The Thatchers

Aloha!

2012-02-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

Before we get to all the fun Hawaii pictures, here are some fun ones right before we left.

The girls love to watch out the front windows, especially if it is snowing.

For Chinese New Year we decided to make some yummy Asian dishes: spring rolls with bok choy, glassy noodle stirfry with peanut sauce, and I can't remember the other thing but it was good too. Makes me hungry just writing about it.

The girls liked it too, especially the peanut sauce.

That's right! Two pigtails! So excited for her cute hair to be growing out.

Kind of random but I was cleaning off our fridge and was going to put these bibs in our keepsakes box and decided to take a picture of them. These were from all the races I did this year: North Park Stake Fun Run, Provo City 5k, Freedom Run 5k, Pioneer Day Classic 10k (2nd Place), Dirty Dash 10k, America Fork Family Halloween Fun Run 5k (1st Place). The BYU Cougar Run was Anne's that she got running the 200m Kids Run.

A fun new eating style we have adopted, thanks to our friend Alexis: Green Smoothies. I've never really been into smoothies before but I really liked the idea of putting in lots of veggies, especially for the girls. So they are now part of our daily food intake and we all love them! They taste surprisingly good despite the fact that they can have spinach, chard, bok choy, kale, brussel sprouts, or cabbage in them. Of course to make them taste good they can have frozen berries, bananas, apples, pears, kiwis, grapefruit, oranges, and agave nectar. Mmmm, I've missed them while I've been gone. Tomorrow we will make a bunch of smoothies and granola, yum. Can you tell I'm hungry?

The girls just being silly. They sure love running around naked. I don't know where they got that from....

Music time at the Thatcher house. I played the violin in Church a few weeks ago so every day we would gather around the piano and Anne would play the piano and sing, I would play the violin, and Rachel would dance and sing and hop on the piano every now and then. These girls love music. We'd go through all their favorite primary songs.

Oh Rachel :)

Green Smoothies

As a way to not watch so much tv during these isolating winter months, I've instituted Movie Friday. During the rest of the week we only watch a tv show, but on Fridays we snuggle up, pop some popcorn, turn up the sound system and watch one of their favorite movies.

Any takers? ;)

Ok, here it is, the big Kahuna. This will probably be the first of many blogs about our Hawaii trip because they are just the pictures off of our camera. I will be gathering the pictures from our phones and also the awesome pictures Jon (Dawn's boyfriend who had an awesome camera and eye for taking pictures) took while we were there. But here's what we have so far.

About a year ago Dawn (Zac's sister) called and asked if we would be interested in taking a family trip to Hawaii as a surprise for Debbie's (Zac's Mom) birthday. She would think she was going just with Dawn and then all her kids and grandkids would surprise her when she got there. We were already planning a trip there so we were defenitely in. Dawn rented a house right on the beach in Hauula, just south of Laie, big enough for all fourteen of us. Everyone was able to go so there was Debbie, Dawn, Jon, Us, Ben, Vivian, Luke, Gabe, Jennifer, Brooke, and Brock. We had an incredible time. Hawaii is beautiful. The Thatcher family is beautiful. Thank you all for making it such an incredible experience for our family.

We arrive Thursday night, Feb. 9th, so we were only able to go down and look at the ocean behind our house. The girls were so excited to see the ocean and the waves. This was Anne's second time (though her first was when she was two months old) and Rachel's first time to see the ocean.

Cute breakfast bar.

Our kids woke up at the crack of dawn, literally, every morning. We would often find Anne in the front room just gazing out the window.

Ready to go to the beach.

The color in these photos is not enhanced, that's the actually color of the water in Hawaii. Crystal clear. You could see everything on the floor even a couple feet out into the water. (Jennifer, Brock, Gabe, Anne, Zac)

(Above with Gabbie)

It took a little while for Rachel to be ok with the idea of sand but by the end of the trip she loved playing in and with it.

I guess since it was winter even in Hawaii, there was quite a bit of wind and it was pretty overcast. But to us it felt refreshingly warm and we soaked up every ray of sunshine we could.

Anne loved to go out into the water as long as she was being held. She'll say now that she loved "Splashing in water with Daddy. Waves got me, I fall down. It was fun."

Dawn with Rachel

On Sunday we were able to go to a Hawaiin ward in which everything was said in Hawaiin which was really neat. They have such a beautiful spirit there and sang much louder and with much more feeling than here.

