July 14, 2006

4 years ago today, I was beaming with joy, with my first born daughter in my arms!
Jason and I sat there in the hospital room gushing over our beautiful baby girl, Rachel Kathryn. I remember her labor with great fondness, because from first contraction to pushing her out, was a total of 5 hours. Not bad! I remember she came out kicking her right foot, furiously and screaming the loud-est scream I had ever heard a baby cry. I only had Ethan's birth to compare it to and Ethan wasn't breathing when he was born, so he came out making no sound... and when he did cry, it was the cutest sounding, tiny baby cry... and stayed that way his first year of life. So Rachel kind of terrified me when she was first born :) But she quickly calmed herself down when I brought her up to my face and kissed her chubby cheeks, greeting her for the first time.

I was telling her, her birth story the other day and she said "I like my name a lot - how did you pick it?!" Her name doesn't have a super deep story behind it and we mainly picked it because we liked that its a familiar name to most, but its also quite rare these days. I think its gone out of style a bit... and those are our favorite names. I think the story of Jacob and Rachel in the Bible is a beautiful story- I've always loved it and so its kind of endeared me to the name Rachel. Kathryn was just a name we liked. I'm quite fond of Catherine Marshall and have always wanted to use the name, but my most favorite spelling is obviously the one we used :)

[1st birthday party w/Aunt Trisha}

And so, she's four today. I have no idea how it happened, but it did. I think the age 4 brings with it some challenges for little girls. Rachel is very emotional lately. She's easily thrown into a million pieces of confusion and tears begin streaming down, as words you cannot understand come pouring out of her mouth. I've found that the best method for this is listening more and showing her we do care, but reminding her that calmness and cheerfulness gets the best reaction and care. Being in the middle of the only boy and then the baby girl proves to be a bit of a hardship on Rachel at times. Because her personality is typically so sweet, easy going and overall quite happy, I think we take it for granted and don't appreciate or praise her as often as we should. She is our child that every single day tells us, "I love you Daddy - I love you Mommy" and she is frequent with hugs & kisses. She is very affectionate, very cuddly, very outgoing, loves people, loves to be creative {which can often get her into trouble}, she loves to dance, play dress-up, go on walks, and pretend she's a Mommy. I often hear her saying "Kara, lets pretend you're the girl and I'm the Mom." and Kara follows behind her, dutifully obeying her "house" rules. She and Kara are suddenly playing together and hanging out together SO much more - all of a sudden. Its quite funny how they wander around the house together, pretending some of the most silly things. Their personalities mix quite well; Rachel is pretty easy going, so when Kara strays from Rachel's rules, she doesn't seem to mind too much.

{right around her 2nd birthday - fun fact: Kara wore this dress last Sunday}

I love having daughters. I love that the older Rachel gets, the more she and I are doing fun Mommy/Daughter things. She likes to cook and bake with me and she loves having "girl" time with me, where we paint our toe nails together and sip on smoothie drinks that we made. She is my shopping buddy as well. I don't like to shop {at all} and Rachel has a great love for shopping and putting outfits together. So she brings excitement to shopping trips, where I'd normally be losing my head.

{meeting Kara for the 1st time - 2}

{Starbucks in San Francisco, drinking hot chocolate - 2 1/2}

{in dress-ups at her 3rd birthday party}

{Johnny Rockets in San Francisco- 3 yrs}

{with her cousin Emma - 3 1/2}

{Christmas 2009}

{July 2010 - 4 years!}

{taken today @ our favorite park on Mercer Island}

We love you, Rachel-Kate. Happy Birthday to you!!