Raelyn ~27 months

This little girl is getting SO BIG!!  She has always been my long legged, tall baby, but she seems even taller now that she is just shy of the same height as Aubrey.  And many of her 2T clothes are already too short.  Her and Aubrey could be wearing the same size before I know it and already I move clothes directly from Aubrey's drawers to Raelyn's.

Raelyn takes one good nap a day.  Sleeps pretty well at night.  Eats pretty well most of the time and still nurses a tiny bit.  She loves little oranges, string cheese (although I think it bugs her tummy), hot wheat cereal, eggs, spaghetti, pizza, etc.  She also love candy!  And knows how to ask for it now...oh boy!  She has just in the last couple months decided she has an opinion about her clothes so I have a tough time getting her to wear anything I want her to.  She loves, leggings and t-shirts, but has so many cute outfits, skirt outfits, dresses, etc.  That I try to trick her sometimes into wearing things I want her to wear.  It works sometimes and not others.  It makes me sad she won't let me dress her anymore...sniff, sniff. 

Raelyn gets into everything!!  Wood floors and chairs she can push anywhere makes it easy for her to get into lots of things.  She loves to push the chair over in front of the fridge and then climb into the fridge.  She also likes to get into the cabinets above the desk or get into my vitamins.  Gotta watch this girl!  She also loves the school room and all that is in there...blocks, playdoh, kitchen stuff.  The other day I went in there and she was getting stuff out and she told me, "Hey, go out!  This is my room!".  Oh my sweet baby Rae...how did this happen??  Markers, pens, water on the floor, toys pulled out...this girl nows how to make a MESS!!  Add this to the other 3 little people and the two big people that can messy at times and we are constantly cleaning up.  But you already knew that!

Raelyn loves to watch "Minnie" in the morning and asks for it now most every day.  She also likes Sophia The First. Raelyn loves our cat Samson and loves to let him outside so if we don't want him out we have to be sure to lock the doors or she will just let him out.  She loves to dance, play games with her daddy and sisters, play with horses (she makes the cutest neighing sounds), and play with her babies (which she shushes and bounces very sweetly).  Raelyn also really loves books.  She loves to be read to and to read on her own.

Raelyn is also talking up a storm and I just love it!!  Here are some of the things she is saying.

If Raelyn hears anyone say the word prayer.  She immediately wants to pray first.  "I pay!" She very sweetly repeats what I say as best she can.  When she is done then she says, "Your turn mom.".

Raelyn loves to talk about everyone at night before she goes to sleep.  She will usually nurse for a bit and then ask me, "Where Sammy (or cat) going?".  Me, "Sammy's going nigh-nigh." "Oh Sammy, sleepin'".  This little convo is then repeated with "Lala", "Caire", "Aubey", and Daddy.  She sometimes asks, "Where momma?"  And then replies herself, "Oh she right here".  It is so so cute!

Every morning when Hans is usually gone for work and multiple times throughout the day Raelyn loves to ask, "Where daddy going?". And I respond, "Daddy is working."  Raelyn~"Oh, Daddy workin' it!".  It is adorable!!

"I want cany (candy)"

"Nummies now!!"

"I pickin' up"

"Stop, stop"

"Ow" (when I give her kisses)

"Where we going?" (any time we are in the car)

"Daddy doing?"

"Momma, hep (help) me"

"I do it!"

And so many others.  Her giggle and sweet little voice are infectious and I can't get enough of them.  She also will tattle now on her sissies, and through a bit of a fit if she doesn't get what she wants.  A very typical 2 year old.

Here are the fall pictures I took of our little sweetie.  She likes to do her cheesy smile for me and posing her is a challenge, but I got some cute one of her, despite this.  Oh and I had like 5 outfits I wanted to dress her in and of course she didn't want to wear any of them.  I had to force her into this one, so I didn't bother with trying to get her into any others.

Trying to pose like her sister ;-)

Love you my sweet baby!!

Halloween Fun

Ok so this isn't Halloween, but as you know I can't resist taking pictures of my sweet sleeping baby and then of course sharing them with you!

The weekend before Halloween we carved three pumpkins and the little girls put faces on our little pumpkins.  Claire and I did all the see scooping.  She is my only one who isn't scared to get messy and dirty.  (Pictures taken by Olivia....so sorry they are a bit blurry.)

Olivia carved her own horse pumpkin and did a great job.  I only helped a little bit.

And Claire did a good portion of the cat.  It turned out to be a bit harder than I thought it was going to be mostly because it was so small.  We had an animal theme this year with a cat, horse and a owl.  The owl turned out really cool, but whoever designed the picture did not think about all the weight hanging on the one branch.  I had to use super glue and toothpicks to put it back together {shhh....don't tell anyone...hehe}.

All our pumpkins including the face pumpkins

All light up.

On Thursday the night before Halloween we found a harvest party to go to at a local church.  I love going to harvest parties because they are inside and you don't have to worry about keeping kids warm.  This particular church is small, but they do nice job and we always have fun.  For the harvest party we had Olivia as a Japanese girl, Claire as Anna, Aubrey as Elsa and Raelyn was suppose to be Minnie but she wouldn't keep her headband on at all.  Here they are before we left.

On Halloween, I decided to be creative and make ghost pancakes for the girls for breakfast.

And we took a break from the grinds of school (although we did do some) and made sugar cookies.  The girls love to do this and we had lots of fun! 

Here they are in their Halloween shirts!

And eating cookies!!!  YUM!

Halloween night was cold and a bit rainy.  This night Aubrey was Elsa again. {Can you tell she loves Elsa?}  Such a cutie!

And Claire decided to instead be a queen.  {I LOVE this dress!}  What a beauty!

Olivia was once again a Japanese girl, complete with her {candy bag} purse from Japan. Getting so grown up!

And for Raelyn we went with a bit warmer costume of a pink kitty.  {Olivia was this when she was 2!  4th girl to wear this costume.}

This was the first year in a while that we did not volunteer to do a trunk for our church's trunk or treat.  It was really strange and kind of nice to not have to man the trunk.  We got to just take our kids around and visit.  But I forgot to take any pictures of the time there although there were some really great trunks!!  And this year they had a mysterious forest.  Kind of fun, but my arm was killing me by the time we got out because Raelyn thought it was scary and had to be carried the entire way.

After that we headed to our traditional spot of trick or treating in the Kopp's neighborhood.  We just did a short time since we had gotten a lot of candy already and we got a late start.  The kids had fun and Raelyn had the get candy thing figured out.  She loved it!  A few blurry pictures of the trick or treating.

And here are all the kids afterwards in their costumes.  Our four and then Jada was the Farmer in the Dell,  Kelsey was a butterfly I think, Carter was Diddy Kong and Kael was a racoon.

Another fun Halloween night with way too much CANDY!!  Seriously?  I need to give some away...LOL!