Sleeping Beauty...

Is there anything more precious....???


These pictures were literally taken 'seconds' apart. She is always so happy when she wakes up. Ron & I are truly blessed.

Now that the Princess is awake, I can FINALLY do my running around :)

Busy weekend

We had an extremely busy weekend but it was a lot of fun! We left London early on Saturday morning to go see Oma & Cha Cha. We got to their place around 10:30 in the morning so that was pretty good. It probably took us an hour to unload the car! ha ha Seriously though, our car was FULL...thanks to the little princess :) We just hung out with them all day and David & Mark stopped by as well (Ron's brothers ). Ron & I left around 4:30 and headed to Stratford to meet up with a bunch of friends for dinner before the Blue Rodeo concert. I think there were 17 of us in total. The concert was great this year - much better than last year. Oma & Cha Cha hung out with Rachel while we were at dinner & the concert. She was a good girl for them so we were very happy to hear that. They had no problems putting her to bed and she slept through the night as well.

Rachel hanging out on Oma's table (waiting for her breakfast to be served to her). Hard to believe she's wearing 12 month sleepers now! Sheesh! We're going to need to go to Florida so she can wear the 12 & 18 month outfits we bought her; thinking they would fit her in the summer!

On Sunday morning we went to Church with Oma & Cha Cha and then went to Luke's Baptism. Ron & I are Luke's Godparents. He looked cute in his little white suit. Unlike Rachel, Luke didn't scream through all of his Baptism! ha ha

Afterwards, we went back to Sally & Mark's for some lunch and to hang out. It was fun to play with the kids - we put them on the blanket beside each other and Rachel just wanted to touch Luke (she's at that stage where touching and pulling and pinching are fun for her to do).

Rachel looks so chunky beside Luke. Even though he is 6 weeks younger, he is longer than Rachel by at least an inch, if not more. Rachel however, has the weight issue covered! ha ha

We didn't bring Rachel's playpen with us to Mark & Sally's and since she's so used to sleeping in one, we were quite surprised that she cuddled up with Oma to have her nap. Poor Oma though - her arm fell asleep :)
Usually when we're in the car for an extended period of time, we take Rachel's hat off because she sweats so much. We forgot last night on the way home. Her hair was wild after wearing that hat for an hour :)
Rachel and I didn't do much today - we just relaxed and hung out at home. That means tomorrow we'll be running the roads. WOO HOO!

Sitting up on her own!

This morning I was playing with Rachel (as you can see from the mess in the picture below) and she sat on her own for quite awhile. Well, long enough for me to realize she was going to sit by herself for awhile, get the camera & take the picture! I am so proud of my little baby girl :)


This picture is from the other day when Rachel had sweet potatoes for the first time. She LOVES them! Ok...she looks a little scared in this picture though! lol

And finally, here's a picture of what Rachel is like when she wakes up from her naps (and even in the morning after her 'big sleep')
I love that outfit on her. Those jeans are my favourite and I think I'll be sad when they don't fit her anymore.

Pictures are here!!!

I picked Rachel's pictures up this afternoon so without further delay...

My favourite one (and the one that will be up in the studio at the store)

This one makes me laugh - her facial expression is too funny....can you tell she hates tummy time?
Full face shot. Check out those chubby cheeks!
Just being cozy, sitting in the chair
The picnic basket...too cute!
And last, but not least, the flower pot or urn...whatever you want to call it!
I was quite pleased with these pictures and I can't wait to go back on the 12th of Feb. Here's hoping Rachel cooperates : )

Bumbo Tray

Yesterday I picked up a tray for Rachel's Bumbo. What a wonderful invention! I've always liked the Bumbo chair but now that there is a tray to go with it, it's even better! Rachel would sit in her Bumbo for a little while but then get bored and she would arch her back to get out of it. Not anymore : ) She sat in there for a good 45 minutes this morning, playing with Larry the Lion. He only fell off the tray a couple of times but she was able to pick him up. Definitely worth the $15 for the tray!

Picture day!!!

