December

The month of December is more than half-way done and I haven't posted at all about our many activities. We've been keeping pretty busy. The first week of December I spent my free time finishing up wrapping presents and addressing Christmas cards (if you didn't get one, I need your address!). It feels good to have everything, including stockings all ready for Christmas so now I can just enjoy the Christmas music and fun.
Last week was my baking/candy making week, so I made fudge, caramels chocolate dipped pretzels, and candied pecans. Then gave most of it away. (You know, 5 for them, one for me, 5 for them, one for me.) We also headed in to decorate Christmas cookies with Grandma on Friday. Rachel is the only one who actually gets in to the decorating part. Annie was excited about the frosting: spread a little on the cookie, lick a little off the knife, now lick the rest off the cookie. Repeat.
Somewhere in there we had both our ward Christmas party and Jake's work Christmas party. Fun times. Our ward party was service themed--we were Santa's little helpers, so we made elf hats and did some service projects. Here are the girls in their elf hats:

And of course we had a visit from the big guy himself. I really liked how they did it this year. Instead of having to wait in line for every kid to sit on Santa's lap and get a picture and a candy cane he just came in, read I Believe in Santa Claus, then handed out candy canes to all the kids. Luckily Rachel had written her letter to Santa earlier that day, so she just handed it to him, got her candy cane, and left happy. And now there is no turning back on her request for a cake pop maker.

Here are the girlies in front of the Christmas tree.

Annie is quite a little character. She always has her hands full (as in the picture above). Usually with at least two toys per hand. We have a Little People zoo set that has lots of little animals, and the other day she had the ostrich and the sheep (I just noticed she has these in the elf picture above--always got to have something in her hand) and she was playing with them, doing their talking for them:
Ostrich: Why you have a time-out?
Sheep: 'Cause I push Ryan over.
Can you tell what kind of issues we're dealing with these days? When Ryan gets near her most of the time she pushes him, hits him, or steals whatever he has in his hands and yells at him. Such sisterly love for her little bro. Rachel tries to make up for it by being super sweet to him. He loves them both. Most of the time when one of them walks into the room he gets a big grin on his face and wants to be near them. Unless Annie is on the prowl, and Ryan knows it, in which case he starts crying when she gets anywhere near him.

We've kind of been letting our garden turn into a jungle lately. Rachel picked a carrot the other day that was almost as big as her head.

But notice behind her, on the orange tree we actually got oranges this year. DELICIOUS! They're Cara Cara oranges--the ones that are pink and oh-so-tasty inside. We have about 6. Better than 0 that we had last year.

Annie is full into her "I do it myself!" stage. She is overly proficient with a stool and it is a constant battle to get the stools to stay in their designated spots: the bathroom sink, the piano bench by the piano, and put away out of Annie's reach in the kitchen. If it's on the counter she wants it. And if she sees food she wants it. And often helps herself if she can reach:

I am learning patience.

Ryan just turned 9 months old on Tuesday. He is into everything he can reach (which is thankfully less than what Annie can reach). If he sees an open door he runs (crawling-style) to it. And if it closes before he gets to it he has a total melt down. He loves to be outside. He is also getting very proficient at cruising and will pull up to stand on anything, and move along towards his goal. He often will push around the stool that Annie brings out of the bathroom ALL the time. It's his version of a walker. So we got out the little car that turns into a push toy yesterday and he immediately took to it. He can push it around walking almost like a pro. But occasionally it'll run into something, or he'll pull up to standing on the side, instead of the back, so it doesn't move like it's supposed to and he'll get really frustrated. Yesterday he was standing holding on to it and he was so frustrated he just let go of it and yelled for probably 5 seconds, all the while balancing standing up. Looks like the kid is going to follow in his sisters' footsteps and take his first solo steps in the next few weeks. 

At Grandma and Grandpa's house Annie took her nap the other day, then woke up and found something to do.

A package of Grandpa's latex gloves he uses when he's doing his art projects was close enough to reach. You'd think we would have learned our lesson a while ago when Annie completely emptied my mom's top file drawer of all her files while she was supposed to be napping. Nope.

The day of that fateful nap we had actually gone in to G&G's house to decorate Christmas cookies. Rachel got in the holiday spirit (the wrong one) and found this bow. She thinks she's so funny. And she is.

Grandpa made this reindeer out of a part of a palm tree, and some mini gourds he has. Pretty cool, huh?

Lastly, as far as pictures go, Ryan has been introduced to the joys of pickles. His first taste produced the classic sour face, but then he immediately reached for some more. We have a pickle aficionado.

Ryan and Annie aren't always enemies. For a week or so one of their favorite things to do was to play chase. They'd both be crawling and one would chase the other, both squealing in delight, then the person being chased would turn around and start chasing the other one and they'd squeal in delight some more. It was so cute. I guess with Ryan's efforts to learn to walk he's forgotten that game for the most part because I haven't seen him doing much it the last week or so.

The last thing I have to document for posterity's sake before I forget is Annie's lovely sacrament meeting a week and a half ago. She is doing pretty good at potty training, though she does have her days where she has an accident every time. But she also has days, like today, where she has no accidents. I like those days. Anyway, we were at church and the Sacrament prayer on the water was being said when Annie decided she wanted to leave our aisle, which she tries to do about 100 times during the hour-long meeting. I told her she needed to stay with me. The following discussion ensued:
Annie: I need to go diarrhea.
Me: Shhh. It's prayer time.
A: I need to go diarrhea!
M: Shhh! Can you wait?
A: No! Not wait! I wanna go diarrhea now!
The sacrament prayer ended somewhere in there. Annie does not have a quiet voice. We entertained many around us that day. And no, she didn't have to ask again. I got up and took her out right then. Of course she just had to pee. Someone *ahem, Rachel* has helped Annie to expand her vocabulary. Not surprisingly Annie thinks diarrhea is one of the funniest of the potty words available. So she uses it often. We love our little Annie. :)