Merry Christmas Eve

Christmas is in the Air

We have been a little preoccupied this season (I'll blog why soon . . .), so until this last weekend all we had managed to do was put up the tree and stockings. I have been feeling really guilty about not doing more with my kids to get in the holiday spirit. Adam and I have some plans to help them learn about service during Christmas, which is important . . . but I enjoy all those little things that children love about the holidays and remember their whole lives!

I made these festive pancakes, aren't they cute? So fun!

And even though Christmas is less than a week away, Adam finally had some free time and decided we had to have lights. So on Saturday . . .

And here is our tree. Not the prettiest to look at, I know. When we first set the tree up I did try to decorate is pretty and even out all the ornaments. I even put the soft ornaments towards the bottom for Ian. But, well . . . as you can see Ian can reach about half-way up the tree. You have heard the phrase "pick your battles", and I conceded defeat on the second day. The kids think the tree is great and I love it because of that. I have years of "pretty trees" in my future, but only so many Christmases with babies in the house. I am going to enjoy them while I have them.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

True Meaning of Christmas

It is so easy to get caught up in all the "to-do's" of Christmas. I like this little reminder of what it is we should focus on and teach our children about this time of year! Here is a great link to a site that can help with ideas.

A Tallahassee Graduation

We took a quick trip up to our state's capital Tallahassee this last weekend. And I do mean quick, we left Friday and came back Saturday. It is a 4 hour drive each way, so let's just say that the kids are catching up on their sleep this week!

My brother Buddy graduated from the Business school at Florida State University. We are so proud of him, he is the first in our family to graduate with a 4 year degree!

The weather those two days was miserable. Can you believe it was a 30 degree difference from where we live in Apopka. Both days were rainy and in the 40s.

We spent as much time in our hotel room as we could. And with two active little ones we used everything we had at our disposal.

The kids really did travel well and for the short amount of time we were gone, everything really did go well. And we got to spend time with family and celebrate something wonderful!

Congratulations Bud!

I forgot my camera, so these pics are brought to you compliments of my phone:)

Annual Gingerbread House

For Family Home Evening last week I invited my family over. We had a tasty pot roast for dinner and decorated a Gingerbread House for our activity. It was a fun evening, and Clara loves all the attention from everyone.

I decided to buy a kit because I figured it would be easier than making everything and buying all that candy myself. It did save a lot of time and money! But nobody said anything about the frosting melting on us. Believe me, that wreath looked fantastic when first put upon the house. Oh well, turned out okay and the memories are great!

Thanksgiving in 2009

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Adam's family came to visit, how often do you get the chance to have all of your loved ones in one place? We enjoyed the visit very much. Besides a yummy Thanksgiving day (I have no pictures, sorry I forgot my camera) we had a fun day at Disney's Animal Kingdom!

Ian and Grandpa

Clara and Lexie

You can't go to Disney and not get a mickey ice cream, so we grabbed one on the way out of the park.

Paint Project Reveal

Just so you know, we DID get the painting done before Thanksgiving. . . I just didn't get it posted in time. The room that we were working on is the front area of our house. It's kind of one large area that encompasses the foyer, dinning room, and living room. I would like to state that I think that the new color looks really great, in my opinion the pictures don't do it justice. It almost looks dirty white in the pics-I promise, it's not. It is such a light color that it is hard to capture it on camera. So use your imagination. It is a light silvery blue color.

Front Door: Before

Front Door: After

I am showing this particular picture knowing you almost cant see the wall paint, but I wanted to show our door. I saw this idea on a blog and wanted to try it, I think the black looks nice, kind of makes a statement.

Dinning Room: Before

Dinning Room: After

Living Room: Before

Living Room: After

We have taken down the old curtains, they came with the house. I haven't pick out new ones yet. Honestly we haven't really decorated this room yet. The painting is the first step. I'll show pictures when it is done. But don't forget what I have said before, it takes me a while to finish projects.

Clara at 5 years

Better late than never right? I made a list (in no particular order) of little goodies about my Clara. Since I make my blog into our family memory books, I thought this entry would be a great addition! (So please have patience for my abnormally long post)

Clara. . . .