I don't know what illicited this look, but I thought it was funny.

The beautiful Laie Hawaii temple.

Classic Rachel

Cute Russell bum.

Jakoozy time with Gabbie.

Jon took a bunch of nice family photos at the temple grounds, those will be in a blog to come. Here's just some random pictures during that event.

Dawn and Brooke

Gabe and Brock

Jon

Jennifer, Gabe and Brock

Luke

Brooke

On Wednesday we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center which was amazing. We loved seeing the different cultures of the islands. The girls loved all the dancing and singing. During the show that night Anne was literally dancing and singing in her seat. She would clap after every song and talked about a ton the next day.

She also liked her "stamp".

At the luau dinner. Can you tell the girls were hungry? (Dont worry that butter knife was not sharp at all, though still not an awesome idea.) The food was amazing. Everyone liked the purple taro rolls and the ahi sushi. I loved the poi and taro/poi (I can't remember which is which) the purple potato salad stuff.

Our family took a trip down to Kailua to see where I was born to take pictures of our house and the hospital where I was delivered. We were stationed there when I was born and moved about a year later so I don't have any real memories of that place. But as I took pictures there I felt a strong spirit and connection to each place, knowing this is where my life started. This was our house at 378 Illimalia Loop in Kailua. The current owners have fenced everything in so this is all I could get of the house.

The street in front of the house.

Castle hospital where I was born. My Mom said that the military hospital was full at the time so she was able to deliver here, making me the only one of my siblings to be born in a civilian hospital. My Mom liked it because she was able to stay longer.

Incredible trees in front of the hospital.

After sight seeing we let the girls play at a park accross the street from the hospital.

The entire time we were in Hawaii the girls loved playing with the birds. Anne would say "Come here birds! They coming to say hi!" And Rachel would say "Bir! Bir!"

And "Bye bye birz!"

Last day at the beach.

I wrote a detailed account of the trip in my journal which I'll put in here on a later blog. And you'll see more of the activities that we did once we get all the pictures. But this was a start.

What An Awesome Year

2012-01-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

The day before New Year's Eve our BYU played in the Armed Forces Bowl and they did awesome! Well, they won at least, luckily :) Either way, it was a blast to watch. Go Cougars!

Sampling our game snacks.

One of Anne's favorite new hobbies.

Our New Year's Eve bash. Thanks to everyone that came and brought such yummy eats! We will definitely be doing another Rock Band party, that was a hit.

My little helpers.

We finally got snow! You'll see more below, but we had so much fun taking the girls sledding.

Working on updating our 72 hour kits.

You think they liked their chocolate ice cream?

She kept saying "More? More peees!"

Making sure she gets it all.

We had a ton of boxes left over from Christmas and diapers and I had to make something with them before we threw them away. So this is what I came up with during the girls' naps one day.

The girls loved it :)

Rachel has discovered a love of reading.

I was so excited she had enough hair to do this I had to take a picture.

Our day of sledding. Needless to say both girls had a blast. I just wish we had more snow so we could do it again!

Dancing to the credits song of Top Gun. Hilarious. Anne definitely has a gift for creative dancing.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T18:50:00.000-08:00

New happenings in the Thatcher family:

Rachel America is definitely living up to her middle name, our little firework. She has so much energy, spunk, and love. She is quite the little talker. We decided to make a list of her first words like we did with Anne and realized that she can say over 20 words. Some cool ones include "please, thank you, amen, and temple" some not cool ones include "NO!!!!! poopoo and ahhhhh!!!" She is also our little climber and has managed to climb on top of the kitchen table, the top of the toilet, and the top of the piano, all within the blink of an eye. She loves playing with her big sister and is constantly giving her hugs and kisses, or just hanging on the back of her shirt following her around. She loves to snuggle with us and watch her favorite movie Winnie the Pooh or read a thousand stories (her favorite being Old McDonald). We love our little Rachel.

Anne Ellyn is using her imagination more and more all the time. She loves to play dress up in her princess dress with her fairy wand in hand and dance around the front room. One of her new milestones is that she stayed the entire time in nursery....the very last time she'll be in nursery. I can't believe she is going to be a sunbeam! She is more comfortable with other adults and never cries when Sheri or Alexis watches her and Rachel. That's a pretty big deal for our little Anne. She is also starting to play more and more with other kids like you'll see below. I think a big part of that has to do with her little sis. At the playground she'll follow Rachel around and venture off with her. I think they are going to make a great team.

