Our Family Updates

Raffle Tickets to Support Rachel's School

2008-09-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

Instead of putting our friends and family on the spot I thought I'd put out a general announcement...

Rachel's school is having their annual Fall auction. A drawing will take place that night.

1st Prize: $1000 Hy-Vee Gift Card
2nd Prize: $500
3rd Prize: $250
4th Prize: $100

Tickets are $5 each and you do not need to be present to win. All entries must be turned in by Sunday, October 12th and the drawing will take place Saturday, October 18th.

If you are interested, let me know at at meighano@gmail.com and I will submit your ticket and send you the stub.

Thanks!

Fall is here!

2008-09-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

Rachel started preschool last week and seems to love it. It's hard to get details out of her though. I'll ask her if she had fun. "Yeah." What did you do? "Nothing." Back-to-School Night is next week, so I guess I'll find out then. She did tell me that she wants a uniform like the older girls. Already, she wants to grow up too fast!

She also started her 2nd year of dance (ballet & tap). I finally found a studio that focuses more on traditional dance instruction rather than jumping around to Barney tapes. She hated the other classes but loves her new studio. She's learning all the ballet poses and terminology. Pretty cool.

Rachel began her 2nd year of speech therapy. Her speech pathologist said she is now at the level she should be for her age. But to be sure that she doesn't fall behind, she'll continue having sessions twice a week. She's working on Kindergarten-level sounds and is mentoring a three-year-old boy who is having the same articulation problems she had when she started speech.

All of the sudden Lauren is really starting to grow up. She still looks like my little baby but she talks...a lot! She's constantly asking questions or making demands. "Where mommy at?" "Where Rachel at?" "Want milk, Mommy." "Let's go!" "Shoe-shoes, go bye-bye." "Diaper, mommy." She also insists on helping me with everything; from buckling my belt in the morning to opening and closing doors and carrying groceries to the kitchen. It's still cute at this point, but I feel the terrible twos coming.

It's official, Jason has signed his year-long contract for the Catastrophe Corp and is currently on week 3 of his most recent deployment. He loves that he's being kept busy and seems to be on a roll. The girls and I have adjusted but we can't wait for the contract to end.

Well, this coming week will be birthday week for us. Rachel will have a small party in her preschool classroom on Thursday. Aunt Maggie takes her out to lunch and shopping on Friday. Saturday is the family birthday party. And Sunday, her actual birthday, we'll spend with Grandma and Grandpa Ott who have traveled from Ohio to spend the weekend with us. She's so excited!!! And an added bonus (she doesn't know yet) Jason should be home that weekend, too!

2008-07-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ohio Visit

2008-06-17T11:16:00.000-07:00

It took us 10 long months, but we finally made it up to Ohio again. The girls loved visiting family, going to the Akron Zoo, and making smores with Grandpa and Grandma Ott.

Rachel & Grandpa

Grandpa, Rachel, Grandma Ott, & Lauren

Jiggle Jam 2008

2008-05-24T18:50:00.001-07:00

Rachel and I went to the 1st Annual Jiggle Jam Family Festival in Kansas City. We had a great time! Face painting, craft making, funnel cake eating, and to top it off we saw They Might Be Giants. We can't wait to go back next year.

Easter 2008

2008-03-25T08:07:00.000-07:00

It's a few days past Easter but the sugar highs are still going strong. My girls LOVE their chocolate!

We did our usual this year...a community egg hunt and Easter Day with the Scherman side. We had planned to travel to Ohio this year, but with Jason's job change (within the company) we have to put that trip on hold. A very hard thing to explain to Rachel. I'll ask her what she wants to do each morning and nearly every day she says "Fly a plane to Ohio. I have to make cupcakes with Grandma Ott".

Other news, Rachel will go to British Soccer Camp this summer. It's a week-long camp, one hour each morning, with 3 and 4 year olds. Jason, who played soccer in high school, can't wait to take her shopping for her gear. Rachel has been wanting to try a sport for awhile now, but is just now old enough. She's so excited!

Lauren is such a talker. I keep telling myself I need to write down all her words, so here goes... Mama, Dada, Gah-ma (grandma), Omo (Elmo), lolo (Yellow), pupo (Purple), bye-bye, nigh-nigh (Night-night), Raw-Ro (Rachel), Lala (Lauren), Ah-da (Audrey), buh-baw (bubbles), baw (ball), dah (dog), key-ka (kitty cat), uh-uh (while shaking her head), and of course "no".

Preschool & A New Job

2008-02-26T10:01:00.001-08:00

Rachel is so excited. Yesterday, we enrolled her in preschool. She won't start until the Fall but she was ready for me to drop her off that day. She'll be in the new Early Education Center our Parish is opening next month. In the meantime, to help pass the time, I'll be keeping Rachel busy. She's about to finish up her second session of tumbling classes and will start swimming lessons in April. Not sure what she'll do over the Summer but she's interested in ballet, soccer, and basketball.

Lauren is growing up so fast. She's such a little monkey. She'll climb on just about anything. Scary! She's also talking more, "ball", "purple", "kitty cat", "lala" (her way of saying her name).

