Rachel Accomplishments for May

Rachel has been learning so many things this month.  She is so funny.
1.  Has learned that if she stands on her tippy toes she can turn all the light switches on.
2.  She is potty training.She loves to put the stickers on her sticker chart in the bathroom.
3.  She is swimming better with water wings on.
4.  She corrects us when we say, "Oh my gosh" (Were supposed to say, "Oh my Goodness")
5.  She will help me put her cloths away after I wash them.
6.  She has learned how to take her clothes off by herself.
7.  She is putting her PJ's on by herself also.
8.  She likes steak.  I know go figure she likes the best of the best.
9.  She has figured out that everyone has a mom and a dad.  She has learned the Grandpa Pooh and Grandma Tracy are Scott's parents and that Grandma and Grandpa Hobbs are my parents.
10.  She loves to play on her computer now and asks if she can play on it often.
11.  She eats a banana almost everyday.
12.  She's not very patient.  If she wants something she wants it NOW.  So we are working on this.
13.  She has an imaginary friend that does everything with her.  She especially likes to blame her imaginary friend when she gets in trouble.
14.  She learned the song Little Bunny Foo Foo but she called it says it as "Little bunny boo boo".
15.  Every time we go to the park she makes friends with every kid that is there and just has so much fun with them.  Then she comes home and tells us about her friends for the next few days.

Rachel Dressing

Rachel has started to be really independent.  So the other night we were trying to get her ready for bed but she wouldn't come over by me to help her.  I thought she was playing with her tea set but she was actually trying to get ready for bed.  This is what I found when she looked up at me and was like "Help."

 Yep that's right.  She was trying to put her pajama shirt on but hadn't taken off her regular shirt and the PJ was stuck on her pig tails and she couldn't get the shirt over them.  She was so funny when I said you forgot to take your shirt off.  She said, "Oh yeah."

Stuck.  :-(

Potty Chart

Well we are trying with the potty.  Rachel's really good about going tinkle in the potty but pooping is another story.  Every few days she ends up having a day when she poops her panties and it feels like we have reverted back to the beginning.  So frustrating for sure.  Here is Rachel standing by her sticker chart.

8 Year Anniversary

Well today is our 8 year anniversary.  I can't believe it's already been that many years.  We sure have gone through some ups and downs in these last 8 years.

Some of our Engagement Pictures.

May 28, 2004 will be a day I will never forget.  Scott was so stressed out because everyone wasn't showing up when he wanted them to be there.  We were sitting in the room waiting for them to come in and talk to us about our paperwork.  I took his hand, looked at him and told him to breathe everything would work out just fine.  Guess what?  Everything worked out just fine. We had great words of wisdom told to us by our sealer and we were surrounded by our family and friends who loved us.

Outside the Bountiful Utah Temple.

Things have changed in our lives since then.  We have gotten a bit heavier around the waist, we now live in Boise,  Scott's back in school to be a Nurse Practitioner, and I've become a stay at home mom to the cutest little spunkiest girl in the whole wide world.

Sealed together as a family on July 9th, 2011

 HAPPY 8th ANNIVERSARY to us!!!

Easter / Turn 3 Pictures

I was just going through organizing my pictures and I saw these pictures we had taken of Rachel and remembered I hadn't put them on the blog.  This is Rachel's Easter pictures but also her 3 year old pictures.  I had them done at Target and the lady was really good considering Rachel really wanted nothing to do with having to stand in a particular spot to have her pictures taken.  I would have loved to have gotten all these pictures to hang up in our house but the pricing is pretty expensive.  Here are some of my favorite ones.

This was my favorite of them all.

I love this close up.

Being festive with Easter.  This is about the only one she smiled in with the Easter items around her.

We weren't sure we were going to get this all the way finished.  She did not want to hold onto these props.  As you can tell she wouldn't hold the number 3 so we just had to lay it down by her and get what we could get on it.

I like this one because it totally shows all the emotions we got while doing this photo shoot.

I liked this one also.  The lady made some really cool collages.

 I got this one in an 8 x 10 but haven't figured out where I want to put it yet.  It just matches Rachel so well and I smile when I see this.

Rachel and her bugs

When we first got Rachel we came up with the nickname "Bug".  After having her in our house I think bug is a great nickname for her.  While we were out doing the strawberry patch and the garden the last couple of days Rachel has been playing with all the bugs.  The first one she saw was a stink bug and she took her "feather" aka a weed and was poking it and laughing every time she touched it.  The next bug was this worm.

