Naptime Solution?? Perhaps!

Today, my mom and I went to her church's Good Friday noon service. They offered no child care for the hour long service, so I was prepared with a bag of snacks and a notepad to keep Rachel occupied. Rachel was sitting so nicely, she was quietly eating her pretzels and then about a quarter of the way through the service, she leaned onto my arm, and fell asleep!!

I think I've found a solution to my naptime struggles with Rachel...I either need to find a mid day service to go to everyday of the week, or as my mom suggested, download the Pastors messages onto my iPod and have Rachel listen to them everyday. LOL.

Spring Parade

This morning, Rachel, Gramma, and I went to see McKenzie in her Spring Parade at the preschool. Rachel was very excited to be visiting what will be 'her school' come September, as well as very excited to get to see her cousins. This large bunny is usually a bean bag toss.
Today, it served as face holes for Rachel and Haylee. The cute lil bunny we all came to see.

Celebrating Uncle Bart's Birthday

Today we went to Disneyland. About a month ago, Uncle Bart mentioned wanting the family to meet for breakfast at Disneyland and then spend the day together for his birthday. He was able to get Gramma and Papa tickets into the park on the Military Base, which was nice because they've not been since their annual passes expired last year.

Uncle Bart is always saying how he'd like to
work at Disneyland if he could be Tigger. The breakfast in which we went to was a character breakfast where the characters come to your table to interact, sign autographs, and take pictures. This was Rachel's first character dinning experience and I think she really enjoyed it. She wore her Minnie Mouse (it was actually Hannah's dress) dress today and was so adorable if I say so myself. This is the first time she's dressed up for going to Disneyland. Rachel was very excited to see Minnie Mouse across the dinning room. She was even more excited when Minnie came to our table. Eeyore came to our table...a LOT. After breakfast we headed out to hit some rides. Rachel and Gramma got to spend some quite a lot of time together since Rachel doesn't meet the height requirements on the 'good rides'. While the big people were in line for the Matterhorn, Rachel, Gramma, and Hannah were greeted by Alice in Wonderland and stopped to pose for a picture with the girls. "Go Faster Gramma, Go Faster"The afternoon included more rides, enjoying some seats in the shade, and snacks. Daddy had to head home to serve in his evening church ministry, and we got a ride home with Gramma and Papa and stayed into the evening. We also watched the parade. Here the girls are using Papa in order to see the parade. Disneyland was extremely crowded today. Lines were long. But the day was a beautiful spring day and we managed to ride a lot of rides and a have a great day!

California Adventure with Friends

Today we went with our friends and neighbors to California Adventure. Rachel is so stinkin cute. She got all excited when she realized where we were when we pulled into the parking structure. There's no question she's her mother's daughter, that's for sure.

The Golden Zepher has become a favorite ride of Rachel's,
today she got to ride it with Daddy.
California Adventure doesn't have a lot of rides for those short in height, so I opted out of some of the rides to sit with the little girlies.
Rachel kept saying "I go" repeatedly
when it came to watching the 'good' rides. One of the things the little girlies could do, that the older girls and Dad's didn't want to do, was to go to Playhouse Disney. It's a short show with some of the characters from the morning cartoons. Rachel and Gracie loved it! After exiting the show, the girls were greeted by JoJo from JoJo's Circus. We went to Downtown Disney for dinner, and then back into the park to hit some more rides. We finished out our day by watching the Electrical Parade. Rachel and Hannah have been watching the parade on videotape the past couple of days, but tonight they experienced it for real. It's been a few years since we've seen the parade, as it wasn't scheduled during the 50th celebration, and the rest of the time, it's only scheduled for really heavily busy times of the year, usually times we avoid the parks. LOL. Everyone enjoyed seeing the parade. It was the first time for our friends, and they loved it! Lasting only long enough to the end of the parade, Rachel was one tired girlie who fell asleep in Daddy's arms and stayed that way all the way to the car.

Haylee Stops for a Visit

Haylee and Auntie stopped by for a visit this morning after dropping McKenzie off at preschool. Rachel and Haylee had so much fun playing together! Having fun on the swings.

Still Running on a Full Tank

We had the neighbors over this evening for dessert and just kicking back on the patio. The girls were still running on a full tank despite it being close to 9:00pm, and waaaay past their bedtime. They were having so much fun...and Rachel was sooo dirty.

Face First into the Driveway

She's a tough cookie, and only cried a bit, but Rachel went face first into the driveway last night and has this boo boo on her nose.

Dirty Bird!

I think we're going to have to invest in an industrial size bottle of soap for our house. LOL.

We have been in the backyard so much since having our patio done. Rachel is out there most of the morning and then we're back out there in the afternoons after naptime and homework. I wash her hands several times a day and you wouldn't believe the dirt that comes off of them.

I know this isn't the clearest of pictures,
but it's a great shot of how dirty her face was this evening.

"Please Don't Pick the Daisies"

I was sitting on the patio when Rachel brought me this yellow Gerber Daisy. My reaction was to get after her for picking the flowers. But instead, I nicely said 'Thank You Ray-Ray, but please don't pick Mommie's flowers". She's cute isn't she??

