Photography skillz

Rachel loves the camera, both posing for and shooting pictures. Here are some of her recent snapshots:

And some self-portraits:

Last week we went out to enjoy the beautiful weather with a picnic at the park. After eating and playing on the slides for a little while, the girls wandered up to the baseball fields and found a puddle to play in that was way more fun than the playground equipment.

When it was all over, though, Annie didn't really like being wet up to her thighs.

Both girls rode home in the car pant-less thanks to the puddle. I guess that means it was a successful park outing?

In our preparations for the new addition to our family we recently borrowed a crib from someone in our ward, since we figured 16 months is much too young to expect Annie to move to a toddler bed, for the sake of all of our sanity. We also got a dresser off Craigslist for the girls to share, and moved around Rachel's room a little so things would fit a little more nicely. So last week we put the crib together, and bit the bullet, putting the girls in the same room. We figured it was probably a good idea for them to get used to sleeping together when I'm not completely sleep deprived in case there were a few sleepless nights in the adjustment period.

They woke each other up a little early the first morning at about 6:40. That is pretty typical for Annie, but about a half hour or more early for Rachel. Not too bad.

The next night they slept fine, but Annie woke them up around 5:30 or 5:45. Normally Annie will find a binky and go back to sleep when she wakes up at that time, but Rachel came in and informed me, "Annie was crying, so I gave her a binky, and sang a song for her, then stared at her in her crib in case she needed anything else." Needless to say, Annie thought that meant it was time to play. We got up, got dressed, ate breakfast, and were all laying down napping again by 7am.

The third night Rachel woke up with her foot hurting, and her crying woke Annie up. I ended up rocking them both at the same time, singing a couple songs before they were quiet enough to fall back asleep. As I rocked and sang to them I imagined how fun it'll be when the baby is here and they all want to be held/rocked at the same time. Won't that be fun? At least Jake will be around for those middle-of-the-night crying sessions.

The fourth night the girls slept great and woke up at their normal time: a little after 7am. I declared the experiment a success. One night may not mean complete success, but at least there is hope that it won't be them disturbing my slumber every night. They can leave that to their little brother. :)

Another lady in the ward gave us her crib mattress that she no longer needs, along with some blankets and crib sheets that are boy-colored, and some clothes, including a cute monkey Halloween costume that is size 3-6 months, which, is about how big Ryan will be when Halloween rolls around. Rachel thought the monkey suit was so cool, and decided that sizes are irrelevant.

If a 4-year-old can "fit" into a costume designed for a 6-month-old, I guess we can count on it fitting Ryan, even if he's an extra chunky baby. :)

Climbing

Annie is at that lovely stage of toddlerhood where the main goal of everything she does is to get as far off the ground as she can. Climb, climb, climb. She mastered Rachel's bed and the couches a while back, but now she's moved on to climbing higher on the couch backs and arms, climbing on the chairs, trying to climb over the back of her highchair, and most especially, climbing onto the kitchen table.

I feel like I am getting her down from the table at least a couple of times an hour all day long. I have tried taking most of the interesting things off the table, but that only helps marginally. Her number one goal in life is to stand on the table and dance. Though, like I said, anything is fair game. After I emptied the dishwasher the other day she grabbed her binky, blanket, and sippy cup and decided the dishwasher door was the place for her to rest. Of course I reinforced her idea by snapping a picture of her before I got her off, so she tried a couple more times that day to try to make me laugh.

Rachel is often the police if I'm in a different room, announcing that Annie's on the table again. But last week when Rachel was gone at preschool I realized I hadn't seen Annie for a minute or two, and went to find her punching the buttons on the computer on the kitchen table. I got her down, closed the laptop, and brought her into the bedroom where I was getting things organized. A few minutes later she wandered out again, and after another minute I followed to find this:

I sure am glad I closed that computer before she got to the salt, otherwise there would be salt stuck in the depths of the keyboard forever.

And yes, the salt shaker was completely empty when I found her.

Today I had Annie outside with me while Rachel was inside painting with her Aunt Cari who's visiting for a few days. Rachel and Cari came out to join us, but of course after a few minutes Annie headed inside. When I went to check on her I found her at her favorite place:

After getting paint on several of her fingers she noticed the cup of water they'd been using for the paint and tried to drink it. Yum. :P

Thankfully there have not been any major injuries yet, and I hope that continues. She does fall, however, occasionally, and tile is not the softest ground to catch her. Last week there was one day I was sure would end in a concussion, with her falling off the ottoman that she had been standing up dancing on, landing right on her head, according to Rachel, then that same day having a chair slip while she was trying to bridge the gap to the table and falling instead onto the tile floor. Sometimes I wish for those docile children I see sitting in their mothers' laps for all 3 hours of church, or even just 15 minutes. For now I suppose I'll enjoy the 2 minutes of cuddling I get before putting her down for a nap or bed. That's about as long as I ever see her hold still. And hopefully for now we will avoid the ER despite all her climbing adventures.

Backyard adventures

We've been enjoying our winter weather here lately. The nice thing about winter here is you can play outside a lot more than you can in the summer, unless a pool is involved. Last week we decided to build a tent using our swingset as the frame. It turned out pretty decent.

The girls had a good time and enjoyed a picnic out in the tent. (Though Rachel doesn't look like she's particularly enjoying herself in these pictures because she was mad at Annie for stealing her chair.)

I've been spending some time out back trying to get the garden prepped for planting (ie. pulling lots of weeds). I figure anything that is not in the ground by the time little baby Ryan gets here is not going to be this year. I finally got some compost and manure ("Why did you pay money for poop, Mom?" -Rachel) last week and got it all mixed in, so the hard part is done. I picked up a few plants from Home Depot while I was there, too, figuring I could have planted them at Christmas and have stuff ready for picking by now if I'd have known that it would be in the 70s for most of January and February. I planted those last week along with a few seeds. Then today it snowed (though I was at jury duty and the girls were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, so we all missed out on the fun). I haven't looked at the plants, but I'm guessing/hoping they'll be okay. And looking at the weather from here on out it looks like we're back to hovering in the 60s for the forseeable future, so as long as they survived today the plants are probably going to be happy. Now if I can just figure out how to keep Annie from digging in her favorite spot... It's been empty of plants for months, so she's gotten so used to walking across it and sitting in it and digging (throwing dirt all over her hair and shoveling it in her mouth) that it's hard for her to know she can't do it anymore. Maybe we'll just hang out in the rocky front yard for the next few months.