YAY!!!!! We were successful at getting pictures taken today!!! I was a little worried at first because the girl who usually takes Rachel's pictures was not there - she was at home sick. However, the guy did a great job!!! The appointment after us called & cancelled so he kept taking pictures of her...for a total of an hour & ten minutes -oh, minus a few minutes for a bottle! ha ha She was good the whole time. She wouldn't really smile though but I'm happy that she didn't cry! She just kept staring at him - she wouldn't blink! Which I guess is good when you're trying to take pictures! : ) He even asked if he could put one of her pictures up in the studio. Hell ya! As soon as he saw her he said 'Oh my goodness, she is beautiful'. I was like 'ya, whatever - you probably say that to everyone'. He laughed and said 'oh no, trust me, not all babies are cute but this one is beautiful. She has a perfectly propotioned face and oh my...those eyes are killer'. I was getting embarassed by this point! ha ha Anyway, he took over 50 pictures of her so it was hard to pick but we narrowed it down to 5 of my favourites. I can't wait to get them back tomorrow afternoon! I will scan them and post them here as soon as I can.

I'm going out with my friend Annette tonight and I'm quite excited about it! We are going to Jack Astor's for dinner (my favourite) and then we're going to look for blinds or window coverings for her kitchen. I know it probably doesn't sound very exciting but for me, it is :)

Weekend Pictures

It's hard to believe another weekend is winding down. 23 weeks ago, we had a newborn in our home. Now we have a 5 month old. Honestly, it's amazing how quickly the time flies by!

Here's Rachel in her 'wife beater' onesie, as Ron calls it. Check out her chub, too! ha ha

The weekly pig shot...
Our cutie patootie...
Eating peas this afternoon...
Looking down at her bib because Daddy dropped some peas. Rachel tried to use her tongue to pick them up (right after this picture was taken of course). Ron had to wipe them off the bib because she wouldn't eat anymore at the time. Silly monkey!

Mmmm...peas...pasty peas at that! *gag* <---that's what Mommy would do. Rachel loves them though and can't get enough of them.
I promised Ron I would make a coffee cake this weekend and I have yet to do it. I suppose I should go do that now.

Rachel's favourite website

Rachel has enjoyed sitting on my lap while I type email for the past couple months. Lately she has wanted to touch the keyboard herself. I usually open up a blank "Word" document and let her type away. Until I remembered this...

http://www.kneebouncers.com/

We were playing there for awhile tonight - she was having a blast!!!

Peas

Rachel had peas today and she loved them! She didn't even make a funny face when we fed them to her! I made Ron feed them to her because there was no way in hell I was going to try them to make sure they weren't too hot :)

Hopefully Rachel will continue this and she won't be a picky eater like me. Then again, when I was a kid, I ate everything, too!

Update on the pictures - didn't happen on Friday! SURPRISE! SURPRISE! Miss Rachel didn't wake up from her nap until 3:15! We are scheduled again on Tuesday morning at 10am! And let me tell you, the only thing that will keep me from that appointment will be a snow/ice storm!

Well, we have another busy day today - we have a lot of running around to do. We even have to go to Toys R Us to pick up a shower gift for our friends Tim & Rybeca. Their shower is on Feb 10th in Toronto - I can't wait! We also have to pick up a little something more for Luke's Baptism next Sunday (he's our Godson & nephew). I really like what we bought him but I just want to get him a little something more (I can't say what we bought him in case his Mommy reads this). Then we're going to go to Home Depot to look for a light for our kitchen dining area. It's still the one that the builder put in the house for us and I've never really been a fan of it. It's not as bad as the rest of the lights were but it's time to go. Mom & Dad gave us a gift certificate for Christmas to buy a new light so hopefully we'll find something we like today.

Oh - and an update on the London Free Press Baby contest. This week's winner had over 10,241 votes. I thought Rachel had a lot at 5,500! Can you imagine how excited the winners must be this week - they will definitely have a life again! ha ha

Well, time to hit the roads. I'm hoping to get our running around done early enough so that we can take Rachel for a walk in her sleigh this afternoon :) We FINALLY have snow!!! YAY!!!

