Ooh, it's Mickey!

Last night we took Rachel to see Disney on Ice, courtesy of Aunt Rebecca! We made sure to get there early, and got the cheap parking. Once we were in the arena, we got our picture taken with Mickey & Minnie, and then got some food to take in for the show.

Rachel was very excited and kept asking when Mickey & Minnie would appear. Finally the show started and there they were! Rachel actually did really well for about the first 45 minutes. Then the Haunted Mansion scene came on, with ghosts, dim lights and scary music. She actually sat through most of it, then started to fuss a bit, looked at me and said, "I wouldn't like to stay. I would like to go home."

We went out into the hallway and I asked Rachel if she wanted to walk around, get something to eat and go back in, but she declined. She said that she was done and she wanted to go home. Hehe.

She has talked a lot about Mickey & Minnie Mouse today though. She loves the magnetic picture frame we got with our picture, and she made sure to show it to our babysitter the second she walked in the door this afternoon.

I'm glad we got the chance to take her, even though we didn't get to stay for the whole show!

Rachel's new haircut

"It's excited that I have new hair!" (she means that it's exciting to have short hair)

Politician, door-to-door salesperson.... no, it's Rachel!

Rachel after about 45 minutes of watching tv WAY too early in the morning:

"Mommy, I've watched too many tv. I'll let you read to me now."

For the record, I "let" her wake up Daddy instead. He was supposed to get up with her anyway.

Just when you think she's got things figured out...

This morning Ben was helping Rachel get her shoes on. They got one shoe on, and Rachel said, "I need two shoes, Daddy!" "Oh?" he said. "Yes. I need two shoes because I have two elephants." (She was holding two elephants. Apparently they have a buddy system and need to travel in pairs. They take turns coming on outings with us. No-one ever warned us that we'd be parenting a herd of elephants along with one precocious almost 3-year-old!)

And there were lights

I just checked our Canadian cell phone and there's a message from the lighting store! Our lights are headed over to the builder tomorrow. Yay! Well, except that now we have to pay the amount that we're over. Hehe. That's ok though. We're getting lights in our house! Yay!

Rachel's trip to the zoo

Yesterday Ben and Rachel had a great time at the zoo. They caught the end of the sea lion show and then got to see "elephant painting." I'd seen that on the zoo website but it looked like it was only a summer thing. I also mistakenly assumed that this referred to painting the elephant. Apparently not.

The zookeepers were in the process of training a new elephant to paint. It had a paintbrush in its trunk and used that to paint pictures that were being sold for $25 apiece. Ben told me that they offer "custom" paintings by the elephants. Of course Rachel thinks that this is a great idea.

Halfway through the painting, the elephant ate its paintbrush. Rachel thought this was hilarious. I asked her if she would eat a paintbrush and she said yes. (Mental note to self: do NOT let Rachel have paint!)

Rachel sings!

Wow, I did it! Here's a video of Rachel singing "If you're happy and you know it" - it was taken on February 23rd. It's kind of long, but of course we think it's cute. And now that I've figured out how to add videos, there'll be no stopping me!

A Long Weekend

We were supposed to fly to New York City on Friday for Ben's cousin Lev's bar mitzvah. Apparently we were just not meant to go. On Thursday, Rachel was somewhat clingy and pre-school and a bit whiny in the afternoon, but I figured that she was still adjusting to the time change.

On Thursday night, we checked her before going to bed, and discovered that her bed was soaked. Luckily, I always make the bed with 2 sheets (and a waterproof mattress pad in between!) so that was easy to fix. However, it turned out that Rachel was running what I'd call a low-grade fever. We gave her Tylenol, but she was up on and off from midnight until about 2:30am.

We were supposed to leave for the airport by 7:45 on Friday morning. We got up at 7 (yes, I'd packed everything the night before - I even fit it all into one small suitcase, one backpack and my diaper-bag-turned-purse!). Rachel was still running a fever and we honestly weren't sure that we should go.

I went online to confirm the flight and discovered that pretty much all flights to New York were being cancelled for the day due to snow and ice in NYC. That made our decision easy, hahaha!

Rachel was pretty cranky all day and she got to watch a lot of videos. By Saturday afternoon she was starting to feel more human again, and today she is out at the zoo with Ben enjoying a beautiful sunny afternoon. The elephants are supposed to be there again as of yesterday (Where DO they go in the winter?) so I imagine that she'll be full of exciting stories to tell when they return.

