Rachel's second haircut

Rachel's hair has grown pretty long, but it has gotten uneven in the back so we decided today was hair cut day! Actually, I should say it was the day I paid someone $20 to take five snips off of her hair. When we decide to do another haircut in two years, we'll definitely be Great Clips customers!

But Rachel loved the experience again and seeing her smile in the mirror as the lady fixed her hair was priceless. She really lit up! For my $20, they were kind enough to include a little french braid at the top of her hair. She's so proud of it that I think Mommy is going to have to start practicing and getting that french braid figured out. She kept talking about how soft her hair is now and asking if she looked pretty. That was an easy answer, of course! Before we cut her hair, Rachel has had a perfect corkscrew curl that hangs down the back. She was most concerned before the cut that she would lose her "special" curl. I told her that it would still be there (and prayed that it would be). It was and she was so happy! She really looks cute with her slightly shorter curls bouncing around. It was just one of those happy days for both of us! Oh, in this picture she is standing in the baby's room in front of the crib so that some of you can see the colors we are using in the room.

Rachel's Prayer

First of all, we have decided on the name Hannah for our new baby. Rachel loves it and calls the baby Hannah all the time now. The other night, Rachel prayed before our supper. She first thanked God for her friends and then said, "And God, thank you for You and Hannah because you are my best friends forever". So sweet!

Gymnastics!

Rachel started gymnastics last week. She's been asking for a while to do gymnastics and now that we are moved and settled in our new house, it was time! She loves the class and is very excited to be learning how to do a cartwheel. I snapped a few pictures of her first class and hopefully I can more later. Oh, and Rachel has suddenly developed a huge love for Nutmeg and insisted that I snap this picture of them. Nutmeg still basically ignores Rachel.

Our Lil' Sparkler!

First sparkler - kind of scared!

Rachel was more excited about Fourth of July than she was about Christmas! She woke me up early asking to put on her "July" outfit that Grammy had made her. So we got her all decked out early in the day. We spent most of the day at home and Rachel and Matt took a long hike in the woods behind our house. We headed out for a quick supper and found that most restaurants close on the 4th! Who knew? But we found some food (heaven forbid mommy cooks on a Saturday evening!) and then headed home. While we were waiting for it to get dark, we baked some very patriotic cupcakes and just finished them up as the fireworks started. We had decided to chance it and see if there would be fireworks in our neighborhood, instead of joining the crowds someplace else. We were lucky and had a great show! A couple of different neighbors very close to our house gave us a great fireworks display (seriously, how much money do these people spend on fireworks????). Rachel hopped on her scooter and we walked the "loop" that makes up our street. We would stop every few seconds to watch more fireworks and Rachel thought it was the best thing ever. She wheeled up the sidewalks yelling "Happy Fourth of July everybody!" and "Happy Birthday Country!". We had stopped on the way home earlier and picked up a couple of boxes of sparklers. I think this was Rachel's first sparkler experience! Her first sparkler was pretty scary for her, but she loved the second one and fourteen that followed. We did some of them before it got really dark and finished them up after the fireworks slowed down some. It was a late, late night, but Rachel loved every minute of it!

Our little chameleon

Yesterday Rachel asked me, "Mom, am I a chameleon?". I said, "I don't know - do you change colors?". She said, "No, Mom, a chameleon is a person who says funny things!". Yes, Rachel is definitely a chameleon!

3D ultrasound pictures!

This week we got to experience something that I never thought we would get to do - a 3D ultrasound! I always thought that would be the neatest thing, but thought they were too expensive. During our weekly ultrasound, the nurse clicked over from a regular ultrasound to a 3D ultrasound with a simple click of a button. I went from seeing a black and white "alien" baby face to seeing our littlest girl's actual face! It was amazing. Here are a few of the shots and she even has smiles in them! One of our friends, Kim, (who is our favorite photographer) has always laughed about the many different expressions Rachel has in pictures. Kim pointed out this week that this little baby is off to a great start with the multiple expressions! Of course, we are hoping for a few more 3D shots over the next few weeks. If we get them, we'll share them here!

Imaginary Friends

I had always hoped that one of my children would have an imaginary friend. Rachel has come through for me and it is just as much fun as I had imagined! It started around six months ago when "Bethie" came to stay at our house for a while. Bethie was all kinds of fun because she got into lots of trouble and did the things that Rachel knew better than to try herself. But Rachel thoroughly enjoyed telling us all about the naughty things Bethie did. After a while, Bethie seemed to quiet down and we didn't hear much from her. Well, recently two new friends joined us. First, there is "April", who is Rachel's cousin and the exact same age as Rachel. They have all kinds of fun and April seems to be pretty obedient. Rachel and April go to gymnastics class together and even did a hoola hoop class yesterday. Usually when I get Rachel dressed or out of the bath tub, I have to do the same for April. Thankfully, April wears imaginary clothes, so that is easy. Yesterday April was sick, so we had to take care of her and she couldn't go out and run errands with us. The other new friend is "Matthew the Tyrannosaurus". Matthew doesn't say too much usually, but he did get invited to the tea party the other day.

