Halloween Happenings

The beauty of having girls who love to play dress up is that it gives you options, lots of options. Rachel decided this morning that she didn't want to be Tinkerbell for today's festivities, but that she wanted to be Dorothy instead. Okay, not a problem, we have the complete costume. I thought being Dorothy was a good option because I thought with the new release of the Tinkerbell movie this week, there could be a lot of Tinkerbells at Hannah's school. I was wrong. It seems it was the year for a lot of Dorothy's and I counted at least 12! Rachel was cute and even carried a little basket with a dog. She had a lot of fun walking the parade with Hannah and got a kick out of seeing what all the big kids dressed up as.

Dorothy meets Captain Jack Sparrow, aka Miles. Rachel got to accompany me in helping with festivities in Hannah's class today and she loved it! After dinner, we headed to the same church we went to last year for Trunk or Treating. We had a great time with our friends and it was a lot of fun seeing cute costumes and the creativeness that went into decorating some of the cars. These two were the best in my opinion, the Wizard of Oz theme, complete with a yellow brick road. And Pocahontas passing out candy from her teepee! The local police and sheriff's departments were part of the festivities this year, handing out stickers and safety information. McGruff the Crime Dog was there and walking about, Rachel thought he was silly. Rachel had a lot of fun trunk or treating. Last year, she had a cold and had been given some Dimetapp before going and she was groggy and tired and didn't want to trunk or treat, this year, she had fun and loved seeing all the dogs people brought that had costumes of their own on!

Halloween Parade

Today was Rachel's Halloween party and parade. The preschool parade is always so much fun to watch because the dressed up preschoolers are always so adorably cute! This is the last of the preschool Halloween parades for our family. Next year, Rachel and Haylee will join Hannah and McKenzie at their "big girl schools". Today, McKenzie sat between me and Gramma, and it was kinda sad that another (in addition to Hannah) has grown older and is out of preschool!

A Day at Disneyland

Today we went to Disneyland to celebrate Mommy's birthday. Gramma came with us and Uncle Bart met us there. The first thing we did as soon as the gates opened was head to Pixie Hollow in hopes of meeting Tinkerbell and some of her fairy friends. We tried to on Saturday, but the line wasn't moving and it was hot! We were successful today though! Rachel got to meet a few of the fairies and ultimately met Tinkerbell!! Iridessa, Little Tink, and Rosetta. Upon first sight of Tinkerbell, Rachel went to her and gave her a big hug!Meeting Tinkerbell and her friends was the highlight of Rachel's day! She's even more excited to be TInkerbell in her school parade tomorrow and then at Trunk or Treat on Friday night!

We enjoyed the rest of our time by taking advantage of short wait times and enjoying the park with not a lot of crowds. We also enjoyed taking in all the fall decorations, for it won't be long before it'll be Christmas time at Disneyland!!With Gramma in Candy Corn Acres.All good things must come to an end, time to head for home.

Tinkerbell Sneak Peek

A new movie is being released to DVD next Tuesday, it's called Tinkerbell. Disneyland apparently was running a contest for a chance to sneak peek the movie and lucky for us, our friend won, and took us as her guests to see the movie! Rachel loves Tinkerbell, in fact, she's going to dress up as Tinkerbell for Halloween. So in honor of seeing the special movie today, she wore her Tinkerbell costume to Disneyland, minus her wings, we left those at home. Here she is with our special ticket!The movie was extremely cute, and will probably end up in Rachel's stocking come Christmas. After the movie, we attempted to go meet Tinkerbell and a few of her fairy friends, however, they are still working out the kinks in the new attraction, that officially opens this week, and after standing in line for twenty minutes with barely any moving, we got out of line and will attempt another day (maybe Wednesday when we go with Gramma for our birthdays!)The rest of our time, we spent back at Woody's Roundup enjoying the petting zoo and the beautiful Fall decorations. The girls sat and colored for well over an hour and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the season!

Some Cuteness

Going to Gramie's....By HERSELF

Gramie came this afternoon and picked Rachel up after preschool to spend the weekend at her house. This is the first time that Rachel will have Gramie all to her self! Hannah has a birthday party to attend on Saturday. Rachel was a little nervous, but once Gramie got here, she was super excited!

Prayers for Reid

Remember Reid??? He and his Mommy are one of our cleft affected friends. And tomorrow, Thursday, he's going in to have his palate repaired. His surgery is set for 10:00 Eastern Time, so that's 7:00 for us here in California. Would you please remember him and the plastic surgeon and the nurses and his Mommy, Janeen, and Daddy, Brian, and even his big sister, Ellie, who is Rachel's age, in your prayers. I know they would appreciate them!

Pick a Pumpkin Day

Today was a festive day at preschool, it was pick a pumpkin day!

All the local pumpkin patches in recent years have been turned into housing tracts, therefore the preschool must create their own. I went early and helped set it all up and then stayed to watch Rachel's class pick their pumpkins and then helped tear it all down and put it away.

