June update

WARNING: long post

Since we got back from Utah for the wedding a few weeks ago we've just been chillin' out (inside in the AC, since outside the weather isn't real good for "chillin'").

We enjoy cool treats, like ice cream and popsicles often. This picture was taken when Rachel decided to name her body parts with her ice cream cone. She'd "point" to her nose and say "nose" then point to her cheek, then her ears, then her fingers, then her chin, ... you get the picture.

Two Saturday nights ago Rachel started barking while she was sleeping. Yes, our little seal had croup. The nurse told me to sleep in her room for a night or two because it can escalate quickly at night to respiratory distress. Needless to say, even with our air mattress, I didn't sleep well with all the coughing. But Rachel loved having the air mattress in her room. It was a wonderful trampoline. She's a lot better now, but still has a little lingering cough.

Saturday we decided to beat the heat and go up the mountain to the pine trees for a little hike. It was really nice--only like 85 degrees, and we enjoyed the hike, though Rachel's time limit was a little shorter than we would have liked.

She did love the backpack and was so excited to ride in it, but also loved getting down to run around a bit. She's a nature lover, I guess. She found this pinecone and picked it up and ran to me saying "Lookit, mamma. I found pinecone." (She's getting to be such a talker I am often amazed at the huge jumps in her language, like last week she started saying complete-ish sentances sometimes, like "I found pinecone" or "'ant two of 'em" (I want two of them) )

Since we've returned from Utah we've also been experimenting with potty training. Rachel has been really interested in the potty for a couple of months now and would sit on it and read, and even go potty sometimes, so we decided to see if she really was ready for it when we got back from Utah. The first week was a lot of peeing on the floor, and a little peeing in the potty, and I was thinking maybe we'd give up and try again later, but decided to give it one more week when I was really paying attention to her, instead of being distracted cleaning or working on something and not really noticing when she was needing to use the potty. The fact that she had croup and we couldn't really go anywhere because she was contagious also helped because we were forced to stay home.
She did MUCH better the second week, and last Thursday made it through the whole day with only one pee accident. Friday wasn't as good because she spent a lot of the day away from home, but this weekend she's done pretty good and she's peeing in the potty almost every time now. She won't pee in a regular toilet, even with an Elmo potty seat to go on it, but as long as it's less than 2 hours that we're away from home, she can usually hold it. YAY! We're working on number 2 still, but Saturday she actually went in the potty and got an ice cream cone for it (2 M&Ms for peeing, a whole ice cream cone for pooping--how's that for bribery?). Hopefully she keeps this up! Adios diapers!! :)

Rachel is becoming a computer nerd, just like her daddy. My visiting teacher told me about Starfall and how her daughter loved playing on that website, so I checked it out, and now any time anyone is on the computer she comes over and says "un ettuh" or "two ettuhs" (one letter/two letters). We'll open up the abc's on Starfall and she'll pick a letter or two (or more if Dad is the one she's suckered into it--he's a pushover) and watch the little cartoons/slides for the letters. She loves it.

Rachel has been getting her legs stuck in her crib rails lately, I think as she tries to climb them to get out. So I was thinking about finding a bed rail and taking off the side of the crib (it's a convertible crib) to make it a toddler bed. Unfortunately bed rails for convertible cribs are rare and more than $70 everywhere I've seen, so when my mom saw this bed at a garage sale for $25 she got it, figuring it's cheaper than the rail, and serves the same purpose. Rachel loves it, though I'm a little hesitant to let her sleep on it at night, fearing that she'll get up and play at 4 am just because she can. But right now she's in there napping on it--she went down right away when I put her in there for naptime, so maybe there's hope for nighttime. Besides sleeping, though, she LOVES it as a place to read books, bounce, and play.

Lastly, our garden continues to produce pretty well. Our peas died once it got too hot, but now we have yellow squash going strong, plenty of tomatoes, a few watermelon, cucumbers, and cantaloupe on their way, and too many green beans. Jake and I both decided we don't like green beans much, but Rachel will eat the little beans inside--I think she thinks they're peas--but not the whole string bean. I won't be planting those next year.

So there's our nice looooooong update. Maybe I should get on the computer more often and write about one or two things at a time, instead of one HUGE entry. We'll see how that goes....