I'd love to post pictures for this entry, but those imaginary friends are really hard to catch on film!

Easter - finally!

I am way behind and I want to post cruise pictures, but Easter comes first. We had a great day with going to church, doing an Easter basket and egg hunt for Rachel in our yard and just enjoying the day together. Rachel went with us to the Good Friday service and took communion for the first time. She prayed the sweetest prayer during communion about Jesus dying for our sins. She then drank the juice and ate the cracker, got a big smile on her face, rubbed her tummy and said, "Yum!". We think she got the point of it, though! :-)

Pictures of our little baby!

We ended up with some unexpected ultrasound pictures today, which was a treat. As you can see, the baby is cute as can be! :-) The baby was moving all around and waving its arms and legs. It measured right on track for where it should be. The reason for the ultrasound was not so happy, though. It seems about two weeks ago I contracted Fifths Disease. This virus is harmless to everyone except babies still in the womb. A baby that is infected can develop anemia, which can lead to heart failure. This is a small percentage of infected babies, though. My OB referred me to a Maternal/Fetal Medicine doctor right away and I saw him this morning. Basically, from the time I was infected there is a 12 week time frame that the baby could become infected. Chances are great that the baby won't be infected, but they will still monitor the baby closely through ultrasounds starting at week 19 until the 12 week time frame is done. If the baby contracts the infection before 19 weeks, there is no treatment option. After 19 weeks, they can do blood transfusions which help to heal the baby. The doctor reassured me today that most of the time, the baby does not become infected and even if infection occurs that most babies are just fine. Of course, we would love your prayers right now. First, that the baby will be protected from infection and second, that if infection does occur that no damage will be done. And most of all, that we will be able to trust God for the health and safety of our littlest one. Thank you for your prayers and enjoy these pictures!

Our rainy day activity!

Like everyone else around here, we are tired of the rain. By the way, I don't even want to hear the word "drought" mentioned this summer! :-) I've been battling a killer cold/cough and haven't been in the mood to seek out fun, indoor places to play like the mall or library. So today Rachel asked to get her rain coat on and play in the rain and I said, "Why not?". So we put on a coat and a rain coat on top of that, plus her umbrella and she played for almost an hour! It was her goal to collect enough rain water in her bucket to fill the plastic basket on the back of her old trike. So, she walked around the house until she found a good drain pipe and made trips back and forth with her bucket. She loved it and took the job seriously! At one point, she was so happy that she was actually skipping through the rain! The funniest part was that she kept trying to get Nutmeg to shake so that she could collect the water off of her fur. Mommy enjoyed watching from a comfy chair in the dry garage, while sneaking peeks at a good book once in a while. When I finally made her come in out of the rain, we warmed her up in a hot shower and bundled her up in her jammies and robe. A perfect afternoon for Rachel!

St. Patrick's Day

For a non-Irish family, we sure had a lot of fun on Tuesday! Rachel's teacher at school told them all about Leprachauns and they even had a Leprechaun visit their classroom one day during recess. On Monday night, Rachel decided she wanted to make a Leprechaun trap. So we left out some cookies and strategically placed a gold coin under a trap bucket. The next morning, she got up and was so excited to check the trap! Wouldn't you know it - that tricky Leprechaun somehow tricked our trap and escaped with the gold coin. But not before he made a mess with the cookies! Rachel was very disappointed that she would have to wait another year before she could catch a Leprechaun and find his pot of gold. Grandma Debbie made her cute shamrock shirt and Rachel made a special St. Patrick's Day bracelet. Rachel also had her dance class mini-show, but those pictures and videos will be in another posts (hopefully soon!).

Sharing Our News With Rachel

On Monday night, we shared our news with Rachel - we told her that she is going to be a big sister! We started by showing her pictures in her scrapbook from when she was born. Then we asked her what she had been praying for for a very long time. Here is the video from that moment.

Since then, she has been cracking us up with her thoughts on the baby. The first thing she said this morning when she got out of bed was "Mommy, all the baby can see is the inside of your tummy. That's boring!". She also said, "Our baby thinks it is the only one in our family because it doesn't know yet that it has a sister, mommy and daddy!". The sweetest thing is that she is working really hard at obeying the first time when we ask her to do something and she says that she wants to obey so that she can teach the baby to obey. When we went to church last night, she was stopping everyone she saw in the hallways and telling them our news with the biggest smile on her face! And when she got to her Cubbies class and told her teachers (Miss Tracy, Miss Melissa, and Miss Sudeana), they were so excited for her and hugged her and made her feel special. They asked her if she wanted to pray to bless the snack and part of her prayer was that when the baby is born and goes to the doctor that it won't be afraid because sometimes Rachel is afraid at the doctor. It's amazing how her brain is working and thinking ahead for the baby!