Pictures today

Well, Rachel & I should be at Real Canadian Superstore right now having her picture taken. HOWEVER, the little munchkin went to bed at 7 last night so she was up at 6:30 this morning. She had her morning nap from 8-10:30, then she ate and played. While I was getting her dressed for the pictures, she started crying and rubbing her eyes. I knew it would be a waste of time to even attempt the pictures so I called the studio to see if they have another opening either this afternoon or early next week (I'm waiting for them to call me back). They weren't busy last Friday when they were there so here's hoping we can get in this afternoon. So instead, I'll post a couple of pictures I took yesterday. The first one is from the morning (before breakfast)

And of course, Ron loves this one of his little girl...(taken in the afternoon)
I was just talking to Ron a couple of minutes ago and we were talking about how Rachel loves her sleep. Please don't get me wrong - I am NOT complaining but man oh man, if she doesn't get her sleep she's grumpy! The other night she was making her 'I'm tired' noise but she hadn't been in her jolly jumper yet so Ron put her in there. We figured out afterwards that it was a mistake to do that because then she was overtired. That's why last night at 6:50 when she started making her 'I'm tired' noise, we changed her bum & put her right to bed. Now Ron is worried that she'll want to go to bed at 6pm tonight and be up at 5 tomorrow (he's on duty of course). Oh the joys of trying to figure out a little kid's brain :)

Flowers in Nursery

As you know, Rachel has the cutest little flowers in her nursery. We attached them using velcro so that they could be pulled off and put back on, etc. Well, that time has come. EVERYTIME we change Rachel, all three flowers above her change table get pulled off. She usually starts munching on them as well. It's cute now but I'm sure when one of them lands in a poopy diaper it won't be so cute. :)


Look at that devilish smile :)

Email is not working

Do you know how much I'm going to get done around the house today since email is not working? ha ha I was on such a roll yesterday cleaning out my In Box as well (over 700 emails in there). *sigh* My first thought was 'Stupid Sympatico' but now I'm thinking 'Thank You Sympatico'

Rachel has been sleeping for an hour and a half already - I've unloaded the dishwasher, dusted the family room, washed the windows (guess my new blinds have me excited about our windows again), done 2 loads of laundry (including the sheets from the spare room), packed up another tote of clothes that don't fit the little munchkin & updated her baby book. I was going to do some scrapbooking but I think I'll do that next week. I haven't done any since Halloween so I'm a bit behind and I'll need a couple of days to work on it (Ron will be thrilled when I take over the kitchen table - I can't use the dining room table because Rachel naps in the living room/dining room).

*sigh* It's going to be a great day! Ron will wonder what happened to me! ha ha

My little Monkey

I haven't been to work for a visit in at least a couple of months so I figured we would go today & check things out.

Little Miss Rachel decided to cry when people talked to her or even just looked at her. If they held her - she would cry even more. She must be going through this 'making strange' stage now, although I thought they went through it when they are older. Hopefully she gets over it quickly because I have a lot of friends at work and it breaks my heart when she cries with them.

The minute we got home, I put her in her exersaucer and here's what she did...



SMILE SMILE SMILE!!! She must love it at home :)

Comments

I haven't had the comments 'active' for quite awhile because I haven't shared this blog with very many people. I wasn't sure how many people would really want to follow along but as it turns out, there are some! I'm opening up the comments section again so people can leave their thoughts for Rachel.

Dad & Mom...Mom & Sam - feel free to send the link for this blog to whomever you would like. You can also send them the Babies Online webpage as well:

http://www.babiesonline.com/members/getpassword.asp?be=l/lil_bean

The password is wammes

I will continue to keep these two sites updated, especially for our family in Oshawa, New Brunswick, Holland, Windsor, etc...

Daddy's Little Girl...

I made this last night for Ron. It brought tears to his eyes : )

Make an online slideshow at onetruemedia.com

2006 in review

I think this just about sums up how great 2006 was for us : )

Make video montages at onetruemedia.com

My first montage

Here is the montage I created this morning for Rachel.

