Swimming lessons

Tonight was a big night for Rachel. Her first swimming lesson.

"I'm too sexy for my bathing suit"
Too cute...and I will admit that her bathing suit is a little small on her. What was I thinking buying her a 6-12 month one? lol
Floating on her tummy
Daddy & Rachel after going under water.
They were singing a song at this point...Ron is probably just whispering it in her ear :)
Daddy & Rachel at the end of the lesson. I know she looks terrified in this picture - it's all about the timing of a picture, right?

I can't wait for the summer now - it's going to be so much fun swimming with Rachel!

One more thing - just a minor note - this is my 150th post. Holy crap in your shorts!!! :)

Rachel's first sleepover

It appears everyone survived, although Rachel gave them a good run for their money : ) She went to bed ok but got up a little later on...fell back asleep but then got up for a couple of hours and was completely "pissed off". My parents said it didn't matter what they did, she would not settle down. They finally put her in the carseat and she went to sleep.

So even though they went through that, they have offered to babysit her over night again. Not sure when that will happen again but I'm sure it will. : )

They taught her the cutest thing on Friday night. When you say 'Yay Rachel' now, she puts her arms up in the air (like the picture in the last post). It's just adorable!

Not much else to report - we went to see Ron's Mom & Step Dad yesterday - we had a nice dinner with them. Rachel just played in her exersaucer for the most part. I'm glad we took that with us since she enjoys it so much but it literally took up the whole trunk of my car (her playpen was in there, too). We will definitely need a different vehicle when we have another baby...until then, I will enjoy not having a car payment :)

Date night for us, sleep over for Rach

It was 6 years ago yesterday that Ron & I went on our first date. We decided we should have a 'date night' to celebrate so Rachel had a sleep over at Grandma & Grandad's. Ron & I were originally going to go out for dinner & then to a movie, like we did 6 years ago but we went to The Palasad for dinner and then some bowling instead. OMG, it was soooo much fun....probably even more fun because I beat Ron at both games of bowling...Game 1 130-112 and Game 2 118-103 WOO HOO for me :) I must admit that I'm a cheap drunk these days. 2 drinks at dinner and then 1 while bowling...I was feeling pretty loopy (sad, really).

I had a great....no, I mean GRRRREAT sleep last night. Ron said I didn't even move. I feel so full of energy this morning - like I want to clean the whole house, do laundry, etc...but I can't because we're going to Seaforth to see Oma & Cha Cha. Ron will laugh if/when he reads this because he knows I don't really want to clean the whole house & do laundry :) I do feel great this morning though.

So we survived our first night away from Rachel. Hopefully she slept well for my parents and if not, oh well - they can catch up on their sleep tonight! lol

**edited to add these pictures Grandad just emailed a couple of minutes ago**

Grandma reading Rachel a story. Nice hair, Rach!
YAY RACHEL!!!!!

Chinese New Year

Tuyen & Lan bought Rachel the cutest little outfit for the Chinese New Year (the 18th of February). It is still a little big on her but I couldn't resist trying it on and taking a couple of pictures. Rachel loved it because it was so slippery. She was sliding on the rocking chair - it probably doesn't help that the material Linda used to recover the rocking chair is very smooth/silky as well! :)






She's such a little flirt, isn't she?

What a big girl!

We went over to my parents for dinner last night since it was Shrove Tuesday. My Dad makes the best pancakes. Anyway, he painted this little chair that has been used for years and years and years - like seriously, back to the 1940's (it was originally my Aunt Donna's). Well, little Miss Rachel thought she was pretty special to be sitting on the chair all by herself! She sat there for quite awhile, too - a good 20 minutes at least (don't worry, my Mom was nearby to catch her in case she started to fall). At one point my Mom had her hand on Rachel just holding her but Rachel pushed her hand away...very independant!


Rachel has REALLY started talking this week. She has discovered her voice for sure! She thinks it's fun to scream and make loud noises :) She has also started saying 'mum mum mum' It's too cute!

Space Bags

Space bags ROCK! I thought I would give them a try to see if they really would save on space. They do.

As you may remember, I comented on how many clothes Rachel has awhile ago. I packed up just the girls clothes in one space bag today...that means I got rid of TWO VERY VERY full totes...

The clothes in the Space Bag.
Two totes full of clothes in one bag.
After I sucked the air out of the bag!

I am so excited!!! I thought it was exciting when I saw them at Sam's Club last night but it was far more exciting to actually use them this morning.

I still have the unisex clothes to do but I don't know if I have enough for a full bag yet. I may wait on that until we get more.

Yes, I know it's sad that I'm excited about Space Bags. That's ok though....Ron & Rachel still love me :)

Ron makes me laugh...

