fall farm fun

We spent the morning at a pumpkin farm (we actually didn't get any pumpkins because Rachel's going on a pumpkin field trip on Monday and will get one then, and we already have two, so we just went for the fall fun).  A great time was had by all!  Enjoy the pictures!

I really wanted pictures of the girls in the sea of pumpkins....as you can see, it didn't work out so well.  I had to hold Rebecca to get her to even face the camera.

Lots of slides and such....Rachel loved them!

Rebecca didn't want to hold still for pictures, so none of these turned out so well either (which is why Rachel's trying to hold her and Rebecca's screaming in protest)...

Rebecca loved the goats.  Rachel wasn't quite as friendly with them. 

They both liked looking at the camels, but didn't get close.

Family shots



Rachel wanted to be the leader in the corn maze, so we let her.  She got us out...but we came out the same way we came in, so we didn't really make it through the maze, but she had fun!

There were "gerbil wheels," which Rachel enjoyed, and she

loved this straw tunnel and went through it many times.

They both loved the corn box.

There was also a straw box.

Lots of fun things to ride....

And finally, a soybean maze (a tamer version of a corn maze).

It was a fun day!

what's my name?

I have been asking Rebecca this for a month or two now.  And she finally has the right answer!

"Mom-mieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Sometime it comes out a little twisted....Meee-ma, My-mieee, or Ma-my," but more often than not now she's getting it right.  "Mommy!"

She's also just recently started calling my husband "Daddy."  It's been "Dada" for awhile, but just in the last few days she's started calling us "Mommy and Daddy."  She looked at a picture of the two of us yesterday and said, "Mommy....Daddy."

Love it!

the snow-less snow day

It's 76 degrees with a blue sky.  A gorgeous fall day.  But it was a snow day....  sort of. 

My routine in the morning is to turn on the news while Rebecca drinks a cup of milk.  The big story this morning on the news is that a tanker truck crashed on the ramp of the highway just a minute from our house.  It was the ramp from one huge highway to another huge highway.  The tank contained gasoline, and the driver died.  Both highways were closed in both directions.

I told my husband because the intersection of those two highways is right by where he works and he would have to find a different way to get there.  But dummy me, I didn't even think about the fact that it would affect Rachel's bus route, as well. 

We went about the rest of our morning as usual, and were waiting for the bus, which didn't come.  When someone mentioned the crash, I put two and two together and realized that that's why the bus wasn't coming.  One by one parents decided to drive their kids to school, so I grabbed Rebecca (still in her PJs) and we piled in the van to head to school.  Rachel was about in tears.  Any change in plans, and she is all bent out of shape, and she wanted to ride the bus to school.

Well, I didn't get very far until I realized that not only was Rachel going to be late to school, but I wasn't sure I could even make it to school.  Every way I tried to go was either completely at a stand still or closed.  After 40 minutes, I wasn't even a mile from my house.  Then the last attempt to head in the direction of school was blocked by a police car.  I couldn't even go that way.  I had to head home.

Rachel sobbed most of the way home (which took another 40 minutes).  She really didn't want to miss school.  The only way I finally got her to stop crying was to put a story in the CD player and she eventually started listening to it.  Rebecca was crying, too, because she was missing her naptime.  Finally, once Rachel stopped crying, Rebecca stopped crying, too, and fell asleep in her car seat.  I felt like crying the whole time, completely frustrated by the situation.

So Rachel was home today, and it's felt like a snow day, since we're stuck at home.  Traffic is STILL completely backed up EVERYWHERE because those two major highways are still closed.  They may be closed through tomorrow morning's rush hour, too.  They cancelled afternoon kindergarten because of the hassle to get kids to school. 

We were supposed to have a play date this afternoon but had to cancel it because neither of us can get to the park where we're supposed to meet! 

Definitely feels like a snow day--sunshine, blue skies, and all.

when it rains, it pours

Friday night, one minute Rachel was outside riding bikes with a friend, and the next minute she was laying on the couch with a 102+ degree fever!  All of a sudden she said, "My head really hurts!" and I felt her forehead, which was burning up.  She's spent the weekend running a fever anywhere from 99.4 to 103.5.  Today's been better, though, so hopefully she's on the mend and won't have to miss school tomorrow.  We'll see.

