Here's a smattering of pictures covering a few things we've done in the last week or so:
We ate Panda Express. Mmmmmmm. Rachel insisted on using my chopsticks--she likes eating like we do, I guess. She actually did better than a lot of adults I know and was able to eat a lot of her chow mein with her chopsticks.
Rachel decided that her dolls wanted to play in her sandbox with her. She brought "Girl," "Boy," and "Baby" out and arranged them just right in her sand box to play with her. I had to rescue the two with yarn hair (Boy and Girl) before she dumped dirt all over their hair.
She then decided they wanted to swing, so she brought them over to the swings to play.
She also wanted to swing herself, but didn't want the others to miss out on the fun and insisted that I put them in with her. She also made me put "Baby" with them, but she was hanging on for dear life when I added her, since the other 3 already had taken up all the room.
The dolls then decided to sit on one of Rachel's favorite "chairs" in our backyard (she considers anything from 4 to about 12 inches tall to be a chair that she needs to sit on.
Rachel is quickly developing a toddler's sense of fashion. In the above pictures it wasn't really cold, but Rachel insisted on her heavier coat instead of her light jacket, but when it got warm enough to be in short sleeves I was able to convince her to take it off.
Yesterday she also decided she wanted to wear this skirt, so Jake, who was dressing her, happily complied. She added the accessories herself--she almost always has one of her two bead necklaces on (or often both), and recently she's taken to wearing this blue (or green or pink) headband as a necklace, too. Of course hats are always in style.
She talks up a storm these days and is learning new words all the time. It's fun to be able to communicate with her now and she keeps amazing me with how much she apparently understands.
So, I guess that wasn't a very good review of what we've actually been doing this past week, just of what Rachel has been doing. Oh well. That's good enough for me for now. I've been meaning to post for a while, but our pictures are on the computer I don't use often, so I don't get around to posting as often as I think about it.
Then in the middle of the night Jake woke up feeling horrible. Apparently all of his insides wanted to be on his outsides (if you haven't seen Brian Regan, you should--we have a couple videos of his you can borrow). We ended up calling my mom to come out to stay with Rachel (thanks!) and went to spend the rest of our early morning hours in the ER. He got an IV with some fluids and other stuff to make him feel better, and is still recovering today. Hopefully he feels better soon. He has gastroenteritis, or something that sounds kind of like that. No fun.
