Trip to Utah-Part 1

We just got back from a fun trip up to Utah for Thanksgiving. Maybe I should clarify--the trip itself wasn't so fun, but our time in Utah was. I'm not sure driving hundreds of miles with a 1-year-old can ever be considered "fun." Unless you have one of those docile children that my children do not resemble AT ALL. Sitting still for 5 minutes is not their forte (especially Annie's).

We decided to break up the driving and started out on Friday afternoon before Thanksgiving. The girls had a blast playing in the car while we waited for Dad to get home from work so we could head out.
The drive up was... interesting. We'd hoped to get to Page and spend the night there, but ended up calling it quits in Flagstaff. My car seat plan kind of worked for Annie--she fell asleep really easily for her naps in her rear-facing carseat in the very back row of the van, but never did sleep more than a half hour until this morning on our return drive when she made it almost an hour (her normal naps are usually closer to 1 1/2 hours). However, being front-facing the rest of the time wasn't all that great for her. It may have been better than being rear-facing the entire time, but only marginally so. I think that just goes with her gotta-be-moving-constantly personality, though, mostly. Rachel had a hard time on the curvy roads and got car sick and was generally miserable for the last part of that first day. We found some dramamine before starting out the next day for the rest of the drive, and that helped her not get sick at all the next day, but our hoped-for side effect of a nap did not materialize.

Anyway, after many hours when we were almost to Provo we realized that we hadn't talked to Jake's family for a few weeks and they probably had no idea that we were even coming that day. We called and surprised them: "we'll be there in a half hour!" I had already talked to my aunt and uncle whose house we were staying at to make sure it was okay, so we weren't completely irresponsible, but the main reason we were going to Utah was to visit Jake's siblings (Jake's parents are still in Alaska on their mission) and none of them even knew when we would be there until that night, or in the case of the BYU-I girls, the next day. So we didn't get to spend as much time with some of them as we would have liked, but we were happy for the time we did get to spend with everyone (though we really missed Lisa!). One bonus was that we did get to spend some time with Von and Patty (my uncle and aunt) and their family that I hadn't really anticipated, so that was nice.

Anyway, we were welcomed with a blanket of snow when we got there, and the next morning we let Rachel go outside and take full advantage, since it would be gone by the end of the day.
She was really excited about playing in the snow. But didn't quite get the idea that you have to lie where there is actual snow (not just a patch here and there) to make a good snow angel. :)
She worked on a snowman, then decided he needed to be brought up on the deck to visit, or be built bigger, or something.
She had a real good time in the snow.

Before church on Sunday we hung out at the Campbell house and Rachel and Annie had a blast with the banana chairs. Annie is really into chairs in general these days and LOVES sitting on anything you call a chair.
Rockin' their matching outfits: (Rachel thinks it's the coolest thing in the world when she and Annie match!)
Annie found a visor to play with to satisfy her love of hats. And as a bonus it doubled as a necklace.

Monday Jake's sister Cari called and surprised us, saying she was on the road, almost to Provo, coming down from Rexburg. We jumped in the car and drove over to the Campbell house and arrived just in time to feed the ducks some popcorn that Cari and her man, Kody, were popping to feed them.
If you ever need to herd ducks, just get a big bowl of popcorn.
And thus began the beginning of Annie's obsession with ducks:
Every time we'd get out of the car at their house she'd hear the ducks across the street in the little river inlet and say "duh!" If we didn't take her to see them she'd throw a fit. If we did take her to see them she'd be very happy. Until we took her inside the house, then she'd throw a fit. (Oh, the wonderful age of tantrums has hit!)

It was a blast for the girls having all those ducks flocking all around them. Definitely a highlight of their day.

The next day we headed up to Salt Lake City to the Hogle Zoo. We squeezed the trip in between Annie's morning and afternoon nap, so we didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, and didn't get to see everything, but had fun nonetheless. Our first stop was the zoo train.



There was a bison named Jaker, according to the train driver, that we saw on the ride, so that made our trip extra special. :) They also had ravens, which I thought was very odd since you can see those lots of places, if you just leave your picnic unguarded for a little while.

We had fun looking around at the different animals, but the lemurs put on the best show for us, jumping right up onto the casings of the glass and walking around right as close as they could get.

