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!