Then I woke up this morning with a terrible headache.  I get lots of headaches, but I rarely wake up with one, and if I do, I can take something and it goes away.  But not today.  Nothing has touched it.  That's on top of the really bad sore throat I've had since Wednesday.

My husband had a fever several days this week and was first diagnosed with bronchial pneumonia at the urgent care center, but later in the week he went to his doctor, who said it was something viral.

So we're just a picture of health around here....

this is a test

I think I may be able to post videos now, after five years of doing this and not much success with it.  This isn't a very exciting video, but I just wanted to try it out.  This is a typical afternoon in the life of Rebecca.

Enjoy!

thankful

I just watched, helplessly, as Rachel tumbled down the stairs below me.  One of the scariest moments of my life.

She had just gotten ready for bed and was all excited about a new nightgown she was wearing and wanted to show Daddy.  I told her to hurry up, and sat down on her bed to wait for her to come back so I could read her her story.  She started quickly down the first couple of stairs and then I heard thumping.  It took a second to register what was happening, and when I realized she was falling I bolted out of her room to the top of the stairs.  When I got to the top I saw her tumble, sideways, curled up in a ball, down the last 1/3 of the stairs to the very hard ceramic tile at the bottom.  I ran down as fast as I could and scooped her up in my arms.

It took her a few seconds to make any sound.  She cried, but not too much.  She was more scared and shaken up than anything.  Her leg and shoulder hurt, she said.  But she could walk and move everything okay. 

Then I started crying.

So thankful.


(Now if I can only get the image of her falling out of my head.

She has some pretty bad rug burns on one leg and a big bruise developing on her shoulder.  It could've been sooooo much worse.)

one of those days

12:15 PM
I leave for the bank while my husband is home for lunch because I just HAVE to get out of the house.   Rebecca has been fussing ALL morning and NOTHING is making her happy. No fever...just LOTS and LOTS of fussing. She wants to eat, doesn't want to sit in her high chair. Not allowed to eat out of her high chair. Doesn't like that. Fuss. Wants to be held. Pick up. Fuss--wants down. Fuss--wants back up. Over and over and over.

12:35 PM
I return home.  Rebecca is in bed, screaming.  Daddy put her there because she wouldn't stop crying and was rubbing her eyes.

1:11 PM
Rebecca finally is quiet, after lots of screaming.  I breathe a sigh of relief.

1:44 PM
Rachel yells down the stairs to me--something she KNOWS she's not supposed to do when her sister is in bed.

1:44 PM
Rebecca wakes up crying--only 33 minutes of sleep.  I yell at Rachel in frustration.

1:46 PM
Rebecca is screaming in bed, again.  I'm waiting for her to go back to sleep.  It may never happen.  My head hurts.  I don't want to go get her, because it will just be a repeat of this morning.

Wondering what has gotten into my baby these last few weeks.  I need some Calgon to take me away....

this and that

:: Rebecca's been sick.  Several nights ago she started waking up around 9 pm, crying, and wouldn't go back to sleep.  We figured it was teething.  Well, the night before last she woke up again, but this time with a fever.  Then she woke up two or three more times in the night, crying, burning up, shivering, miserable.  Several doses of pain reliever and lots of tugs at the ears later, we were pretty sure it was an ear infection.  I found out (after five years of being a parent--thankfully I haven't needed to know before now!) that our pediatrician's office is open on Saturday morning, so I got her in.  Only her ears were "beautiful," according to the doctor.  No ear infection.  Viral.  She got another dose of ibuprofen when she got home, after it kicked in she got off my lap and started playing for the first time all day, and hasn't had a fever since!  I don't know what it was, but it's so nice to see her back to normal, and it was great to get a full night of sleep last night!  (She's still fussy at times and chewing on her hands non stop, but at least she's smiling and playing and sleeping and *wince* even getting into EVERYTHING like normal).

