Ask and Ye Shall Receive?

I was in nursery with Rachey yesterday. (Yah, I pretty much end up there every week). They were having their lesson, which being geared toward 2 and 3 year olds was short and sweet. The teacher was talking about following Jesus' example and praying. She asked the kids who they could pray for and they essentially just stared at her with their eyes wide and mouths hanging open. The teacher prompted them and gave them ideas such as "mom" and "dad." They all whole-heartedly agreed and echoed her. She then asked some of the very distracted kids for other ideas. It went a little something like this:

"Rachel, who is someone you can pray for?" Rache squints up her eyes and thinks for a moment. A huge smile then spreads across her face, she leans forward in her chair, and blurts out, "A Dora backpack!" Nice. Who, Rachel, not what.

Such a spiritual girl. Such a proud moment.

Story Time

The other day Steve and I were in the kitchen making lunch. We came back into the living room to find Rachel "reading" Barbie Island Princess to Bailey.

Watch this!!! (-Matt)

You HAVE to watch this! This is so funny. In this video, you will see that Rachel is making Bailey laugh. I took this at night after dinner, and Rachel was pushing the swing because she was being naughty at first, but then it ended up like this.........
(You'll have to turn off the music at the bottom of the blog page.)

Haircut

Rachel had her first haircut!

Okay, so it was much more of a trim than a cut. And yes, I did just say that it was her first haircut and she did just turn three. Our Sweet Rachel has taken so darn long to grow hair that she has never had a haircut. (Yah, at her 2nd b-day she barely had hair). She has such pretty little curls, but her hair is so fine that her hair gets nappy and crazy pretty quickly. It's been so much shorter in the front the way it's grown in that I figured if we start trimming it up, it will eventually even out. Steve was all for just going for the gusto and cutting it. I'm sure it would have looked darling, but I had to do this in small steps. I needed her baby hair just a little longer. I'm not sure how much longer her curls will last (my hair was curly until about 3), so I couldn't cut them off yet. So nobody else could really tell that she'd had the cut, but she was excited about it. (The last few times Matt's had his cut, she wanted hers too). At any rate, she got a haircut so we celebrated by going out for soft serve cones after.

Happy Birthday!

Last Friday Rachel turned three! It's so hard to believe that my baby is three. Because she really has no concept of time, she had forgotten it was her birthday until she came downstairs and saw balloons and decorations all over the living room. She was elated!

In honor of the big day we visited her very favorite place on earth - "Warmart." She got to choose a present with her birthday money and is now the VERY proud owner of "Twelve Dancing Princesses" and "Barbie Island Princess." (Thanks, Grandpa!) We went all wild and crazy and even got her a "happy meal" for lunch. That evening we had her birthday dinner with her Logan cousins.

It's crazy to think that our Rachel has been with us for 3 years. She is such a sweet and tender little girl, and also so strong and stubborn. We waited for her for 5 years (doing every test under the sun and being told there really was no apparent reason we couldn't get pregnant). We were literally just about to give up and that is when we found out we were pregnant. Rachel was born on September 12 and named for a great grandmother and a dear aunt. She had kind of a rough start, as she had horrible colic and reflux. (The poor baby screamed for about a year). Still, though, she was a sweet baby. People say that you can tell a person's temperment and personality from infancy -- I believe it. Rachel is so strong willed and can have such a temper, but at the same time, she is such a loving and delightful little girl. She loves to rough-house with her boy cousins and has been known to fight them for the superman cape. She is also such a "girly" girl. She loves to dress up in her princess dresses and "dance like a princess in a castle." Our Rachel is an incredible little girl and she is so worth the wait.

I let the Birthday Girl stay up a little late to wait for her Daddy to come home from work. She didn't quite make it. Happy Birthday, Rachel. We love you so much!

Got your back...

There are so many unwritten laws in childhood. They are things that are just understood and universal. For example, siblings can pound on each other and push each other to the very brink of sanity, but if anyone else messes with your brother or sister - watch out! Now, my children love each other...I know that they do...deep down... No, just kidding. My kids are awesome and really do adore each other. They are each others' greatest fans. They are just siblings and know exactly how to push each others' buttons. At the end of the day, though, they are there for each other.

A few weeks ago we took Matthew to get his hair cut. He got settled in the chair and the cute stylist got started, so I took Rachel's hand and suggested that we go sit down and read a book while we waited. She immediately looked conflicted. She loves to read so I couldn't figure why she was frozen there. She then put her hands on her hips and stepped right up to the stylist and said, "Don't hurt him." She assured Rachel that she'd be careful. Rachey eyed her over one last time then, apparently conviced, happily grabbed my hand and headed off to read.

Yesterday we took Bailey to the pediatric instacare. She has had trouble with asthma-like symptoms ever since the RSV. When she gets a cold it seems to trigger these difficulties. So, we took her to be seen, but it wasn't our regular doctor. Rachel was cute because she wouldn't leave Bailey's side and it was obvious by the way she watched the doc's every move that she didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. The doctor didn't seem to have such a great sense of humor, but Matt and I could barely suppress the giggles.

So - rest easy, Foster Family. Rachel's got your back.

Our Dancing Princess

We borrowed "Twelve Dancing Princesses" from the library and have, in the last two weeks, watched it no less than 200 times. Rachel adores it. Barbie, princesses, ballerinas... what is not to love?

Rachel LOVES to dress up. On any given day she can easily go through 3 or 4 outfits. She'll just disappear into her bedroom and come out in different clothes. During our two weeks of Dancing Princesses, she has given her chest of drawers a little break and empties the dress up drawer multiple times a day. Every time I turn around she is wearing a different princess dress. This evening she chose this lovely purple number and danced while Daddy played the piano.

She will turn 3 this week and I'm not really sure how I'm feeling about that. She just seems to be getting so big. I have to be honest and say that "two" has been a little rough for us as she is very independent and very stubborn. But turning three... that means my toddler is officially becoming a preschooler. Yikes.