SC Snow!

We had a big treat this week and got six inches of snow! It started snowing Sunday afternoon with HUGE flakes coming down. It snowed until around midnight and the next morning we had beautiful snow perfect for playing! We did a little playing Sunday evening - Matt pulled Rachel on a little sled all over the neighborhood. The next morning, Matt had to go in to work so Rachel and I played for an hour and a half in the snow! It had warmed up quite a bit, so we weren't even cold. First she did her yearly snow angel, then we built our snowman. I went in to get a carrot for the nose and had the bright idea to use Oreo cookies for the eyes. Smart, huh? It worked great until Nutmeg tackled our poor snowman and ate his eyes and nose. I got him put back together, minus the facial features. Rachel then wanted me to pull her around the cul-de-sac on the sled. I'm neither as fast or as strong as Matt, but I gave it my best try! I then took a break on the front porch while Rachel got to work trying to move the snow in the front yard to the back yard one sand pail at a time. We finished up with Rachel driving her jeep in the snow - it worked pretty well for a while! Oh, we also spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the fallen branches around the yard. Thankfully we didn't have any damage, but we did have some good sized ones come down!

Our Gymnastics Girl!

Today Rachel decided to re-enact part of the circus we saw last week. Her sweet daddy was a willing prop for her show. He was a great sport since she made it clear that he was NOT allowed to move his head at all! Notice the pose at the beginning of the show? Oh, and she made us call her Hannah. Just a glimpse into our crazy, fun life!

Let's Go To the Hop!

My favorite picture!

Rachel and I went to a Sock Hop sponsored by the downtown library today. The flier said "50's attire welcome!" and of course, I had to find a poodle skirt for her! Luckily, a sweet friend let us borrow her little girl's poodle skirt from last Halloween. There were all kinds of cute outfits there from poodle skirts to little girls with rolled up jeans and scarves in their hair. We had so much fun - there was 50's music playing the whole time, a Twister game, continuous bubbles floating around the room, and even a limbo contest! Rachel danced and played and had a great time.

A Glimpse into the Teen Years

Today I put Rachel in the tub around 2 p.m. (I know, an odd time for a bath, but it worked for today) After a nice, long bath, Rachel decided she would get herself completely ready by herself. She climbed out of the tub on her own, toweled off by herself and requested her pink robe. She then got her pretend hair dryer and brush and stood in front of the mirror and "dried" her hair. She was VERY serious about it! After her hair was done, we had to get dressed for her ballet class. Over her leotard, I had her wear some black pants and a zip up jacket - very sporty. Just before we headed out the door, she ran back for a stretchy headband. I swear when she first put it on it looked like one of those sports sweatbands that tennis players wear! We got it somewhat adjusted and I took this last picture before we headed off. Very Flash Dance-y!

A glimpse of our amazing girl

While we were in Michigan, Matt's incredibly talented brother and sister-in-law asked if they could take some pictures of Rachel. Of course we said yes! So we spent about an hour with them and they managed to capture almost every side of Rachel's personality. I'll find a way to post more of them, but I wanted to share a few tonight. We are so in love with these pictures - I'm brainstorming ways to display all of them!

Santa and baby Jesus

There is so much to share about Christmas with Rachel this year, but one of the most special moments happened Christmas Eve. We were at my parents' house in IL and we had just sat out the plate of cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Rachel got in bed and picked up the baby Jesus from the nativity scene that my mom had placed beside her bed. She put it on the headboard and snuggled down to sleep. I asked her why she wanted baby Jesus to be on her bed while she slept and she said, "Because I want Santa to see Jesus and know Him!". My sweet, sweet girl. I have a picture of her sleeping with the baby Jesus above her, but I don't have it to post yet. I'll try soon.

Decorating the tree

We decorated the tree (finally!) on Sunday afternoon. Rachel LOVED it and did her best to fit all of our ornaments in a 2x2 foot area. I managed to put a few on, so I spread them out as much as I could. I had planned to rearrange the ones she put on to spread them out, but the more I look at the tree, I think it is just perfect as it is. Of course the highlight for Rachel was putting the star on the tree. She always goes on Daddy's shoulders for this! Oh, I'll include a picture of her doing the star last year, too. It is Rachel's favorite picture of herself!

Rachel decided it was her job to arrange the nativity set and she took her job very seriously. I love the Little Peoples set - it is just so cute.

After we decorated, we turned on the TV and found a Christmas episode of Little House on the Prairie. Rachel and I cuddled together and watched the end of the show. It made the afternoon complete for me!