Last night he was feeding Rachel and I was sitting in the family room watching them. I couldn't help but giggle when Ron would open his mouth every time he would give Rachel a spoonful of food. He's done this before and you would think I wouldn't laugh but I just can't help it!!!

Not the best shot of Ron's mouth open but I swear it is EVERY TIME he gives Rachel a spoonful of food :)
We gave Rachel a Farley's biscuit for the first time last night as well. I think the next time we do this, we will give her a bath AFTER the cookie!
All smiles after her cookie. Could it be because of all the cookie crumbs she had in her hair and stuck to her hands?

A few months ago we got a nice letter & this bib from Davey Tree (where Ron works). They also published Rachel's birth announcement in the 'Davey Bulletin' and sent us an extra copy so we could put it with the rest of her keepsakes. I finally remembered to take a picture of her wearing the bib. She wouldn't cooperate though because Daddy was making funny faces and he is far more interesting to look at than the camera apparently! She wouldn't turn her whole head towards the camera - just her eyes! Silly little munchkin!

I guess my mission this week will be to take another picture of her wearing the bib so we can send it to Ron's friend Marnie who works at Davey as well. I think she'll get a kick out of that.

Well, I think it's time to join Rachel in the living room. She's sleeping in her play pen and I hear the couch calling my name. Naps are great, aren't they?

Then and Now...

It was a year ago today we saw Rachel for the first time. What an exciting day it was!

And here she is today...

TGIF!!!!

I'm excited it's Friday! I'm excited the sun is shining! I'm excited that Rachel & I are going to go for a walk this afternoon! I should be cleaning but what fun is that? :)

Rachel and I were playing 'peek a boo' this morning and I captured this really cute picture of her. I'm a little sad she will probably only wear this outfit once - the pants are a little tight. Oh well, what can ya do?

OH - I forgot to mention I'm VERY excited Rachel slept through the night last night. Well, she was awake at 4 this morning but she was just talking to herself - she eventually went back to sleep! She went to bed at 8 last night and got up at 8 this morning. Here's hoping we're back to her old sleep routine!

Have a great weekend!

Valentine's Day

A message from Rachel...

jdasdf4gknadnvcvfgkl;gfg g

I'll translate it for you...

Happy Valentine's Day to all of my friends & family...especially my cute boyfriends (you know who you are)!!

Rachel was quite fascinated with the hearts on her jeans. She kept reaching for them as long as she was sitting there. She's probably wondering what happened to the butterflies that used to be on her jeans :)

She was having a blast playing with her piano yesterday. Here's a video I took (I used our digital camera instead of our video camera because I haven't figured out how to upload to our computer using the video camera.) She was getting a little bored by the time I got the camera out - of course but it's still cute.

On another note, it was 6 years ago today Ron gave me his phone number. I was mean though and didn't call him until the 18th. Hey, I was BUSY!!!

Rachel's 6 month pictures

Ron picked up the pictures today from Real Canadian Superstore...

The quality of the scan isn't very good because I forgot to put the lid down on the scanner and I'm just too lazy to re-scan them!

It's snowing like crazy right now - perfect night to stay by the fireplace!

Six months ago today...

...I gave birth to Rachel. SIX MONTHS have gone by already!!! How sad for me - I have to go back to work in 6 months. Oh well, c'est la vie :)

She has changed so much in 6 months, I can only imagine how much more she will change in the next 6 months.

August 12, 2006...7lbs, 3oz



February 12, 2007...17lbs and full of smiles (when it's not a professional taking her picture - ha ha)


We had her pictures taken at RCSS again today. They turned out ok - of course the little buggar wouldn't smile for Nancee but Rachel did manage to sit all by herself for the half an hour she has having her picture taken. Way to go, Rach :)

I will scan & upload the pictures tomorrow.

Love is...

...when your honey washes your car (and his truck) and it is -8 degrees outside (-17 with the wind chill) Ruby the Red Rocket after her bath. Ronnie is washing Kermit in the background.

While Ron was washing the vehicles, I decided to go through Rachel's clothes again. She has outgrown her 12 month onesies so I was in search on the 18 month ones in the spare room. While I was at it, I decided to put more of her clothes away. She has soooooo many clothes that she has outgrown and she has a ton more she needs to grow into. Here are the ones I have packed up so far. Yes, I know I'm a little anal since they are organized by 'girls' and 'unisex' and size/age. :)

Rybeca & Tim's baby shower today

Ron, Rachel & I went to Toronto today for Rybeca & Tim's baby shower. It was a lot of fun - TONS of food, some games & then of course, it's always just good to see Ry & Tim! I can't wait until they have their little baby - he is going to be so cute! I wonder how much hair he'll have - I have a feeling it will be a lot!

Here are some pictures from our adventure today...

