Cousin Best Friends

Rachel thinks of JuJu as her best friend. She tells everyone about her, saying, "remember my best friend, JuJu?" She talks about her all the time and misses her. Needless to say, she can't wait till Julia's birthday party this weekend. Those 2 precious little girls have been friends since Rachel was born. Julia met Rachel in the hospital when Rachel was 1 day old and Julia was 1 month old. Since then, the bond that formed was as close as sisters, I think. The girls do fight alot, but they have such a good time together and it's so cute seeing them go off and play and do their own thing when they're together. They could really care less about anyone else when they have each other. What a special relationship the girls have. I hope it continues to build and build as they grow older. How cool it must be to be "Cousin Best friends!"

Puddle of Mud

We went outside today and got our first glimpse of the hot days to come. It was so hot and muggy that we were sweating! I set up a small obstacle course for Rachel because we thought that might be fun to do. All it consisted of was a golf putting hole, a few jumps on the trampoline, shooting a basketball and then tossing a ball into a bucket and running to the finish line/jump rope. We were only able to do it a few times because Bradley wasn't that into it. Rachel thought it was cool, though. Then, we watered the bushes and created some huge, messy puddles. So the kids decided it would be lots of fun to jump in the nasty mud and get really dirty. Rachel watered her sunflower garden and saw some green sprouts coming up (hopefully they're not weeds!) and she was so excited. I'll have to take a picture in a few days to show the progress. I moved the slide to another location in the playground and both kids thought it was so cool! It's funny how a little change like moving the slide can make the playground so much more appealing!

JuJu's Baby

Rachel is so excited about JuJu's baby. We talk about him often and Rachel can't wait until she can see the baby. Today, we went shopping with Gege and got a few new clothes for the kids. But, Rachel kept running around the store looking for a present for JuJu's baby. At first, she picked up lots of baby girl clothes and then she finally picked up a darling baby boy outfit for baby Lane. She was so proud of herself and can't wait to give the outfit to "Winnie" and Uncle Matt and JuJu.

Poison Control and Batteries

I had my first experience with Poison Control on Friday. Little stinker Bradley got a hold of a sharpie permanent marker and ate the tip. I had left him upstairs for a few minutes while tidying things downstairs, but I was checking on him frequently. He does really well playing by himself and I thought I had the playroom pretty toddler-proofed. But, I had a black permanent marker on the top of the desk next to the computer. Apparently, Bradley climbed up into the computer chair and found the marker. When I found him, he was in the chair and had marker all over his mouth, teeth and fingers. His breath smelled horribly like stinky permanent marker. I tried to wash his hands and face with soap and water, but of course the permanent marker was not coming off. It faded to a purple color which looked really awful. I figured I might as well call Poison Control just to make sure that Bradley wasn't going to be poisoned from ingesting the marker tip. Well, in case you haven't had to make the call before, Poison Control was extremely nice and helpful. I had a man who calmly answered my questions and assured me that even if he had eaten the entire marker, there wasn't enough of the chemical in it to poison Bradley. He said that the worst-case scenario was an upset stomach. I was relieved since I was envisioning a trip to the emergency room where we would have to wait for hours for help. Anyway, I think I have removed all the markers (of any kind...even the kid-friendly ones are too tempting to eat) from sight and hopefully we'll be able to keep Bradley from eating anything else "poisonous".

On another note, I have mentioned MANY times that Bradley is into EVERYTHING! Today, he found a AAA battery in a drawer in the den. I was drying my hair in my bathroom. Rachel came in the bathroom with the battery and said, "I got this away from Braddy." I made a big deal out of her helping get the battery away from him, because I really did appreciate the help. Who knows what Bradley would do with the battery, but it's certainly not something we want him to play with. Anyway, I told Rachel, "thank you so much, you are such a great helper and I'm so glad you got the battery away from Bradley so he wouldn't eat it, because that would be bad for him." Then Rachel said, "yes, cause it (the battery) might make him walk all the time." I thought that was adorable since she thought the battery would have the same effect on Bradley (giving him power) as it does with toys. What a cute little connection! What a wonderful helper she is!!!
I need all the help I can get trying to stay one step ahead of Bradley!

Crazy Dancer

I wish I had one iota of my kid's energy levels. They seem to be able to go and go and go and go. I only seem to be able to putter around, and I'm not even that old! One of Rachel's favorite things to do is get out her pink keyboard and play all the demo songs. There are about 10 songs that play one right after another. She loves to dance, jiggle, wiggle, twirl, etc...while listening to the songs. She also loves me to turn up the tempo on the music while she's dancing. She thinks it's so funny to move as fast as she can to the music. I always watch her and wish I felt like dancing with her. I know it would be great exercise for me if I would join in! But, I usually just sit on my rear and watch her have fun and laugh. She's such a precious child who really reminds me how fun it is to do silly things like dance crazy! She can do all that dancing and still have energy left to play endless games afterwards! What an amazing amount of energy! Of course, both kids are in bed between 7:45 and 8:00 every night, get at least 11 hours of sleep each night and their days are filled with endless amounts of fun and games without any demands being placed on them! Maybe my energy level would improve if I was treated that "well" too!

All dressed up

Rachel decided she wanted to wear one of her cotton comfy dresses today while we ran several errands. That's fine with me, because the dress isn't fancy, it's just really comfy and spring-y. It looked so cute on her and she acted so adorable in it. She must have thought she looked like a little princess or something. She kept twirling and couldn't help but skip in and out of each store that we went to. She said several times, "my dress is so pretty". It was just so adorable watching her enjoy being a little girl and feeling pretty in her new dress. Who would have thought? I guess we should have gotten her lots of little cotton dresses a long time ago! I didn't get a picture of her in one yet, but I will tomorrow.

I remember I used to like dressing up when I was young too. I loved wearing dresses, but I really loved having my hair curled with sponge rollers and then wearing a curly ponytail. I always thought my ponytail was soooo pretty when it was curly. So, I would always ask mom to fix it that way. I might have to try and sponge roll Rachel's hair sometime too. I wonder if she'll love curly ponytails as much as I did.

Popsicle Madness

It was so warm this afternoon, I decided to give the kids a popsicle when we went outside. They were both excited because we haven't had them in awhile. Rachel was really enjoying hers and playing and walking around, etc... Bradley was enjoying his too...at first. Then he started holding the frozen end of the popsicle and it started melting. Then little pieces of it started falling off the stick and onto the ground. Bradley started pitching a fit. He was so mad that his popsicle wasn't one whole piece on the stick anymore. He started crying and yelling and was just furious. So, I decided to replace it with something else. Luckily, I found a sucker and gave that to him instead. He was happy with the sucker and stopped pitching a fit. He is such a little mess! I guess we won't be snacking on popsicles again for awhile.