The pumpkin "patch" turned out so cute and the kids all had a fun time picking out their pumpkins to take home. Rachel and Haylee doing their part to help set up.
Collecting classroom pumpkins to display.One of the really fun things of going to the same preschool,
is you can take cute pictures of the cousins, just like this one!Rachel picked out the smallest pumpkin in the patch
and was very proud of her find.

A Weekend of Camping at San Elijo

We went camping this last weekend. Every time we go camping, it just gets easier and easier as far as having a young preschooler. She loves to go camping and constantly asked all morning Friday if it was time to go yet. Going to bed while camping just gets easier and easier too, probably because they run and play so hard!

Everyone just loves Rachel. On Saturday morning, our friends wanted her to walk with them to the donut store (Rachel had already walked there with Steven), and she shyly said "no"...until one of our other friends let her hold the leash of her little toy poodle! LOL. So Rachel walked the dog to the donut store and came back with a cute gingerbread cookie. I guess she saw it in the case and liked it and our friends couldn't refuse buying her a cookie. LOL. We took the girls' bikes this time and that added to the fun of camping. The campground is has nicely paved and level streets and made for great riding. This is the bike that our friends found in the thrift store across the street from the campground when we came in July and we gave it to her for her birthday. Rachel LOVES the beach. She loves the sand, the water, and the splashing about. In the last picture, you can see just how much the sand likes her legs and little tooshy! LOL. Kicking back by the campfire next to her friend, Scott. Rachel also had tons of fun playing with her friend Caleb and Isaiah and Bethany when she came to visit on Saturday. She was sad Sunday afternoon when we were packing up camp and loading the van and saying goodbye to our friends. And the minute we were in the car she asked ""when we go camping again?". Which makes me happy that we're creating memories for our kids for years to come.

Miramar AIrshow 2008

Our family is becoming quite the fans of air shows! The Miramar air show is this weekend and it's been on the calendar to attend since waaaaay back in the beginning of the year. Here are a few pictures of our day.Rachel, enjoying her Lunchable. See the bright green ear plugs? The cool thing about this air show is they gave kids free ear plugs, we had planned on buying some once there, but hey, kids got them free! If we continue to go to air shows, I'm going to invest in a pair of those ear plugs/coverings they use when hunting and shooting guns. F-22 Raptor.Yeah, this pose didn't last long, that lil booger is H-E-A-V-Y!!!!!
The Blue Angels closed out the afternoon airshow.

Rachel's UNbirthday

Because Rachel has a summer birthday, she got to celebrate her special day at preschool on Tuesday. What other kid do you know that gets to celebrate her birthday three times in the course of just five months?? She had her celebration at the end of the school year in May, and then her real birthday in August, and then this celebration. The poor kid is already asking when she gets to celebrate her birthday again.

The day before her celebration, we made Tinkerbell flower cupcakes. The paper goods she chose were Tinkerbell and we made the cupcakes to coordinate to the colors of the plates and napkins. She was so excited, and she chose chocolate cupcakes, which was even more special!As part of their special birthday celebration at school, the birthday child gets to make their juice with the preschool director, the kids all think that's super cool. Enjoying her special day, once again, with all her Sunny Sunflower friends. They all loved the cupcakes and one little boy kept saying "these are the best cupcakes Rachel", her response, "You're welcome". LOL.

Update on Aiden

I just returned home from visiting Aiden and his Mommy and Daddy in the hospital. Oh what memories. November will be three years since Rachel's palate repair, but what you experience and what you go through are all things that won't be forgotten, or at least not hard to retrieve from the memory banks. Like how different their cry is after the palate is repaired, as soon as I heard Aiden cry, it instantly reminded me that Rachel's cry was different too after her repair.

Aiden and his family are the first cleft affected family that I've actually known in real life. Over the last few years, I've met many wonderful, wonderful families online, that have been affected by having a baby with a cleft of some sort, and being part of that "been there done that" club you have a special connection with those friends. But knowing someone in real life dealing with the same issues, the same hurdles, the exact same hospital and doctors, and being able to reach out (literally) is even more amazing.

Aiden had his lip repaired, his palate repaired, his gum (alveolar ridge) repaired, his nose repaired, AND he had tubes placed in his ears. That poor little guy went through the ringer today. He was having a rough time this evening, and really who blames him. Poor guy has had his ears messed with, his lip closed and no longer has a spot to run his tongue through, nor is his palate the large gaping hole it was when he started his day off this morning. He literally has a whole new mouth to get used to.

I know from having stayed the night with Rachel, Joy won't get much rest tonight. Pray that Aiden settles down and is able to be comforted without having to be walked all night long. And pray for Joy, and Dale, and even Aiden's older siblings. His older brother was having a rough time this afternoon, it's an adjustment for them too, they fell in love with Aiden with a wide smile and now he has an entirely new look about him.

I notice Joy's already posted an update of her own, so check it out and keep checking back there for more updates and pictures!