Snow Bound

Well, the snow has really been flying here today. I couldn't wait to get out there and really give my new snow suit a try. The snow wasn't quite right for snowman, but it worked great for snow angels and a hike in the woods with my dad.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

My favorite though was just playing around. I loved rolling, digging, and running in the snow. The ground sure seems softer with all this padding and the fluffy snow. Mom watched me purposefully falling down every once in awhile just for the fun of it and got quite a kick out of it.

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It was pretty cold out there for both mom and me. When we came in we had rosy cheeks and cold feet. So, mom told me there's nothing like warming up in front of the fire and a good cup of hot cocoa (and chocolate donut). I even got to use a grown up hot chocolate mug. It was my first effort with a no lid cup and I did great!

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

Giving the Tree a Trim

We got up our tree this year with much help from Aunt Trish. Thanks Aunt Trish! It was fun to get all of the decorations up at once and mom let me hang all of the special ornaments on the tree myself. I even got to hear a special story about each ornament.

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The finished product!

From The Rankin Family

Since the tree has been up, I've enjoyed pointing to each ornament and repeating the story. I have also enjoyed seeing how much my hands have grown each year and frequently put my hands down on the tree skirt. Mom's got me hand prints from this year to add and we've talked about how there will be a new set of hand prints that our smaller than mine next year.

First Snow, 2009

It's winter here, that's for sure, and the snow is beginning to fall to the ground. Mom got me all bundled up and I went out to see the snow. You'll see I have winter crocs on, stay tuned for posts with boots, the weatherman says we'll be needing them in a week. It sure was cold, but I loved trying to catch the snowflakes with my hands.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

I can't wait for enough snow to fall to build snowman and snow angels. I talk about that and going for a walk in the woods to find animal footprints all the time. This could be a challenge for mom, so we'll have to call for some reinforcements when the time is right.

Mom stayed in the garage while snapping these photos. Baby is growing more and more each day and mom can't button her winter jacket all the way. Even with dad's fleece under her jacket, I think mom and baby were pretty cold. Speaking of baby, we received the good news from the Dr. that mom's placenta previa has moved. In fact, it moved the full distance necessary for mom to go full term and have a regular delivery. SO, baby may share my birthday with me after all!

Big Girl Room, Big Girl Bed

Well, it's official. After having my room semi-ready since March, I have finally decided to make it my own instead of just "The Pink Room". Mom's been telling me for about a week now that I can let her know when I'm ready to sleep in my big girl bed and today was the day, October 24th, 2009! (Yes, I'm a bit behind in posting this.)

Here I am taking my very first nap in my new bed.

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Some details on how it has been going. After a rough wake up and climbing out of my bed without permission from mom, I finally got this down and agreed to mom's rules. Stay in bed till I open your door. There was no negotiating on this though I tried my hardest for about 40 minutes that day. We've been very successful since that day in following the rules, taking naps, and sleeping mostly through the night. My wake up schedule has been a little off and mom doesn't think my quality of sleep has been quite the same yet, but we've had no relapses and we continue to press forward with the move.

Here's a couple pictures of my completed room. Mom refinished the bed for me, it's an antique and took her a lot longer than she had hoped. Papa helped her with the painting and some of the sanding. The dresser was my mom's when she was little, she's updated it a bit and made me some hand-painted knobs for it too that match my room perfect! And then there's my reading corner, my favorite. Thanks Nana for my bookcase! I'm hoping to get a chair at some point, but right now I love to lay on my rug and read with the butterflies.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

Monday Mom's Play Group

Here is a rare picture of all of the kids in our "Monday Mom's" play group.

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Mom started this play group back in the spring and it was and is a combination of our friends from the library and gymnastics. We've got a pretty steady group now and even more exciting is the fact that we'll be adding 3 new babies to the group in the next 3-4 months. So with that, we celebrated the new ones on the way with a baby shower!

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Here's a rare picture of mom from the side. Check out that baby, it's sure making mom's belly big! (And yes, that's a fork in her hand, the chocolate cake was amazing!)

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Halloween Trick or Treating

This year we went to my cousins house again for the annual Halloween party and the trick or treating. It's always a late night packed with loads of fun and I couldn't wait. It was an unusually warm day, but pleasant for everyone when it cam to the evening activities. Here I am getting ready for the trick-or-treat run.

