Sweet Faces

Easter Birthday Party

Rachel had a very small party the day before Easter with just a few of her friends. It was such a fun time and because her birthday (the 20th) fell so close to Easter this year I decided to do an Easter Egg party. So, we colored Easter eggs and had a Easter Egg hunt afterwards. It went so well. This is the first time we have colored eggs with Rachel and we'll definately do it again next year...it was a lot of fun!

Easter Egg Hunt

The Friday before Easter I decided to take Rachel to her first Easter egg hunt. It was the Town of Cary Easter egg hunt and although my neighbor had warned me it was crazy...I had no idea! What should have taken me 5 mintues to get there took 20 minutes to just get to the park and and park my car. Then we had to walk 1/2 a mile to get to the correct field for her age group -and by the time I got there, the egg hunt for her age group had ended so I let her go to the field close by (didn't want to miss out after the ordeal to actually get there!). Well, it was more of a run and grab as many eggs as you can type of thing rather than a hunt. They just scatter eggs all over a baseball field! Rachel seems a bit disappointed in this picture. Not sure we'll be doing this "hunt" again next year!

Cupcakes this way!

On Rachel's birthday we had our neighborhood friends over for cupcakes! Many of our afternoons are spent playing outside with our neighbors in the cul-de-sac.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Rachel!

Our sweet Rachel turned three on March 20th! This year she understood a little more about her birthday so that made it fun. I'll post more pictures later, but I wanted to at least get one up!

ABCs

Rachel loves to write and is practicing her ABCs. My letters are on the left and hers on everything on the right...I'm not sure how well you can see in the picture but I was pretty impressed that she could write them this well.

Proud

Anna finally started taking a bottle again for us. So, she now has an occasional relief bottle and one afternoon we let Rachel give her one. Anna doesn't look so comfortable but Rachel sure does look proud to be carrying out her big sister duties.

Rain

Rachel recently got a new umbrella, rain coat and boots and she couldn't wait to try them out! As soon as it started raining she got her umbrella and boots and just sat at the bottom on our stairs - too cute!!

Budding Artist

Papaw and Grandma got this Melissa and Doug Art Easel for Christmas. She loves it! One side is a chalk board, one side a white board for dry erase and then it is set up for a paper roll to paint...what more could a budding artist ask for?

6 months Old!

Rachel's surgery

As I mentioned in an previous post, Rachel did great with her surgery last Wednesday. After we registered at the hospital, we headed back to the pediatric waiting area. There she had her own "cubicle" with her own tv, a play area near by and a little computer and a library of books! She would have stayed there all day if she could have. here are a few pictures from the day.

Eager Beaver

We recently gave Anna some rice cereal and she is such an eager little eater! She sits there like a little bird and opens wide for the next bite. If she likes to eat as much as she likes to nurse, I think we are in trouble! I hope her eagerness continues when we introduce other foods. I loved introducing food to Rachel...I don't know why. Maybe it is my love of trying new foods but it is so much fun to prepare fresh baby foods and just see how they respond to each new thing. I just ordered a baby mill so I can take it with me and grind up food when I need to - we'll see how it works. I also love to make "super Porridge" (doesn't it sound yummy??) and will start making that for Anna soon (it is bascially homemade baby cereal but it so good for you!) - especially when I can add all of the lentils and beans that are so good for you!

Rachel and Mommy!

I love this picture of me and Rachel. She is so busy and even though she loves to pose for pictures this one is her true smile (and not a fake "cheese" - for those of you who have preschoolers - why do they turn on the fake smiles for the camera??). Anyway, I love my sweet Rachel.

Then...

This is Sam Dewar and Rachel. He was Rachel's first little friend and here they are now 2 1/2 years later.

And Now

Anna and Daddy

This sweet picture was taken at the hospital a few weeks ago. Anna had to go for an ultrasound of her hip (and then an x-ray) to make sure nothing unusual was going on. Thankfully, she is fine!

That morning before we went Vimal was telling Rachel that we had to take Anna to hospital that day. Rachel said to him really sweetly, "I'm going to miss her". I think she thought that we taking Anna back to the hospital to leave her since that is where we got her. It was so precious and made me realize how much Rachel loves her sister (even though she doesn't like sharing the attention!).

Snuggle buddies

My cousin, Gretchen and her husband Chris visited a few weeks ago and even though Rachel hadn't seen them in over a year it take long for her to become tight buddies. I thought this was a sweet picture of them snuggling.

Walk with Daddy

Ever since Rachel was little we have taken "family" walks. At one time, it was daily but now it isn't quite that often but we love to get out and go for walks when we can. We have a Fresh Market really close to our house so we usually do weekend walks over to The Fresh Market (in fact, we took a walk today and Rachel was in tears because we didn't go to The Fresh Market). The funny thing is that sometimes we go to CharGrill afterwards because it is in the same shopping center and we can't figure out if she thinks The Fresh Market is Chargrill. Here we are heading out one cold day. This was Anna's first time riding in the back of the stroller. Normally she is in her infact carrier in the front but Rachel wanted to ride in front. We really like our double stroller. We got it at Onestep Ahead and it is a tandem stroller now but will convert to a "sit and stand" stroller when we are ready for that. Rachel doesn't know that yet, but I think she'll be excited about that option.

Just relaxing

Happy Valentine's Day!

With love from our home to yours!!!!