Sisters

Annie and Rachel have been having fun together lately. Most of the time. Annie's favorite things are whatever Rachel is doing at the moment, which annoys Rachel sometimes, especially when she's trying to paint or color and Annie just wants to tear her paper, or when she wants to build with blocks and Annie wants to destroy whatever Rachel creates. But other times they have lots of fun playing chase, or dancing to music together. 

The other day we got a package and Rachel thought the box was the perfect size for Annie and started to put her in. I caught her before she dropped her on the floor and helped her in the rest of the way. Rachel proceeded to push Annie around in her "car" for a good while. Annie had a blast.

While Annie mostly likes to follow Rachel around, sometimes she gets creative, and Rachel decides to copy Annie. Here Annie climbed on the bottom shelf of this table thing we have and got stuck.

Rachel, of course, had to copy her, pretending to be a baby, too:

We've been looking back at some pictures of Rachel from when she was about Annie's age and I am so amazed at how similar they look. I can't find specific pictures of Annie that exactly match the ones of Rachel, but at different times Annie has had almost the exact same expression and Rachel did in these pictures and looks so much alike (except Annie has more hair). Here's one of Annie:

And here are some of Rachel back then:






They must be sisters! :)

Box fun

Last Monday was Jake's birthday. We got him a cooler and a promise to go camping soon (and a few other things). And the girls got the box that the cooler came in (we ordered it online). Ever since then they have been in heaven. Especially Rachel. She has decorated it for hours on end.

It has been her tent, her bed (she's slept in it for nights on end), a jail, and is now turned on it's side and is her door/tunnel to get into her room. Annie just likes following Rachel around, so she enjoys being locked the dark box with Rachel, and chasing her through the tunnel.

Not sure how much longer it'll last (or how much longer I can stand it), but it's already provided way more entertainment than we paid for it. :)

And might as well throw in a few pictures of Annie that have been sitting around on the camera. Notice Annie's Jack-O-Lantern teeth:

Our budding pianist:

And the happy messy kid:

Dance moves

Annie, like her big sister, loves music. Most of the time when music starts playing Annie will stop what she's doing, look around, then start shakin' it.

She shakes her head like crazy when she really likes the song. And sometimes she'll do some dancing besides head banging. :) Even hymns at church can occasionally get her to boogie. She is so entertaining.

Our little troublemaker

Annie is making great strides in learning things that may land her in the hospital with a broken arm or leg. Our little 9-month-old seems to be destined for great things. Or injury.

While we were Skyping with Jake's sisters:

Annie was so proud of herself for climbing up on the chair. The picture is out of focus, but you get the idea.

Annie can also climb up on Rachel's bed if the little stool is close enough to the bed. She goes straight to the headboard, holds on and starts dancing. Now she just needs to learn how to get down without going head-first.
Annie's lid-opening skills are problematic. I thought all the cans within her reach were unopened, but apparently I missed one.

Messy kid.

And last week Annie took her first steps. For the first few days she would only walk to Rachel. Now she's getting braver and can take up to 6 steps at a time and will set off on her own sometimes without any encouragement.



It's all downhill from here...

Idaho-the last of it all

We've finally reached the end of the endless pictures of Idaho. :)

The night before we headed back home we went up to my Aunt Sharyn's place. She has a beautiful house, and paints beautiful pictures. We enjoyed sitting out and enjoying the beautiful scenery, but one of the highlights for Rachel was helping Sharyn gather eggs from their chickens.

Doesn't she look excited?

We all went back to Grandpa Jolley's house and all the family in town came over for one last big dinner together. And, since Jared's birthday was just a couple weeks away we celebrated while we were there with him with a tasty cake and ice cream. Grandma even gave him his present, which the other kids promptly monopolized. I'm sure he'll get in plenty of play time at home, since he didn't get any that night. :)

Awwww. Cousin love:

Friday morning while we were getting ready to leave Rachel and Jared played house. Rachel was the mommy, Jared was the daddy, and Todd was the Rachel.

We squeezed in a few family pictures before we left:

Though the grandkid picture didn't quite work out...

While we were up there Grandpa Jolley got a few new toys, including one of those cool recliners that stands you all the way up, and this walker that has a seat on it. Rachel and Jared must think Grandpa Jolley has all the fun, since he gets to play with this walker all the time. :)

It sure was a fun trip. We're glad we were able to see a lot of family, though we missed the ones that weren't there. We're hoping to see everyone next year for a fun family reunion.

Idaho-hanging out

One of the nice things about this vacation was being able to just sit around and hang out with family and let the kids run around and have fun. One of the favorite places for both Rachel and Annie was the trampoline. If the back door which was right next to the trampoline opened at all, Annie would start booking it toward the door, trying her darnedest to get to the trampoline before someone could stop her. Rachel loved jumping and bouncing Annie, or playing ring around the rosies with Jared, and occasionally, but not always, liked being bounced by a bigger kid. Annie loved being bounced and as soon as she was on the trampoline was happy as can be, crawling around, rolling like she does on our bed at home, her other favorite place to be.

Annie and Brooklyn, buddies hanging out on the kitchen floor:

Annie always loves swinging. Swinging with Grandma and Eloise is a bonus.

Annie had two teeth on the bottom when we were up there (with 4 on top coming through all together, but not quite through). She had figured out how to use those 2 teeth to her greatest advantage. One of her highly honed skills is being able to open many containers just by getting her teeth under the lid and prying it off. She managed to get her favorite snacks open one morning, and promptly proceeded to grab a good handful, knowing I'd close it right back up.

Such joy!