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I was a big time runner, track star almost, as we dashed from house to house. The only problem was, I kept forgetting to stop to go to the house! Good thing there were people there to remind me, or I probably would have missed out on all of the candy! I kept looking for my cousin Will, but he's even faster than I am and I just couldn't keep up.

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Mom and dad both came with me this year along with my cousin Chanie and her cousin Keely. I looked a little misplaced among the princesses, but I didn't notice.

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It was a great night and I came home with a small bag full of "hot-chocolate time" for my after dinner treats.

Pumpkin Carving 2008

Oh no, not again!

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I ran from it, I cringed at it, and then I said "No thank you." Yes, similar to the year before, I had no desire to get messy or participate in the carving of the family pumpkin. In fact, I wouldn't even get close enough this year to feel that it was messy. Dad did the messy part and mom carved the face. It was exciting though that I got to pick the design. It's a pretty good resemblance I think.

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Baby Rankin - 28 Weeks

Hi everyone! We had another Dr.'s appointment today to check on Baby Rankin and to see how mom's placenta previa is doing. We are happy to report that the placenta is moving! We aren't in the clear yet (it still needs to move at least 1.3 cm) but the Dr. seems to think that our chances are good for a normal delivery. We'll check again in 4 weeks to see if there has been any further progress. Praise be to God for that wonderful news. We also saw that baby is keeping up on his/her growth, measuring exactly to date and weighing in currently at about 2.6 pounds. Baby Rankin also has some visible hair on their head already!

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

We want to thank you all for lifting up our family in your prayers. Please keep praying that the placenta would move and mom can carry this baby to term without any complication.

Boo at the Zoo

What a cool idea our Kansas City Zoo has. They do "Boo at the Zoo" where we can go trick or treating and see some of the animals get a few teats of their own. This year was the first time I've gone and boy did I fit in. My favorite animal lately has been...

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Yep, you guessed it, a giraffe. And that's what I am for Halloween. I let mom know that my neck isn't quite long enough to be anything more than a baby giraffe. And of course, I also said that I prefer candy over leaves.

I also got a chance to ride my friend the giraffe on the carousel. I thought we made a really good pair. He sure was nice to me. Much better than my friend the live sumatran tiger who was eyeing me up like dinner. Hmmm, could it be because I was in costume?

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

Mom and I had a good time at the zoo together and then it was off to the pumpkin patch with my dad. Here we got to ride on the train, feed some animals, go one a hay ride, and pick out a pumpkin. But the best thing of all was my big surprise for sleeping in my big girl bed over the weekend, I got to ride a pony! I've been waiting for a whole year since there's an age limit usually, but not here. It was definitely the highlight of my whole week!

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Halloween Baking

Mom has started the holiday baking. No, not Christmas, but Halloween. We had a cold spell here and some rainy weather and I've been making pretend recipes for dough so she made some homemade cookie dough, my favorite! We made some Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns complete with orange sugar decorations.

I love rolling the dough. Mom's been letting me help everyday in the kitchen. But this was a real treat, I got to bake with dad. We had so much fun!

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And of course, though I love the finish product, I'm just like mom, I really like eating this cookie dough unbaked. For some odd reason, I really like plain flour too. So, I had my fair share of both, in my mouth and on my shirt!

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Here's our finished product. These pumpkins sure are a lot friendly then some of the ones I've seen lately.

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Faulkner's Pumpkin Farm

Today my play group went to Faulkner's Pumpkin Farm for there special play group time. There were lots of things to play on, a special scarecrow story time, a hay ride, and a pick you own pumpkin at the end. Mom and I had such a good time! Mom also can't believe that these next couple months are the end of the "free activities," a perk of still being just 2 years old. I'm excited to turn three though, a pony ride is in my future at that age as well as that new baby "that's going to come out of mommy's tummy and right into my lap on January 19th". (This is what I tell everyone who asks if I'm going to be a big sister.)

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

"Check it out, I'm 3 feet tall!"

Some of my favorite activities outside right now are seeing horses and swinging. I was so excited to see barrel rocking horses to play on and horsey swings as well! I spent quite a bit of my playtime on these two items alone! Yee-Haw!!

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

Here's mom and me on the "red hay wagon with blue tractor." Here lately baby and I have been competing for lap space. Baby pushes out from the inside and I push back from the outside. Mom's been a pretty good sport sharing her lap with the two of us. I love feeling baby so I always make sure I get right in front.

