Friday, March 24, 2006

Hey Ma...


....any chance I can get in one of these????

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Sponge-Bathing Beauty

Seeing as how we still have a bandaged hand, sponge-baths are a necessity. It's not quite the joyous, splashy goodness of a regular bath, but Rach likes it.


Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Dad loves to....

...bust out the flash cards. We have constantly sung the ABC song since before they were born, and they love it. Rachel has even taken to humming it to herself while she plays (well, the first part of it). In fact, we've sung it to them so often to put them at ease, we're sure it'll become their mantra in stressful situations later in life. We can just see Charlotte, nervous about a job interview, pacing outside the boss's door, singing the ABC song!

Anyway, Adrian has moved on to flash cards. We do A-D only, and lessons usually conclude with the corners of the cards caught between slobbery teeth. Perhaps we're learning by osmosis?


Lovin' the cards......
....then--not so much.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

And one more......

....just for Grandpa.



Monday, March 20, 2006

If You Can't Find Spring Outside....

....bring it inside!! Too much fun.




Sunday, March 19, 2006

So Charlotte is.....

...our own little stand-up comedianne. She just loves to get a laugh. First, it was peek-a-boo to make her sister laugh, then on to vigorously shaking her head "no" and giggling. Lately, she likes to shrug her shoulders at Grandpa. I've even caught her pretending to sleep on the kitchen floor--she curled up with a dishtowel and sucked her thumb, only to pop right back up and start giggling. I'm convinced that, one of these days, I'm going to find her standing up on her incrediblock, talking into her sippy, saying, "What's the deal with Huggies? They don't hug me! Hey, who here is from out of town?"

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Happy Birthday Jen!!!


Jen is my very best friend, an optometrist, an extremely gifted crafter, scrapper, bear-maker, and all-around Superwoman. Most of all, she's an awesome Mom to one of the most gorgeous girls on Earth--Becca! We wish we were closer so that we could visit more often. That, and we'd like to razz her about turning 32 first! =) Love ya, pallie!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

No WAY!

Begin the countdown! We're officially a month away from the big 1. As a parent of a 'toddlant,' you always get all of the "oh, how OLD are they????" questions. I used to know it to the day, but now find myself having to give it a think! Just when I think I've got it, another milestone is upon us. Just today, I was about to declare "almost 11 months!" when my brain shouted back, "NOOOO! EXACTLY 11 months today!!" Now it's time to start the whole "just over 11 months" schtick, soon to be followed by "11 and a half months," then onto "almost 1 year!" ...you get the idea.

To commemorate the occasion, I thought I'd include some pictures of Grandpa's favorite hobby--putting things on the girls' heads and taking pictures of it. =) Good times.





Monday, March 13, 2006

And Now Come the Boo-Boos

..well, now that we're crusing furniture and all over the place in general, we're in for some boo-boos. Rachel has decided that she'll go ahead and get a head start. Yesterday evening, she and Charlotte were playing near a cabinet and Rach managed to get her little pinky smashed on the tippy-tip. Unfortunately, she lost a tidbit of skin and the nail. Needless to say there was plenty of blood and plenty of tears (mostly Mommy's), so we shuttled her to Community Campus ER. Thank goodness Grandpa wasn't far behind! He managed to get us short-listed with the triage nurse and we got in very quickly. All of the nurses oohed and aahhed over Sweet Rachel and she even scored a pineapple popsicle! They basically just cleaned it and bandaged her up so that she looked like she was sporting a big boxing glove. This morning, Daddy found Rachel on one side of her crib, and the boxing glove on the other! She wasn't having any of that. So Daddy put his bandaging expertise to work and got her all done up again. We saw Dr. Tan this morning for the mandatory wound-check, and she seemed confident that it would heal well, but didn't elaborate on whether or not we'll get a second chance at a fingernail --though many of our friends have shared THEIR nail horror stories and they all got their nails back. We'll see. Rachel is doing just fine and Adrian and I are both coming down off of the adrenaline that comes with whisking a child to the ER. The nurse shared with us that they had just transferred out a 5 year old who OD'ed on Grandma's meds and that they were treating a teen mauled by a pitbull. That put things in perspective. Still feel like a crummy Mommy, though. =(


Our brave girl, bouncing back already!

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Well....

...I got a little tired of the whole babiesonline thing, so I've decided to start a blog. My thinking is that it will be easier for me to keep everyone updated on the goings-on 'round the Rawlings' Ranch, and I can post pics here and there. Filling the gallery on babiesonline can get a bit labor-intensive and this just seems more do-able.
One thing that I've been meaning to post is our recent visit with Aunt Gail, Russ, Debbie, and the Price family in Tulare. The girls just love to visit with family and friends, and we were missing the Prices something awful. So we loaded everyone into "Hal 9000" and headed down the freeway. Grandpa was happily installed in the third row seat with his Nano (you can't hear any conversation back there anyway), keeping a watchful eye on the babes.
We were happy to see that Uncle Bill and Aunt Rita were back from their trip to Vandenberg and got to visit with them too! The girls flirted with everyone and Russ's girlfriend Debbie was ready to take one home with her. We get that a lot. Pics of the visit are posted below.