Happy Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving yesterday. We went to Jeff's parents' house and were able to visit with a lot of family.

Rachel, being Rachel, made things a bit exciting when she tried treating a cat the way she is used to treating Scout. The cat didn't like it and Rachel got clawed pretty good on her arm. The good thing is that Rachel isn't afraid of the cat. Shortly afterward with the cat securely in Jeff's arms Rachel was happy to greet it again. (This time under the supervision of several adults.) We showed her to be soft with the kitty cat, and she was fine. So was the cat.

We enjoyed a delicious traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and lots of pie.

That evening Jeff and I went with Brian and Amber to see the movie Twilight. I enjoyed it. Rachel stayed with Grandma where she happily tore the house apart. We didn't get home until well after 11:00.

Today Rachel turned 14 months old

What a momentous day. Rachel is 14 months old. This past month Rachel has spent perfecting her walking ability. She almost never crawls anymore. Of course that means the occasional tumble, but she's pretty tough. She has also started learning more signs. She is very skilled at signing "dog" (that's her favorite), and just a week ago she learned "cracker" and since she is often rewarded with a cracker when she pulls that one out, maybe that's her new favorite. She is also skilled at signing "eat." She signs "Daddy" and "Mama," but she is not quite as predictable on those, and she signs "Daddy" more than "Mama," so I'm a little jealous.

Rachel has recently learned how to climb out of the bathtub by herself and she is learning to fold her arms to pray. If the prayer is short enough (like 5 seconds) she might even keep her arms folded the whole time.

Rachel is also developing quite a skill at playing the trombone shaped kazoo.



We are still working on the harmonica, but she doesn't have that quite down yet.



Overall it has been an eventful month for all of us.

Early Christmas

A couple of weeks ago the mother of one of my piano students offered to pass down to Rachel some of her daughter's toys that she had outgrown. Well, yesterday she brought Rachel a ton of Fisher Price Little People toys. Rachel was in heaven. So many toys to strew across the floor. I had to buy a little storage cabinet to hold them all.


We went to the zoo yesterday. It was the warmest day of the week, and it wasn't really that warm. I think it got up into the 50s. But it was still nice to get out of the house. Rachel really liked the monkeys and the gorillas. I think she feels an affinity for them as they share an enthusiasm for climbing all over everything. I brought the camera, but the batteries were dead. Luckily there were spare batteries in the pocket of the camera case, but they were dead too.

Rachel spent most of the time in her stroller, but she wanted to get out and walk around a bit. Unfortunately she took a tumble and bumped her chin. She now has red spot on her chin. Otherwise she is unharmed.


Today we had a light dusting of snow. It wasn't a lot, but it still happened - the first snow of the season. Hopefully it is a good omen of a white Christmas.

So last Monday the doctor asked me two questions that I couldn't really give great answers to: "How is your diet?" and "How is your exercise?" I'm not terrible, but I'm not great either. I told her that I usually walk a little over a mile nearly every day. She told me to pick up the pace a little, and walk a bit farther, so I decided to double my walk. I missed my walk on Monday because I was at the doctor's office for so long, in fact I also missed my first two piano students too (sorry). I missed my walk on Tuesday because it was miserable and cold, and so was I, but on Wednesday I got my act together and went for a morning walk. We had to bundle up a little bit because it was still kind of cold and wet, but by the end I was pretty warm in my jacket. Rachel, of course, was too cute for words!


It occurs to me that if Anne would not have asked, I might still not know that I'm pregnant. I know that seems impossible, but it's true. Now that I know I can kind of see some symptoms, but seriously they are subtle, and I'm not that smart. But she did, so now I know.

Last night I was so tired I was nearly incapacitated. At 7:30 I told Jeff that I didn't think I could last any longer. He told me to go to bed. When I finally got the energy to pull myself off the couch, it was almost 8:00, but unfortunately I didn't actually get to sleep until around 9:30. Then I woke up at around 1:30 and couldn't go back to sleep until like 4:00, but then I slept until after 8:30. Jeff, being the superhero that he is, took over the bedtime routine for Rachel, and Rachel, being the angel that she is, didn't wake up until around 8:30 this morning. When I finally did wake up I felt pretty good. I had to get going pretty fast because I had a piano student coming at 9:00.

Jeff came home for lunch, and as soon as we finished eating we put Rachel down for a nap, and (surprise surprise) I put myself down for a nap too. I got a good two hours of sleep.

"Rachel Has Allergies" or "How Being Tired Changed My Life"

A week ago Sunday I called my friend Anne for some medical advice. Anne is a nurse and a mother of four, so she is an excellent resource for information. Not to mention her husband is a doctor. It's like having my own medical team on staff. So I called Anne to consult with her about Rachel. Rachel has allergies, so I just wanted to get some advice on what I should be doing. During the course of the conversation I mentioned that I have been so tired lately. I figured it was Rachel's fault, because she hadn't been sleeping as well as normal, which means I don't sleep as well either, but that had only happened a couple of days, and I had had plenty of time to catch up on my sleep, but was still so tired that all I wanted to do was sleep. Anne asked "Are you pregnant."

"Uh," I said, "I don't know that I'm not, but I don't think I am either." But there had been that one other little thing that made it a possibility, so after I finished freaking out, I decided that the next day, Monday, I would buy a pregnancy test. I did. I passed.