Mom and Dad are doing great, not much has changed. We had a great Christmas with the girls. It was wonderful watching them get excited about Santa and start to learn about "Jesus' Birthday" as Anne would call it. Zac has been enjoying his job and has been working out almost every day at 6:30 before work. I have just been busy finishing Christmas projects and working on the new kickboxing routine for the stake aerobics in January. I've also had fun reading some interesting books with our book club including the Hunger Games, The Help, and And Then There Were None.

Kickboxing has been a regular part of our daily routine these days as I am getting ready to teach stake aerobics in January. The girls love dancing around and even do some of the routines with me. They both loves to stretch which is what Rachel is doing here.

Having a pretend "picnic" in the girls' room.

Anne and I had a fun Mommy/Daughter date. I know you're not going to believe this but is was at a Princess Festival. Anne got to dress up in her princess dress and I even put on a skirt too. We had a lot of fun and Anne talked about it for days. I love Anne's smile in this picture.

I forgot to take a picture of this earlier when we actually made it but this is Anne's fall creation with some leaves we found on one our walks.

The girls loved our tree.

Yummy pumpkin bisque. Definitely not like the one at Chef's table or even Zupas. We'll try again, but it was very yummy.

We brought Shizzy in to give her a bath which was awesome. She loved the bath and loved playing catch with the girls in the front room almost as much as the girls did. She is a purely outside dog so I was nervous she would have an accident but she did great, no accidents. Yay!

This picture looks worse than it actually is. Shizzie was actually just licking her hand but it looks like she's going to bite it off. She would never do that, she's a big softie. Rachel is actually laughing in this picture.

We made yummy gingerbread houses with our friends. Anne likes to eat it but is concerned that her candy house is falling apart.

We had fun watching our friends Carlie and Robbie's kids while they went out for their anniversary. The girls had a blast with Timothy and Spencer and it was nice to have some boyish influences in our house :)

So cute.

Yes that is Rachel tangled in the Christmas tree lights. She actually did really well with the tree and was very soft with all the ornaments. She just really liked the lights.

Such love.

Christmas Eve morning. Yep that's when our dishwasher decided to flood out onto the kitchen floor. Luckily I happen to know this hot repairman that can fix anything and it is as good as new.

Yay for candycanes.

The girls Christmas Eve.

Christmas Morning

Rachel was all about the stocking candy.

Anne absolutely loves her Thomas Train and takes it with her everywhere she goes.

I was able to finish some last minute sewing projects including a scripture bag for Anne's first day in Primary.

And matching cooking aprons for the girls.

On our way to church. What better way to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

Our girls were absolutely spoiled by their relatives. Thank you to all for your generosity and love for our family. We love and miss you all.

Our cute little pixie.

One of Anne's favorite presents. Random, but we can see why she likes it. She's actually been in one.

Our little Christmas angel.

Our little ham, she does this every time we tell her to smile for the camera.

For Christmas dinner I made my Mom's sweet and sour chicken. Yum yum.

Daddy's big Christmas present.

Mom's new Christmas present!! Yay!!

Rachel's favorite cozy spot. I think I need to clean out the closet.

Every day at about 5:00 pm Anne and Daddy have about a twenty minute conversation on the phone on his way home.

It's beginning to look a lot like.....

2011-12-10T22:18:00.001-08:00

So I've come to the realization that I can not have a blog with out a cute messy picture of one of my children eating. I don't know what it is. They're just so...MESSY!

And cute.

Cute little short stack.

A very cute shirt from Grandma :)

Cute outfit from Aunt Dawn.

Rock Band Night at the Thatcher House!

Followed by classical piano day...

And back to rockin' out...princess style :)

We had a fun night up in Salt Lake at Temple Square looking at all the "Pitty Quismus Tee Yites!" (Pretty Christmas Tree Lights) Ok..I can see why Zac needs a translator.

Starting the Christmasing...

Daddy and Rachel sharing one their favorite snacks, pomegranates.

Painting Christmas ornaments with friends.

I just loved their outfits.

Mmmmm.

Just funny.

We just got our Christmas tree tonight! Yay for fresh Christmas tree smell! The girls loved playing with the ornaments. Anne played with a bell...Rachel ate the lights :) Good times.

