Lots of Silliness

Quick Update:

Rachel: 

-is normal crawling, standing up on everything and trying to stand on her own

-loves to imitate big sister and is very excited to be able to keep up with her (we think walking is right around the corner

- is fiesty and doesn't appreciate her favorite things being taken away (things she's not supposed to have)

-a little daredevil, likes to fling her self backwards whether we're ready or not

-Imitates the kissing sound and gives great big hugs

Anne

-favorite question is still "Was dat sound?" and asks other questions like "Where it go?" and my favorite she asks Rachel "What you doin?"

-loves to play outside with her bike, pushing Rachel in her little car, swimming, going down slides at the park even!

-learned how to climb the ladders at the park

-starting to do activities in her workbooks like matching things that are the same, drawing lines and circles

-finishing the last words and phrases in her well-read books

Zac

-new job! started working at UVU and loves it! yay! free tuition here we come

-had successful foot surgery that is recovering well, almost back to normal, another yay!

-has a fun new calling with the High Priests, enjoying helping wherever he can

Ilene

-working goals:

  -doing preschool with Anne everyday

  -reading to both kids every day

  -going to bed early and waking up early to run with Shizzie

  -finishing my sewing orders

I know this is kinda dark, but I tried to catch Anne saying "Choo choo train"

Daddy wanted to give Shizzie peanut butter cause he heard it was a funny thing to do with dogs.

Third annual Thatcher Family Backyard Campout

Peekaboo

Anne liked wearing Dad's boot. Dad didn't.

Cute cheeks.  This girl eats like crazy.  She eats regular food and is pretty much done with baby food.  Some new foods have been fish, chicken, spinach and tomato pasta, and yummy goldfish (because Anne started feeding them to her).

I think this is a projection of things to come.

Our little stander.  She recently has tried to stand without holding onto anything.  We think walking is right around the corner.

The girls helping me exercise.  Anne doing yoga and Rachel doing kickboxing.  Very appropriate.

We had an unusual family night at Cabella's that actually turned out to be pretty fun.  Anne and Rachel loved watching the fish up close and we even scored this cool chair for the girls for $7.00!

Sisterly love.

I love that when Anne saw her wings she didn't think she was a fairy.  She wanted to be a butterfly :)

Oh Rachel.

Anne and I had a wonderful mommy-daughter date and went to see the new Whinnie the Pooh movie.   

Anne practicing her Primary songs before Church.

Rachel and Anne are big fans of blueberry oatmeal.  I decided to let Rachel go at it since I was giving her a bath after breakfast.

They were both a mess.

Her new summer outfit.

Like we've said before, Rachel puts everything in her mouth.  Her favorite toy to carry around in her mouth is this play-food drumstick.

I ran in the Pioneer Day Classic and accomplished my goal of running a 10k! I decided the week of the race to go ahead and give it a try.  I trained hard that week and ran 18miles in one week, crazy.  On race day I started out things on a bad foot by forgetting my timing chip and my bib.  Zac ran home and got them while I stood in line to use the porter potties.  When Zac got back I had 30 sec to put my stuff on and 10 sec to stretch and off I went! Not exactly a good warmup.  The course itself was kind of insane with the biggest hill I have ever run which they called "Goliath".  My feet and knees hung in there until about mile 5 and then I had to tell myself to just keep going.  By time I got to the finish line I had given everything I had, which is how I like to end a race.  We decided to stick around for the awards ceremony just for the heck of it and it turned out I got second place in my age ground and got a silver medal!  It was so great to share that fun experience with my wonderful kids and supportive hubby.  I think instead of running a half marathon after the next baby (my knee and feet would not be able to handle that distance) I think I'd like to try a triathlon instead.  We'll see!

While I was running Zac took the girls up in a hot air balloon! They were giving free rides as part of the race activities.  Zac said Anne loved going up in the air and squealed the whole time.  

I tried something fun with Anne's hair, but her hair's so fine, it slipped out before we made it to Church.

Happy Family.

Happy Fourth of July!

Rachel at our awesome Stake picnic a few weeks ago.  We let her go to town on a graham cracker....

...and watermelon.  This girl loves to eat.  She's moved right on from mush to regular food.  She loves everything we give her.  We even gave her bits of Talapia last night and she ate almost an entire fillet!