Other news...Jason has taken a contractual job offered by his company. In two weeks he'll join the Catastrophe Team (CAT Team). When things like Hurricane Katrina, the wildfires in California, or small catastrophes like hail storms of floods hit he'll be deployed to the area to assess damages and give checks to help repair and rebuild.

It's a difficult job that requires long hours and a lot of time away from home. We're prepared for him to be deployed 80% of the year, seeing him every three weeks or so. But it's also a contractual job that only lasts one year. The company looks very favorably on anyone who has been on the CAT Team so this will open doors for him and give Jason a chance to branch out. He's sort of hit the ceiling at the Help Point.

We're still keeping out eye out for a house, but with the job change we may wait to buy or build until Jason's contract is up. It's fun to look though.

2008-02-26T10:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas & Birthday

2007-12-31T10:48:00.000-08:00

This Christmas season was especially busy this year and so it flew by fast! Rachel was old enough this year to help decorate cookies for the annual Scherman Bake-off. She didn't have the patience to do anything intricate so we ended up with lots of sprinkles instead.

Christmas came early when our packages from the Ott side of the family in Ohio came a few days early. All of us were too impatient to wait so we opened them that day. It worked out well though. This way we could emphasize to Rachel that these gifts were from her family far away rather than them getting "lost" in our other gifts on Christmas morning.

Just four days after Christmas - we're crazy - we had a double birthday party for Lauren and Audrey (my sister's daughter). Lauren was way too dainty and hardly made a mess of her cake. So I missed that photo-op.

We have more pictures from the Christmas season and Lauren's birthday party at: http://picasaweb.google.com/meighano

Baptism

2007-12-17T16:49:00.000-08:00

The girls were baptized November 11th at Holy Trinity Parish in Lenexa. Their godparents are...Rachel (Maggie - aunt & Michael - 2nd cousin) and Lauren (Samantha - 2nd cousin & Jeremy - uncle). Both girls did really well. Lauren kept trying to dodge Fr. Reggie's hands when he was doing the anointing with oil and chrism but luckily no crying. Rachel loved her dress and danced around in it. She can be a girly-girl sometimes.

Halloween 2007

2007-11-01T13:26:00.001-07:00

We took the girls up to The Legends, an outdoor shopping mall in Kansas City. Rachel was amazed at the concept of people giving away candy and Lauren kept laughing at all the kids in costumes.

Afterward, we met up with Jeremy, Maggie and Audrey at Grandma Scherman's house.

More Halloween pictures at the "Our Picture Album" link on the right side of this page.

September/October

2007-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened in the two months since our last update.

Rachel turned three on Friday, September 14th. She had her check-up with her pediatrician that day. Luckily, no shots this time. She's now 39.5 inches tall (90-95th percentile) and 32 lbs (70th percentile). Long and lean, as the doctor always says. We had a party that Saturday with family. As usual, we showed a birthday video with pictures from the past year and video clips. She loved seeing herself on the TV and decided to narrate the entire thing. And, of course, we had to watch it twice.

Rachel started her tumbling class today. She LOVES it! They did jumps along the wall-length trampoline and rolls and somersaults down these soft wedge things. I wish I had pictures. All of us moms go upstairs to an observation room that overlooks the gym. The class in an hour long, which works out great. The moms and babies can have a playdate while the 3 year olds work off all their energy in time for an afternoon nap.

We've recently started going to a new church. They don't have Sunday school during the service like our other church did but they do have a class for 3-5 year olds on Sunday evenings that Rachel will join. And soon Rachel should be ready for the twice weekly preschool program offered at the Early Education Center on the church campus. I think she'll love it.

Lauren had her 9 month appointment today. She is now 28 inches (75th percentile) and 19 lbs 5 oz (65th percentile). She has 4 teeth - ouch! - and crawls and cruises very fast. Our house is very baby friendly so she can go from room to room and play. It's so nice now that the girls can play by themselves for a little while. For the first time in a long time I've been able to make real lunches and dinners, you know, like the ones that require recipes. Before I was so busy trying to watch the girls that heating up some Chik'n nuggets in the microwave was a real accomplishment.

Anyway, more on Lauren... She's very independent. She still likes to be picked up once in awhile but she mostly likes to play on her own or with Rachel, as long as I'm in sight. I'm thinking she might have skipped the stranger anxiety stage. Like Aunt Maggie says, she's never met a stranger. As long as I'm nearby she'll go to just about anyone. I've read that second babies tend to be more easy going. That's definitely true for Lauren.

Our Ohio Visit

2007-08-15T19:48:00.001-07:00

We've just come back from our trip to Ohio. Traveling with two kids wasn't as hard as we thought it would be. Rachel would get antsy at times (like any 3 year old would) but overall they did great.

While there Lauren had a lot of firsts. Her first two teeth, first time clicking her tongue (a fun new trick for her), and she started to *really* crawl. First thing she did when we came home was crawl over to the play kitchen and clear the shelves. She's so much more mobile than she was when we left just a week earlier.

