Rachel's Birthday!

Let's rewind for just a second and pretend it's still September. Since it's now September (again), it's Miss Rachel's birthday month! Hooray for birthdays!

 Rachel got to share her family birthday celebration with her beloved cousins. The only thing better than 1 birthday is 3 birthdays! My sister made the awesome Angry Birds cake and we had a blast celebrating those cute kiddos.  (I love "blowing out the candles" pictures. Cute little puckery lips crack me up. Check out Bailey's little kisser. Heh heh.)

We also met up with Nana for a birthday lunch. Rachel is her father's daughter and loves a buffet, so we met at Golden Corral. We had a fantastic lunch and had a great time with Nana.

So this totally killed me! There was a table of some sweet ladies totally playing cards! You'll note little Bailey's partial head in the bottom corner -- I was pretending to take a pic of her, but wanted a shot of the weekly card game. They were darling and lovely lunchmates, but I just couldn't get over it. So funny! A few of them even brought their own tushie cushions. Completely classy ladies playing cards, sipping their ice water, and nibbling desserts. Love it!

Rachel's "real" birthday was Monday. Saturday evening she started to get sick. It was crazy because she acted just fine one minute, then crawled up onto my lap the next and started to feel warm. She went downhill super fast and had a raging fever by the middle of the night. When, in the wee hours of the morning, her fever hit over 103 degrees, we freaked out a bit. None of my kids had ever had such a high fever. So, instead of church, we spent the day in the ER. The docs were alarmed that her temperature was so high and we had a tough time getting it down. Poor little gal.

The hospital staff was wonderful. They set her all up with movies and treated her like a princess.  She was very sweet and cooperative, but felt miserable. Once they got her fever down, they did a bunch of tests. Long story short: it ended up being really bad strep throat.

The day of Rachel's birthday she was doing a little better, but she was still one sick little gal. She was absolutely devastated that she couldn't go to school and felt too sick to do much. Seriously. Devastated. We're talking 'weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth...'

We really tried to still make the day special for her. A lot of sweet family members called and that cheered her up considerably. Our big outing of the day was a trip to the convenience store to get an Icee.

The day before while we were in the hospital, one of the nurses had asked Rachel what kind of birthday cake she was going to have. While rattling off different flavors of cake, she mentioned an ice cream cake. Rachel's eyes nearly popped out of her head. I don't think she'd ever really grasped the concept of a true ice cream cake. She got it into her little noggin that an ice cream cake would be so very dreamy, and that  was all she wanted for her big day. Normally we wouldn't go out and buy a big ol' ice cream cake, but this little girl has her daddy wrapped around her finger and after being with her in the ER the day before, he went out and brought home this little beauty. 

Aqua Sand. One of those gifts that I kind of knew I might come to regret. So fun, but so messy.

Miss Rachel spent the first 3 days of her birthday week sick. By the end of the week she was, thankfully, able to go school and celebrate her birthday with her Kindergarten class.

We felt badly that Rachel was so sick on her big day, but are so glad that her birthday celebration turned out to be so fantastic! She had so many phone calls, cards, and visits from family and friends, and we had a fun birthday party with her friends the next weekend.

We sure love this girl! We waited an awfully long time for her to join our little family and are so grateful she finally made it. She is a strong little girl with intensity just built in. Rachel has a super sense of humor and is a ton of fun to be with. She's become quite a good reader and a wonderful student. Her teacher told me at parent teacher conferences that she was the only child in her class to get a perfect grade in behavior. We are so proud of our girl and are so grateful she's ours! We love you, Rachel! - A bushel and a peck!

Back To School

It happened. Again. Summer ended. School started. Again.

Actually, my kids were really excited about going back to school this year. Great time of year.

