We started the summer a little early with a trip in May to Missouri to see my Mom.  The girls are getting old enough to appreciate the Grandma that they don’t see as often as they do their other relatives.  I think the highlight was chasing ants and butterflies around Mom’s yard.

Rayna has been to, not one but, two vacation bible schools.  First, she spent a week at a Baptist church in Rochester at the invitation of Emily, her best friend from preschool.  And then, of course, bible school at our own church.  She returned the favor and invited Emily to come along.  Both girls had a great time.

As reported previously, both Rayna and Kaylee have been spending a lot of time in the pool at the Rochester Athletic Club.  Both took swimming lessons and are coming along nicely.  I personally had a great time in Kaylee’s parent/child lessons.

A few weeks ago, we all went to the Minnesota Zoo and had a good day.  I personally enjoyed the giant fish tanks the most.  Kaylee really seemed to get into that too, although she beat a hasty retreat when a shark suddenly swam close by.  Everyone had fun watching a brown bear who was quite a ham and put on a good show for the crowd.

So, it’s been a good summer so far.  Here’s looking forward to a great August!

In June, we went down to Missouri to visit my Mom for a few days.  It was a great visit, marred only by the 100 degree, 99% humidity weather.  The girls loved seeing “Grandma Lambright”, who was a bit of a mystery to them, in the flesh.  Rayna still is talking about wanting to go see Grandma Lambright again.  Other highlights of the visit included seeing my old friends Vince and Droid, along with their families, and a trip to see my Dad’s resting place in St. Joe.  The swans and fish were out in force at the cemetery’s pool and the girls had a wonderful time tossing bits of bread into the water to be devoured.

Shortly after we returned from Missouri, Nicole and I decided it was time for Rayna to make the transition to a full-sized bed.  She did really well in the hotel bed on the trip and there didn’t seem any reason to wait.  So, we went to the furniture store and got her a new bed.  We didn’t get a headboard; the side of her toddler bed was designed to function as a headboard when the child moves to a bigger bed.  We then went to Wal-Mart and let her pick her own bedding.  It was a close race and I thought for a minute that she was going to opt for Micky Mouse; in the end, however, it was the Princess gear that got the nod.  Rayna loves her big bed; even now she occasionally thanks me for putting it together.

Kaylee got a little grumpy at all this.  When it dawned on us that she was jealous, we went ahead and converted her crib to a toddler bed, which immediately brightened her mood.  She loves getting in and out of bed on her own. She can’t open the door yet but she’s trying and it’s just a matter of time.  It’s hard to believe how she’s grown.

Speaking of Kaylee, she continues to come into her own.  All her teeth seem to be in, save the four eyeteeth which still give her fits sometimes.  Her vocabulary has exploded this summer and it seems like she’s coming up with new words every day.  She really gets a kick out of saying Rayna’s name and uses it every chance she gets.  Some of her other favorites are “juice”, “Elmo”, and “naked”, which gets used a lot at bathtime.

This year marked Nicole and my fourth wedding anniversary, which doesn’t seem possible.  The time has really flown.  We treated ourselves to a day trip to the Twin Cities while the girls stayed home with a babysitter.  Nothing fancy, just a little shopping and lunch.  It’s just nice to get away by ourselves occasionally.

Speaking of Elmo, we all went to Sesame Street Live last weekend and had a great time.  Kaylee had never been to anything like this and she really likes Elmo so she spent the whole show entranced.  It was fun watching her try to figure out cotton candy.  First she tried chewing it, which didn’t really work.  Licking like a sucker was even less successful.  Finally, she figured out how to just let it dissolve in her mouth.  We got her an Elmo pendent which is up in her room.

We have a massive backlog of photos, which I need to organize, tag, and get loaded to our page on flickr.  I posted a bunch yesterday (including Christmas 2008) and will continue to work on that in the coming days.  Our photostream isn’t in strict chronological order anymore, which offends my sense of the linear, but it’s more important to get stuff up.  I’ll post here when the particularly choice bits go up.

As you may recall from a previous post, Rayna had to get tested for preschool.  I was under the impression that these tests were only a means of gauging each child’s starting point and couldn’t be used to keep her out of preschool.  Wrong.  Turns out that it’s pass/fail.  And Rayna failed.

I could go on for a long time about the tests they did and why I feel they were not administered appropriately but my friends, family, and a few colleagues have already had to listen to me ranting and raving on the topic.  So I’ll just give a couple of examples:

The tester told Rayna to count to three.  Well, we’ve been working on numbers at home and Rayna is pretty proud of her counting ability.  So she got excited and counted to ten.  The tester failed her for failing to follow the instructions.