Thursday, August 9: We had lunch with Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Bent and then headed over to Acres of Fun (similar to Chuck E. Cheese). That was cut short when a storm passed over us. Later, we saw on the news that a tornado had touched down just north of us. Fun start to our vacation! At dinner that night Lauren bit down on my finger....her first tooth!

Friday, August 10: Children's Museum of Cleveland. The exhibits were all aimed at children Rachel's age but everyone had a bit of fun.

Saturday, August 11: Cleveland Zoo and dinner in Little Italy. Rachel walked most of the zoo and ended up crashing in the van on the way to dinner. We ate under a tent covered patio in the Little Italy district of Cleveland. Our servers' names.....Rachel and Lauren!

Sunday, August 12: Cookout with the entire Ott family. Most of the family hadn't met Lauren yet and we got to meet two new babies, Madeline and Lily. Lauren and Madeline are closer in age and got to have a mini playdate.

Monday, August 13: Cedar Point in Sandusky. We started Rachel off with the tame rides. The Kiddy Kingdom wasn't very exciting. She liked the little carousel rides at first but was more interested in the larger rides...like the "fast trains" (her way of saying roller coasters). So then we moved on to Camp Snoopy. Still kiddy rides, but a little more exciting. The first one she wanted to try was a roller coaster. I thought for sure she's be scared. She kept calling it a train and I wanted to make sure she understood it would go much higher and faster than the trains she's been on. But she insisted, so we got on. I'm not a roller coaster person at all so even I was bracing myself when we were climbing up that first drop. So we get to the top and I start to loose my stomach and clench my teeth and next to me is Rachel yelling "wooooohooooo" while putting her fists in the air. WHAT?! She's definitely Jason's daughter. But seeing her have so much fun made the ride easier on me. I would have gone again and again just to see her having that much fun. But on to more rides... I think she could have gone on for hours, but the park was closing. Jason's already talked about planning a trip to Worlds of Fun.

I think it's going to take a few days for us to settle back into our routine.

Our July Update

2007-07-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

For the 4th we went to Village Fest in Prairie Village. We had Chris Cakes (where we saw Mary O'Halloran from "Ruckus") and then took Rachel through their petting zoo. They had a zebra, a monkey, kangaroos, and baby buffalo. Not your average petting zoo! Soon after that we watched The Elite Frogs, a skyjumping team. Rachel was fascinated by that and said she wanted to jump too. Later that night Rachel and I went to see the fireworks at Shawnee Mission Park. This was sort of her first fireworks display since she was only 9 months old the last time we had gone. She thought it was pretty neat but didn't really get it. I'm sure the concept of colorful things blowing up in the sky is pretty weird for a 2 year old. And this after seeing four men fall out of the sky.

Lauren had her 6 month appointment this morning. Maggie and Audrey came along so that Rachel could see her favorite doctor, "Dr. Rozie". While Lauren had her shots, Maggie and Audrey kept Rachel busy out in the waiting room. Lauren has grown 2 inches since her 4 month appointment and is now 27 inches long. She's also 18 lbs 4 oz. Both of those measurments are in the 90th percentile. So, as chunky as she looks she's actually proportionate. She's been sitting up on her own for about a month now and is starting to try to pull herself up on things. She also babbles quite a bit; ma-ma-ma-ma, ba-ba-ba-ba, wa-wa-wa-wa.

Rachel is becoming such a big-kid. She likes to direct but doesn't seem too bossy. She'll tell us where to stand when we play wiffle ball, makes up rules for new games, tells us how to "make juice" (pour water into the cup before pouring the juice), and shows Lauren how to play with toys. I remember being the teacher when we played school or being city manager when we made our pretend city with the neighbor kids. Maybe she'll be the same way.

The Girls' First Update

2007-06-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Lauren is now 5 months old. Wow, that went by fast! She's been on solids for two weeks now and loves every food we've given her so far. I wish Rachel ate as well. We have to be creative in finding ways that she'll eat. Recently, Jason has taught Rachel to eat with chopsticks. She caught on quickly and will eat stirfry made with rice, tofu and veggies. She's really into creepy crawly things, so pretending that her spaghetti are worms, rotini are caterpillars, and peas are eyes works well, too.

Rachel will start her second dance class next week. She's excited about going back and asks to put on her dance outfit almost daily. In the meantime, we've been going to storytime at the park. There the kids act out stories and sing songs. Afterward we head over to the playground and wear the kids out just in time for a nap.

It's looking like Rachel will start preschool at the elementary school this Fall. She'll love it. She does really well on Sundays in the church toddler room and will probably look forward to preschool the way she does dance class.

Both girls are growing so fast. Lauren is now around 17 lbs and 26 inches. I hate to give it up, but it's time to move Lauren out of her infant carrier and into a regular car seat. Rachel is 3'4" (above the 100th percentile) and is in a booster seat now. When you add that we're getting rid of the bouncy chair and the bassinet it's very clear that the baby days will be over before we know it. I'm enjoying it while it lasts and looking forward to what's ahead.