Anne and I were able to participate in our Stake play this year which was "Savior of the World". It told about Christ's coming to the earth. Anne and I were angels and I also got to play the part of Mary's cousin which was a lot of fun. Anne was a wonderful angel. She sang the songs with me and was very reverent when she was on stage. She even took a bow at the end with me. She was so excited to be an angel and talked about it for days. The best part was hearing her sing "Coooome Jesus Coooome". I hope this help her to understand why we celebrate Christmas.

November Craziness

2011-11-23T15:37:00.000-08:00

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 ;)

Rachel loves wearing these sunglasses and asks to put them on all the time.

Anne showing her new counting skills.

Fun with Daddy.

Our big walker. It's funny cause watching this weeks later she has already come so far even from this. She walks and tries to run everywhere.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

October Fun

2011-10-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

I accidently put the videos first so here you go:

Shizzie has come leaps and bounds since we started doing the training classes with her. She can now fetch, drop, sit, come, and walk on a leash. Halleluja. If only we could get her to stop jumping up on us. She's a ball of energy and we love her.

At Zac's party. It'll all make sense after you read through the pictures below.

October has been such an awesome fun month from start to finish. Here we are at the top of the month. We love living so close to BYU and being able to participate in fun events like BYU Homecoming! Anne ran in the kids Cougar Run in the 200 meters. She had a blast and still talks about racing "like Mama". We just wish it had been a tad warmer, at 8am in the morning it was barely 40 degrees outside so we were all bundled.

Rachel sporting her cute BYU gear.

After the run was the blue pancake breakfast while we waited for the parade to come by. The pancakes were actually kind of gross but Anne liked them.

We believe this parade is farrrrr better than the 4th of July one. It's much more kid-friendly with candy, interactive people, and music. Anne's favorite part by far was seeing the "siwens" (sirens). Since we live near a main road we hear them all the time and she always talks about them, so when she heard them in the parade she was estatic to see what the noise actually comes from.

Rachel having her first candy. She's a fan.

We love these cute matching pj's from Grandma Thatcher!

My hair stylist.

They both asked to climb in there.

I love this picture. Totally Rachel.

Tired girl.

I know this is silly, but she has such a cute crying face I had to take a picture. Cute little button nose.

Trying to get them to take a picture together. This is as good as it got.

Her new friend Geoffrey. (And that's Shizzie in the background.)

While we were taking a walk Anne stops and does this. We ask her "What are you doing?" She says, "I stretching, like Mama stretch." So cute.

Shizzie has gotten over her distaste for water. We took her to the duck pond and she dove right in. She didn't want the ducks, just wanted to play in the water.

In the middle of October (the 16th to be exact) we celebrated Zac's birthday! I had been planning a surprise party for him for months and we alllllmost made it. A friend accidently spoiled the surprise the night before the party, but it was still fun. We had a bbq and flag football at the park. Thank you buddies for helping me put everything together and thanks everybody that was able to come and show Zac how much he is loved.

Rachel and her buddy Logan.

A brownie covered in peanut butter with chocolate frosting. Zac's favorite. Thanks Alexis, for helping make it look so cute!

The kids loved playing with the water spigut. Sorry parents.

Anne wanted to play too.

I think Anne is more excited for our birthdays than we are. Nice wrapping huh? ;)

Dancing with the girls. They sure love their Daddy :)

A preview of next month's fun.

Another tired girl.

Anne said she was mowing with her mower "like Daddy".

Anne is obsessed with my shoes. I swear she walks in these high heels better than I do.

On one of our many sick days we had fun decorating Anne's "treasure box" as she called it. Thanks for such a fun present Maija!

And for the end of the month.

The girls had fun with the pumpkin (you'll see in the video). Here Anne's supervising Daddy's handywork.

Rachel wanted to put these on.

I thought Aunt Michelle would like to see that the hat she made me while I was in college is still well-loved. Anne insists on wearing it when we go out and I think it is pretty darn cute.

And now for the Halloween fun. Last night we had our ward's Trunk-or Treat party and we were so excited to wear our costumes. We decided to go with a Whinnie the Pooh theme this year since that's the girls' favorite movie. I went to DI at the beginning of the month when they had a ton of cool costumes available and these happen to be the ones that I found in each of everyone's sizes. They're kind of our alter-egos which is great.

And believe it or not, it was Zac's idea for him being Piglet. So awesome.

