Just for comparison's sake

 Here's Miriam and Phoebe side-by-side:

Miriam is already potty trained here. I'm hoping Phoebe will be potty trained soon!

Photographic evidence shows that Phoebe was much more into running around and splashing, while Miriam was more into calmly playing in the mud. 

Miriam already has a full set of teeth in. Phoebe is still working on her canines and molars.

And obviously Miriam would keep a hat on. Phoebe absolutely will not. 

I'm not saying that Miriam was a better baby, but...sheesh...Phoebe is one of those exhausting babies. She's adorable and sweet and we love her to pieces, but—man!—she's a little hooligan!

This was the same trip to Goblin Valley (2011) that Miriam put a little taste of mud in her mouth and asked her, "What did you eat?" and she said, "Mud!"

(Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander drove Miriam nuts at Goblin Valley, following her around, asking her what's she eating, all because of this story that has entered "family lore"; she got spitting mad whenever they asked her what she was eating...which just made them want to ask her again, poor girl).

Anyway, we went to Goblin Valley on our way through to Spanish Fork this year, but Phoebe did not eat any mud—there wasn't any mud to eat, really. It was too dry for that! Andrew showed the kids how thirsty the ground was. He emptied a bit of water onto the dirt and made a little bit of mud (that dried up really quick). 

I failed to catch this on camera, but Phoebe sweetly summarized this little demonstration, saying, "Wa-Wa! Dirt!" And then she paused before concluding, "MUD!"

It was as if she had figured out what an equation was: water + dirt = mud!

I can't figure out why Capitol Reef and Goblin Valley were so dry because Utah got a lot of snow this year; Lake Powell was much fuller than it has been in years; there was still snowpack in the mountains...who knows?

All I know is that as messy as Miriam got on the 2011 Grover trip she was really quite a chill baby. Phoebe is a bouncing-off-the-walls baby, and that's okay, too, I guess.

Here's a little video of Phoebe bouncing so you can kind of hear her voice (she does not speak on command, unlike Miriam...not that I'm comparing):