A few nights before, we had our annual Back to School Dinner. We used to decorate by hanging Matt's school supplies on the walls - pencils, crayons, etc. We've since stopped doing that has giant binders, calculators, and reams of paper don't hang so well. :)

Seventh Grade?? Can you believe that? Matt likes middle school and has done exceptionally well. He has made some great friends, loves Math, has dicovered that he really enjoys playing trumpet, and had proven to be a pretty great middle school-er.

Kindergarten. This one's a biggie. (How did that happen??) Rachel adored preschool and has been a little apprehensive that she might not like Kindergarten as much. I kept assuring her she would love it as much -- if not better, since she gets to go 5 days a week.

Matt's first day of school. He didn't think it was fair that Rachel didn't have to go for another week. Rachel didn't think it was fair that she had to wait. Matthew's first day went well. He just wasn't too sure he was ready to plunge right back into the routine.

This was Rachel's back to school openhouse. It was great. She got to meet her teacher and do a little "scavenger hunt" to locate all the things in the classroom.

Rachel's first day of school! She was sooo excited and a tad nervous. Steve arranged to work later in the day, so we both got to walk her to school.

It's so hard to believe that my second baby is in school! It really only seems like yesterday... yah, yah, I know. I always say that, but this time I really mean it. Again. :) Kindergarten is the big time. She was so ready, though. Proud of my girl!

When I went to pick Rachel up, she came running to me and said, "Mom! Kindergarten is a keeper!" She LOVED it. Bailey sure missed her, but was happy to pick her up and play on the playground for a few minutes.

Daddy and his Kindergartener.

That night we took the kids out for a celebratory back to school dinner. I sure adore those 3 little mugs!

Summary

Warning: picture overload. This post is a little bit of a purge, I mean, summary.  'Just trying to catch up.

Like I said before, we did take a quick road trip to Arizona to see Grandpa, but other than that, we just spent the summer hanging and playing.

One fun day the girls spent playing and swimming with cute friends.

Here's Bailey showing off some pretty tricky maneuvers in the wading pool. Those are some mad skills.

Grandma Bailey is wonderful and comes to spent the day with us in Logan as often as she can manage. My kids LOVE having Grandma come and love the attention! This day she brought candy and Bingo. My sister and her kiddos were here, too and sweet Grandma had them all playing. Rachel and Bailey were die-hards and played long after everyone else was done.

Our Pioneer Day (July 24th) was a fun one! We started the day watching the parade in Logan. Steve worked a closing shift and was able to join us.

Bailey has come to adore parades. She was anxiously awaiting the action.

One part of the parade she can't get enough of is the "parade princesses." Check out that wave.

After the parade, Steve had to go to work (bummer), so the kids and I went to the park for a big 24th celebration. Rachel's preschool class had a little reunion, so we went there first, then headed to check out the rest of the festivities. After having the obligatory snow cone, we joined our first "Family Fun Bingo." It was hysterical! It was a giant bingo game, but they stopped after every handful of numbers they called and played games. It was total audience participation -- games, contests, etc. So stinkin' funny. We had a blast and became tight with everyone at our table.  :) It really was loads of fun and my girls even won some pretty impressive prizes. Next year, we're totally there... and on the front row!

We ended that evening by meeting Steve at a little Chinese restaurant. The kids LOVE Chinese and it was a good way to end a super day. (Look at those sweet, tired faces.)

To fulfill summer tradition, we made the trek north to the Pepperidge Farm factory and Caspers ice cream. We had some super yum shakes and watched Bailey and Rachel do some serious sugar rush dancing.

Of course, living by so many great parks, we made a point to visit many times. We are seriously so fortunate to live by some fantastic, safe, clean, and super fun parks.

One afternoon the kids came with me and the cub scouts to the fire station. Yes, I said cub scouts. That's material for another post and another day...
Matt and Bailey took a little try at "driving" the engine. It was actually pretty funny 'cause we'd visited the fire station on campus another time during the summer for a fun activity sponsored by USU. My kids waited so patiently for their turn to sit in the driver's seat. They were literally climbing in when a call came in and we had to clear out. It was pretty cool for them to see everything happen and everyone spring into action, though. So, when we went with the scouts they were all talking about their other experience and just 2 minutes after they got their turn, the engine got called out.
(So I have to back up and say that it wasn't really funny, like "ha ha" funny. Someone in trouble is never funny. Ironic may be a better word.)

