Rachel Garay Photography

The weather this week has been keeping us indoors, so we have been doing lots of crafts and playing with playdoh.

Also watching some movies (don’t judge!).

On Monday we went to Homestead Farms to get some fresh fruit and veggies.  Once we got there Abby decided she wanted to pick something, so we trudged off to the blackberry patch.

Once we got the blackberries, Abby picked them for about 7 minutes and then announced she was done.  You know it’s hot when a 3 year old doesn’t want to pick fruit 🙂  So we went to the market and got our veggies and peaches (which are so good!) and a popsicle.

aren’t these eggplants beautiful!

Another fun activity to do when it’s super hot outside is to head down to the Rockville Town Center to the Fountains, which is like a splash pad for kids (and grown ups if you want to cool off!).  Abby loves to go there, I like it because I can sit in the shade and watch her.  For some reason we can’t ever get out of there without tears though, either from falling or someone splashing her.   Abby is the only person I know who doesn’t want to actually get wet at the fountains lol.

Until next time~Rachel

Lots of fun was had today with Abby.  First we went to the craft store (exciting!) and got some stickers, pom poms, crayons, and some supplies to make a “Good Girl Chart” for Abby.  Sunday was so rough for us parenting wise (Edgar was actually looking forward to going to work to get peace of mind).  Her behaviour was…snotty to say the least.  Today I told her we are going to start a chart where when she is good she gets a star and when she is bad she gets a “X” (couldn’t find sad face stickers) at the end of the week she can have a treat if she has more stars than “X”‘s.  The categories are:  potty, listening, politeness, sharing, and time out.  So far threatening her with a “X”  has worked but it’s the first day so we shall see!  We moved her playroom back downstairs and spent a small fortune on some playmats to put down there so the floor is softer and in the winter warmer, so we did our crafts in there today. 

I felt bad that we didn’t go out anywhere fun yesterday with all the moving of toys and my studio supplies so we went to Cabin John Park and rode the train.  I love taking Abby there, it’s cheap, it’s shady, and Abby loves the train 🙂

This pig trash thing @ Cabin John is the scariest ever!  I think it’s pretty old and it has a really creepy voice.

After the train we headed over to the playground, it’s was so hot.  About 105 with the humidity.  Thank goodness the playgrounds there are shaded with lots of trees, for some reason no playgrounds here have trees around them and are sooo hot you feel like you are melting.  Weird they didn’t think about that when they constructed them.  Of course all the kids were running around and sweating with no worries at all 🙂

Till next time!

~Rachel

The summer of 3 (years old that is) has been interesting to say the least.  Do 3 year olds have temporary bi-polar disorder?   At times the ability to reason and be logical seems to be there and then other times it’s thrown out the window and kicking and throwing objects happens when you can’t watch 1 more episode of Caillou (boy he is a whiny kid huh?).  Today has been a difficult one, lunch was thrown off the table, then juice was spilled on the table and the floor, then the culprit was sent to her room and decided to empty her drawers of all clothes and disperse them all over her room.  I’m not the most patient person at the best of times, and I’m ashamed to say that my patience disappeared and my hormones took over and some yelling occurred.  I hate that.  Always makes me feel like I’m not doing a good job.  Ugh. Is all I have to say about that.  How can I make 3 better?  Anyone have any good parenting/discipline books to recommend?

We have been going out for ice cream alot this summer so far.  I love it, I think it’s so fun to have dinner then go and get some cones afterwards and eat them outside in the balmy summer evening.  Abby’s favorite right now is chocolate and she orders her own with chocolate sprinkles no less 🙂  

Most afternoons you can find Abby and I in our backyard, her in her little $6.99 pool and me on the swing reading or just enjoying the peace for a second.  Abby just loves to fill up her buckets with dirt, grass, and water and call it “soup”.  I love that she can occupy herself for an hour by playing in the yard and I laugh to myself at her little conversations and stories she makes up while she is doing it.

until next time~Rachel

I’m winding down my sessions now, I only have a few more left to go before I begin my “leave” before my little boy gets here.  I didn’t want to neglect my photography or my blog during that time so I have decided to create a project for myself documenting our summer (and maybe if I can keep it up beyond summer too).   I am excited to see what I can get into with Abby this summer, since it’s our last as a twosome.  We had a wonderful Fourth of July, I’m so glad that Abby likes fireworks (unlike her mama who used to cry through them until I was 8) and is such a flexible little trooper about staying up late as well. 

We went to NIST in Gaithersburg and saw the fireworks from the fairgrounds, wow they were awesome!  We will be watching them from NIST in the future if we are in town, it was so well organized, it didn’t take an hour to leave the parking lot, just very refreshing.  I have been traumatized from the Rockville fireworks since it took us an hour to exit the parking lot after watching 10 minutes of fireworks..thumbs down!    My folks came with us to enjoy the show and Abby was very happy to have Nana and PopPop there to entertain her and vice versa.  I really enjoyed it, it was actually just what I wanted it to be which never happens with me and holidays because I always have too high expectations and then get disappointed.

We started the day off by going blueberry picking with some friends of ours at Butler’s Orchard.  The kids were so excited, this was the first year Abby actually picked good ones and not green ones or the little teeny ones.

The most exciting part for the kids was the hayride to get to the blueberry patch, which for me was the most nervewracking of course.  It was very bumpy and I felt the driver was a little wreckless, but I’m a scaredy cat so he was probably fine.  The berries are delish!  I am not a huge fan of blueberries but these are yummo!   Ok, first blog entry done 🙂  I hope that it wasn’t too boring, I will try to be more exciting in the future!