Wheels on the bus

Here's a quick video of Rachel. She usually does better with the songs, but of course whenever the video camera is out, she gets distracted by it.

Cheeseball

Okay, so this month I've been a slacker about posting updates. Sorry. Here are a few pictures from Sunday.
On Sunday I was sitting on the couch reading and Rachel came over to me and put her hand on my leg. When I looked up from my reading a half a minute later, she had climbed into this box that holds her toys. What fun for her! Rachel has taken to being quite the cheesy smiler.

She is such a silly kid. And lots of fun. She is saying so many words these days. If we ask her to say something, she usually tries and does a decent job. She can say some of her aunts and uncles names, now too: Nana (Savannah-or banana, depending on what she's talking about), Todd, Mark, Aa-ee (Ashley), and Doo (Andrew). We're working on the rest of you, so be patient. :)

March Madness

March Madness is here! In so many different ways. Here's a few things we've been doing lately to keep busy.

Last week I had the Beehives (12-13 year-old girls from church) over for a sleepover at my house. Only 2 made it, but we had lots of fun. We worked on Personal Progress for a little while, then played Boggle, then they stayed up watching Madagascar 2 and Mulan while I went to sleep. In the morning we got up and made animal pancakes. Of course I forgot to get any pictures of the girls, but here are some of our creations:

Rachel has been really in to "helping" with the cooking. Anytime I'm at the counter doing anything she wants to come "help." Here's one of her helpful days making a salad for dinner. Yes she is holding that green knife. At least I only let her play with plastic knives, right? And that scratch on her nose came from diving into the garage. She did it again yesterday, only landed on her forehead this time. One of these days she'll realize that step is twice as big as the step out the front door. I hope.

Yesterday I got out our 3 Easter decorations to make our house feel more spring-y. Rachel got a hold of this bunny bag that had Easter grass in it and dumped it out all over the floor. After bringing half a roll of toilet paper and some fake flowers into the front room to help decorate.

And now the real March Madness begins. Woohoo! Basketball overload here we come!
You are all invite to join my ESPN group if you want to post a bracket to see if you can beat me. The group name is Buddies and the password is Colette. I think this link will get you to the page to the group. Good luck.

Sunday fun

Here's our latest attempt at an impromptu family photo after church on Sunday:

We put the camera by the TV and turned on Baby Einstein to try to get Rachel looking in approximately the right direction. :)

Sunday afternoon after church we were hanging out and we finally remembered to get out the camcorder to try to get some of Rachel's talking on video. Here is a part of what we got. Jake turned the viewfinder around for Rachel to see herself right where this clip starts, and she, of course, liked that. She thinks she's the coolest person in the world to look at. :) And sorry if Rachel shows off a little too much at the end. :)

Oops. I fixed it so now the video should be viewable. Sorry about that.

Doctor day

Apparently the last 24 hours has been doctor day. Yesterday Rachel had her 15 month check up. In hopes of her not being completely terrified of the doctor and his stethoscope and ear-looker-iner thingy I found this doctor play kit a couple of weeks ago and Rachel loves having me listen to her heart. I don't know if it did much good, but she was slightly less terrified than last time. The doctor could actually listen to her lungs this time after her "I remember this guy and I don't like him" crying died down a little bit. She's doing great and is up to 23 pounds (about 50th percentile) and 31 inches (sixty-somethingth percentile). By the end she was actually playing "uh oh, I dropped my bow" with the doctor, making him pick it up for her, then throwing it down for him to pick up again. Now that's bonding. And after the appointment (and the screaming that came with shots), she loved her M&Ms bribe, naturally.
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.
To wind up our doctor day, our car had her 3000 mile check up (oil change) this morning and we're happy to report that Wilma is doing fine. Though I have a stinkin' cold, I'm not planning on joining in on the doctor fun anytime soon. We've had enough of doctors for a little while.

week in review

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.

From 2009 Feb

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.

From 2009 Feb

She then decided they wanted to swing, so she brought them over to the swings to play.

From 2009 Feb

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.

From 2009 Feb

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.

From 2009 Feb

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.

From 2009 Feb

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.

SNOW

This is what we woke up to this morning:

Yes, it was 80 degrees 3 or 4 days ago, but today there was snow when we woke up. A VERY rare occurence here in Tucson. Rachel remembered the fun she had in the snow up in Utah and she wanted to go out and play in the "nnnoo!" So we bundled up and headed out until I got too cold. She could have kept going until her fingers fell off, I'm sure.