:: It's COLD!  Rachel was so thrilled because she finally got to wear her slip under her dress to church.  Her older cousin passed a slip down to her with a bunch of other clothes over the summer, and she's been wanting to wear it, but I kept telling her it was too warm (the slip has several layers on the bottom, making it kind of flouncy, which is why she loves it, but I thought it would make her too hot in the summertime).  So she got to wear it, but I had to remind her several times not to lift her dress up to show people her slip, since she was so proud of it. Finally she said, "Yeah, it's kind of like having a secret!" 

:: Rachel had a walk-a-thon at school last week.  Instead of a traditional school fundraiser, where kids sell stuff, they just ask for pledges for their walking.  It was a dreary, chilly day, but at least the rain held off.  Rebecca and I joined Rachel at school during the time her class would be walking.  It was nice to put faces with the names I hear her talking about. 

16 months

At 16 months Rebecca seems to be talking so much more than I remember Rachel talking at this age.  She's actually understandable sometimes. 

One of her newest words is "box."  There's a diaper box that's been in the hallway outside her bedroom for a few days (I need to move it...but then I wouldn't have been able to teach her this word!) and she kept pointing to it, wanting to know what it was.  I told her it was a box.  So she practiced saying it, and now every time we go in or out of her room she points to it and says, "box!"

One of her other newer words is "bup" which means "cup," but also "button."  She uses it when pointing to a button on my shirt, but also her belly button (which she loves to play with!).

She's started noticing when airplanes fly by, but when she hears them she says, "gock," which is her word for "truck."  Anything that makes noise is either a bus or a truck, in her eyes. 

She loves playing outside.  Her favorite thing is to get in and out of her red cars (she has a cozy coupe and a push along buggy car) or getting on and off of her little bike (not a real bike, just one you push with your feet).  She would really love to ride Rachel's bike and points to it all the time.  I'm sure next spring she'll be riding the tricycle all over the place.

Inside her favorite thing to do (besides carrying around other people's shoes or trying to capture the remote) is to chew on pretend food.  She empties the toy grocery cart daily of the plastic food and carries around various pieces, chewing on the ones that fit in her mouth.

She's a super friendly girl.  When we go out she waves to everyone and tells them hi.  People are always stopping to talk to her because she's told them hi. 

Rebecca has always loved to eat, but her tastes are changing a little bit.  She loves veggies, surprisingly, but doesn't like anything that is hard for her to pick up.  If I feed it to her, then she'll eat it, but if it's hard to pick up (like rice or scrambled eggs), she doesn't want to eat it until I feed it to her on a spoon. 

She loves being held, and gives hugs and kisses.  She's such a sweet girl!  

finally

There's a tooth poking through!  That's my assurance that this fussiness will come to an end soon.  It's one of the one year molars, and I'm sure she's getting the other three, too, though they haven't made an appearance yet....but the fact that one finally started coming through tells me that this WILL pass...eventually.

I'm so tired of having a fussy girl.  She's always been so happy until lately.  She still has her moments (usually when we go somewhere--she's pretty happy when we're out and about but mostly she's fussy.

Unless she's bothering something she shouldn't.  Then she's perfectly happy!  Like today when she got into Rachel's paints.  Twice!  FYI--Washable paint doesn't come out of carpeting as easily as one would think.  I now know from experience.)

My husband gave me a wonderful gift today--a whole afternoon to myself!  He took the girls hiking.  It took an hour to get there and an hour to get back, plus the hiking time (Rachel hiked 2 miles all by herself up a "mountain!"--we don't really have mountains in our state, but this was actually called a mountain), so I had quite a nice chunk of time, at home, BY MYSELF!  I don't remember the last time I was in the house by myself.  I actually asked him to take them somewhere because I needed to sew, and I didn't know how in the world I would do it with them (actually, Rebecca) around.  Rachel asked me a month or so ago to make her a Snow White cape because she wants to be Snow White for halloween.  She has the rest of the costume already, but wanted a cape to go with it.  We went to the craft store a few weeks ago and she helped me choose the pattern and material, and I finally got around to making it today while they were gone.