So I called my doctor and told them that I think I'm pregnant. They scheduled me to come in the following Thursday, which I did. (In the meantime I took the second test that was in the box on Wednesday, just to be sure. I passed again.)

So on Thursday in the doctor's office I took a third test. Turns out the first two tests were accurate. So the doctor told me that since I have 40 years of youth, and the fact that this is my first pregnancy, I am considered high risk. She referred me to an OB who got me in today.

My appointment was supposed to start at 12:50. Now I know that "supposed to" does not equal "actually does," but still, I waited for over an hour. During that time two other people who I know came into the office. I was finally brought back after 2:00 where I waited for another while in a consulting room. The doctor who came in was very nice, very helpful, and very informative.

I had an ultrasound, and I was able to hear the heartbeat of the little teeny tiny baby, and I got some pictures too.

Rachel the Precocious

I was in the living room when I heard a noise coming from the kitchen. I went in to see Rachel standing on top of the small cooler where she had reached the rattle (coins in a drink can, in this case V8 juice) I had made a long time ago to discipline Scout (it didn't really work, though). Of course I snapped a couple of pictures.


That reminded me that I had gotten requests from those who live far away and have not seen Rachel walking that they wanted to see that too, so I took two movies. The first is her walking a little (still holding the rattle), and the second is some of the sign language she knows.

She knows how to sign "Daddy", "eat", "more" and "milk" too, but she is not perfectly consistent on those.

Basketball

Last Saturday Jeff got a phone call from his mom who offered us two tickets to the U of L preseason basketball game against Georgetown. That is not the Georgetown Hoyas, but rather the Georgetown Tigers from Georgetown Kentucky.

We had a lot of fun. U of L won, but it was a lot closer than it should have been. I hope they get all of their preseason jitters out of the way so that we can have an awesome season.

Halloween at our house

Today is Halloween, but since Rachel has already been trick or treating three times, we figured we would not go again tonight.

The day started differently. Lately Rachel has not been sleeping through the night as well as she used to. She woke up crying twice after I went to bed. The first time I left her in her crib, but stayed with her rubbing her back, and she fell asleep again. The second time I was too tired, so I just brought her into bed with us. Where she slept, and slept, and slept.


I had to get up at my regular time to get Jeff off to work and everything, but Rachel slept. Finally it was after 9:30, so I just woke her up. We had breakfast, and then we were off on our mystery project (more on that later - much later).

We got home again at around 3:00, and we had lunch. (I know it was late, but our schedule was off.) Jeff got home early from work. His benevolent dictator boss (his words, not mine), has a soft spot for kids, so they got to leave early to prepare for trick or treating. We played cornhole for a while, and Jeff crushed me 21 - 4. (I had 4.) Meanwhile Rachel played in the dirt.

We went inside, and I prepared our special Halloween dinner. I got this recipe from a friend. It is cute and easy. Jeff gave me credit for being creative, but let's be honest, I can only take credit for the ingenuity to actually make it. May I introduce the yummy mummy dog.


After dinner I gave Rachel a bath. I don't know who has more fun during Rachel's baths, her or me. An interesting bath side note, not today but Wednesday during her last bath, Rachel did something she has never done before. First, Rachel really likes the water, and really likes her bath time. She likes to put her face in the water, but she is very careful to keep her mouth and nose out. She usually puts her chin or her ear in the water. On Wednesday, though, she actually put her mouth in the water and blew bubbles. She has only done it the one time, but I thought that was pretty cool.

Is it too early to start planning for Christmas?

I, for one, don't think so. And so, in anticipation of my favorite holiday, I had a tee shirt made. You might think that this tee shirt is for the sole purpose of focusing on me, but since my name is "Noelle" which means "Christmas" I can hardly be blamed if it seems like that.

NOËL

Gender: Masculine (adding "le" makes it feminine, though) Usage: French Pronounced: no-EL [key]

Means "Christmas" in French. In the Middle Ages it was used for children born on the holiday. A famous bearer was the English playwright and composer Noël Coward (1899-1973).

So I designed this tee shirt and had it made for myself. What do you think?


The same place that made my tee-shirt also does free business cards, so I had some of them made too for my piano teaching/piano tuning business. The design wasn't perfect. I would have liked a piano theme, but it was free, so I can hardly complain. I could have gotten a piano theme if I was willing to pay more, which I wasn't, so there you have it.

The Cat in the Hat Comes Back

Last night our ward had its "Trunk or Treat" activity, where we play some games, then go trick or treating in the parking lot. Everybody is supposed to decorate their trunks for Halloween, then the kids get to load up on candy and the adults get to admire the cute costumes.


Rachel returned as the Cat in the Hat. You will notice two additions to her costume. 1. Safety pins to hold the bow tie out, and 2. an extra whisker on each cheek. In our home we are always striving for improvement.


On another topic, Jeff finished making a cornhole game for us. For those of you who have never heard of cornhole (like I hadn't until I moved to Kentucky), it is a game where you throw a beanbag (actually a cornbag) into a hole. Hence the name "cornhole." One board is painted for the University of Louisville Cardinals (from where Jeff graduated), and the other is painted for Brigham Young University (my alma mater). I thought he did a pretty impressive job on the painting.