That night was also my Halloween Fun Run in American Fork, my last race of the season. I wanted to see how fast I could run a 5k after training for 10k's all summer. I was pretty bummed and thought I wouldn't be able to run cause two days before I had the stomach flue and couldn't train well. But I decided to go ahead and just run it anyways for fun. The race was a blast. I loved running in the dark in my Whinnie the Pooh costume and hearing kids cheer "Look Mom there's Whinnie the Pooh! Go Whinnie the Pooh!" I ended up beating my last race time by 5 minutes and got first place in my age group. Cool way to end the running season.

Just Rachel and Dad went to Church today since Anne still has a runny nose and this is how he dressed her. Adorable.

While they were at Church I was tidying up the kitchen and Anne really wanted to sweep the floor. She does such a good job at this, very thourough. Even moves the chairs out of the way and shakes the rugs. My big helper. After this we made caramel, chocolate, candy bar apples mmmmm.

Grandpa Thatcher sent Anne a new rocking horse for her birthday! Thanks Grandpa! While Zac was trying to se it up the girls were testing out the equipment.

The Girls

2011-10-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Anne: Her favorite things right now are umbrellas and birthday parties. These two subjects constitute most her of dialogue throughout the day. She is either asking to use the umbrella and go outside or asking when Daddy's birthday is. I think she had a great time at her own birthday party. She can sing "I Am a Child of God" all on her own and can almost say her own prayers which is awesome. She also now tells us that she loves us which is just about the best thing in the whole world. Her little mind is amazing and she shocks me constantly with what she puts together and what she remembers.

Rachel: Is walking more and more and can't wait to run. That's kind of the problem at the moment because now that she's upright she just wants to run and hasn't quite figured it out yet. She doesn't mind falling and toppling and actually thinks it's fun. A daredevil just like her Daddy. She's also a heck of a climber who the other day at the park, climbed up the jungled gym stairs, crawled over to the slide, turned around backwards and slid down on her belly all by herself. She's a mover. Which makes changing diapers a chore. Every single time without fail that girl cries and tries to get away. She's also starting to talk more and says "Ba!" for ball, "Mo" for more, "Mama"....for me, and "Da!" for Daddy, dog, and any other animal.

I love playing with Anne's hair.

There will lots of modeling pictures because she got new clothes for her birthday and just looks super cute in them. So here is a beautiful yellow top and new jeans from Grandma and Grandpa Russell.

Zac and I celebrated our sixth anniversary which was wonderful. I let Zac plan it this year and he surprised me with a wonderful dinner at Chef's Table (super fancy, beautiful, and the best soup I've ever had in my life...and I don't even like soup) followed by a stroll around the beautiful Riverwood shops (where we snuck in a few of the stores to catch glimpses of the BYU football game that was going on at the same time :) I am so very blessed to have found Zac and he is a genuinely loving husband. He's my best friend and I love that I get to share my life with him.

Random I know, but so cute.

We have had to come up with a thousand ways to eat our vast zucchini crop, but I believe this has been the best. Battered and fried zucchini sticks dipped in ranch. Mmmmmm. Not something we have a lot, but boy does it taste yummy.

New outfit #2. This one is from me. I took Anne shopping one night cause I thought it would be a fun girl's night out. Halfway through I realized who I was and how much I hate shopping. Anne's not a huge fan either. I think that's why I get my kid's clothes at Costco. There's only about six options and they all come in outfits and are not too expensive. My kind of shopping. (Oh and she added the skirt to this ensemble on her own).

Rachel loves to do absolutely anything that Anne is doing.

Another new outfit. I have to say, she is the ONLY person I have ever seen that looks good in "jeggings". I got them mostly because this girl has no bum and unless they're tight, pants fall right off of her.

She really wanted me to take a picture of her "machine".

Oh these are great. I think she liked the Spaghetti??

One night Anne found the flashlight and remembered that nine months ago we had built a fort and used the flashlight so she asked to do it again. Anne grabbed stories to read in it and Rachel tried to pull the sheets down. Good fun.

This is the ONLY hat that Rachel has ever allowed on, ever.

I don't know what it is, but Anne looooooves our umbrella. It's been pretty cold and rainy here so she's gotten good use out of it.

We thought we should post some pictures of Shizzie since it's been a while. She's gotten so big. She's a sweet dog that would not harm and fly but boy is she still a puppy. She is really good at playing catch (except for the "drop" part of it) and will come when we call her. She also sits and lays down when we tell her to. But she and I will be attending obedience school at Petsmart every Saturday so I can teach her not to jump up on people and walk on the leash better.