New chompers help.  She has two on the bottom, one on the top and another on the top coming in as I speak.

Anne was in fine form this evening and had a blast.  She ate a ton of yummy food, ran around, and even...

...let a lady paint her face!  She loved her "pitty fower" :)

This summer we have the "pass of all passes" which included season passes to a waterpark, free baseball  and basketball games, and free admission to Trafalga.  Very good deal.  So we've been busy! Our passes even got us into a free country concert at the baseball stadium which was awesome.  We sat out in the field so the girls could run (and crawl) around and dance.  

So kind of random but I thought I would include this incase anyone else was interested.  My friend Brittney had an awesome link on facebook about how to curl your hair with no heat.  Since I have no patience for actually spending time doing my hair I thought I would give it a try.  You just wrap your hair in a headband thing and leave it for a couple hours and voila...it turns out like this! I'm a huge fan.  Thanks Brittney!

Happy Father's Day!  Once again we celebrated having the coolest Dad ever.  This year he received the classic father's day gifts of ties.  Except he was actually in dire need of some new ties so he did appreciate them :) Anne also picked out a shirt for him but he found it a few weeks early.

The handsome man. I love you hun.

Trying to be like Mama.  (Except those shoes are only worn about twice a year.)

This is her mouth-full-of-cheerios face.

Zac thought the box in the background of this picture was perfect.  "America" sure is beautiful :)

At storytime Anne made a panda mask and had fun wearing it around the house till little sister ate it.

Summer girls.

Rachel loves playing with and chewing on our shoes.

All smiles.

Piano time.  They both love to play.  Especially when Mommy is trying to practice.

We had such a great visit from Grandma Russell last week.  The girls loved having Grandma here.  Anne even got to go on another train ride which I'm sure she will be talking about for several months.  We miss you Grandma!

The main reason for my Mom's visit was to go to a big family reunion.  It was wonderful! It was fun to see all the extended family and catch up.  They even had a big princess bounce house which was a hit.  (The hair band thing I'm wearing is how you roll your hair to get the no-heat curls.)

My Aunt Lorna.

And my Aunt Diana.

The girls loved the bubbles.

This game was a little above Anne (they are digging in the sawdust for goodies) but she liked her "treats".

My Mom was able to watch the girls while Zac and I attended Stadium of Fire.  It was great (though it seemed shorter and there was less military involvement which was a bummer).  Brad Paisley was awesome and is one heck of a guitar player! Zac had surgery on his foot two days before so he had the pleasure of crutching to the stadium and back which he did just fine.  (Zac broke ...I mean shattered a small bone in the ball of his foot several years ago but didn't know it until it became super aggravated and swelled up a couple months ago.  The "second" set of doctors we saw said it was broken and there was a large cist next to it and both needed to be removed.  It was a short outpatient procedure and Zac is healing up great! Though I have to say I am not a fan of seeing Zac in a hospital bed ..it doesn't suit him.)

Fourth of July Sunday.  (You can see Zac's cool boot he has to wear for a couple weeks.)

I just thought this one of Rachel was funny.

Fourth of July morning I ran in the Freedom Run which went great! I decided to push the girls in the stroller this time because that's how I have been training.  I finished in 761th place out of 2836 people and 43rd out of 229 for my age group.  I was just excited that I beat my time from my last race while pushing the stroller and this course was much harder, yay! I love running and I'm glad it's something that the girls enjoy doing with me.

After the run we got to watch the parade from our friend's balcony (which is definitely the way to go).  Thanks Calls! We also had yummy waffles which were amazing, I should've taken a picture.

Rachel and our buddy Alexis.  We are so blessed to have such awesome friends in our lives.  Thank you all friends! :)

After the parade we all came home and crashed.  The weekend festivities kind of wiped us out.  In the evening we had a bbq at our place which was a blast.  I tried a trifle again this year which turned out much better than last year's, thank goodness.

Yum.

How we entertain ourselves.

The country concert.

Fireworks.

Another dancing video of Anne EXCEPT she is in public with tons of people around!! On stage no less! This was the night of the stake picnic and as I said before, she was in a very good mood that night :) We love our little dancer.