Six months and Sickies

Our little Rachel America is six months old! Can you believe it? I sure can't. She is growing up so fast...kinda. At her checkup she went down in her weight and height percentiles (14th and 20th) which is hard to believe because she loves to eat and has the cutest little rolls. But we're gonna start packing on the calories like we did with her big sis. She now eats two solid meals a day and loves it! She's eaten rice and oatmeal baby cereal, bananas, pears, peas, beans, carrots, squash, and puff cereals. (She's also tried bites of bread, ice cream and chocolate..shhh...) I think her favorite food by far is mandarin oranges. The doctor said it's ok for her to eat them now so I help her squeeze the juice and let her suck on it while I'm holding it and she absolutely loves it! I didn't think I was going to make my own baby food this time cause it was a hassle but after seeing baby food prices...that's just ridiculous. So it's back to the blender.
Sorry this is kind of out of order, but I had to put this in here because I forgot to on the last blog. A great shot of Rachel with her Grandpa Russell.
So the sad part of the last couple weeks is that we've been to the doctor six times. Three times for Anne, once for Rachel, once for Zac, and once for Shizzie. Anne had a crazy bad sick stomach that was making her scream and writhe with pain and then throw up every ten minutes for three days so we were a tad concerned. They ran a bunch of tests but couldn't figure out what was wrong or how to help her. So she basically looked like this for three days. She didn't smile, didn't want to move, didn't want to eat, she just wanted to snuggle with her blanket and sleep. It was so sad. Mother's Day morning she woke up completely healed and back to her old self which was the best Mother's Day present I could have ever asked for. (Rachel's doctor visit was her six month checkup, Zac's visit was for his hurt foot, and Shizzie's was for her shots.)
Our strong girl. She loves to push up on her hands and toes. She even pulled herself up on me to an almost standing position!
And as you can see is on the verge of crawling. She can army crawl a bit gets up on her hands and knees every now and then. But she is already mobile because she rolls everywhere.
I ran another race, the Provo City 5k which was a lot of fun. The course went through downtown Provo which was neat. I finished 6th in my age division with a time of 29:32. So I was happy...until we happened to hear the awards ceremony where they gave medals to the top five finishers in each age category. The competitor inside of me was urked and bummed but I know I went as fast as I could. Next time. I'm training now for the Freedom Festival 5k on July 4th.
Anne giving "Ra" love.


Our daughter has about an eight foot reach we've discovered and nothing on our kitchen counters is safe. We heard a rustling in the kitchen one night and then silence for a couple minutes. So we asked Anne to come in the living room and this is what she had found, eating them like a bag of chips.
We had girls night last week while Zac went shooting with a friend. Our fun included making a fort:
..painting Anne's toenails which she calls "pitty toes"..
My computer is weird and put this way out of order. Sorry, but it is too cute of a picture to delete.
...and my toes. I know shocking. I had to borrow toenail polish from a friend because I don't own any.
More girly fun. Our friends downstairs invited us down for a tea party which included yummy punch and gourmet cupcakes..mmm. I think the mommies had just as much fun as the cute little girlies.

At the beginning if Rachel didn't want to eat this is what she would do.


Daddy's big helper. She helped Dad mow the entire back yard. Now everytime she sees a lawnmower she wants to help whoever it is mow their lawn too.

Anne has started singing and can sing the ABC song! She does it much better than in this video but...this is what we could capture.


Gotta love zuberts.


Rachel started talking on Mother's Day (another very wonderful present). Her first and favorite sound is "Dada"

Aunt Jennifer recently sent us some awesome fairytale books that have one page for the parent to read and the other for the child to read. Right now she repeats us but she is already starting to recognize familiar words like Anne and the. I can't believe she's only 2 1/2.