Owies and Big Girls

I just tried to capture the theme of our weather this year.  Wet and Green.  It's been wonderful.  There have even been a few times while I was running that it ALMOST felt like I was back in VA.

 I'm sure Anne's next words were "Oh no! Rachel touch arm. Owie!" She absolutely loves her sister and must have her wherever she goes.  But she also is learning to share and have her space invaded.  Joys of being an older sibling.  I really can't relate.  I know Rachel just wants to be with her older sis, just like I did :)

 Anne is becoming much more social thanks to some awesome buddies.  Timothy and Maija are helping her learn that other kids are fun and nice and just want to be her friend.  Here they are enjoying some popcorn and a movie.  She is also doing better at nursery and stayed almost the whole time on Sunday without crying...yay!!

 I think it was a drumstick last blog, just wanted to show that she likes the healthy stuff too (that's broccoli) :) Those are her favorite toys, the play food.  Which makes sense cause this girl can pack it away.  She eats pretty much the same amount of food as her big sister, and her big sister eats more than most toddlers.  You'd think my kids would be obese or something, but it turns out after Rachel's nine month appointment the other day, both of my girls are in the 4th percentile for weight.  Isn't that nuts?

 She did this all on her own which made her Daddy especially proud.  One day we were playing with the football and she went and got my weight gloves and then said she was ready to play catch.  Our little wide receiver :)

 Anne absolutely loves to run.  She'll run to the end of the sidewalk in front of our house then turn around and run back 20 times in a row.  And she wants us to do it with her so it keeps us in shape as well.  When I take them running in the stroller I always take her out before we get home and let her run and she'll say "I run like Mama too!" Mealts my heart.

 Rachel is very independent and likes to do things herself.  I imagine she and Zac had similar personalities at this age.  She can get anywhere and get into anything...I should say out of anything.  We have to buy a new high chair because no matter how tight we tighten the buckles she manages to wriggle out of them and stand up.

 So we come to the owie part of our blog.  We took a family outing (including Shizzie) to the duck pond then decided to go up the stairs to see the new stream.  On our way up we asked Anne if she wanted help and she said "No, I do it" so we let her.  Well...she took a tumble.  She hit the stair with her face, slid on it a few stairs, then landed on a pole.  Poor thing.  She actually took it pretty well and distracted herself when we got home by pretending to take Shizzie for a walk.  She even did fine when I cleaned her up and put on a bandaid because I told her it looked cute and pretty and she loved it.  Thank goodness for girls and wanting to look cute :)

 While we were outside Rachel showed off her new skill of standing by herself.  She's been doing it for weeks now.  Crazy!

 And as you can see, she's ok.  Even though she looks banged up, this is actually a cute picture of Anne.

 Our big tough girl.

 Anne got ahold of the camera and took this picture.  Not bad.

 This looks like a first day of school picture.  Not for another three years thank goodness.  But she looked so cute I had to capture it.

Here are some pictures from Zac's phone:

Our new hobby..bike riding! I found a used bike and trailer in really good shape for only $70 total! Zac and I love the exercize and the girls love the fun ride.  Rachel finds it a bit too relaxing and usually falls asleep.

 Before we got the trailer we tried one of these seats, but it didn't work on Zac's bike.  The trailer is nice for me cause I can take the girls during the day and go for rides.  Rachel also fell asleep in this seat as well.

 Anne and Zac had a Daddy-daughter date night while I took Rachel took my friends' baby shower.  Anne loved the big snow cone but even more than that I think she loved riding in the jeep with Daddy.

 Cute cheeks...even when they're covered in goo.

 This is kinda blurry but a fun memory for us.  The other night we wanted to take a bike ride so we headed out and a couple minutes after we left we got caught in a huge rainstorm.  So we ducked inside a Burger King to eat dinner.  The girls were perfectly dry so we journeyed on once the rain had stopped.  We biked about four miles to the Riverwoods shops and found this amazing toy store.  They had this free horse ride machine that both the girls loved.  Anne even took the reins like a natural and steadied herself.  The other big attraction for her at the store was the train table.  She spent about twenty minutes playing with the Thomas the Train trains and tracks.  After the toy store we were just walking around the beautiful shop area and we ran into my old friend Wendy and had a good time catching up.  Then it was getting dark and Rachel was ready for bed so we biked the fastest 4.5 miles ever.  Sorry this is lengthy but this is our family journal as well and I just wanted to remember that night.

 Just adorable.

 "I'm ready to go Dad!"

The girls love our weekly Home Depot visits.

 The reason for our weekly Home Depot visits.  I decided to redo our front steps area because the paint was chipping and looking pretty bad.  So first I had to get the old paint off which became quite a process.  I first tried a drill with a wire brush (effective but took forever) then muriatic acid (kind of crazy strong, would've killed our plants), then we decided to go ahead and rent a power washer which worked great.  I have to say...it was fun.

Once the paint was removed (it was originally brown) I fixed the cracks with patching cement, then put on two coats of bonding primer (which was like really sticky glue).  

 Finally I got to add some pretty paint and decorative flakes and voila! Hopefully it looks better than before and I learned so much in the process.  I'm excited to keep learning house repair skills so I can be a little more self-reliant.

 An impromptu FHE at the Provo temple.  Anne and Rachel both loved the fountains and Anne liked to gently touch the pretty flowers.

This is a cool rainstorm we had.  The water you can see that is gushing is actually overflow out of our rain gutters. Weird for Utah.

Our big girl.

Jumping with little ballerina toes.

Anne's favorite phrase these days.

Popscicle

Of course, a dancing video.