Here they are on their hike....

Rachel at the top

Cute Rebecca

My girls!

I'm not thrilled with the results of the cape, because the directions on the pattern were wrong, and the material was hard to work with, but she loves it and wore it all evening after she got home, so that's what counts.  It's actually a Little Red Riding Hood cape, so she can be either Snow White or Little Red Riding Hood.  She played both.  Next she wants me to make her an Alice In Wonderland costume (there's a pattern for that in the same package as the cape pattern, which is what made her think of it).  I don't think I'll be sewing again anytime soon, though I did enjoy it.  It had been years since I had the sewing machine out.  But it's just too difficult with our little mischief maker around.     

So here she is with her newest obsession--wearing her sister's "gack gack" (back pack).  She can't put it on by herself so she walks around carrying it saying, "gack gack, gack gack," until you put it on her.  Then she tries really hard to take it off, but can't, so she either falls over or ends up fussing.

She looks so funny...

But it was so big that I gave her a smaller one that we have.

She wears it around all the time (notice all of the drool??  Definitely teething....)

what's in a name?

Rebecca's learning lots of words.  But she's pretty efficient.  For instance, "gock" is her word for sock, truck (sounds a little more like "guck" though), rock, and clock.  As long as you're right there and are observant, you know what she's talking about.

This efficiency isn't always useful, though.  Today I was holding her and I said, "What's my name?" 

She replied, "Mamamamama," to which I cheered,

"Good girl!!"

I then asked her, "What's your name?" 

She replied, "Mamamamama...."

Oh well....she tried.

fussing

Rebecca's been fussy.  That sums up the last week or so....

Here's what she's usually doing:

(Trying to climb up on Mommy's lap, saying, "Up!  Up!" in a very whiny voice.)

When she's not climbing, or fussing because she can't climb on whatever it is she wants to climb on, she's playing and being cute....but usually she's fussing, at least lately.

(The lighting isn't very good, because the sun was streaming in the windows.  I should've closed the blinds for better pictures, but I was enjoying the sunshine!)

She's drooling a lot and has a runny nose, so it could be teething...or a cold...or teething during a cold.   Whatever it is, I hope it's over soon. 

And Rachel wanted me to take her picture, too.  Here's what she was doing:

(watching a show--doesn't look too comfortable, does it?)

the Lucy dress

Several years ago, my niece, Emma, saw the movie, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and fell in love with one of Lucy's dresses.  She and her mother asked my mom if she could make Emma a dress like Lucy's.  My mom watched the movie and constructed a pattern on her own of a dress to look as much like Lucy's as she could. 

Here's a picture of the movie cast with Lucy (the youngest, in the front) wearing the dress Emma liked so much.

Well, Emma wore and loved the Lucy dress (as it's always been lovingly called) until she grew out of it, and then she passed it along to Rachel.  I'm now reading Rachel the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and she's loving it.  Last night she asked if she could wear the Lucy dress to church today.  She hasn't seen the movie, and doesn't know what her dress looks like, but now she knows who Lucy is, and enjoyed wearing the dress this morning.

And Rebecca looked cute (in one of Rachel's dresses) so she had to be included in the pictures, too!

toothless

Lots of excitement....lots of drama....lots of tears (mostly hers because of the blood...but some of my own, too, when she wasn't looking--I hate this growing up stuff!)

First this....

Then this...

Then this!  (ice cream to celebrate)

The tooth fairy came last night and left two dollars (one for each tooth) and a note telling Rachel that she could keep her teeth (Rachel wrote the tooth fairy a note last night asking if she could keep her teeth.  She saw it on "Super Why" months and months ago, and told me that when she lost her teeth she would write the tooth fairy a note, too, asking to keep hers, so she did!). 

This morning Rachel went out to the bus stop and told some of the other kids that she lost her teeth and that the tooth fairy had come. One of the older kids immediately told her, "The tooth fairy isn't real."  Rachel insisted that she was, and the older kid told her she'd understand when she was older.

