Bed Head

Rachael woke up from her nap with the most amazing bed head the other day. Enjoy the pictures. I hope they brighten your day. Since I am sharing these possibly embarassing pictures, she will hate me when she is a teenager. Well, she will hate me when she is a teenager anyway, so I might as well share these adorable pictures with you.

Kindermusik and Silly Faces

We have started taking Kindermusik classes with our friends Mara and Ana. Rachael loves to sing, clap, dance, and play all the instruments. We have started playing the Kindermusik CD while she takes a bath, and it keeps her pretty happy. Some of the songs are pretty weird and cheesy, but we are having fun with it. I am sure that Rachael will "judge" how cool the songs are when she gets to junior high, but for now we will waggle our tail like a squirrel and clap our hands like dolphins while we can still get away with being "silly!". Her new game is to put her hands on her cheeks and smile when we say, "Oh, Silly!". It is very cute although a bit reminiscent of McCauly Caulkin in Home Alone. This is a picture from shortly after her birthday wearing her "birthday flair". Talk about silly!

Big girl!

Rachael is turning into a toddler! She is changing so much so quickly. She likes to feed herself applesauce with her own spoon and bowl. It is messy work, but she is doing an amazing job. She gets excited when her empty bowl reveals a picture of "Hello Kitty" (thanks, Christy!).

She has started to communicate more by pointing and remarking with babble words on different objects, pictures, etc. She points at all different things and says, "ga, ga, ga". Rachael also loves to climb. That is part of the reason we are desperately behind on her blog. I can't turn my back for a second without "discovering" her discovering a new way to scale up the coffee table, stacks of magazines, a few shoes, a chair, sofa cushions, stair gates, etc. She usually stands by whatever she wants to climb and waits for me to look at her. When I say, "No climbing, Rachael", she, of course, smiles a big smile, shakes her head "no", and tries to climb anyway. This usually results in a baby time out of me holding her tightly and repeating "no" until she stops giggling at me. Wow, this keeps us really busy! Of course, it is so darn adorable, it is hard to be the "enforcer" when she makes us laugh so much! This is a picture from a few weeks ago, so don't judge the Christmas decor in the background. Of course, it is still up now too.

4:09

Rachael was born at 4:09, so here is a picture of her at 4:09 today when she officially turned one year old...

Happy Birthday!

Rachael turns one year old today! We spent the morning eating pancakes and bananas at La Peep, and now she is napping and growing. We were joined by 20 or so of Rachael's closest friends, family, and admirers for her birthday party last Sunday. She was thrilled to entertain and show everyone her toys. Guests brought books to donate to the Infant Welfare Society of Evanston's childcare center, and Rachael and I will deliver those later this week. She is previewing a few of them! Thanks again for celebrating with us!

She's officially a Rubin!

One trait the Rubin family has is the habit of reading while eating breakfast. Here is a picture of Rachael perusing an "Oriental Trading" catalog and chomping on Kix. If you're a teacher, you know that "Oriental Trading" is that catalog of those random prizes like pencil toppers and troll dolls. Rachael likes looking at all the "junk" and happy kids playing with it. The Kix, as Mike and my friend Megan reminisced, were one of the few "kid's" cereals that they could have growing up because it is low in sugar. Rachael loves Cheerios and Kix. She points at the box to specify which cereal she is in the mood for. I think she wants me to order some ranibow sun catchers or miniature dinosaur erasers for her birthday party.

Snow and Bad Parenting

It snowed the day Rachael was born, and it kept snowing for about six weeks last winter which kept us trapped at home. Now Rachael is big enough to notice the snow and enjoy it a little. She stands at the back door and watches the snow accumulate in our back yard. She points to the birds (mostly pigeons, but a few cardinals and snow finches too). This picture was an attempt to create a "cute" snowy scene for our holiday card a few weeks back. You will see her joy quickly turns to anger as I lay her down in a the fresh snow at our friend Jon Bogie's place after a housewarming brunch. Please don't call the authorities on me! It seemed like a good idea at the time.Luckily, Rachael had just finished playing with their dog Zoey for a few hours, so she was in a pretty good mood. Thankfully, I was prepared with a dry pair of pants for Rachael's ride home.