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The corn maze was a bigger hit than mom thought it would be for me. I loved running around and trying to find my friends. (Luckily, it was kid-friendly and mom could see above all of the corn stalks.) I got lost a few times, definitely made my own path a few times, and loved finding and being found by my friends.

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The highlight of the whole trip though was going out into the pumpkin patch. I got to pick out me very own pumpkin to take home with me. I walked around for quite awhile before finding a perfectly orange, perfectly round, only slightly dirty pumpkin. I checked under all the vines, tested the weight, and then decided I needed to carry it "all by myself" to the car. It was heavy than I thought and mom carried it half-way for me.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

I can't wait to go back with dad and pick the pumpkin's we are going to carve this year! Plus, I know I'll get cider and donuts too on that trip.

Rankin Baby - 23 weeks

Well, we hit the 23 week mark with Baby Rankin. We went in this morning for our sonogram that showed us that we have a healthy baby growing exactly to the date! It was very exciting for all of us to see, we especially felt blessed when we watched the baby yawn. Technology is so amazing! All the vitals and development looked wonderful. Praise be to God! Ainsley is excited and anxiously awaiting when the baby will arrive.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

We also would like to ask for your prayers though at this time. During the sonogram, they discovered that I have placenta previa. I've switched to a high-risk doctor and have had an appointment with him. He is a wonderful doctor and very reassuring. We'll be monitoring the situation every 4-6 weeks to see if the placenta migrates away from what Matthew refers to as "the exit hatch." If not, I'm looking at a C-section for this baby. We ask that everyone would pray that both mom and baby stay healthy, that we would be able to deliver naturally, and that the doctors would have wisdom in our management plan. Thank you in advance for your prayers, we'll keep you posted.

Old-Fashion Cider Donuts

Old-fashion cider donuts right out of the fryer our mom's favorite past-time from when she lived in Michigan. Now that it's fall, we definitely were ready to get a taste of these from our favorite old-fashion cider mill here in Missouri, Dunn's Cider MIll. It's not too far from Papa and Gigi's house, so Papa met us for some pre-lunch donuts.

It was neat to watch the donuts being made. I got to stand at the window and watch each one come out, get flipped, and then go up the conveyor belt. It was so fascinating. The ladies even let us pick out some of the ones that had just come out of the fryer!

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These donuts are finger-licking good!

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

I love the donuts coated with cinnamon and sugar. Actually, I love lots of things with cinnamon and sugar: toast, apples, donuts, cookies, and anything else I can convince mom to put it on! We'll be going back for sure at least once or twice this fall, mom, baby, and I ate almost 6 donuts! We should probably spread our our donut feasting.

The Apple Orchard

Mom's favorite time of year is the fall. There are a lot of outdoor activities she likes to do, and as she's told me about them, I get more and more excited. So, to officially welcome fall, we made our first trip to the apple orchard. We went to Weston Red Barn Farm in Weston, MO. They have all sorts of fun things and learning activities for kids to do. Weston Red Barn Farm will surely become a staple of our fall activities in the coming years.

This farm has animals, a corn maze, hay rides, and all sorts of things. They even have geese roaming free which really kind of scared me. Here I am by a hay horse and antique tractor. This was one of the few times I got close to the geese.

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At the farm, we picked apples. A lot of apples! Truthfully, mom did most of the picking. Apples are on trees really good and I'm not quite strong enough yet to twist them off. I fell down a few times trying to pull an apple off a tree. I became an official helper and put all of the apples in the basket. (Mom told me "gently" a few hundred times.)

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We also got to eat some of the apples while we were put there. They tasted so much better than what mom usually gets at the grocery store. I've been asking for a picked apple each day at lunch.

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Another highlight of the day was my caterpillar. I found it on our basket and despite my fear of flies and all other flying creatures, I loved this little guy. I carried him around for about half an hour before finding an appropriate home for him in the garden on a leaf.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

Our trip is ending. Here I am at the end of the day. Picking apples is sure hard work and it was pretty hot outside.

From The Rankin Family

From The Rankin Family

I was really excited when I heard we had picked a bushel of apples! (Or perhaps it was the old-fashioned candy buttons I got.) We'll be going to a different orchard in a few weeks when their picking starts. This time though Dad is coming! I love mom a bushel and a peck.

From The Rankin Family