Cultural Event

Last night Rachel and I went to a cultural dance recital with Rachel's dance instructor.  Meridian is Rachel's dance teacher and also the daughter of one of my friends.  So I told Kristin I would only go to this if she was there to help me with Rachel.  I knew I wouldn't be able to keep Rachel under control by myself especially since it started at 7:00 at night and that's usually when we start Rachel's bedtime routine.  So we headed down to the Boise YCMA.  Rachel hadn't taken her nap today and so of course by the time we got down there she fell asleep in the car and I let her sleep for about 25 minutes.  We got into the building and Rachel was really scared at first.  She clung to me for awhile and finally warmed up once the drums started going and more people showed up.  Meridian talked awhile about what exactly happens with the drums rhythms and what kind of dances they were going to do.  We learned African words and some dance moves tonight.

 I'm not ready to come out of my shell yet I want to be shy and cling to someone.  

This is my friend Kristin.

 She finally warmed up and decided to go sit by these people instead of me and Kristin.  She was so cute and just loved watching Meridian and the other dancers.  Meridian was talking to that side of the room and so Rachel had a better view from over there so we just let her be.

 These were the three dancers.  Meridian is in the orange skirt.

 Rachel ended up taking all the scarfs that the dancers used for the 1st dance and was using them the rest of the night.

 One of the funny looks while holding all the scarfs.

 Dancing with Meridian out on the dance floor.

 She loves trying to do what Meridian was doing.  She was Meridian's little shadow all night long.  It was pretty cute.  There were a few times though that she was so close I thought Meridian was going to knock her over or end up getting her with her arm movements.  Meridian was great at missing her so I'm guessing she's done this a few times with little kids that don't sit down and watch. :-)

 Rachel was intent on seeing this one up close and personal.  I thought that Rachel should get away but Meridian told everyone that part of the dance was the elders giving their knowledge to the younger generation.  So after that I didn't worry so much about her being right there with Meridian.

 Finally getting to get close to the drums.  We tried to keep her away but when one of the drummers said it was okay there wouldn't be a problem with her drumming on it we let her have free rain at drumming them.

Drumming on the drum.  She loved the sound of the drums

Here is one of the video's of her starting to dance around with the last little bit just the

 dancers and their African dance.  

Cultural Event #2

So in this video Rachel goes to town dancing to the beat.  The dancers are also getting people out of the audience to participate.  Rachel is of course just doing her own thing.  It's safe to say she likes to dance. Well I couldn't get the video to upload to this page so here is a link to it on YouTube.  This is the best I could do with having issues with blogger video.
http://youtu.be/C1WdhXS9ccc

Cultural Event #3

So we finally were able to get a picture of Rachel actually drumming on the drums.  We were nervous with her around them because the drums are about 400 dollars a piece but one of the drummers was like she is fine let her drum.  So we did.  Here is her video drumming.  She was pretty good at it and stayed on beat.

After we finished around 9:00 we headed home.  In the car Rachel said to me, "Mommy I had alot of fun tonight.  I had fun dancing."  It was super cute and made my day that she had so much fun.

1st Day of Sunshine

Rachel was so happy to go outside today.  It's the 1st day it's really been nice out.  I let her go out for an hour and a 1/2 this morning and then we went to gymnastics.  After we finished up and we got a few things done I got Rachel to nap for about 1/2 an hour and when Scott left for work I let her go outside again.  This is what I saw when she went outside.  I think she likes the sun and the grass. 

 Chilling in the grass.  I like to pick grass and play with it.

 See how happy I am that there is sunshine and I'm outside today.  Yes I am a happy camper.

And this one was she just wanted me to take a picture of her sitting on her sandbox(Yes we still haven't decided on a place to put it).  I love this jump suit that she is in though because if you can't tell it's a USC outfit that a co-worker gave me.  She's finally grown into it and it's so cute on her.