• loves school, loves her activities at school, loves her friends at school, loves her teachers.
• is a dancer-not just because she loves her dance class but because she is always dancing, she and Ian turn on music just about every day and have a dance party.
• has a fantastic imagination, in fact she has an imaginary friend named Reesha (did I mention Reesha has been with us for about 1 1/2 years? She is fully aware that we can't see Reesha-but talks about all the things Reesha teaches her.) She loves to make up stories to tell and is constantly inventing games that we can all play together.
• has a quick and clever little mind, she seems to always be thinking about how things work. Then before you know it, she can tell you how whatever it is can impact something completely different.
• has a keen memory. Most of the bedtime books that we read she has memorized and can "read" them to me. And they aren't short ones like Good Night Moon. She has also memorized a talk for primary at church and parts for the Primary program, I believe she had six speaking parts (I did help her make 3x5 cards to help).
• loves to be helpful and serve. She is the happiest when given that opportunity to provide service for another. And she likes to call it service. After getting a toy down for Ian she'll say,"Look Mom, I served Ian!"
• is definitely a girly girl. Her favorite colors are pink and purple. She loves all things princesses. After reading the Fancy Nancy series of books she is continually on a mission to make things more fancy. She loves lip gloss and glitter and can't wait for make-up, (she discovered make-up on Halloween when we got dressed up.)
• has such beautiful faith. She reminds me about prayer time and family scripture time and Family Home Evening. She loves church and has a great desire to do the right thing.
• loves routine. She is happier when things are expected and not so happy about change. And she likes to make lists, as in "It's time to clean the room, let's make a list of the steps first."
• is an artist. She spends a lot of her free time drawing, painting, or coloring and then posting her artwork all around the house to make it fancy.
• is a very loving little girl. Her love is unspoiled and generous and we are so honored to be recipients of it!

Projects

I have a project in the works. Now before you get the wrong idea, let me explain about me and projects. Unfortunately, I am NOT one to plan, prepare, and execute a project in two weeks. First I have to think about it for a LONG time. Then I talk about it for a while. Eventually I'll work on it, if Adam helps it usually gets done faster. So we have been in our house almost 2 years now and have known all along that we wanted to paint our front room. We have been trying to pick out the color for months. (Yes, that DOES mean that we have had patches of different colors all over that room for a while.) We are finally in the painting phase of our project. So please don't be surprised if it takes another month, or two, to get you some before and after pictures. But my goal is by Thanksgiving. (fingers crossed)

Happy Halloween!

The Pretty Little Witch and Her Black Cat

Our ward Trunk-or-Treat was on Halloween this year, so we decided to just go to that and not worry about Trick-or-Treating this time, plenty of opportunities for that in the future. We really had a great night. Clara was so thrilled to wear sparkly makeup and her costume, and she loved that Ian was her black cat. Ian was pretty happy about his costume too, he had the cutest, pleased smile on his face most of the night.

Clara is girly enough to enjoy getting ready and spending time on hair and makeup. And she just loved showing herself and Ian off at the activity.

Ian had the best time. He is usually very shy and reserved so imagine my surprise when he wandered all over climbing up on chairs to sit with other people at their tables while they ate their dinner. Maybe he felt because he was dressed up and therefor incognito it was okay. And by the way it was in the high 80's last night, and Ian kept on the costume all night! Both kids did.

I thought these little witchy feet were so cute I had to document them!

Any guesses on who Adam decided to be?

Yes, we know it would have been a more effective costume with the "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt. But alas, we couldn't find one in time.

"Gosh. . . ."~Napoleon Dynamite

Growing Up So Fast!

Ian started going to Nursery class in church today. This is a day I have been dreading, mostly because I wasn't sure how he would react to it. So far he is such a Mommy's boy. Very shy too. In fact he doesn't usually like to make eye contact with people he isn't familiar with. Adam takes Ian the second hour of church so I can teach my Primary class and today he took him into Nursery to see how he would do (he isn't quite 18 months yet). The leader told Adam to leave, so he did and Ian immediately cried. BUT only for a minute. . . and then he was fine. He stayed in the whole rest of church and did GREAT! I am so happy and relieved and proud of my baby boy!

My Baby Boy

It's the cute little moments that you treasure. Today it was just me and Ian because Clara was at school. I was in the living room folding some laundry and Ian was playing with some toys in the family room. But every once in a while, Ian would come to check in with me. He would run into the room and climb up into my lap and let me cuddle him for just a minute. As if he were saying, "Love you mom, just wanted to see you for a sec. Now I'm fine and I'll go play some more." That was how we spent our morning. He would come and see me and then run off and play again for a while until the next visit.

Adventures with Ian

So everyday Ian manages to surprise me. Everyday he finds somewhere new to explore. I have not managed to document all of them, but here are a few examples. . .These first 2 were caught on phone camera's. This is my bathroom sink.

I guess that pumpkin can't go on the table this year.

He still really loves to eat! And he can climb up into his highchair in about a second flat.

Ian looked out the window and spotted some birds in the back yard.

Some really pretty birds.

We had a hard time keeping Ian off of Clara's presents while we were opening them.

Sometimes there are quiet moments, sometimes . . .

Clara's 5th Birthday

I can't believe my baby is 5 already. Having her birthday on Conference Sunday makes it hard to have a big party, so we just did family celebrating between session. And we did some fun things on Saturday too. We love our girl!

Clara's favorite present, princess dolls! I didn't get a picture of the actual dolls:)

Clara had a sleepover at our house, Ava and Clara are eating dinner by the pool.

Guess What This Is?

Okay, let me stop you right there and just tell you. That is the corner section of my newish couch. And what is that on my couch you might ask? Well, it's artwork a la Ian. And here is the crazy part, I was in the room when this was being done. Can you believe it? I really can't. I looked over and there was my little guy as happy as could be with a crayola brown marker. The good news is that it did come out. I have a hand held carpet cleaner that took about a half hour of scrubbing, but it did come out. Now all the markers and crayons are in a box up high and out of the way. Now, what is he going to get into tomorrow . . .