Rachel is definitely Shizzie's biggest fan. Rachel goes beserk whenever she sees her and wants to leap out of our arms to pet her. Anne is still a bit cautious but also loves to pet her and play fetch with her.

Last but certainly not the least of Anne's new outfits is her "Pity purple Tangled dress" as she calls it. My sister Jennifer and my Mom made her this gorgeous dress up dress which she asks to wear almost every day. She loves to "pin" (spin) in it and tell us "Like pincess, awww pitty" whenever she wears it. And yes she looks like a beautiful princess.

Our big walkin and talkin girl.

Giggles.

One night Zac taught her how to play soccer and I wrigged us up a goal out of our pack n' play so we now have another indoor hobby that will help us get through the next six months of winter.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

2011-09-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

Translation: Happy Birthday Party to you,

Happy Birthday Party to you,

Happy Birthday Party dear Grandpa,

Happy Birthday Party to you.

(I don't know why she adds in the party, but you get the general idea.)

Happy Birthday Grandpa Heber! :)

Happy Birthday Anne!

2011-09-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

I found a new way to upload pictures on here so I can put more on...I know...you're thinking how can there be more, but we happened to be very snap-happy these past few weeks what with cute kids and muddy runs...so here they are:

Rachel being cute as ever.

It is no wonder that I can only do sewing projects while the kids are napping.

Sunglasses Fun.

This is mostly how she wears them. Anne on the other hand would sleep in them if I let her.

I thought this was a good size comparison for our zucchini crop. I think it is bigger than Rachel. We have been very blessed this year with tons of zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We're also hoping we'll have a few pumpkins by Halloween, but we'll see.

Anne's first crush. She got this doll from a happy meal that's supposed to be Hansel (from Hansel and Gretel) and one day she kept saying "Kiss Robin!" and point to her doll. I thought Zac had told her it was Robin Hood or something but when I asked her that she said "No, Chris-fur Robin!" Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh. For the next couple weeks she would carry him around saying "Kiss Chris Robin, I wuv him." And give him lots of kisses and hugs.

Rachel loves to copy her big sister.

This is kind of random but since this is also our journal I thought that maybe in 20 years it would be fun to see what kind of exercise I was doing at this point in my life. I record it to help motivate me to continue and to keep track of my miles.

Since Rachel is a houdini and managed to wriggle out of both our old high chair and Anne's booster seat, we went and got a new high chair. Most large kid items we were either given or I find them used for really cheap, but sometimes I think splurging is worth it (though I still got this on sale 30% off:). This high chair is a breeze to clean and folds up easily when we're not using it. And best of all, Rachel doesn't even try to escape out of it. As a bonus, it's Winnie the Pooh themed which both girls love.

Cool little picture comparison: Rachel now

Anne two years ago (In most pictures they look sooooo different, but in this one they actually look relaly similar! It's funny to think though that this is the first time Anne stood by herself and Rachel is starting to walk, crazy.)

(Above) It's so nice that Rachel is old enough for me to just let the girls play in the tub together. They have a ball.

This is a cool hairstyle that happened by accident. I tried to do one of those reverse ponytails and it got stuck but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Our first cantalope! I was so excited to be able to grow our own fruit! This one wasn't completely ripe but it was still soooo yummy.

Now for the birthday festivities. I can't believe Anne is three. It brought tears to my eyes when we woke up that morning and I was telling her happy birthday and that I loved her. We love her so much and we thank Heavenly Father every day that she (and her sister) are in our lives. Anne, if you read this when you are older, I hope you realize how much your Mom and Dad love you. I couldn't imagine life without you. Happy Birthday big girl!

We decided to do a Winnie the Pooh theme since that's her favorite thing right now. It started off with my first decorated cake ever. It was a lot of fun to make and Anne recognized that it was Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, so it worked ;)

While I was making the cake Anne walked in with my shoes on, my glasses on her head and holding the car keys and said "Ok guys, ready to go!" The other day I walked in the kitchen to find her putting her play dishes on the stove and table and she informed me she was making dinner and it would be ready soon. Love my little junior mom.

Birthday morning started off with rasberry chocolate chip waffles (which I highly recommend, so yummy) which I let her watch in front of the tv while she watched her Super Why show, a treat.