Milestones for Rachel

I was first putting these items in her memory book but I don't have any more spaces for this so I'm going to put this on our blog since it is like our family journal.  Milestones for Rachel:
1.  Can take her clothes off
2.  Sometimes she can put her clothes on (when she wants to)
3.  Loves to play in the mud
4.  Johnny Carino's is her favorite restaurant.  We have created a monster on this one.  We had a coupon to go eat at Chili's the other day and when Scott told her we were going to Chili's she said, "Well I'm not eating because I want to go to Carino's".  I laughed so hard because it was just so funny coming out of her but definitely something she would say.  She will tell you how it is.
5.  Can get out of bed to come to our room in the middle of the night.  She doesn't cry in her bed any more and that makes me so happy.  I am a softy though because if its a night Scott's at work I just let her sleep with me.  When Scott is home though she has to stay in her own bed.
6.  She likes dance class now.  We figured out that if I'm not in the room she will actually do what Meridian asks so I drop her off at class and go upstairs and work for my friends clinic.
7.  She loves to have us read Dr. Seuss to her now and will actually sit on our laps and not turn multiple pages until it's time to actually turn the page.  She loves the stories: Go Dog Go, The Best Nest(aka to Rachel Mr. Bird), and Are you my mother?(aka baby bird).  She has even memorized most of these three stories.
8.  She doesn't like to go to bed and we have to tell her every night what we will have to take away if she gets out of bed.  It starts with her big light, her iPod, and then her stuffed animals.  We usually don't have to do much after that.
9.  She loves to move the kitchen chairs so she can get to the counter tops.
10.  She is a total mama's girls.
11.  She loves her princess dresses.  We have gone out in public several times with them on.
12.  She tells me her best friend is Morgan.  (They fight like crazy when they are together but they love spending time together...go figure.)
13.  She has started to pretend lately.  She is always telling us about her "friend".  You ask her what her "friend's" name is and she says, "Friend".  So friend is in the other room, friend is outside and she needs to go find him, friend is the one who made a mess etc, etc, etc.
14.  She can now pick out her numbers.
15.  She has learned Stop and Go and that stop is red and go is green.  So now when we sit at stop lights she is watching for it to turn green and then tells me "Mommy go".  She is quite the backseat driver.

Funny Story to add to this post:
The other day I had to go work at ISU and I left around 7:00.  At 7:30 Rachel woke up and came to our bedroom door and asked, "Where's Mom?"  Scott said, "She went to work."  Rachel said, "Fine I'll be downstairs then."  This is so funny because when she wakes up its our custom to cuddle in my bed for a few minutes and she didn't want to cuddle with her daddy even though he was totally willing to cuddle with her.

St. Patrick's Day 2012

We usually don't do anything with St. Patrick's day but I decided this year we would at least do some green food for breakfast.  As the day went on and I saw all these posts on Facebook about Leprechaun's creating havoc in people's homes I was kind of like maybe next year I should probably figure out what exactly St. Patrick's is really all about.   So this is our breakfast today.

 Oh no what happened to my food????  Yep Green eggs and green pancakes with chocolate chips.  She eat the pancake but didn't go for the eggs. 

Are you serious!  Yes I am little one try it they are good.  :-)

If anyone can give me any points on what St. Patrick's is all about I'm up for the information and then anything fun that you do with your kids for this day would be greatly appreciated also.

Walking up the Wall

One of the things Rachel learned in Gymnastics the other day was that it is fun to walk up the wall.  I turned around today and this is what she was doing.  It's kind of funny.  I don't mind that she does this and just thought it was funny that she actually remembered it and likes to do it. 

Life's Hard Knocks

Well on Monday Rachel ended up learning a hard life lesson.  I was on the treadmill and I was telling Rachel to stay away from the treadmill.  Usually she will walk away and let me finish but today wasn't one of those days.  She kept trying to grab me and I was just kind of pushing her away.  Finally she went to grab my shorts and I moved out of the way while I was running on the treadmill and she ended up falling over and landed on the treadmill where it spit her into the wall but we only have about a foot behind the wall and so she was actually still on the treadmill with the track going around.  I jumped off and grabbed her off of it.  This is what her injury ended up looking like.  (Sidenote: Of course she was also running around in her diaper today because I couldn't get her in the tub and so I had taken her PJ's off so I could throw them in a load of laundry I was doing.)

OUCH!!

Yep we ended up having crying for about an hour and a 1/2.  It was rough but I think she has learned her lesson to actually listen to me when I tell her to stay away from the treadmill.

Scott then said today she had to learn the hard way again.  He had cooked a pizza for lunch and he told her to stay away from the stove top because the pizza stone was hot.  Well while he turned his back she moved a chair over to the stove and touched the rack that we use to bring the pizza stone out of the oven.  So now she got a burn on her hand. Hopefully she has learned her lesson the last couple of days.  If not we just might end up in the ER a few times because she doesn't believe us when we tell her not to do things.  :-)