Raine is awesome, she really is! She is a first-born in every sense of the word — over-achiever, controlling, rule-follower. She is also creative and passionate. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty . . .

Digging for worms with her neighbor-friend Riley

. . . but she also loves to be a girl.

I find this photo to be unbelievably disturbing. What happened to my baby???

Raine loves to read. She is currently working her way through the Boxcar Children Mysteries. She’s also obsessed with being a spy. She started a “Spy Team” with a bunch of her girlfriends at school and is always working on things for the team. I’m not sure exactly what they do, but she sure loves it.

Raine still loves rescuing animals. In fact, she and Riley built a sanctuary for those “poor worms” that they dug out of the dirt the other day. She also loves to “rescue” roly-poly bugs during Carter’s soccer games. I keep trying to tell her that the bugs are better off in the dirt, but she insists that they need her help. She argues that they could get stepped on in the grass and would be much better off on the side-walk. (Sometimes her logic is so flawed, but she believes it so passionately, that I get exhausted even thinking about trying to change her mind! And so, I just nod.)

Speaking of soccer games, here is Raine’s first corner kick. She really loves soccer. It’s too bad we’ve had so many games and practices cancelled this season because of weather. She has made a lot of progress and is really fun to watch.

Raine asked me to record this video of her riding her bike so that I could post it on the blog. She is riding in a spiral around the cul-de-sac.

And finally, here is a story that Raine wrote at school. (The paper she uses is wider than my scanner so the edges got cut off. I’ll type out the text below). I really love this story because it is sooooo Raine! Almost every line ends with an exclamation point and the jokes don’t really make sense but it has animals and princesses and a little excitement!

* * * * *

The Mean Mean Bat
Long, long ago in a dark haunted cave a flying bat swooped out of the dark looking for food and then frightened a little rat. The Queen grabbed the rat right before the bat ate him! The bat sihed [sighed]. The princess ran over to the queen and then pecky sqwacked [squawked] with alarm! It’s the King! Run! The rat squeaked with alarm! Pecky screeched with alarm again! Then something worse happened! The evil evil witch went after them! Run fast! But . . . the princess and the cat came up with the best plan ever! First, Oh no! The bat ate the rat! Wait never mind. First the princess snuck up on the bat and killed it. Then the cat bit the king and witch! Everyone was happy! The end.