Then we got dressed in her new "running clothes" as she calls them. I was going to dress her in her awesome new princess dress but it was very cold and rainy so this seemed more appropriate. When we picked it out in the store we looked at the girly pink and purple ones and she didn't seem intrested and then I picked out the black and red one (of course) and she still didn't seem interested. Then she saw the blue one and grabbed it and said "This one! Bu one! Oh, I wuv it." When I told Zac this he said "Of course, she's a BYU fan, not a U fan."

Her party room.

We celebrated with a few of her little buddies, Timothy Evans, Maija Bessey, and Shaely Warburton. Anne is so blessed to have such wonderful friends that are such good examples to her.

We played a couple very simple games like pin the tail on the donkey (Eeyore). And yes, this is without blindfolds and without spinning.

You'll see from the video below, but we also played a game where they threw bean bags into a "Hunny" pot. I told Anne to go stand by it so we could take a picture and this is what she did. It's not THAT kind of honey pot.

Much better :)

Anne eating Pooh's head. (It's a rice crispie treat covered in frosting.)

Rachel trying to make Daddy share.

Anne had fun opening presents. I'm so excited for Christmas!! She understands the concept now and was excited. Thank you to all of you who were so generous in your gifts for Anne. It touches us as well as her to know how much she is loved by her friends and family. These are a bunch of pictures to give those of you who couldn't be there a taste of what it was like.

(Maija, Shaely, Anne, Timmy) It was a little tricky to get all the kids to hold still and look in one place, this is the best we got.

I love all three of the girls' expressions, especially Shaely's :)

Dirty Dash 2011

I put it like that because there will definitely more of these Dirty Dash's in the future. It was AWESOME!!

It was a 10k with obstacles every.25-.50 miles or so like muddy hills and pools, hay bales, walls, rope swings, rope climbs, a slip n' slide and more. Such a blast and something I will definitely never forget.

The thing that made it so much fun was running it with my awesome buddy Alexis! :)

Zac was such an awesome supporter and watched the girls during the race AND took some awesome pictures. Thanks hun! Next time you'll be running it with me ;)

I'd like to think she's saying here "Go Mama, go Mama!"

This was halfway through the race after we had actually gotten mostly washed off by the everglades (a half-mile trudge through waist-deep swamp water). And yes it looks like I ate dirt, partly because I accidently did at one point and also because my nose itched and I had no clean part of my body to wipe it with.

Every time I see this picture it always makes me think that I'm kissing an angel.

I love this picture of Ryan (Alexis' husband in the middle with the yellow shirt) going "This is crazy!!"

This shows Anne and Rachel's relationship right now:

This is more of a sound thing cause the video is in the dark, but it's Rachel and Zac wrestling:

And yes, our baby girl took her first steps on the day of her 10 month birthday. She gets more adventurous with it every day. We know running is right around the corner. Look out world!

Pin the tail on Eeyore.

Happy Birthday Anne!

Owies and Big Girls

2011-08-23T20:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Lots of Silliness

2011-07-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

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!

2011-07-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

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.

Grandma Thatcher Visit and Fun in the Sun

2011-06-15T14:38:00.000-07:00

After Zac shaved:

Grandma Thatcher came to visit! We had a great time and even got to go to the zoo! The girls loved the animals and machines (they're building and Anne is fascinated with machines).

Our big helper.

Nice Anne. Very two of you.

We loved having Grandma here! We wish she didn't live so far away :(

Just a note to those going to the bird show at the slc zoo. It's an awesome wonderful show but if your child melts down because it is too noisy you can't get up and leave till it's done. Not a fun situation.

My new favorite picture of Rachel. Big ol' smile and you see her cute little teeth!

We took Shizzy to the reservoir to get her used to the water. Not the greatest idea considering the water is pure mountain runoff so it was a tad cold. She wasn't a fan.

So cute.

While we were there Anne kept saying "Fish! Fish!" and I wasn't seeing any fish swimming around near the shore....until a dead fish floated by on the surface. Ew...but she was right, she saw a fish.

The girls love bath time. Anne likes playing with her toys and Rachel likes eating the bubbles.

Cutie Patootie.

Slightly out of order. But how can you not love that face?

One word....teething.

Headed off to church.

Grandma time.

She's cute even when she's crying.

Pool time outside with our friends. And yes Anne is wearing a wet suit. That's what comes from not having any fat on those bones.

