My sweet girls

I don't usually like to use this blog to tell sob stories. I prefer to keep it positive and upbeat. Today needs to be something of an exception, however, because I really want to tell a story about Rachel, which starts with a sob story.

I am having a bad week. A really, really bad week. And I'm not handling it very well. This morning I broke down and cried. Rachel saw me, and immediately asked, "What's wrong, Mommy?" I told her "Mommy's sad." She said "Want ice?" Rachel knows that ice makes boo boos feel better. So I helped her get me some ice. She said "Feel better now Mommy?" "Yes," I told her, "I feel better. Thank you." Then she gave me a big hug. I love my sweet Rachel.

Gabi, wanting to contribute to making Mommy feel better, dressed up as the little known super hero, The Little Patriot. Who knew that Gabi was just her alter-ego? Her costume consists of pink pajamas, Rachel's panties, and Jeff's tri-cornered hat. I'm not sure what her super powers include, besides excessive cuteness, that is.

A Day at the Zoo

It has been a pretty rough week. I won't bore you with the details, I'll just say we had to get out of the house today for a while. So we went to the zoo. Rachel was so excited to go. It has been over a month since we last went. It has been so hot this month!

So after naps we went to the zoo. Because it was a little late the zoo wasn't very busy. I brought the wagon, but Rachel wanted to walk. Fine with me! Rachel's favorite was the monkeys. She gets that from me. Monkeys are my favorite too. There is an old VW van that kids can climb in to play. Rachel hopped in and grabbed the drivers seat. Gabi took a little longer, and in the process fell and bumped her mouth. She has a bit of a fat lip and her mouth was bleeding a bit.

I was very proud of Rachel because she willingly and happily let Gabi have a turn in the drivers seat too.
We didn't get very far around the zoo. We spent time at the petting zoo and quite a while at the playground. The girls had fun.


There was a downside, however. Gabi is very clingy when we are in the comfort and safety of our own home, but out in public she was always taking off, so it was a little challenging keeping track of two mobile toddlers. I was glad that in the playground portion, there was a fence around the whole thing, and just one area to enter and leave. That made it a lot easier to keep track of the girls, and at the same time allow them the freedom to wander as much as they wanted.

A Fun Package

When I was a little kid my Mom and some of my sisters made a quilt. It was made from worn out clothes. Remember, I was a little kid, so we're talking the 70s. The clothes, therefore, were 70s style, so taste was somewhat lacking. I would like to say that I helped make the quilt, but I'm pretty sure I was a nuisance more than anything.

Ten years ago or so I was given the quilt. It was extremely worn out. Many of the squares were badly torn. After being in my possession for a while, it was even worse.

Last year my Dad and his wife Harriet came for a visit (for Gabi's blessing), and Harriet noticed the very poor condition of the quilt, and she offered to repair it for me, so she took it with her when she left.

We went to story time at the Library this morning, and as we were returning home, as I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a large box on my front step. I love getting packages.

I opened the package and saw my repaired quilt. Yay! I love that old quilt. I don't care if it is a little ugly due to its 70s heritage. I love it anyway. So I really appreciate all the work Harriet did to repair it.


But that was not all. Folded up inside the quilt was a painting of Jeff and I on our wedding day. It was painted by a former tenant of my Dad and Harriet, and she did it in lieu of a rent payment. It's pretty cool to have a painting of us.


New Topic:
Last night Rachel insisted that she sleep in her panties instead of her diaper. She has had several dry nights, but it is not something we can count on, so I was not sure if we would be washing sheets this morning or not. As it turns out, she did stay dry, so yay Rachel! She's sleeping in her panties again tonight. We'll see how it goes.

Gabi is 14 months old

Okay, actually she turned 14 months old yesterday, and it got away from me. I'm sorry. :(


Anyway, Gabi is 14 months old. I am often struck with how grown up she is. This morning we were playing outside and she climbed up the ladder to go down the slide, and didn't need my help at all. She is walking all over the place, she is climbing up and down the stairs (although I still really worry about her when I see her approach the top of the stairs to go down), she is talking some, and even doing some sign language. Her vocabulary includes "ma," "ba," "da," and "no." Interestingly, you really have to get the context of the conversation to know what she means. For example, "no" means "yes." (I might ask "do you want some juice?" and she responds "no" then takes and drinks the juice. ) She signs "ball" (her favorite sign and favorite word), "dog" (okay, she signs it on her chest when it should be on her leg, but who am I to judge?), "milk," and just today she signed "please" by herself. I don't think she knows what she means when she signs "please" but she'll catch on eventually. She absolutely knows "ball" and "dog." She signs "more" too, but it looks just like "ball" so I sometimes don't catch it.

Vacation

I can't believe I have allowed so much time since my last post. So allow me to do my best to remember some of they key events of the past two weeks.

We went on vacation for the week of July 4th. We spent the week in Destin, FL with the entire Gosnell family. We left Friday early afternoon, and drove until Montgomery Alabama where we spent the night. We couldn't check into our house in Destin until 4:00 Saturday afternoon, so we just spent some time in the morning letting the girls play, and then figured they could nap for the bulk of the travel time. We found a really nice park where the girls had a good time in the morning, then we met up with Brian and Amber and had lunch at IHOP. The remainder of the drive wasn't bad, but as we were arriving at 4:00, so were all of the other vacationers at the exact same time, so the traffic was pretty heavy.

