We had a wonderful time on vacation and sad to say, I have no pictures to show for it. Doesn't surprise me because it was four adults and we left all responsibility at home, including our children! Katie and I spent a few days at a great outlet mall about 2 minutes from where we were staying. I got Rachel a lot of clothes mostly 24 months and 2T and 3 pairs of shoes. They had great prices at the Stride Rite store! I did buy about 10 items for myself and have enjoyed wearing some new clothes. After pregnancy, your wardrobe seems so limited as you always hope to keep losing more weight so you don't buy a lot of clothes, but you don't actually lose more weight. I also got some stuff I can wear to work as well. Can I just say how thankful I am that HCC doesn't really have a dress code, so I don't have to look super nice and have a different set of clothes for work. Speaking of HCC, I finally decided to see what in the world was going on there and accessed my e-mail account. I always have problems with it resetting stuff at the beginning of each semester and it was no different this time. So, I called and got it fixed and actually had a few e-mails from my students. I found out that my first night of class is on Aug 25, which was a week later than I expected! Woohoo for a month of vacation left!
What did Matt do on our trip? Well, he did hit the outlet mall with me for a few hours one day (what a good husband), but him and Josiah went to colonial Williamsburg on the days I was at the mall. They helped in a court case set back in colonial times and saw some of the other historic places. We all went to Virginia beach one day and had a blast boogie boarding. We played tennis, swam, ate, slept, watched movies, played pool and corn-hole, and Matt and I visited the walk-in clinic.
Matt is looking at some more houses to buy and I am really excited about that prospect. Matt went back to work the next day after getting home and I began the catching up on my chores. The house need cleaning, laundry needed to be done, Rachel's room needed to be rearranged and reorganized, Publix was calling my name and I was behind on my week of couponing. We had very limited access to a computer up there. It is Friday and I am caught up. Whew! I haven't been able to get to the gym because Rachel came home with a gross nose. That doesn't surprise me since she was around a bunch of other one year olds for 15 hours last week.
Rachel seems to be getting clutzier by the day. She falls down a lot and when she gets up, she takes one or two steps and trips again. I wonder where she gets it from...I still run into walls and doors. She has started playing with her kitchen more, loves to play with her phones and books, and will actually sit in your lap for you to read to her. Here is a cute story. She was being pretty quiet for a minute or two and I walk out to the kitchen and I find her drinking from this plastic container she has. She is standing by the water dispenser on the fridge and then press the lever with her cup for a refill. She drinks some more. After I realize what has happened, I look on the floor at all of the water that missed the cup. I couldn't believe she knew how to do that and that is what you were supposed to do when you wanted something to drink. Unfortunately, this is not something I want her doing at her age, so she got a big "NO" and a swat. Smart cookie.
This is my new school bag that I got for free at Staples. I loved the pattern and my bag from last semester was a little too small some days, so this will work great.
Here is Rachel on her rocking horse. She "made" this cowboy hat in vacation bible school. She wants to put the hat on, but then immediately tips her head back for it to fall off. Confused.
Hannah and Kate came over to play for an hour and these are just pictures from that.
The picture below is capturing Hannah dancing. The fridge farm plays farm music and she was kicking her legs as part of her dance. It was so cute!
Her first Oreo cookie! Yum!
I start back to school in a few hours and am looking forward to it. Unfortunately, it is pouring right now and I hate walking around in the rain. Such is life in Florida and I won't expect much from my hair today. That is all for this post.
Rachel now loves the gym and they have a big slide. Well, there is no keeping her off it (it is kind of too big for her). She took a tumble off it and bit her lower lip and I guess that is how she got this boo-boo under her lip. She is a champ and is pretty tough for a girl.
Rachel was also being quite the ham today and was just being silly. She does not own a baby doll (but I do want to get her one), but loves this dog she got from her birthday named Violet. She put Violet in the shopping cart as if she were a baby and pushed her around. I have never seen her put anything in the cart before. So cute!
She is figuring out how to do more things with her kitchen, especially since she is tall enough to push the buttons on the microwave.
She is also playing with her Laugh and Learn Farm more too. I thought of it as more of a babyish toy, but she didn't play with it a lot like I had hoped. Well, now she gets lots of use from it.
She enjoys being pushed on cars, but of course, I do not have time or want to push her around all day. She does know to put her feet up to be pushed and she use her feet to go backwards. She was getting off the car and decided to do a little daredevil stand on one leg move.
By the way, I hope you like the new background to the blog and hopefully that weird box is now gone too. I don't know what happened, but I changed something on my profile and then suddenly the box appeared and the background was gone. My Mom nagged me in an e-mail to fix this, so I did and I hope you are happy with it!
Rachel also likes to wear sunglasses over at Hannah and Kate's house, so I thought she might like to wear some that she got for her birthday. She likes to wear them, but wants to take them off and on. She has the taking off part down, but needs my help to get them back on. Mama don't play that game. But she still looks so cute!
Her hair did not get brushed after her bath, so you can see the curls a lot more than usual.
Her is Matt trying to take a Sunday afternoon nap. Rachel was just not about it though. I did eventually take her out and shut the door so he could get some sleep.
Rachel also likes to just lay on the floor and sometimes roll around. It doesn't matter if the floor is soft or hard, but she does know when to very slowly roll her head down so it doesn't hit hard.
She has finally figured out the shopping cart. Except she can only go straight and when she runs into something, she just pushes in the other way or drags it instead of turning it around.
On an exciting note, we should start the remodel of our family room and laundry room soon! Goodbye wood paneling! That should help the look of the room out A LOT. I am very excited about this because that is the last major renovation (besides maybe the back porch someday) taking place in our house. It has come a looooooong way.
Here is Rachel on her rocking horse. She "made" this cowboy hat in vacation bible school. She wants to put the hat on, but then immediately tips her head back for it to fall off. Confused.
Hannah and Kate came over to play for an hour and these are just pictures from that.
The picture below is capturing Hannah dancing. The fridge farm plays farm music and she was kicking her legs as part of her dance. It was so cute!
She has also learned how to look under things, like the bed or under the crack in the door. I think she was looking for her ball here. She loves to play with her ball and throw it and chase it. She can also say ball now.
She has a new favorite game of "peekaboo" and will almost smack herself while covering her eyes. She uncovers them quickly and says "boo." She has started twirling and spinning in circles as part of her dancing routine instead of the usual bouncing and head bobbing. She is too cute and getting to be so much fun!