Rach took a spin on the fire pole.

As the summer was coming to a close, we headed to the "big city" to do some back to school shopping. The girls were NOT enjoying waiting for Matt to choose shoes and entertained themselves with my camera. This is Bailey doing "praises." (Yep, Steve taught them all that when they were all just little tiny. He enjoys his Gaither gospel music a little too much. )

Also with the end of the summer comes the county fair. Always a good time. The girls got to don tiaras and try out the princess carriage. Last year we won tickets to the Cache Valley Civic Ballet's Sugar Plum Tea. (It coincides with the Nutcracker). We entered again...come on, lucky ticket!

One of our last days before school started, we went to Ogden and spent the day swimming at a super duper fun aquatic center where my nephew worked as a lifeguard. We played hard and wore ourselves out. When we got back to Logan we went to a favorite pizza place dinner. (The pizza is pretty good, but the ham and cheese salads are what dreams are made of.) Poor Rach sacked out on this bench while we were deciding what to order.

Then at the booth. Sweet little sun-kissed, sleepy face!

Bay stayed awake - barely.

This was like the third picture I tried to take of Steve and Matt. Steve would smile, then open his mouth right as the picture snapped. Gross. Boys...

It was a fantastic summer. Like always, it went far too fast, but it was wonderful. I love having the kids home and just playing. It was good -- time filled with family, friends, sunshine, water play, parks, staying outside late in the evening, gardening, sleepovers in the living room, bbq's, and so much more unstructured goodness. Love it.

swimming lessons

One of the many highlights of the summer was swimming lessons at the aquatic center. Rachel had taken lessons for a few years and loves it, but this was Bailey's first run with lessons. I was actually going to wait until next year for a few reasons. One is that although the lessons start at 3, Bailey was barely 3 and seemed a little young still. The biggest reason is that she had been going through a whole separation thing and had basically been my little velcro baby. She wouldn't go to nursery at church and she really just didn't like to be left with anyone but me. I didn't imagine she'd even want to do swimming lessons. She went with me (remember the whole velcro thing?) the day I signed Rachel up for lessons and literally begged me to let her try lessons. Knowing the the fee was nonrefundable and knowing how she would barely let me out of her sight, I was skeptical. Being a sucker for my little girl, and a sucker for a learning opportunity, I signed her up, too.

Both girls were super excited the first day of lessons. Rachel jumped right into the pool. (Well, acted like she was going to jump, but at the last minute, dropped to her bum and slid into the pool.  For the record, she was jumping for real after a few days.) She was in heaven and loved every minute. Bailey was another story. The happiness turned to doubt. The doubt to fear. The fear to terror. Yep. It was sad. She cried the entire half hour. Now, it wasn't screaming-weeping-wailing crying, but crying all the same. In fairness, it was a lot of whimpering, but she was trying to be so brave. I so wanted her to be successful and she wasn't freaking out so I watched. I figured as long as the teachers still seemed okay and the other kids weren't wigging out, I'd wait. My sweet girl did it! She made it the whole lesson. (I have to interject here that her teachers were amazing and I was very impressed with them.) At the end of the lesson Bailey got out of the pool, smiled through her tears, and told me she liked swimming lessons. Go figure.  The next day it took her like 2 minutes to warm up, then she was as happy as a clam for the rest of the session of lessons. Go Girl!

I had to put this picture in even though Bay's hand is covering Rachel's face. Notice Bailey's choice of footwear. Nice.

We were so proud of our girls. What a fun experience it was for both of them and what a huge hurtle Miss Bailey overcame! Love those silly, wet mugs!