August - Crawling, Standing up, Beach trips, San Francisco

 Rachel loves to play the piano. She can sit up and play by herself now.

 Andrea likes to help mommy do everything including feeding Rachel. And Rachel loves everything that Andrea does, so she lets her feed her.

 Rachel also loves the sand. In fact, she loves to eat the sand.

 Our two beautiful girls. Rachel is 6 months old and Andrea is 2 1/2. We're so grateful for my two beautiful girls.

 The day Rachel started crawling she crawled so she could get to something that would help her stand up.

 The girls play together so well now. It's so cute to see them laugh and giggle together.  It's really fun for them.

 Andrea helped mommy make cupcakes for a Relief Society Activity.  It was a pool party in someone's backyard.  I have been dieing to take the girls swimming to a real pool, but there just aren't any city pools here that you can pay $3 and go swimming. Most people have one or they live in an apartment complex that has one, so we were ecstatic when we found out we were having a pool party.  So, we showed up in our swimming suits and covers and we were the only ones who came in our swimsuits.  I had been telling the girls about it all day, so we went swimming.  We were the only ones who got in the pool and I was the only one there with kids, but I didn't care.  It was supposed to be a pool party, so by golly, we were going to swim. :-)  We loved it.  They had an absolutely beautiful backyard and beautiful pool. It was so nice to be able to cool off from all the extremely hot days in our house with no relief.  In fact, our house was so hot that Andrea got a heat rash on her cheeks and couldn't get rid of it for an entire month, because she couldn't cool off enough.  Also, our thermostat always read between 85-89 degrees inside the house.  I don't know how people can live in Mexico in little cardboard houses with 120 degrees outside. I could barely handle almost 90 degrees with fans.  We'll have to figure out something different for next summer or just go visit family all summer next year. :-) 

 Again Rachel loves to stand up. She pulled on her daddy's hair to get to standing position in this picture. The girls were enjoying some precious time with dad. They didn't get to see him much. He finished the Bar Exam and then started his busy season, so most nights he got home after they were asleep.

 We want to take advantage of living in this area, so we took a trip up to San Francisco with our friend Rikki Bezzant and her sons Clark and Henry. It was a lot of fun. This is a picture of the girls at Ghirardelli Square in front of the mermaid fountain.

 This is just above some of the piers across from Ghirardelli Square looking over to the Golden Gate Bridge.

 We had a picnic at one of the parks in the middle of the city so we could see the pretty town houses that were some of the ones used in the filming of Full House. They were actually very pretty in their own city type way. San Francisco reminded me a lot of the movie The Lorax where the whole city is made of plastic and cement.  There is very little ground showing. Houses are connected wall to wall or separated by a cement walk way. There are no yards. People just have potted plants on their porches and go to the parks that are spread out throughout the city. Streets are very narrow and cars are parked all along the sides of them. It was absolutely claustrophobic, but pretty in it's own unique way.

 Here's a picture of the beautiful town houses.

 One day while mommy was trying to cook and get things done in the kitchen Rachel got a hold of the puffs case and dumped them all over herself and the floor. It was pretty hilarious.  Both girls laughed and laughed.

 This picture explains everything.  Rachel has an obsession with Andrea's hair and Andrea freaks out anytime that she touches it, because she knows what could possibly happen.  Andrea always runs in to Rachel's room the minute that she wakes up and says, "Rachel, you're awake you cute baby."  And Rachel gives her the biggest smile and quickly climbs up the bars to try and play with her.  It makes me so happy to see that my girls love each other and like to play together.

 I take the girls to the park a lot.  I help Rachel climb up the slide backwards while Andrea climbs up the stairs and then they both get to slide down the slide together. They have a blast doing this together.

 We had lunch with Daddy two different times.  The first time was at a Mexican Restaurant just south of where he works.  This time it was at the Children's Discovery Museum which is just across the street from where he works.  The girls needed some time to see their dad, so we though having lunch with him would give us a little time with him and a little break for him from work. Andrea is eating a mint orea.  We have a new obsession with these cookies.  I buy two packs a week and we go through them every week.  Our friends Brad and Heather introduced us to them when we came out to San Jose in February to look for housing and we have been addicted ever since.  Don't start, because you might not stop. :-)

 Our neighbor Gonga, originally from India gave us a ton of apricots so we decided to make apricot jam and fruit leather.  Andrea is my little helper in the kitchen. Every time I make anything she grabs the kitchen chair and drags it over to where I am working and says, "Can I help you please mom?"  Of course I let her help and of course it takes twice as long and makes twice as big of a mess, but it is a lot more fun as well. And Andrea is getting to be a pretty good cook.  She can crack and dump eggs, stir food, grate cheese (sort of), scoop and stir measuring cups, and stir food.  I'd say that's pretty darn good for a two-year-old.

 Andrea also has an obsession with forts. The girls made this fort in the dance studio by draping the blanket over the piano and her play chairs.  They had a lot of fun playing in it.

 So cute. Rachel loves to talk with her hands.  She talks and makes noises all of the time. She says, "Momma and Dadda now."  And she knows it's our names.

We went to a San Jose Giants game with a bunch of people in the ward.  It's a AAA baseball team for San Jose. They had a bunch of blow up toys and games, so I took Andrea, Hayley, and Gabby on them.  They went in the bounce house, hit the baseball, and went down the giant slide.  Those girls are already such great friends, especially Andrea and Hayley.  They are inseparable.