In another test, Rayna was shown a circle and told to draw it.  She drew three or four circles.  Failed–again for not following the instructions.

Most of the failed tests had to do with not following directions.  She also failed the vision test.  After a costly visit to the doctor for a second opinion, we learned that Rayna’s vision 20/20.  The doctor mentioned that four out of five kids he sees because of a failed preschool screening vision test turn out to be fine because the testers failed to administer the test properly.  Maybe I should send them the doctor’s bill.

St. John’s doesn’t have to adhere to the results of the testing so we’re not going to worry any further about the screening.  She will start in the Fall and she’s already getting excited.

There are pictures of the current St. John’s students and teachers here.

After the visit to the doctor, she goes off to preschool screening!  She’ll get to play with some other kids and she’ll be assessed for learning and development levels.  To be honest, I’m a little unclear on what all will be happening.  My understanding is that these tests couldn’t actually keep her out of preeschool; they just give teachers some info on where she is starting from.

Nicole is with Rayna while I’m staying home with Kaylee.  I have some appointments to visit libraries for work this afternoon, so I’ll have to take off then.  Rayna and Nicole won’t be home yet but Roger (Nicole’s dad) is going to dome over around noon to fill in the gap.  Grand Central Station around here!

Rayna is developing too.  Her command of language is getting better and she is saying more complete sentences.  She still lapses into incomprehensible babbling when tired or stressed but it’s coming along.

Second best Rayna statement this week: when we took her to the health club for a kids night, we told her that she was going to a party.  So she stormed in and loudly announced “I’m here to party!”

Best Rayna statement this week: while sitting on the potty after coming out of the tub, she looked down and suddenly blurts out: “I’m all naked!”

Yep, nothing gets by our kid.

Saturday, we went to the county fair for lunch-on-a-stick and to see the sights.  Rayna got a close up look at a cow and I stopped by the DFL booth to pick up an Obama bumper sticker.  Sunday was spent at a family reunion.  Oh yeah, it was also our third wedding anniversary. 

And last but not least, my best friend from high school, Vince, was up on Monday night with his wife, Jill, and two boys, Drew and Matt.  We went to Jimmy’s Pizza and had a lot of fun catching up.

This week has been a little rough on Kaylee, who is suffering from a bout of teething.  The poor thing just hasn’t felt good since the weekend.  She had a fever all day on Tuesday and mostly just wants to sleep and/or be held.  She’s been waking a lot at night but has been pretty good about going back to sleep on her own.  Infant Tylenol and OraJel have been our friends.

The house is still on the market.  We had one viewing last week but not much since then.  I’m not worrying much about that; there’s not much I can do about it.

I’ll leave you with a Rayna story.  Lately, she has been showing some interesting quirks.  Taken individually, they’re kind of funny.  Taken together, they’ll be funny someday but not so much now…

1)  She has developed an interest in trucks.  Whenever she sees anything remotely resembling one, she shouts “truck!”

2)  She’s having a little trouble with words that start with the letter T.  In fact, they generally come out sounding more like Fs.

That’s fun when we’re walking down the aisle at Wal Mart.  Or in my office at work.

Nicole took Rayna back a couple of days later to have her eyes checked. Ever since she was born, we’ve been aware that one of her eyes tracks a little slower than the other. If you look on our photo page, you can see what I mean. We held off doing anything because kids often outgrow this. But now she’s two and Nicole has a history of this kind of thing in her family, so we decided to have it checked out. The doctor felt that it wasn’t very severe and she may well grow out of it yet. So, we’re going to wait a year and take another look. If she still is showing symptoms, we’ll need to start talking about treatment. Rayna withstood the tests like a real trooper and I’m told that she said “hi” to just about every patient in the Mayo Clinic as she was walking to the doctor’s office. Nicole said that she got a lot of smiles that day.

Kaylee continues to grow.  She has put on a lot of weight and has learned to roll over.  She is pretty strong and has impressed us with her ability to hold her head up.  She is also getting very vocal; I suspect she will learn to talk pretty early.  She has also been drooling a lot lately.  I don’t know if it is teeth coming in or if it’s just a baby thing.

Rayna has handled this really well.  She was a little unsettled for the first day or so but the first thing she does in the morning is look for Kaylee.  Yesterday, on her way to go to bed, she looked at Kaylee and said “night night sis”.  Nicole and I both heard it the same way.  Rayna has also taken to wrapping her dolls in a blanket as she sees us do with Kaylee.

There are some pictures up from Kaylee’s first night in the hospital when Nicole’s folks and other family members visited.  The photo sidebar to the right will take you right to them.

Thanks again to everyone who has commented on this blog or otherwise sent us greetings.  You all are great!