Sweet Rachel Claire turned one today! We'll have her party later on, but I wanted to write a quick update. Rahel is so proud of being a bigger girl. Yesterday, I gave her a whole cracker, and she looked at me with these eyes that said, "Yes!!!! I'm so glad you finally see me for the grown up that I am! Whoopee!" She doesn't say many different words, but her eyes (and eyebrows) can be very expressive. Her favorite word is da-da-da, and it can be used to express all sorts of things. Kate often turns to me and interprets what that da-da meant. "Mom, she said she's finished." or "Mom, she's wants to play with me." She's said a few words very few times (like papa, ba-ba, ah-duh, and ank-yu -- this last one is mostly an intonation, not really formed syllables of sound). She does sign for more & all done when prompted.
Just the other day, she stood for the first time by herself. It only happens when I'm holding her hands & let go. :-) I can tell she's trying to work on standing up by herself. She scoots her bottom up really high in the air and I can tell she really wants the top half of her body to lift itself up to standing position. But, she hasn't worked it out yet. She cruises quickly and is proficient at switching from coffee table to couch and back again. She likes to play with her walker & is very good at it. Kate helps her steer and off they go! Her favorite things are still her books, which she takes one by one out of her shelf almost every day. Recently, she's started crawling into big sis' room to play with the Little People house. When I was cleaning up breakfast dishes today while Kate finished up eating, all of a sudden I was a bit disconcerted to hear a huge flushing sound. Then, I realized it was from the play house. :-)
She is an extremely easy going baby. She still takes two naps a day, nurses four times, and eats three times. She loves bananas & sippy cups the best. You'd think for a girl who ate bananas (several of them) every day, she'd be over them by now, but NO. . I forgot to mention that she also rarely says a word for banana. We know she's excited when she starts flapping her arms & bobbing her head from side to side or up and down. The head bobbing is also her "dancing" and is very cute to watch. She is nowhere near as shy as her big sister was, and will even give smiles away to total strangers.
She loves riding in her stroller, especially if I go fast! And, she just moved up to her big sister's car seat, although it's still rear facing. With the fruit basket upset in the back seat, we had to move her over from the center (right next to sister) over to the window, and I think she really misses being close to Kate.
She's a great sleeper. Example: We go to prayer meeting at the Baileys on Wednesdays. At her normal bed time (8), I put her down there. About an hr or hour and a half later, we get her up & move her to the car. No cries. She stays awake usually for the entire ride home and then gets put back into her crib at home, and falls right to sleep again. She sucks her thumb quite adorably, but only when she's tired. This is a handy cue for mom! She likes to have something cozy to hold in one hand while she sucks the other thumb. Few pictures of this b/c who takes a picture of their kid when they are also trying to get them into bed (not me!).
As far as food goes, she's an eating machine! She frequently eats until her tummy looks HUGE and is hard as a rock. And sometimes, that's because I've cut her off! Today, for her birthday breakfast, she had 4 pancakes and some scrambled eggs. Sister had to be forced to finish her eggs & 1 pancake. She eats all table food these days and is very good at getting into her mouth. No plates or spoons for her yet, she's still using her God-given utensils, her fingers.
If you'd like to see her slideshow, I've linked to it on facebook.
The funniest bit is that this isn't even all of them -- just the ones I've caught on film. This morning, I found her standing on top of the platform for our garden tub. This means she had climbed up the little "step" & then up one more level, near the faucet, if you will. And, what was she doing?? Standing, holding onto a basket of magazines we have up there. 