 She named it Slimey and she would laugh every time it moved in her hands.  She said it was tickling her fingers.  I was laughing so hard at her expressions and her laugh.

He was trying to get away as she put him down but she would pull him back out of the ground.

Our next bug she picked up was a potato bug.  She was screaming it was a spider until Scott went over and pushed on it and it curled up into a ball.  She said, "Oh it's not a spider."  Scott helped her to pick it up and she played with it.

 Crawling all over her arms.

 Trying to get it to stay on her finger.

Scott helping her to hold her hand out so it had something to walk on.
Scott and I left her to play with him and we went back to hauling dirt.  She ran over to the truck and said,  "oh no he's broken".  We both laughed because we knew she had probably squished him and he died.  Sorry nothing we can do to you help you now bug.  It's so funny because she can be such a girly girl but yet on the other hand she has some tom boy in her.  We will see which way she turns as she gets older.

Garden is Planted

Scott's been off work for a few days so of course I put him to work.  We wanted to get everything done before he has to go back to work and work 7 days in a row.  He's also had plenty of time to work on his homework even while doing these jobs.  So on Saturday we got up early and got the garden planted.

 We rototilled for a 3rd time and this was right after Scott rototilled and I ended up leveling the ground.

 This is Rachel pouting because I wouldn't give her the whole package of sunflower seeds to dump in one spot.  She didn't want to just plant one seed at a time so she went over and laid on the grass and pouted and cried.

 Rachel finally decided that she would help.  We were planting peas at this point and she did really good at putting one seed in the ground at a time.

 Actually putting one seed in the ground.

The finished garden.  We have planted sunflower seeds, corn, walla walla onions, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, peas, 1 tomato, 1 red pepper, 1 cucumber, and 1 jalapeno plant.  We are hoping that our garden is now "sweetened" after the sulfur we put in our soil.  If our garden still tastes like metal this year I'm giving up on the gardening.

Strawberry Patch

Scott decided we needed to make a strawberry patch.  We had looked for kits but he decided he would be able to come up with a design himself.  So after doing some basic sketches he had his idea and headed to Lowe's.  I was thinking this project would cost maybe 50 bucks but let's just say it cost more than I wanted to spend.   I think in the end it's going to be great.  Here is the pictures of our project.

 What the space looked like first.

 We used the garbage cans as our saw horses to cut the 2 x 8's.

 1st level of our 3 tiered strawberry patch.

 Our watering system for the strawberries. It will actually help to water the other parts of the garden that our sprinkler system doesn't reach.  So it's got a dual job.

Building the next two levels.

 The 2nd tier.

 We actually had to go get some dirt from another lot in order to build up the tiers.

Our wheel barrow has a flat tire so this is the way we had to get the dirt out of the truck and to the back garden spot.  I'm so glad we bought this wagon for Rachel's birthday last year.  It's been a life saver several times.

This is what it looks like with all three levels.  We left room in each level so that we could put some good soil in it.  We bought potting soil to put the strawberries in.  This picture you can see the sprinkler better in the back of the box.

 What it looks like with the potting soil in it.

The final look of our project.  I think it turned out really great.  I'm excited to get some strawberries next year.  We read that we are supposed to snap the blossoms off the 1st year so that they put all their energy into the roots.  So that's what we will do.

Imitating Dad

Scott and I decided we would build a strawberry patch this year in our garden.  Well we had to map it out on the floor.  We ended up using the VCR tapes to decide how many plants and where the plants would be at in our design.  Well Rachel saw us and while we were doing other things this is what I came back to find her doing.

 Measuring

Yep she was imitating what we had done with the tape measure.  She is so stinky smart.