Oh my.

Rachel likes to play with syllables. For example, if I say that we're having grilled cheese, she might say "billed bees" instead and laugh hysterically. Sometimes she changes the endings of words as well.

Tonight for dinner, Rachel chose to have "peas-and-corn" for her vegetable. As she headed for the table, we talked about how we were having chicken, fries, and peas-and-corn. Rachel retorted, "Peep'n'porn!" I'll admit it. Ben and I both cracked up.

Spring? Don't you mean summer?!

Here's the Overland Park weather forecast for today & the next four days (in Celsius):

Sunday: High: 18°Low: 6°
Monday: High: 22°Low: 11°
Tuesday: High: 25°Low: 10°
Wednesday: High: 20°Low: 5°
Thursday: High: 11°Low: 1°

House update!

Better late than never, right? My mother and John were in London last month and were able to get in to see our house in progress. The last picture is of our kitchen. I believe that the sinks will be under that window. The room with the "turret" & 3 windows at the front of the house is our studio - it'll have 12 foot high ceilings! Best of all, there won't be anything above it.

In just 8 weeks, we'll be living there! :)

Extending the limits of who is Jewish....

We've been talking a lot about going to New York for cousin Lev's bar mitzvah next weekend. Rachel is excited, because she will get to see Grandma & Grandpa, and Aunt Rebecca. She knows that it's Lev's bar mitzvah too.

This morning there was a bat mitzvah at Beth Shalom, and so we talked a bit on the way home about how we'd go to cousin Lev's bar mitzvah. Rachel agreed with that, and then informed us that we would also be going to her cousin Lumpy's bar mitzvah. You know.... Lumpy... the purple heffalump from Winnie the Pooh. Apparently he is Jewish and is ready to become a bar mitzvah. Interesting....
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I think we've joked one too many times about Ben's friend Craig. When Rachel was a baby, Craig once discussed various beers with her. From time to time, we've teased both him and Rachel about this. Tonight we were talking about how Ben hasn't talked to Craig in awhile. I asked Rachel if she remembered Craig and she said, "He tells me about beer!" Uh-oh.

Literalist

This morning Rachel was wearing a skirt and top. I asked her to go and get her dress shoes and put them on since we needed to leave. She replied that they were not DRESS shoes, they were SKIRT shoes. I couldn't resist. A minute later, I asked her to go get her dress coat. Sure enough, it's now a skirt coat. Ha!

Poor Rachel had to have a suppository the other day. It apparently has long-lasting after-effects, given that she had an accident yesterday and again today - twice. She knows when she has to go, but these times it's been very last-minute "I have to go potty NOW!" The first time it happened today, I asked her why she pooped in her underwear instead of in the potty. Her response?

"I wanted to wear pants instead."

*Mommy bangs her head against the wall.*

It turned out that she really couldn't help herself, but that answer just about cracked me up.

Rachel's expanding vocabulary

Sometime over the past couple of weeks, Rachel has learned the words husband and wife from us. So she goes around talking about how Tina is Lumpy's wife, or Olly is Sarah's wife. (These are all elephants, in case you weren't sure. Technically, Lumpy is a heffalump.)

On Wednesday Ben was at UMKC for most of the day, and Rachel and I were home alone with nowhere to go. She looked up at me and said, "Right now you're not Daddy's wife. You're just my mommy!"

More fun for Daddy

This semester I'm enrolled in a Suzuki violin teacher training class at UMKC. (For those of you who know me, no, don't expect any drastic changes in my teaching. I'm just rather desperately bored and, well, it's actually turning out well since it's a Book 4 class and that's the level where I could use some ideas/affirmation!) This means that Ben and Rachel go on adventures for 2 hours together every Thursday afternoon.

Yesterday they went to Wonderscope, the children's museum here in KC. There's a room there that is filled with golf balls and various slides and things to roll the balls along. There are also buckets to collect the golf balls in. Rachel filled one bucket for herself, and one for Ben. Somehow, Ben's bucket spilled and Rachel said, "Daddy, all of your balls are falling everywhere! Let's pick up your balls, Daddy!"

Ben said that he was grateful that no-one else was in the room at the time.