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!