Inwardly I gave the kid a punch in the nose.  Don't you dare mess with my little girl's innocence like that.  I know it's bound to happen sometime, but do you really have to knock her down her very first morning???  I'm still upset about it. (Okay, so I know I did the same thing to you, Jennifer, when I found out about Santa, so it's probably a taste of my own medicine, but does it really have to happen to my own little girl????)

She walked away and went to a friend of hers and told her, seemingly unaffected by what he told her.  Oh, how I just want to wrap her up in a bubble of protection and keep the world out of her eyes, her ears, her mind.... 

This letting go thing is the hardest thing I've ever done.

our littlest chatterbox

I thought Rachel talked a lot.  But Rebecca may well give her a run for her money in a couple of years, judging from how much she jibber jabbers now. She seems to really like the sound of her own voice, so she's constantly "talking." 

Sometimes she even makes sense!  Just now, as I was typing this, for instance, the school bus stopped outside to drop off our neighbor (it's the afternoon bus, so Rachel wasn't on it).  The breaks squeaked quite a bit because it's raining out, so Rebecca heard all the squeaking.  She stopped what she was doing, listened, and said, plain as day, "bus!"  She hadn't even seen it--she knew just from the sound!  What a smart girl.

Here are some other words she's learned in the last couple of weeks:

"uh-oh"
"baaa-baaa" (her sheep sound--not really a word, but that's what she says when she sees a picture of a sheep)
"car"
"gock" (this is her word for sock, but also for clock)
"la-la-la" (she says this whenever she hears/sees someone singing, and then she usually starts dancing)

She's a talker, that's for sure, and just like Rachel, we're not sure where she gets it.


(In other news, I think the tooth fairy will be making her first stop at our house in the next day or two.!!  Rachel discovered her very first loose teeth this morning before school!  Two at the same time!  She's so excited, but a little nervous at the same time, because I told her it might bleed a little bit.  I, on the other hand, tear up when I think about what it means....just another step closer to my little girl growing up....  So what's the going rate for the tooth fairy these days, anyway????)

her own style

When Rachel and I went school shopping this summer, she was so proud that she picked out this outfit all by herself. Usually I pick a few things out and ask her which one she likes best in order to decide what to buy, but this one she found all on her own and asked me if we could buy it.

We had to wait for a cooler day for her to wear it for the first time, since there are long sleeves, and she was so excited to finally put it on this morning, so I had to snap a picture.

Her shirt says "cute" in case you can't read it (her backpack got in the way), and I have to say that I definitely agree! :)

dinomania

Rachel's been obsessed with dinosaurs lately, and my husband told her we'd take her sometime to see dinosaur bones. So yesterday we finally went to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

In addition to dinosaurs, we also saw live animals, including the eagle you see above.

There was a special building exhibit for young kids, which both girls really enjoyed.

It was a fun family day.

on top of the world

My husband got home last night from conquering Mt. Whitney.  He's always dreamed of climbing a 14,000+ foot mountain, and a couple of years ago he set his sights on Mt. Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in the US, outside of Alaska.  He tried last year, but got really sick up near the top with altitude sickness and had to come down.  He decided to try again this year, using medication to help him with the sickness.

The climb involved two years of training and lots of time away from us, hiking, or working out.  I didn't like it, but I didn't want to be what was standing in between him and his dream. 

He called me on Monday afternoon from the summit, and we were both in tears as he told me the news that he had made it.  He thanked me for being so supportive, and has told me that a part of me was up there with him, because I helped make it possible.  Knowing how much he appreciates my sacrifice helps make it worth it.

(This is his friend, Jim, on the left, who climbed with him.  Jim made it, but was pretty sick on the way down.  He ended up in the hospital, diagnosed with Pulmonary Edema.  Thankfully he's doing better and they were able to come home on schedule, though some of their other plans were changed.)

As I saw these pictures last night, I got a lump in my throat and my eyes filled with tears again, just so proud of him for all of his hard work and determination to realize his dream.  My husband is the hardest worker I know, and never gives up. 

I hope my girls inherited his work ethic and perseverance, because they certainly won't inherit it from me.

I'm so proud of him!