Rachel looking very stylish in her swimming attire :)

Rachel sure loves her peas. She has also has a new-found love of rubbing her meal all over her face.

I had to put this one in here.

Our Axel Rose daughter. Dad did the accessorizing.

Anne's first bike. I made a cool find at DI and looking at pictures of my Dad when he was little I think they had the same bike. It's a classic.

BBQ in the backyard.

Anne putting Shizzy's bone in the pool...Shizzy eating someone's leftovers. Good times.

I love my family.

All are fascinated by the ABC game. At least it's educational.

Anne loves to help me with the chores. Especially the sweeping.

Our first harvest! There is nothing like home-grown strawberries to start the summer off right. Mmmmm.

Kite-flying at the park.

Rachel helped.

Memorial Day Weekend

2011-05-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

Quick updates on the fam:

Zac-Is working hard at his job like usual. His foot is still bothering him so he's going to see a specialist. We really hope it heals up soon so he can be back to his old self. Zac has been enjoying his calling in the EQ but that too might be changing soon because he just got called to be a High Priest.

Ilene-I have been keeping busy with the kids and also the start of a potentially new business. I really don't know why I'm doing this but I got this idea and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I thought I would give it a try. If you care to check it out the website is www.seatnsnackcovers.blogspot.com If anything I have definitely improved my sewing skills and that has been fun. I am still working with the stake sports and am currently in softball season which has been so much fun to actually play this year.

Anne- Anne has enjoyed the new warmer weather and loves being outside. Though in this very rainy spring she has found a new love of puddles and splashes (and sits) in them whenever she sees them. She has also come a long way with her shyness and stayed in nursery for two weeks in a row without us! Her favorite phrase these days is "Do it!" which means she wants to do it herself. It's very cute to see her finally wanting to do things on her own.

Rachel- Rachel has had lots of first in this last little while. She got her first two teeth (on the bottom) which has caused her a little discomfort and lack of apatite but she's better now. She has also started crawling! She mostly army crawls but she gets to where she wants to go fast! She also likes to explore and put things she shouldn't in her mouth so after almost three years of having kids we finally have to babyproof our house (Anne just wasn't an explorer so we never had to worry). She has also made some new sounds such as dada, mama, baba, and Prbbbbbb (the tongue noise which is probably her favorite).

Shizzy-This little girl is getting big fast. She is no longer the meek little puppy she was a few weeks ago. She has lots of energy and loves to play fetch. We're working with her to not jump up on us and to stop nipping. I am very excited for that phase to pass. She also had a slightly traumatic experience in her doghouse so she now likes to sleep out on the grass instead. Poor thing probably wishes the weather would warm up as much as we do.

Shizzy's first bath

Rachel's first tooth

Fun in the castle

Cutie

On the go

Rachel absolutely loves Shizzy and makes a special puppy sound whenever she sees her.

I sure love my hubby :)

I think I could enter this one into some kind of contest. She has the most mezmorizing eyes I have ever seen.

I love my little girls.

Rachel loves her mushy food and her favorite by far is bananas that I make in the blender.

And Anne likes to finish her leftovers.

Red Fridays (Old dresses = new shirts :)

I put this one in to show how much they move around while we're trying to take pictures. It's amazing we get any good ones.

On Saturday we took Shizzy down to Utah Lake (about five minutes away) and this is what we saw when we got there. Crazy. Utah has and is going to have some major flooding this year due to all the snow and rain we've gotten. It's very weird and cool to see everything so green. Very different for Utah.

But we paid $9 to get in there so we made the most of it. Anne and Shizzy had a blast playing in the water.

And on Monday we visited my Grandparents' grave in Salt Lake. It was very nice to see so many people at the cemetery honoring their loves ones. That's what Memorial Day is all about.

Weird weather for Memorial Day. The forecast actually called for snow, but we didn't get any in Provo, just the mountains.

Afterwards we found a Chuck-E-Cheese and decided to check it out. Zac and I had not been to one since we were kids so we thought it would be really expensive. But it turned out to not be that bad! It was actually a lot of fun. Anne loved the "show".

We just got the salad bar and the meal came with four tokens which was just enough for Anne to enjoy the little rides. We didn't get a good picture of it, but besides the merry to round they had a cool big jeep that moved around. That was definitely Anne's favorite. She loooooooves our jeep.

Six months and Sickies

2011-05-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

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.