Potty training update

Woohoo! I'm kind of starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I think. Last week Rachel had 4 days without any accidents (3 of them in a row). And yesterday and today she's accident free so far. That is not counting wetting her "sleep diapers" that she wears for her nap and at night. But most of the time she wakes up dry. The only hang up is that for about 2 or 3 weeks she has not gone number 2 in the potty. She used to do it just fine, pretty much every time in the potty, and for a while I thought it was just a coincidence that she would poop right when she woke up from a nap or in the morning, but 2 or 3 weeks isn't a coincidence.... Hmmm. At least it's in a diaper and not her panties. She knows she gets a BIG treat-like ice cream-when she goes in the potty. Maybe one of these days she'll give in. But I'm happy as can be with where we're at right now.
Next step: getting rid of the binky.

Did you know...

raspberries work just as well as olives for pretty fingernails. Yum yum.

I've started working on Rachel's costume for Halloween, which will be Princess Pea from Super Why (on PBS). I'm about half done with the dress. Yesterday when I stopped at the 99 cent store for spray bottles, I found a wand that will work great for her costume, and it happened to come with these fairy wings. Rachel thinks they're butterfly wings and loves being a butterfly. She wore these wings for hours yesterday.

I also found a crown that'll work great for her, which came with these clip-on earrings and bracelet. Rachel was having a ball with these new dress up toys. She kept going to the mirror to admire her beautiful self.

Of course I'm keeping the wand and the crown out of reach until Halloween or I'll have to go spend a whole 'nother 99 cents to replace the broken one (she's already broken one of her earrings-surprising, I know, since they're so high quality). Now I just have the rest of the dress left to finish whenever I get around to it.... Luckily, there's still plenty of time.

Last weekend

I finally got around to putting things on the wall we painted on Labor Day, and I put up these letters that were on clearance at Michael's on the wall, too. So here's what Rachel's room will look like until we get her a mattress and move the twin bed in, whenever we get around to that....

The wall is kind of bright, but I like it.

Saturday this was hanging out by our front door:

Our lovely tarantula friend is no longer wandering into strangers' houses. Or anywhere for that matter.

Friday night we had a Relief Society retreat up on Mt. Lemmon at the church camp up there. It was a lot of fun to hang out with a bunch of fun ladies and have no home responsibilities for one night. We had a wonderful speaker around the campfire, delicious dessert, then we hung out for a while and a group of us played Apples to Apples for 3 or 4 rounds and had lots of fun. Then Saturday morning I got to see the beautiful sunrise, go on a nice hike, and rappel down a little cliff. It was a fun time. Rachel had fun hanging out with Daddy back home. Nothing beats playing on the slides, watching Cinderella, and having pizza for lunch in Rachel's book.

A week or two ago I got some material to start working on Rachel's Halloween costume, but messed up on cutting one part, so I went to Walmart this morning to get an extra yard of that fabric to re-cut it. In the remnants basket they had this shimmery silver material for 90 cents, so I bought it and when we got home I tied it on Rachel as a cape. She was having a blast running around in it for a while.

On our trip up to Idaho in July/August we got a Dora movie to keep Rachel occupied on the drive that was about "Super Map" (which Rachel lovingly calls "super Bob" for some reason). Anyway, as she was running around, I told her she looked like Super Girl, so she started running around saying "Super Girl" and doing the arms like so: Maybe one of these days I'll hem this and add a letter R on it for Super Rachel. Then again, maybe not-it's not like she cares how "finished" it is.

Labor Day Weekend

Last week at mutual with the Beehives we made these easy necklaces out of washers. The washers cost 15 cents a piece, so once you add the cost of the scrapbook paper scraps, the beads and the string this probably cost 20 cents each. Nice and cheap. And easy. Just like I like it.

I finally convinced Jacob that we should paint a wall in Rachel's room. I was trying for the whole room, but he wouldn't go for it. So I picked this lovely bright green that I think will go well with her twin bed whenever we get around to getting a mattress for it. Jake helped me put the tape up, then escaped to take Rachel on a walk while I did the hard work. Rachel LOVES her green wall. When I was moving the bookcase and rocking chair back over by the wall she started whimpering, saying, "My green wall!" like I was being so mean by covering up some of her beloved wall.

Yesterday we had a lovely Labor Day. We went to the zoo in the morning, then stopped off to visit Grandpa and have some tasty watermelon before coming home for our naps. We had a little BBQ to complete a lovely Labor Day. It is always nice when we get an extra day to spend with Jacob.
Last night when bedtime was approaching, Rachel started getting Curious George, Lucy the Moosey, and Fido ready for bed. She got out a diaper for each of them (we now call her diapers "sleep diapers" since that's the only time she wears them). After they were diapered, she got them all in bed with her and pretended to sleep.

Then I helped her get her pajamas on, and she decided George, Lucy, and Fido needed pajamas, too. So she went fishing in her pajama drawer, which also happens to be her underwear drawer, and got some of her panties out for them to use as pajamas. It was so funny. Of course when it was time to brush her teeth, they had to get their teeth brushed, too. Notice, both George and Lucy have their own toothbrushes:

Rachel sure is getting creative and imaginitive these days. It's quite entertaining.

Jared Alan Knight

This little cutie will be celebrating his 2 week birthday tomorrow. Way to go, Todd and Savannah, on making a cute kid. And welcome to the wonderful world of parenthood. And of no sleep. :)

Sleeping Beauty

Rachel has been pushing her naps to a little later in the day lately. She loves to take a nap (I think this is mostly because it's the only place she's allowed to have her binky), but often I hear her a half hour after she was supposed to be napping, in her room singing to herself, or occasionally I hear one of her toys making noise. Usually she'll go to sleep on her own in another 10 minutes after I hear her, so I generally don't go in to check because then she just wants to come play. Usually after her nap I find books on her bed that she had been looking at instead of sleeping right away. The other day I went in to check on her and make sure she was sleeping after hearing noises long after she was supposed to have gone to sleep and this is what I found:

She had been sleeping on this huge pillow that my grandma made for me for a couple of weeks when she was sick to prop her up so she wouldn't cough as much during the night, and apparently she's grown attached to it, even when it's not in her bed. This is her on Saturday during her nap:

Whatever works for her...

Here's a pic of Rachel so excited to be wearing Daddy's hat that he got for his birthday. And of course, Curious George is sitting in on dinner (George and Lucy the Moosey are her two favorite animals that have to eat with her and sleep with her and share her ice cream cone--they need a bath, I think).

Lastly, I finished this last week as a place to hold Rachel's hair clips. I heard about this idea that another ward did for their super Saturday and thought it was a good, easy idea, so I tried. It's just wooden dowels with ribbon covering it, and a flower glued on the top. Actually the red flower is glued, the other flowers are hair clips that I made and clipped on to the ribbon.

I also got a pack of those metal hair clips and have made a bunch of new bows and flower clips for Rachel--so easy and cheap.