Photo and video editing at onetruemedia.com

Carrots

Wow - this next stage of food is going to get interesting to say the least. Between the faces I expect Rachel will make and the mess of the food...woo hoo!!! It will make a bottle seem that much more boring : )

Today we gave Rachel some carrots. I honestly thought she would have a different reaction but she just made a little funny face and continued eating.



As you can see, Rachel likes to hold her bottle herself now. She just doesn't quite understand that she needs to hold it up a little higher though so that she can avoid the air : ) Oh well, it's all good because it's really cute to watch.

Our little baby is growing up. 5 months and counting...

Rachel won!!!

I am very pleased to announce that Rachel won the weekly prize in the London Free Press Babies of 2006 contest. We win a $50 gift certificate at Stan C Reade Photo - although it's cool that we win a prize, it's even better to see the word "WINNER" under Rachel's name : )

http://lfpress.com/cgi-bin/babies.cgi?d=babies&x=babies2006&show_winners=yes

and

http://lfpress.com/cgi-bin/babies.cgi?x=babies2006&d=babies&s_letter=W

Thank you again to everyone who voted. Rachel had over 5500 votes :)

Picture update

No pictures today. That's right - no pictures! My little princess decided she didn't want to have her picture taken. She cried and cried and cried! At first she was ok - she wasn't crying but she wasn't completely happy either. She just sat there and made funny eyebrow expressions at the camera. Then she started staring at her shoes. Next she thought it would be fun if she raised her dress and showed some leg. The photographer thought that was pretty funny so she got some shots of that. Then Rachel had enough. She didn't stop crying until she was back in her carseat buckled in. The little fart had the nerve to smile at that point!! : ) I told the photographer that maybe the carseat is a new prop they could consider! ha ha

We're going back next Friday at 12:20. Here's hoping Rachel will be in a better mood!

On a side note - my Mom thinks this is the funniest thing ever. Apparently when I was a baby, I went through a stage where I didn't want to smile for a camera either. I DON'T THINK THIS IS FUNNY!!!!!

Happy New Year!

It has been far too long since I have updated this blog! We have all been sick - of course it started with Ron and then went to Rachel and I got it last...and the worst of all! OY! I'm feeling a bit better and since Rachel is having her morning nap, I thought I would take the opportunity to post an update!

Rachel is 5 months old today! FIVE MONTHS!!! It just doesn't seem possible. However, I was looking at old pictures of her last night and oh my goodness - she was sooo tiny when she was born. She's a little butterball now : )

The London Free Press has their Babies of 2006 contest going on. Rachel is in it and was in the Top 10 for the Week 1 voting. Today is the last day to vote for Week 2 and I'm hoping she won! That would be so much fun! I don't even really care about the prize ($50 gift certificate from Stan C. Reade {photographer}) - I just want her to win!!! You can check her out here:

http://lfpress.com/cgi-bin/babies.cgi?x=babies2006&d=babies&s_letter=W

I love this picture my Dad 'tweaked' yesterday. If she doesn't win this week, I think I will send this picture out to everyone and ask they vote for her next week. :)

Rachel is pretty much back to her normal sleeping pattern at night. No more parties in her crib at 2am. She just wants her soother back in her mouth around 4:30 in the morning. I think when the furnace comes on, it wakes her up and that's when she realizes she doesn't have her soother.

What else has happened? Oh - she rolled over from front to back. We have her on video at 3 weeks old doing this but now she does it 'for real' : ) She makes motor boat noises and some other kind of mouth noise but I don't know how to describe it. I have her on video doing it - I should post it one of these days.

We are going to have pictures taken again today at 11:40am. Rachel should be well rested by then and hopefully will smile! I'm happy I'm not going back to Loblaws - I get to go to Real Canadian Superstore instead. Hopefully afterwards we will go see Daddy on his lunch break - just depends on Rachel's mood.

Once I get the pictures back, I will scan them and upload them. Until then...KEEP VOTING FOR RACHEL!!!!! :)