July 21, 2008- Happy 3rd Birthday to my Baby Girl!

Okay, so I don't have any pics to share, but I just wanted to blog about Rachel's 3rd Birthday. It was a quiet day (except for the packing). I had to work that morning, so she spent some time with her Lala. I then took her for a "date" to McDonald's. We had fun eating and talking. She then went to play. She doesn't like to climb the play gym's too much, so she ran around the outside area. She liked to make friends with the other kids. Rachel was following a little girl to the play scape (because the girl kept saying, "Come on Rachel follow me" as she spoke to her sister, Rachel). Rachel never realized that she wasn't talking to her. So she started up to the 1st step on the playscape then yelled, "Come back down here!" Another little girl (about 5 yrs. old) was getting on the playscape, so she asked Rachel if she needed help up. Rachel allowed her to "help" her up. It was so nice to see her helping and coaxing Rachel up to the top. Rachel got there and was exploring, then I told her to go down to the purple slide (those slides are tall). :) She came down so fast and her face said it all, "Weeeeeeeeeeeee, that's fast!" She looked more scared going down that slide than she did going down the scary tall Pump-It-Up slide. ;) She didn't go back up, but I had fun watching her explore. :)
Later that day, we went to my parent's house for pizza and cake. She had fun eating and playing and talking with us all. :) We watched alittle bit of Mariposa (the Barbie movie) and then she and my dad played pirates while watching Silly Songs with Larry (Veggie Tales).
She had a good day and so did I. Where did the time go. It's been 3 years since she's come into this world and I don't know what life is without her. She's our joy.


Weight- 28 lbs (23rd percentile) Her height- (60th percentile)
She was able to draw a circle for the Dr. when he asked. He said that she did well, considering he usually asks the just turned 3 yr old to copy a circle he's drawn. (He never drew one for her to see, she just said, "Draw a circle that looks like an O?" ) ;)
She got one shot and took it like a pro. She just flinched and wanted to know what bandaid she had and she wanted her lollipop. ;)

Rachel loves to eat sweets. Augh, is she my daughter or what? She loves cake, ice cream and cookies. My dad spoils her with those things when she goes over. I try to limit it as much as possible, but my parents always say, "When she's at our house, we will give her treats." Those are grandparents for you.
Rachel loves to sing at the top of her lungs. She makes up songs, sings songs that she knows and sometimes, just makes up a song and adds words from a song that she knows! She likes the song, "Our God is a Great BIG GOD". She does all the hand movements too. IT's so cute to see. She sings a praise and worship song all the time and says, "Get ready, get ready" right before the chorus starts. It's funny because I think that I do that when I sing songs with her in the car. I pray that she will continue to love to sing songs about GOD. Rachel loves to dance too! She dances just like me (not real rhythm, but it's cute). ;)

She is so excited that she has a new room and it fascinated that she can reach all the light switches. She's always turning the lights on and off for us. ;) (*BTW, we've moved to a new apartment that's a bit bigger and cl0ser to Ben's work.) She's done quite well with all the change we've had in the last few weeks. She always asks if we're going to the "new apartment". We'd been talking about moving for a few months now. So, she's always asking if we have moved! ;) I tell her that it's our new home now. The night before the big move, Rachel stayed over at my parent's house. She had a blast to spend the night with Lala and Papa because the next day when they were getting ready to bring her to our new apt., she said that she wanted to spend the night with Lala and Papa again. :)

Rachel is wanting to know about so many things. She asks questions constantly and wants to know what Ben and I are talking about. She loves to read books that we check out from the library. She doesn't have a real favorite right now, but she'll usually like one out of the 10 we get from the library more than the others. She likes to play with Polly Pockets, Princesses (anything that has a princess on it, is a hit), Barbies, Little People (farm, home, and circus), cash register. She likes to make crafts at bible class and whenever we do it at home, she gets so excited. I am amazed at how creative she can be. She will scribble a picture and when I ask what she drew, she'll look at it closely and tell me that it looks like an object(and usually it does look like that thing that she said- does that make sense?). She draws balloons and smiley faces very well. She" signs" her name too (Looks like a signature most of the time). Another creative thing that Rachel did yesterday happened during lunch. We were eating grapes as part of our lunch, and she stacked 3 together and said, "Look, I made a snowman!" Then she put them down in a triangle shape and said, " Look it's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!" (She calls Mickey that!) ;) I was amazed at what she comes up with on her own.

The other day, while playing with my mom in th enext room, I heard Rachel talking with my mom. They were playing with a doll house and here's how the conversation went:

Lala: I'm going to make lunch now for us.
Rachel: What are you making?
Lala: I'm making eggs and toast.
Rachel: Mmmmmmmmmmmm, I love eggs and toast! She then continued to tell Lala (on the side) The pretend Rachel likes eggs, not the real Rachel. ;)
That was too funny for me to hear!

Rachel does not like to go potty when she's playing. She always seems to wait until the last minute and then we're rushing to the bathroom. She's getting better at it. Going #2 in the potty is still something we're working on at this time. She loves to brush her teeth. I'm quite amazed at how well she actually does that too.

Okay, well, these are some things that I wanted to jot down before I forgot. I need to get some pictures uploaded soon. (Our external hard drive is going haywire, so we're trying to make a plan B for storing our pics. I pray that we can get those 2008 pics back. We have all the other digital ones backed up on disks.) Blessings to all!

Pics...

Just wanted to post some pics from a few weeks ago. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's with my sis-in-law and kids and mother-in-law too. It was so fun to see the kids enjoy themselves so much! Rachel was playing skee ball with daddy. I tried and didn't do well at all! I've lost my touch!

I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me....

Just a quick post... Yesterday, Rachel and I were discussing how big she is and how turning 3 means she needs to be getting dressed by herself and doing more things for herself. She took that discussion and ran... she wanted to dress herself after her bath yesterday, so I let her. She sat on her stool to put on her underwear, as she was putting her first foot in, she says (under her breath), "I do all tings tru Christ." I was amazed! She was putting that scripture that we've learned to good use in helping her to do ANYTHING, even putting on clothes! It was so cute! I had to blog about it before I forget!

I love my girl! :)
This pic taken earlier this week when she was playing a computer game. She was so happy to be on the computer like mommy & daddy. Don't you just love her morning hair! :)