Zoo Videos

For reference purposes, the brightly colored thing you see is actually the monkey's behind!

Laughing at the elephants

Zoo Days

Last weekend Joshua wanted to take us all to the Ft. Worth zoo. We had a great time. Rachel loved looking at all the animals. She even walked 2/3 of the trip, even in the warm temperatures. We got there early, but even so we only lasted about 2 1/2 hours in the heat! I don't think we'll be going again until it cools down!

She did this for a lot of the exhibits, not sure why

Watching the monkeys...it looks like she's the one behind the cage!

Laughing at the female lions

The lounging kangaroo

Riding a bronze kangaroo

A few good bird shots

How scary is that face!?!

"Are YOU lookin' at me???"

Quite literally the coolest exhibit at the zoo!

Catching a snack before we left

This Is What Happens....

...when Rachel attacks a Nutella and graham cracker sandwich!

The bathing beauty; she had a really good time at her first ever pool visit. She got a little nervous at times if she got a little too far from one of us, but aside from that she really enjoyed herself. Good thing too, because the pool may be the only way to really cool off outdoors...looks like we're in for a scorcher this year! I tend to get cabin fever in the summer, not the winter (I cloister myself in the air conditioning!).

Rachel has the funniest reactions to things sometimes. Here she is really enjoying the first part of Aladdin this weekend. She watched it for about 15 minutes and then got to playing with other stuff, though she did stop to dance during the songs! (you're not allowed to look at my hair...I'd been cleaning house all day!)

Happy Anniversary To Me! :)

Forgot these...

I meant to post these yesterday with the other photos and forgot them...

For whatever reason the other day when we were going out on errands, she wanted to bring along both her stuffed rabbit and teddy. With her sunglasses and that look on her face, she looks like such a toddler diva...help!

We needed to get her a lifejacket hoping she'll enjoy the pool this summer, so I went to Academy sports to get her one. I tried this one on her to see if it fit. It did, luckily, because she wouldn't let me take it off her! I let her wear it until we had to checkout. She threw the biggest fit she's thrown in a store yet, the kind where everyone in the store hears it! It was quite embarrassing!

Our Little Helper

One of Rachel's favorite activities recently is helping us to do stuff around the house. While she might not be truly helping, it certainly helps keep her busy so we can do what we need to get done!

Helping me dust the living room before vacuuming

Helping Daddy do his sit-ups

Admiring her latest booboos (she just barely scraped her knees when she tripped in a parking lot the other day)

We watched Finding Nemo the other day and she actually paid attention to about half of it (that's total over the whole length of the movie; she'd watch, then play, then watch again, then play some more)

Giving Daddy kisses during the movie
The other morning I had to pick up dog poo in the backyard before the trash truck came, so I fed Rachel her breakfast on the back patio (kept her out of my way!)

18 Month Dr. Appointment

Rachel (as the title of this post reads) had her last appointment before her 2nd birthday today. She got just one booster shot and won't get another until she's 4 years old. Yaay! :) She still is a tiger with the doctor and nurse, screaming and throwing a fit every time one of them touches her for any reason. But the lollipop after the shot makes up for it. The doctor also said that it's at this time that pediatricians have some kind of formula where they can tell with relative accuracy how tall kids will grow based on their height at 18 months. She measured 35" today, putting her at 5 feet, 10 inches at adulthood! He also suggested a future career in modeling with such height! Goodness knows she's no stranger to the camera, and I suppose there are worse occupations (I have watched too much America's Next Top Model to know that it's an industry fraught with problems such as eating disorders, creepy photographers, and rampant narcissism). That or we're going to have to put a basketball goal in the driveway!

Here's some more of what Rachel's been up to.

This is where she likes to watch her daddy work out on the treadmill.

She opened up an extra set of chopsticks from PeiWei Saturday morning and began eating her cantalope with them. I figured it was okay for her to do it as I was watching her and it was good practice for hand/eye coordination. I've never seen her eat so much melon in one sitting before!

Here you can see Rachel's latest booboo. She fell while running at the park the other night and landed on her face (she hasn't figured out it's better to let your hands catch you when you fall yet). It's hard to see in this picture, but she also scraped the end of her nose and the top of her lip. Because of the placement of the scrapes, bandaids were not possible, but the doctor says she'll suffer no permanent damage from licking the Neosporin!

We did some grilling this weekend and Rachel tackled her first corn on the cob. She loved it, as you can see.

She enjoyed another piece during Daddy's dinner. I swear if this photo doesn't give her a shot at getting on My Name is Earl, I don't know what would! She could pass for one of Jaime Pressley's kids!

We checked out a new park in the area (new to us anyway) and, after thoroughly checking out its very cool playground and splash pad, we took time out for a little picnic. We didn't get any photos of her on the playground, but I did get these with my camera phone.