Naptime Struggles

If you're a regular follow of Rachel's Journey, you can see that I've been having trouble keeping the blog updated. The reason you may wonder...it's Rachel.

The hour, hour and a half of "me time" I used to have during Rachel's nap has been nonexistant lately, because naptimes have been a real struggle. For the past two days, it's been a 45 minute battle of putting her back into her bed everytime she's gotten out. Thankfully Steven has been the one to deal with that the last two days, he has WAY more patience than I do. But by the time she finally falls asleep, I have ten, maybe fifteen minutes at the most before I have to leave to get Hannah from school, which doesn't exactly leave me enough time to blog, let alone keep up on my email. I hope for things to be back to normal soon...once Rachel adjusts to the time change, etc.

Big Blue Ball

Rachel got this big ball for Christmas. Since we've been spending so much time in the backyard these past several weeks, and I remembered to pick up a pump today, I got the ball out and blew it up for Rachel. She loved it!!

An Evening at California Adventure

We originally had plans to go to California Adventure all day today with our neighbors, but one of the kids came down with a cold, so they cancelled our plans. We were pretty bummed. Steven had a church project work on. So knowing that my Uncle was up doing work at my parents house, the girls and I stopped by to visit on our way to Home Depot for flowers and pots. Long story short, Uncle Bart was up for making an evening trip to the Happiest Place on Earth. So after his project was finished at my parents house, he was over and off we went.

Rachel wanted nothing to do with me. She wanted Uncle Bart to hold her hand and to carry her on his shoulders. He was her buddy and it was pretty cute. If she met the height requirements, I'm sure Rachel would ride some of the wilder rides. She's a wild child. Inside the Redwood Creek Challenge, you can place your hand upon a rock to determine which animal your characteristics are most like.
This concept is taken from the Brother Bear movie. Rachel was a "Beaver - hardworking and industrious".We defiantely should think about somehow constructing one of these rope courses in our backyard, Rachel LOVES this! We had a great evening, defiantely made up for the disappointment of not getting to the spend the day with friends.

Registered for Preschool!

Preschool registration was this morning for Rachel. It's hard to believe I was registering my baby for school, even if it is only preschool. She was so excited, she did not want to leave. Hannah was so glad to be visiting her old school, that she wished she didn't have to go back to 'real school' tomorrow. She even inquired about becoming a helper in her old Pooh Bear room. LOL. Once she does start preschool, two of her cousins will also be attending the same preschool. Rachel will officially start after Labor Day and between now and then, she has to be potty trained. Oh Boy! :)

More Adventures with Rachel

You know those episodes of Supernanny, where as Jo Frost has taught the parents the concept of the Naughty Chair, Naughty Spot, or Naughty Corner, and the child is placed in the Naughty zone for whatever reason and escapes from their position and runs, and the cameras show the mom chasing the kid all about and putting him or her back into the Naughty zone, over and over and over again???

Or how about the episodes where the child is placed in bed, tucked in, kisses given, and the child gets out of bed, repeatedly, and the cameras show the mom or dad putting the kid back into their bed over and over again.

Both of those situations describe Rachel. I'm not kidding. One might think how could someone so cute, be so disobedient? Believe me, she is.

Many times Rachel will be placed into the Naughty Corner for one reason or another (hitting her sister, talking back, screaming, have I ever mentioned she's a screamer?), no sooner than when you walk away she's left the corner and is hiding behind the artificial tree in the corner of the room. You go after her only to have her run around the dinning room table. Finally, I'll get ahold of her and back into the corner she goes...only to repeat the same scenario, except this time it's around the coffee table. Eventually she stays in the corner for her allotted time, but it defianately takes a lot of effort.

Last night I put the girls to bed and go to the Family Room to relax and watch some TV, and through the baby monitor, I hear Rachel get up out of her bed, close her door, and start playing with toys. My first reaction was I was too tired to get up and deal with her. But I knew if I let her continue to do this, it'd only become a habit and bedtime wouldn't be taken seriously. So I went to her room, placed her back into bed and turned off the light. For the next thirty minutes I went back into her room repeatedly to put her back into bed. Finally she gave up and I won the battle. LOL. But man, who really wants to fight such a battle like this at the end of the day???

I use to laugh when the kid on Supernanny did such things, I don't laugh anymore. It's not funny. LOL.

Pictures from our Day

I'm sure many people must think "Does she ever do anything else besides go to Disneyland?", yeah I do, but going to Disneyland is what I like to do most, so why not start off the new month on a good note? :)

We spent some time at the Princess Fantasy Faire where you can greet some of the Princesses, make your own crown, do coloring pages, and royal stuff like that.

Here, Rachel is doing something she loves to do...but is often on crayon restriction due to having colored something other than on paper. This picture cracks me up. LOL.
Perhaps Princess crowns self adjust according to the Princesses attitude?? Doing another thing she loves to do...
make noise, very loud noise. She had a blast doing it. Spring time at Disneyland with all the flowers abloom. These tulips were absolutely beautiful today. Made for a great backdrop for a picture. Rachel wasn't scared off by Captain Jack,
she went right to him, and called him by name. LOL. Another great day at the Happiest Place on Earth.