The Thatchers: November Craziness

We have had an interesting, crazy, fun, and scary last couple of weeks. It all started with Halloween. I know I put pics up already of our costumes but that was actually a couple days before when we had the ward trunk-or-treat. We dressed up again on Halloween and took the girls trick-or-treating around our neighborhood which Anne loved. Here is the traditional orange pancakes to start the day.

Grandpa Thatcher gave Anne (both the girls actually) a new and bigger rocking horse. I love that the girls now each have their own horse, less bickering. Our front room is a corral.

Rachel is all-set to go trick-or-treating with her spider bag. She wouldn't let go of this thing once she found out what went in it. She put it on like this herself and wore it most of the day.

Gotta love sisters.

The next day was my birthday which started out with birthday doughnuts from my awesome buddy Alexis. Yumm. (As you can see instead of having one, I took a bit of each...had to try them all! :)

Anne is still in love with the umbrella. But is greatly looking forward to snow so she can build a snowman. She asks me every day, "Make snowman?" And after I say no, it hasn't snowed she says, "Ok, maybe tomorrow." So cute.

Opening presents. Thanks everyone for the wonderful goodies!

Just beautiful.

One of my presents.

She insisted on wearing "Daddy's football tie". And yes we went to run errands just like that, tie and all.

Cute bear.

Once again roles reversed.

I curled Anne's hair for the first time and it looked so cute! However, by time Church started it was straight again.

And then it was Rachel's Birthday! I can't believe my little cutie is one. It seems like she has been a one year old for a long time cause she's all over the place. But because of her cute baldy head she still looks babyish. Her stats from her doctor's visit were not too shocking: 12th percentile for heighth, 3rd percentile for weight. She's just tiny. I just love my little ball of energy and love. Happy Birthday big girl!

Daddy got up very early on her birthday to assemble Granpa's present. She was sure excited to see her new toy when she walked into the front room! So was big sis.

We had a small family celebration at home for her birthday which started with her favorite Mac and Cheese with hot dogs (my favorite when I was little as well...and now).

"I'm this many!"

Anne was an awesome big sis on Rachel's birthday as you'll see in one of the videos. We did sense some sibling jealousy over her presents, but she was a trooper and loved "helping" Rachel with all her birthday fun.

A few days later we headed off to California to visit family and see one of Zac's cousins get married. Once again we held our breath driving 12 hours with two little ones, but once again they were angels. AND no car sickness this time...from anybody! Wahoo! The girls slept most of the ride and when they were awake they entertained each other and watched movies. We had some fun stops in Las Vegas to eat and stretch our legs. All in all our kids are awesome travelers.

At Grandpa and Pat's house the girls loved the strollers and the dogs. They also got their Christmas presents early so they were in heaven. Thank you!

Here we are at Grannie's visiting before the wedding. Anne was such a good girl and gave everyone hugs. She's not a big talker to strangers, but she'll give hugs.

Anne and Great-Grandma Sally Thatcher.

Sadly I forgot to take pictures during the wedding. We were focusing on keeping the kids quiet during the ceremony. Which wasn't too hard, Rachel was asleep. I just had to keep telling Anne "Look at the pretty dress!" After the wedding Anne kept saying "I get married, wear pitty dress too!" Someday...some far away day.

So fun that this was the dress Anne wore to my sister's wedding two years ago.

And the hit of the night....Anne's new sparkle shoes from Aunt Dawn. Coolest shoes ever. Anne couldn't stop dancing around in them making them light up.

She was the best dancer on the dance floor.

Another highlight from the trip was Luke. My girls just adored their cousin and had a blast playing with him. Such a sweetheart.

Everybody having fun. There's Ben, Luke, Vivian, Zac and Dawn. I think my favorite memory of the wedding was having the whole family out on the dance floor dancing. Good times :)

Silly girl.

We were able to finish the trip off with spending time at Grandma Thatcher's house! The girls loved their Grandma and had a blast playing with cousin Luke. Anne especially loved that he had cool toys like cars and trucks.

We celebrated Rachel's birthday again which was fun for all :)

Grandma was a genius and gave Anne a present as well. Thank you so much for your thoughtful gifts everyone, we love you all!

Yeah!

For the scary part...we made it home from our trip just fine and went in the backyard to say hi to Shizzie and she was gone. Our friends were taking care of her and had just fed her hours before we got home and she had been fine. They said she had been really mopey the last two days we were gone and we could tell that she had been pacing the fenceline. Somehow, we still don't know how exactly, she escaped. It was horrible. We rode all over town, checked all the animal shelters, looked around our neighborhood for hours. Many tears were shed that night thinking she was gone. The next morning I was about to make a zillion copies of flyers to put up when Zac called and said someone had found her all the way on the other side of Provo, four miles away! She had followed some kids home from school and the family had taken her in for the night and got ahold of us in the morning. We said many prayers of thanks for such kind people to take her in like that. When I went to go get her she jumped up, put her paws on my shoulders and gave me a million kisses. On the way home she just kept her head in my lap and let me pet her all the way home. We think she just really missed us and tried to find us, that's why she escaped. We hope it doesn't ever happen again. We love our Shizzie!

Anyways, here's Anne being cool. She asks to wear her princess dress EVERY SINGLE DAY. Thanks Aunt Jennifer ;)