I admit that the first couple of days were pretty stressful for me. I was pretty tired from the trip, and the girls' routine was messed up enough that they weren't napping at the same time, and Rachel was resisting going to bed at night more than usual. So I had kind of a tough time at first. But in time their routines got back on track, and I got more comfortable with the environment, and the remainder of the trip was fun. We spent a lot of time at the beach and at the pool. The beach that we were at didn't have much visible affect from the oil spill. There were crews out there pretty much all the time keeping the beach clean, but to be honest from what I saw it looked like they were just standing around for the most part, but the beach was in nice shape. I talked to a lady at church who's business relies on tourists, and she said that they are really feeling the effects of a big drop in tourism. While there are evidently areas that are badly affected by the oil spill, it was still pretty nice where we were.

We didn't take a lot of pictures at the beach unfortunately. Both Rachel and Gabi loved the ocean and the waves. Absolutely no fear at all. So both Jeff and I were pretty much on our toes the entire time to keep them safe. The surf was pretty choppy most of the days we were there. (Red flags Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We finally had a yellow flag on Friday.) We didn't even take the camera to the beach most days because after the first couple of days, I realized that I didn't dare take my hands or eyes off the girls at all when we were at the beach.

We did take some nice family pictures.


The drive home was very long. We left a little after 9:00 a.m. (Central Time), and we got home at about 1:00 in the morning. We had a couple of delays because of heavy traffic, we had a detour because of a semi that overturned. (We had a heads up that the traffic was backed up about 10 miles, so we knew to take the detour.) We also stopped a little bit to let the girls get their wiggles out. Anyway, we were very glad to finally be home again.

A couple of the highlights of the trip:

Rachel pooped in the potty for six days in a row, every single entire day we were in Florida. Okay, to be honest she didn't poop in the potty each and every time, but she did it once a day every day. On the drive home she pee peed in the potty at every single stop and kept her diaper dry the whole trip except for one poop when we were stopped for dinner. I was pretty surprised at how well she did. I figured with all of the craziness she wouldn't want to add using the potty to everything else, but I was wrong. She did great.

Not to be outdone, Gabi learned while we were in Florida how to identify my nose accurately 100% of the time. Maybe it's because my nose is so big, but still, I was pleased. She sometimes accurately identifies her own nose too.

Speaking of Gabi, today she showed that she knows several words:
"ma" means milk, mama, or mouth (depends on the context).
"ba" means ball.
"da" means daddy or dog (again depends on context). She actually did the sign for dog today. She signed it on my leg instead of her own, but she still did it right.

What a beautiful day

What a beautiful day today! It got to 84º, very low humidity. Perfect! In the morning we played outside in our back yard. In the afternoon we went to the park. In the evening we went to Grandma's house and played in the pool.
Tomorrow we're going to the library in the morning, and to the pool in the afternoon. Should be a nice day!

Long Story

Sit back and enjoy, because this is kind of a long story. Back in 2008 I supported Mitt Romney's bid for Republican nominee for president. He lost, but as I researched his record and tried to learn as much about him as possible, I started reading a blog called Evangelicals For Mitt. I found it to be very informative. I even "friended" the people who write the blog on Facebook.

The people who write Evangelicals For Mitt attended the Southern Republican Leadership Conference where the worked very hard to promote their candidate (and mine) this past Spring. They handed out pins and piggy banks that say "Elect a President who won't break the bank! www.EvangelicalsforMitt.org Romney 2012." I liked the piggy banks, but of course I couldn't go to the SRLC. Anyway, I contacted one of the writers via Facebook to ask her how I could get my hands on one of the banks. She very kindly sent me a package which arrived yesterday that contained not one but four of the piggy banks, as well as several pins with pro-Romney messages.

I gave one of the piggy banks to Rachel, and another to Gabi. Gabi didn't care that much, but Rachel loved hers. She had to sleep with it at nap time yesterday. She brought it with her when we went to her Grandma's house yesterday evening where I cut hers and Jeff's hair. She brought it with her when we went to Wal-Mart this morning. It's pink. What else is there more to say?


Yes, I cut Rachel's hair. I cut off quite a bit. Her hair gets so tangled, and she hates it when I comb or brush her hair, so I decided to make the challenge a bit smaller. I also cut Jeff's hair. Actually I got my hair cut yesterday too. I took the girls with me because Jeff was at work. That's the last time I'll do that for a while. Gabi either sat on my lap or climbed off my lap or climbed back on my lap. Rachel either sat on my lap or sat on the foot rest and bounced. So if my hair doesn't look perfectly even, Rachel might bear some of the responsibility.

Potty Training - Parental Confusion

We went to the library this morning for Story Time. There were a lot of kids (and their moms) there, and the room was pretty crowded. As story time was winding down Rachel asked to use the potty.

First, you need to understand that lately, Rachel asks to use the potty as she is peeing in her diaper. Usually I rush her off to the bathroom and take off her diaper to find it warm and wet. And I'm talking about maybe 30 seconds between when she asks and I get her on the potty. So when she asked I admit I kind of rolled my eyes and thought it would be a wasted trip, and annoying because I had to haul Gabi and the diaper bag out of the room, to the bathroom. In fact I tried to convince her to not go to the potty at all.

Imagine my surprise when I got her to the potty, took off her diaper and it was dry, and sure enough, she pee peed in the potty.

We made it back to Story Time and were able to do the craft (we made frogs). Rachel got a sticker for her trouble, so all was well.

I am finding potty training to be very confusing. Rachel sends so many mixed messages.

Another Day at the Pool

Jeff and I took the girls to the pool this afternoon again. This time we were able to get pictures/videos of both girls. So, for your viewing pleasure, may I present Rachel and Gabi swimming.

Rachel swimming

Gabi floating on her back

Craig's List

I posted a bunch of baby clothes on Craig's List today. A lady responded, but wanted to see some pictures of the clothes, so I pulled out Gabi's newborn clothes and her 0-3 month clothes and took pictures of it to send to the lady. Holy cow! I couldn't believe how tiny Gabi used to be! It is amazing how quickly the year goes by, and how dramatically she has changed in so little time!