We had some Kashi frozen waffles, and she ate the whole thing. She rarely eats the whole thing of ANYTHING.

-Last night I didn't know what to make for dinner. I asked her what she thought I should make. "Pasta," she said. So I did. And what do you know, she ate an entire bowl of it (With sauce! She almost always eats it plain, but decided last night that she wanted sauce, after I put it in front of her plain! Go figure!). Now, if I had made pasta on my own some night, without her getting to choose it, she would've eaten a few bites, but never a whole bowl.

I realize that I can't ask her opinion for dinner every night, but it sure seems to be successful when she gets the chance. I guess she's a girl who knows what she wants!

fall?

Fall, where are you? Where did you go? All of a sudden it feels like winter! They're even talking snow. I'm not ready for that.

Despite the cold weather, Rachel asked to play outside today. Since we've been cooped up a lot lately, I agreed for a little while, until I was freezing and insisted we go back inside.

She was excited to wear her "new" coat (a hand me down from her cousin, Emma), hat, and gloves (the hat and gloves are new) and wanted me to take her picture. Since she is usually rather camera shy, I was excited to hear her say, "Mommy, take another picture of me doing this!"

So here's a sample of our fall (or is it winter!?) playtime outside.

sick

It's been a very long week. Last Saturday night while Rachel was taking a bath she asked me for medicine. She hadn't been sick, so I didn't see any need to give her medicine, but she must've felt the sickness coming on, because she woke up in the middle of the night, sick. This started several days of fever, a hacking cough, and fear of the flu (it wasn't, according to the doctor). Her fever went away and I thought she was better, but then her cough got even worse. She missed school (and school picture day!) and several other activities last week. The nights were long, as she was up coughing an awful lot. A very long week.

Thursday night we went to Grandma's house. Slowly over the course of the weekend her cough got better. And Daddy got up with her so I could sleep. It was heaven.

Friday my husband and I spent the day out while Rachel stayed at Grandma's house, also in heaven. It was a fun day, browsing around IKEA and helping my husband shop for a new sleeping bag at REI. My favorite part of the day was a stop at Starbucks--I hadn't been in months and months, and it was fantastic.

Now we're back home and last night Rachel slept almost the whole night without coughing. She only woke up once, at 5:30, which was so much better than she's been doing. I'll gladly take that over last week's sleep.

Hopefully this week will be better, and hopefully I'll have something more exciting to write about sometime later in the week.

a busy week

It's been a full week and I haven't had a chance to update this blog. My husband was out of town for work for the week and Grandma was here. Sorry to those of you who check often, hoping to hear something. There's not a lot to share, but here's a run down of our week for anyone interested....

Monday's playdate was fine, though I was exhausted. I tried to nap in the afternoon, but didn't have much success. I slept better the rest of the week. Rachel's napping has improved, and has been from about 1:45-3:30 or 4:00 this week.

Tuesday Rachel had school and Grandma surprised her by coming with me to pick her up. I hadn't told her Grandma was coming to visit, and she was THRILLED to see her at the door. Poor Grandma had a cold, though, which kept getting worse and worse as the visit went on. I also found out that day that Rachel is the youngest in her class at school (I wondered because at her field trip last week I noticed that she was the shortest, so I asked her teacher). In fact, the day after her birthday, when she'll turn four, there is another student turning five! A whole year older! I'm hoping the other students' maturity is rubbing off on Rachel!

Wednesday Rachel and I went to Rachel's music class she's been taking at the library while Grandma stayed home, not feeling good. It's a four week class and this was the third week. She enjoys it, but the first couple of weeks she was rather shy and had trouble participating in the activities. This time I reminded her several times beforehand that she needed to do what the teacher did and for whatever reason she did a much better job of participating. Grandma went to urgent care after we got home and they said she had some sort of infection (sinus?) and gave her an antibiotic. Rachel was sad not to get to play with Grandma as much as usual, but I was still happy for the company, though I felt bad that she had to be sick at my house--it's no fun being sick, especially away from home.

Thursday morning Grandma was feeling a little better, and left for home when Rachel went to school. When I picked Rachel up she told me she didn't have a great day at school because Miss Jessie told her she had to walk. I couldn't figure out the whole story from what Rachel told me, but she was obviously very upset about getting scolded and she told me over and over. Hopefully on Tuesday I can talk to her teacher and find out more to the story, though it's probably no big deal. Thursday night Daddy came home. We were happy to see him.

Friday was our only day of the week with no plans. And it was pouring down rain all morning. We went grocery shopping. Play doh and painting were also on the agenda for the day. Sounds dull, but it was really nice to have a relaxing day. Friday night we started The Bathroom Project. My birthday present (back in March!) was to have our downstairs bathroom redone because we don't have any sort of cabinet in there, and I've been wanting one forever. So we finally got our act together and got started. More on that in another post, when it's finished.