Success in the Toilet

Okay this post isn't for the faint of heart.  If you can't handle hearing about potty training don't keep reading.  We have been trying to get Rachel interested in actually using the potty since just before she turned 3.  I will catch her hiding while she is pooping and asking her if she wants to use the toilet and she will say "Go Away NO!"  So I go away.   Well after talking with Kristin about things we decided that maybe she needs to have someone her own age that already uses the potty to help her.  So Kristin talked with Rachel yesterday about the toilet and learning to use it with Rachel's friend Vivian(yes her friend from dance class).  I've also been telling her that as soon as we are out of diapers she's going to have to learn to poop and pee in the toilet.  I ask her everyday, "What happens with the diapers are gone."  She will tell me, "I have to poop and pee in the toilet."  I say, "That is right."  Tonight I was getting her ready for bed and she had a little bit of poop in her diaper and I said why didn't you use the toilet.  She of course just ignored me until I said, "Do you want to try and use the toilet?"  She jumped up and ran into the bathroom and put her Elmo toilet cover on the toilet.  I helped her get up on the toilet and gave her her Elmo book.  Usually that's about as far as it goes and she sits on there for about five minutes and then is like "Okay I'm done."  So I didn't think anything of it until she started to yell, "I pooped in the toilet."  I walked in there with my normal yeah whatever type of attitude.  She was so excited that I lifted her off the toilet and said okay let's look and to my utmost surprise.....Yes there was poop in the toilet.  Happy Happy Dance we did.  I was so excited and she was so excited.  I ran and got the stickers and we put them on her Elmo Chart.  It was so awesome.  I was definitely excited and am hoping that this helps her get kick started on potty training.

Falling Asleep

Today I found Rachel sleeping the most interesting ways.  

 So I took Rachel to her nap and at some point she had gotten up and went out into the loft and fell asleep liked this.  She is the silliest little girl.

When I went in to check on her after putting her down for the night this is what I found.  She was to tired to even put the book down it just fell right down on her face.

Coeur D'Alene Idaho, Day #5

So today was our last day in Coeur D' Alene.  We just took the morning to really relax.  We didn't have to check out until noon and so we used every minute we could before we left.  We have learned that if you pack up to quickly then Rachel is ready to leave.  So we were really slow at packing.  Here are some pictures of the condo.

 Rachel out on the patio.  She loved that she could open the sliding door and go out there any time she wanted to.  I would find her out there having conversations with the trees and the birds all the time.

 Chilling in the living room watching PBS while mom and dad packed up everything.

This was looking from the couch into the kitchen and dining area.

We had about 15 minutes before check out and we decided we would take a walk to see the lake up close and personal since we hadn't done that yet at our condo.

 As we were heading for the walk Rachel decided to play hide n seek in the parking garage with us. Can you see her?

 Walking down towards the lake.

The lake was so close and glass this morning.  I wished we had a boat because I would have been out water skiing on it because it was so nice.

Finally we headed out.  We stopped in Coeur D' Alene to get gas and eat some lunch before hitting the road.  The traffic was heavier on the way home.  I'm guessing since it was Friday more people getting an early start on the weekend.  We did stop and take pictures along the way of different things.  The 1st is the view overlooking Lewiston.  Totally amazing.

 

One view of Lewiston from atop Lewiston Hill.  You can also see the windy road in front and that is the 1st road ever to come up this hill.  Most cars were only able to go 20 or 30 miles per hour down it.  It's a gradual 10 mile 2000 foot grade road.

This is the other side of Lewiston.

Our next stop to take pictures was a bed and breakfast I had actually seen on the discovery channel.  As soon as I saw it I remembered seeing it on TV and said some day I would see it and go there.  Well today we saw it.

Yep it's shaped like a dog.  They only have one so I don't know how busy it is but I just think it's so ingenious.

This was the last thing on our trip until I ended up giving Scott crap about picking his nose.  

This is how Scott decided to disguise that he was picking his nose.  Does anyone else think it doesn't work?  Oh my gosh I never laughed so hard in my life.  I think I laughed for about ten minutes.  Long story short on this.  When Scott's in a car driving he gets bored.  Well what else is there to do but pick every single booger out of your nose.  So he will sit there and dig and dig and dig until I tell him to stop. So I had told him to stop but the boogers weren't all gone and so now you have Scott hoping he hiding while he is doing his deed.

We ended up getting home that night around 9:30.  Of course Rachel had slept the last 30 minutes of the ride so guess who wasn't tired when we got home.  Yep that would be Rachel.  She found these laying around because she had hoped we were taking them with us when we went swimming but I wasn't going to haul them up to the condo's. 

 

 So what else do you do but have a noodle war with Daddy.

 The wind up.

The hit.  Yep hit him in the face.

All and all we had a great trip.  Nothing to exciting but fun and relaxing.  Rachel even did really good on this trip for being a home body.