Rachel hanging out as we blew up some balloons.
Ry & her HUGE belly! She has put on 50 pounds! I think she's a little upset she's 150 pounds now! ha ha
Me playing a game (I won by the way) - I had to make a diaper out of toilet paper and it had to stay on. Cha ching - it was a piece of cake :)
Ron definitely lost at this game - you were supposed to guess the belly size. Ron's guess was big enough to include him as well!
Ry & Rachel

Rachel was a good girl today - she only cried when it was time to go home. She had a little nap while we were there and she slept most of the way home. By the time we got to the 401 (after we left the private school we were at) Rachel was sound asleep and slept until we were about 10 minutes from home. It took us 2 hours to get there today but only an hour & a half to get home. Thankfully we had good weather - it only snowed a little bit.

Well, it's time to give Rachel her last bottle and put her to bed. Here's hoping she has a better night than last night. UGH - she was up for an hour & a half and all she wanted to do was cuddle. Of course Ron was 'on duty' but she would just scream when he was holding her so lucky me - I got to hang out with Rachel for the majority of that time!

Google

I had a little time on my hands today so I 'googled' "Rachel Wammes". A lot of the London Free Press baby contest links came up, in addition to a link at a funeral home. However, one caught me off guard...

http://bernas.freeblogz.info/index.php/2007/01/14//

Weird.

Entertaining Rachel

I must admit that Rachel is very easy to entertain. In fact, you don't even need to entertain her - she can do it herself. We, of course, are very thankful for that.

I can't remember what was on tv last night but Rachel was quite interested... Even as she tumbled to her right, she was still watching tv...
She didn't care the flash from the camera was right in her eyes - it must have been a good show!
This morning Grandad was reading a story to her. The Grouchy Ladybug. It was a gift from Marg & Gerry that we received this past weekend. Rachel quite enjoys the story - or at least looking at the pictures :)

No sweet tooth?

It's a good thing I know for a fact that Rachel is my baby because if I went by her eating habits, I would swear she isn't mine!

She does not like fruit at all. Mind you, we've only tried apples, bananas and peaches so far. Maybe she'll like pears? I have to admit the bananas aren't too bad - they are a little tarty but all in all, I would eat them if I was a baby! :)

Grandad gave her some peaches this morning and as you can tell by her face, she is not a fan!

We are going to continue to work on the fruit issue but as soon as she gets a mouthful, she spits it right back out. If we happen to get a mouthful IN her mouth, she will gag and then spit it out...along with making funny faces.

Ron and I must be bad parents - we laugh when Rachel gags. It's just so cute to see this little person make the funniest face and then her little tongue rolls up and she gags. Yup - we laugh.

Dr. Update & photo shoot today...

Rachel is getting to be a little porker. She is 17lbs and 25 3/4" in length. The nurse figures she weighs a little more than that but Rachel wouldn't stay still while she was on the scale so she had to estimate. She is in the 75 percentile for both height & weight...pretty good considering at one point she was in the 10 percentile for height. Looks like we won't have a short little girl after all :)

Of course she still isn't fond of needles but as soon as we picked her up after she had them, she stopped crying and was fine the rest of the night. She was even in her jolly jumper last night and she was going crazy in there so I guess her legs are just fine (probably because she has 'thunder thighs' ha ha)

Our big adventure today is going to be drinking water out of a sippy cup. That should be cute & funny to watch. I love how in the books they recommend you just give them a cup (no lid on it) and expect a few messes. YA THINK? I'm not that brave so we'll stick with a sippy cup my Aunt bought her when she was born. It has two handles on it so I think it will be perfect! I will probably wait until Ron is home before I give her the water so that we can catch it on video. Now that I said that, it will probably be uneventful! :)

I thought I would try out some of the settings on our camera today. It's actually pretty cool - it can do a lot more than I thought it could :) I just went a little overboard though and ended up taking 47 pictures...don't worry, I won't post them all here! Here are a few...

I just love her eyes in this picture.

She has always loved sitting on the couch but now she's starting to slide herself around.
Proof that we do 'tummy' time! ha ha
This is what happens 2 seconds after we put Rachel on her tummy *sigh*
I know she's my daughter so therefore I am biased but she really does have pretty eyes (people tell that all the time but now I'm just realizing it! ha ha)
Sucking her thumb....thankfully she doesn't do this a lot - I don't think she understands that it can be used as a pacifier as well. That's ok though, one less habit to break down the road!
I love this picture - where she is looking at herself in the mirror. It's supposed to be a 'tummy time' toy but...well, you know! :)
I think this is one of the funniest pictures from today only because of the story behind it. The picture isn't the best quality because I was vacuuming while I took it. She was just in 'awe' - not sure if she thought the machine itself was cool or if she was just in awe that I was actually using it! It's probably only the third or fourth time I've used it since we've been in this house - it's Ron's job. What can I say - he loves to vacuum! Do you think I'm going to take that away from him??? (just this one time)