School's In

Clara started school today. Her last year before Kindergarten. She was really excited to go and make new friends. It was definitely time, we were all done with summer. It was a great first day! She is excited to go tomorrow, I guess that's a good sign. (I know the pics not the greatest, it's the only one I took today)

Sharing

Ian was sharing pizza with Daddy and then decided he just couldn't resist taking a bite himself for another second.

My friend Heather let me come to her home and take some pictures of her tiny 2 week old son and older daughter. I think I got some nice ones. I posted a few of my favorites here.

Ian with his Daddy

Entering a New Realm

The Realm of Sleepovers. A whole new stage. I can't believe it's here. Last week Clara went to her BFF and cousin, Ava's house for her first sleepover. It went great. No problems at all. She can't wait to have Ava over to our house for the next one.

Pure Faith of Children

So we ran into a hump with swim lessons. I don't know what happened. One day, lessons are super, and Clara is really doing well. The next one she won't focus or listen and her progress seems to completely stop. For about 5 LESSONS!

I didn't know what to do, I am not sure her swim teacher did either. Coincidentally, she was acting this way at home too. I know it's a stage, I know kids go through these things, over and over. But that doesn't take away from how frustrating it is. So . . . what do we do? I honestly didn't know.

And then one day a thought came to me on the way to the lesson. While we were using the restroom before the lesson (no potty in the pool, pool rules #6!) I asked Clara if she would like to say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father for help. She was really excited to do that. She says her sweet, simple little prayer. "Help me focus, help me do good, help me to obey." And the lesson went so well. I almost couldn't believe it. In the middle of the lesson, she looked up at me and said, "The prayer worked Mom! Heavenly Father is helping me!"

On the way home, she was so happy. But at the same time unfazed that it worked, because she has complete faith. We haven't missed a prayer before lessons yet, usually because of her insistence. Her complete faith is so amazing to me, especially because as adults I don't think that it always comes as easy to us-especially when it should.

I love that as parents we learn so much from our kids. I think that most become parents thinking that it's our job to teach them everything that they need to know. But do we realize that we, as parents, really have so much more to learn from them?

First Talk in Primary

Clara's gave her first talk in Primary today. She did so GREAT! This being new for us I wasn't really sure how to go about getting her ready for it. Of course I googled, who wouldn't? And the best advice I found on a blog. "Talk to your child about the topic", it said "and then write down what they say, then you have yourself a talk!" So that's what I did. And we came up with a really cute talk. Clara is the type of child who likes to do things herself. And she is pretty good at memorizing, but a 2 minute talk is a little more information than one scripture verse. So we divided up the talk onto 8 different 3x5 cards and she drew pictures on each one to help her know what the words said. We practiced, practiced, practiced. And she did fantastic, I wish we could have video taped it. I actually did this morning at home, but she did better at the real thing. The topic was Being Reverent and Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy can Strengthen our Family. Anyway, here is one of her prompt cards.

And here is her talk:

"It’s important to have a strong family. and being reverent and keeping the sabbath day holy can help our families grow together. To be reverent we pray, and listen, and fold our arms and close our eyes and the spirit can teach us. Sunday is a special day. We go to church and do church activities. We visit friends and family on Sunday. I like to read the Friend magazine and watch church movies on Sunday. I don’t go swimming, or to the store, or run around outside. I want to be obedient to my mommy and daddy and to Heavenly Father so I’ll keep the sabbath day holy and be reverent so we can be a strong and happy family. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

My brother and sisters got together at Christmas and decided to get my parents tickets to Cirque du Soleil, after all it's here all the time at Downtown Disney and none of us had been! So here we are in July and we finally went last night. What a great show. Seriously, that's the best way to see a circus that I have ever seen! And on top of that we had a wonderful time with my parents and my brother and his girlfriend. Thanks Paul for making it happen.

Ian is Walking!

13 months old

He started out very cautious, only taking a few steps at a time and keeping his little hands up the whole time. Everyday he gains confidence and speed and is so pleased with himself.

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, and forgiveness."

~The Proclamation on the Family

This is the quote that Clara had to give in Primary on Sunday. We practiced it everyday for a week and she ended up memorizing it. At church, when the time came she walked up to the podium, repeated her quote, gave a big smile and stepped down. Then she RAN to me (standing in the back of the room) all the while saying "WOOOO-HOOOO, I DID IT MOM! I DID IT!" We try to encourage reverence in Primary and at church, but it was so cute I didn't even shush her.

Dance Recital

We had Clara's end of the year dance recital. Adam and I were both really impressed with the quality of the production and the dancing. Clara's PreK 1 class did a ballet dance to "Chapel of Love". They were the cutest little brides up there dancing. And she loved it!

Clara and her Daddy, her favorite person!

Ian stayed at home with Auntie Lanie so we could enjoy the one and a half hour long recital and actually focus on what was going on.