On the way back to Orem I sat in the back with Annie in her rear-facing carseat in the hopes that she'd take her afternoon nap, since it was past her regular naptime. It was a no-go for Annie, as she stayed awake playing the whole way home, but the other two girls got their naps in.

Cari and Kody left that afternoon to head back up to Rexburg, which we were all bummed about, but we're glad we got to meet Kody and glad they got to come down and hang out with us for a couple of days at least.

Rachel's (fake) birthday

Today was Rachel's fake birthday. Her real one is on Sunday, but for all she knows, it's done and she is now 4 years old. We had her friends over for a party this morning, and our family birthday celebration tonight, and now we can enjoy our trip to visit Jake's family without carting any presents along. :)

I asked Rachel what kind of a party she wanted and even after letting her look through an Oriental Trading Company birthday mailer with all sorts of themes to choose from her choice was "I want a candy party!" Hmmm. So we went with a Candy Land party, which provided at least a better theme than plain old candy. We were trying to keep it small and simple, so she was allowed to invite 4 friends, since she's turning 4 this year. I think we succeeded on keeping it small, but sometimes I have a hard time with simple and go a little overboard.)

Rachel had a fun time helping put together the invitations for her friends. She wanted to carry them around and play with them all day after we made them, so we promptly delivered them.

I saw this cool Candy Land cake that I mostly copied from someone else online. I like King Kandy the best. I didn't have him on there at first, and Rachel pointed it out that "the guy at the end is missing!" So we found one of her Little People and put some candy on him and called it good.

I used paper plates on dowels to make some lollipops to line our sidewalk coming into our house, and some to decorate inside, too, along with some paper plates wrapped in cellophane to look like the little cinnamon or butterscotch candies. They turned out really cool, I thought.

I made these "lollipop trees" out of dum dums and Rachel wanted to eat one so bad. Every time Annie walked by all day she'd start crying and signing "please" unless she already had a lollipop in tow.

I also put out some rainbow goldfish and a rainbow of fruit.

When the kids showed up they got to make Fruit Loop necklaces and color Candy Land coloring pages.

Then we pulled out the big guns: Graham cracker houses to decorate with all sorts of candy (of which half got eaten in route to the houses, I'm sure).

We kind of had a rainbow sub-theme going, and since I wasn't going to make a pony pinata like Rachel requested, she was okay with my rainbow pinata suggestion and we went with that. All the kids got one turn to lightly tap the pinata, then on Rachel's second turn she whacked it good and I got a great action shot:

Oh, the joys of candy and toys!

Presents were a hit, as always. She got plenty of fun loot to keep her busy.

All the cute little party animals:

Rachel and everyone else got a good dose of sugar just in time to spoil their lunch. It was a fun party and Rachel was very happy all day. From when she first woke up and saw the decorations I put up after she was in bed last night I heard over and over again "Thank you SOOO much! I love it. Oh, I love my birthday. Thank you for the pretty decorations. Thank you for..." etc. What a polite little girl. :) But really she was so excited, and it was fun to see.

Tonight she got to open her family presents. She got stuck on the new books we got her, wanting to read all of them. Eventually we pulled her away and she opened the rest of the presents.

Her favorite surprise of the night:

A new bike! She had a fun time riding around, and after a few turns on the sidewalk started getting the hang of the petals. I guess it's different than her tricycle/big wheel-type bike she had, and getting the hang of braking is still in the works. But I foresee many bike rides in our future.

Happy birthday, Rachel! We love you lots!

Sisters

Rachel and Annie are having more fun together these days. They actually play together (and fight with each other) sometimes and it's pretty fun to see and hear. Rachel is still really stuck on pretending to be a baby, so she tries to copy what Annie is doing. And of course Annie wants to be just like Rachel, so she tries to copy what Rachel is doing. Sometimes it is a bit of a connundrum for them as they stare at each other waiting for the other one to do something they can copy. :)

The other night when it was almost Annie's bedtime Rachel went and got her footie pajamas on (which she REALLY, REALLY wanted so she could have a "onesie" just like Annie). She and Annie then decided to have races. It was so cute. They'd both get by the front door, and either Rachel or I would say "Ready, set, go!" and they'd take off running toward the back door. At some point along the way Annie would always turn around and head back to the door, sit down, lean against the door and rest (with Rachel copying her every move), then they'd get back up, say "ready, set, go" and they were off again. At least 10 or 15 times. It was rather entertaining for Jake and me.

