The Beach

We took Rachel to Panama City Beach Florida for her first beach experience and she absolutely loved it. She is a total outdoors person. She loved the water, playing in the sand, and looking for sea shells.

Easter

Easter was good, we dressed up and went to church. Came home and I cooked lunch. Rachel enjoyed her Easter baskets. We did not hunt eggs at home since she got to do that at school. Then she got to see her Mimi and Pappa for a couple of days and go shopping. She loves that!

Disney On Ice

We took Rachel to see Disney on Ice, she absolutely loved it. She just beamed and clapped so hard as all the Disney characters came out to sing and skate. Her favorites were of course the princesses, but the very last ensemble to come out and skate was the cast of Toy Story. She got very very excited when they came out. Then she was talking 90 mph in the car as we headed home, and then silence. I looked back and she had passed out.

Accessorize

Rachel is all about accessories right now. She likes the belts, jewelry (real not play), matching shoes, tights etc.... I think she will be a huge shoe person, she always asks for new ones. And she is always asking to wear my diamond necklace....ummm I don't think so. I let her wear some of my silver necklaces, but the diamonds and pearls are off limits. I always find her picking up her dad's wedding ring and trying to confiscate it. She is definitely into the bling.

Rachels first snow

Rachel is 4 1/2 years old and has now had the pleasure of her first snowfall. She LOVES it, she must have those Iowa bones in her.

Rachel eating the snow, yes it is clean snow.

Hitting Daddy with the snowball she made

Making a snow angel

The Princess Snow-Woman

Pajama Day

Today was pajama day at Pre K, one of Rachels favorite. The kids all look so cute in their jammies. They get to watch movies and eat popcorn and the school also has a magic show for them to attend. I was helping out today so I got to go to the magic show as well. He was really funny. An elderly man who does silly tricks and jokes. The kids just beamed.

Christmas fun

We traveled a little over 2000 miles this Christmas visiting family in Memphis TN and Dothan AL. But the time was great, we all had a lot of fun. So I posted a photo album of our trip. Move mouse over picture to get story and pause picture.

The Christmas Party

Rachel's last day of Pre K before Christmas break was Thursday. They played bingo, sang songs, exchanged gifts (a book exchange), and decorated sugar cookies. She loves parties, but most of all as we watch her she is becoming more independent and creative. Her vocabulary has exploded since school started up, just other day she told me that the red fire pull on the wall was for EMERGENCY only. Now at home, everything is an EMERGENCY. She also fascinates us with her memory. Yesterday we bought her some new Christmas jammies with feet in them, VERY CUTE. And she said, "I remember when I had red striped ones like these and I jumped on Mimi's bed with Allison and Nicholas." Okay just to fill you in, that was 2 years ago when Rachel was only 2 years old.

The Dance Recital

After 12 weeks of ballet training it has come down to Rachels recital. The kids did great and looked so cute. Rachels dance teacher even said "I think Rachel is ready fora solo :-)" Rachel's part was small, she plays an angel who does a few turns and then kneels down, but for some reason she danced the entire show with the older girls and did everyones part. It was great, and she loved it.

Tidings of Joy...

Here are some pictures of Rachel trimming the Christmas tree, and her letter to Santa. She enjoyed writing the letter, putting it in the envelope and then putting it in the mail box to be sent to the North Pole. The letter states:

Dear Santa
I want a
Jessie Doll (from Toy Story)
Love Rachel

Then she drew some pictures of presents and a few random letters. :-)

The Tea Party

Rachel loves having tea parties, she has them in the living room, her playroom, her bedroom, and weather permitting outside in her playhouse/gym set. One day she asked me to help her find more chairs for outside. I looked out the window and there were already 4 chairs set up on the patio. I said, why do you need more? She said "I need one for me." I asked who was sitting in the other 4 chairs. Rachel replied.... Andrew, Anna, Abigail and Alan. (Her cousins, aunt and uncle) so of course I got another chair. Who am I to not let the "invisible" Weaver family over for tea. She then proceeded to serve them all.

A smile that can light up a room

So a few months back I had decided to make Rachels birthday cake, so I had practiced on some different cake styles until she chose what she wanted. This has sprung into "mom what kind of cake are you going to make me now?" So for fun we will do a new one ever so often. We have done Ariel a couple of times, a teddy bear (Gran gave us), the Cinderella carriage, and now my new attempt...the Belle Doll from beauty and the beast. They cakes are not great....but you can not beat the smile she gets on her face when we make them together.

Halloween!

We took Rachel trick or treating tonight to a few houses on our block. She loved it as usual. After about the 5th house, she laughed and said, "those trick or treaties... I love them."

Fall Fun

Every year the church we attend throws a fall festival in their parking lot. They blast Christian music and have tons of food and rides. Rachel loves it. I have also included some pictures of her Pre-School party and Dorothy Gail costume.

You can see more pics via mine or Matthews facebook page. They allow me more uploading of pics than the blog.

Dance

Our church has a youth program called S.O.F.A it stands for Serving Our Father Artistically. They have all sorts of classes for music, dance, drama etc.... so we enrolled Rachel in a dance class. She absolutely loves it. She enjoys wearing her ballerina outfit each Monday. They are teaching her the different ballet positions, turns and jumps. The class is for 4-5 year old, but there is one 6 year old and a 2 year old who are siblings of others in the 4-5 age group.



In the video she is practicing her Pirouette's, but the music had stopped....oh well, we know the music is always in her heart.

That is the way it is

Rachel has survived her first day of Pre-K and is really looking forward to more. She knows a lot of the kids in her class from last year which has made the transition good. Also, on Thursdays she gets to start the day in her favorite class which is called Motor Lab. It is sort of like PE, but a lot tamer. They have big bouncy balls, a ball pit, trampoline and etc.... She got to go to the library on her first day and of course what book does she pick out???? Beauty and the Beast an older version. She spent Friday practicing her writing skills. She wrote numbers 0-9 and some letters like Z (which is rarely used). And today at lunch she wrote her name completely on her own, it was messy and yet legible all at the same time. She free handed it with a crayon after I wrote her name, she basically copied it. But got all the letters right and in the correct order. That was a first. She seems to like her teachers and was very excited that she was a good girl that day.

The disciplinary rules - The teachers have a yardstick painted green, yellow, and red. Each child has a clothes pin with their name on it. Each child starts on green. If they act up they are given a verbal warning and moved to yellow. If they act up again they move to red and a note is sent home to the parent. Rachel said "I was green all day!" I said "good girl" she then proceeded to say "Well mom, that is just the way it is."

Happy Birthday Rachel

Can you believe our BABY is 4 years old! She had a Cinderella birthday party with her cousins, aunt, uncle, and Gran. We had a great time and she was blessed with lots of goodies.

A future talent????

Not much to say, this is my Aunt Anita's piano and Rachel enjoyed sitting at it and pounding on the keys....hmmmm I would love it if she had a desire to play the piano.

Her first baseball game...

We went to Houston for the weekend, we shopped a little, celebrated our 12th anniversary and got to see the Astros play. It was Rachel's 1st game. She enjoys watching them on T.V, at the park we hit the Astros shop and she picked out a small bat and ball. She thinks it is just the coolest thing until she hit herself in the ear. OUCH. She really wanted a shirt, but her size was no where to be found. She enjoyed her popcorn, peanuts and purple cotton candy. It was great family fun.

The Little Gym

Enjoy the video of today's workout...