I love how Annie's pj's make her look like she's either a linebacker, or stuck in the 80s with shoulder pads.

For our Family Home Evening treat this week we had smoothies. I shared mine with Annie until Rachel volunteered to share hers. They were having so much fun laughing at each other and copying each other. It's nice to have two little girls that love each other already.

They're such happy sisters. (Which isn't to say they don't fight daily, but hey, that goes with the territory, right?)

In other news, Annie is ready to move into a front-facing car seat.

Yes, I know the new recommendation is to wait until she's 2 years old, but the last week she has thrown a tantrum almost EVERY time I put her in her car seat. At her doctor's appointment the doc said basically that yes, it's safer for kids to be rear-facing, and it would be safer if everyone except the driver were rear-facing, but it's much safer to drive with a happy kid than with a kid that's screaming and distracting you as you try to placate her with snacks or toys handed back to her. AMEN.

So I got the front-facing car seat out to fit to Annie so she can sit in it for our drive up to Utah. I've almost switched her over early several times over the last week because of her huge tantrums, but decided holding off will make it that much more of a novelty for her and maybe the 12+ hour car ride won't be quite as torturous for Annie (and us) with her fancy "new" carseat.

Annie is really into chairs in general and loves sitting on things, so this was a big hit today. I love this stage where they start backing up to try to sit on stuff, then completely miss what they're aiming for half the time.

And one last random picture:

Annie loves music so much. I was playing some Christmas music (yeah it's a little early, but so what?!) and she was delighted to join in the fun.

Husbands, cold weather, and hats

Lately Rachel has been getting married occasionally in her pretend play. Meet her latest husband:

She spent quite a while dancing with the fan, holding his "hand" (cord), and taking him around the house saying, "Come on, husband. Come with me." You can't say she's not creative. :)

I guess fall finally hit Tucson the last couple of weeks. We've been wearing socks and pants which hadn't seen the light of day since February or March. Needless to say, we had some shopping to do for Rachel. On the coldest day yet, of course, the girls wanted to do nothing but play outside. They ventured out without shoes or jackets (like normal) until I noticed Annie's blue lips and both of their freezing hands. They weren't happy about having to come in, so I whipped out the winter coats and mittens and they were right back outside until I was too cold to handle it.

I think it probably got to 55ish that day. Which, for some isn't all that cold, but for us Arizonans who have been enjoying 80-90 degree weather until two weeks ago, we're wimps. 55 degrees is winter. But winter only lasted one day, and we're back into the 60s and 70s and very happy with fall.

Annie had her 12 month appointment on Halloween. She came in at the 90th percentile for height (if the nurse's measurements can be trusted, which I'm not 100% confident in, though she was 80-something-th percentile at 9 months), and 32nd percentile for weight, and something like 90+percentile for head circumference. They have us do a developmental screening every time we go in and one of the questions is "Can your child say 3 words?" I answered no to the question because the only word she said consistently was Dada. Within a week of her appointment she was saying probably at least 7 words. Her favorites are "aaah" (car), "ah" (sock), "ssss" (shoe), and of course Dada. Oh, and "ffff" for food. (She also says "da" for diaper and "ah duh" for all done.) She often brings me socks she finds, says "ah!" then proceeds to hand me the sock and sit in my lap and lift a foot so I'll put it on her. She'll do the same with shoes, but not as often. She LOVES socks.

She also is coming to love hats. She was so mad because she couldn't figure out how to get the fire hat on. I helped her and she was ecstatic.

That is a happy face (notice the big mouth, though you can't see the rest of the face).

Today she found my little propeller hat and just had to wear it. She also found Daddy's remote control car and remote, which is just about her FAVORITE toy ever.

For a while Jake would come in the door, she'd run to him saying "Dada!" then when he picked her up she'd point to his car and say "aaah!" (car). He'd get it down and chase her around with it, or let her chase it around as she laughed hysterically. Now she still likes chasing and being chased, but she prefers holding the remote herself. She thinks it's so great when she pushes the button and the car starts moving.