After Bath Cuddles

Josh and Claire LOVE bathtime because they get to wear their little robes
afterwards. I took these pictures back in November, but they're so cute I thought I should start putting them up.
They have matching orange stuffed kitties which they both call "Tucker", after one of our real cats Tucker (who is orange and stripey). I wonder if Malea, our other cat, feels left out... ?
Josh had his kitty since he was a baby, and Grandma Grimmett bought Claire one in the summer. Josh carries his around everywhere he goes, so she carries hers around now because she sees from Josh's example that is what you're supossed to do. The only way we can tell the 2 of them apart is that Josh's is faded in color slightly, and not quite as fluffy. But for a week or so after it's freshly washed they are close to the same color. I was surprised to see that Claire can tell them apart and will make sure they have the proper cats when we're going out.
We have a spare "Tucker" hidden in the closet in case something disastrous and tragic happens and we need to replace one of them... I may stock up if I see them in the store again.... just in case!

Josh has nice teeth!! Maybe he won't ever need braces :)

I love this picture... so sweet :)

NASTY!

I know it's been a LONG LONG time since I posted, but the longer I waited the more overwhelmed I've been feeling about catching up! I will catch everyone up eventually....LOTS has happened since Halloween....Josh's 4th birthday and 2 parties, Thanksgiving, trips to Canada, trips to Washington, Family visits, preschool fun, Jason's graduation, planes trains and automobiles, Christmas, New Years, teething, snow and SNOW and MORE SNOW! and LOTS of COOOOOOLLLDDD days here in Michigan.... that about sums it up! No I will post some pictures and individual catch-up blogging... someday!

But today....today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so Josh has no school.... I was very happy to just stay home and go absolutely nowhere today! Jason has the car so we didn't have to get up early to drop him off, so we're just hanging out in our jammers. Maybe I'll even get around to taking down the Christmas tree.... maybe.

So my little Claire bear is getting quite independent, much to my dismay! She can now climb up on the kitchen chairs and retrieve whatever she wants from someone's previous meal. She not only opens all the cupboards, but now opens bags of food in the cupboards.....yesterday she came into the living room caked in white powder...all over her hands and face, leaving a trail..... I called out to Jason "Your daughter got into the anthrax again!" ... of course it WAS just powdered sugar, but it got his attention. And another big new accomplishment for Claire is opening up the toilet lid. We used to be safe just shutting the lid but keeping the door open, but now she can open up the lid so we need to remember to keep the door shut. I've caught her a couple of times dipping a wad of toilet paper in the toilet and back out again... just fascinating to her. Which leads me to today's little story....


I am very thankful my son is such a tattle-tale right now.

This morning while I was getting breakfast ready I hear josh calling from the other room... "Mom, Claire is dipping bread in the toilet, and eating it".

hmmm.... ya, 2 problems with that ...first of all, where did she get the bread? probably found it on the floor under something caked in crud and cat hair.... probably old - maybe 2, 3 days.... and stale and gross....
2nd problem: DIPPING IT IN THE TOILET AND EATING IT? yummy.

I know, I should have taken a picture.... I was just reminiscing with Lori the other day about how we wish we had taken a picture of Claire eating the cat food over the summer. But once again I didn't grab a camera.... too disgusted at the time. Besides, she had already eaten it all...only a few soggy crumbs remained on her mouth!

Maybe I should break out the baby gates again...

Halloween!!!!

Yay!! Halloween!!! :)

It was a great day...the weather was pretty nice so the kids were not cold while they were trick-or-treating throughout the neighborhood.

Claire wasn't so sure about this guy, but she had a ton of fun going door to door.
She even got the hang of saying "trick-or-treat", which was so adorable! Little did she know that all her hard work would go to her parents! Like stealing candy from a baby. So sad.
Well, at least she can eat a couple of lollipops :)

There were some cool houses this year! This one house had a giant inflatable headless horseman.

Josh lit up the night!!! Parents and kids passing by made lots of comments on Josh's costume. He told me at one point that he "felt frustrated" because they kept stopping him to look at his costume. Pretty funny.Claire knew just what to do!

After trick-or-treating we went to this neighborhood near our house where
there is a magician - the Great Bobini - who puts on a magic act every halloween in his front yard. He decks the whole place out like a giant haunted castle that you can actually go through, and has a stage and seating set up in his driveway for the show. It was amazing!

Joshua's little preschool friend Meredith lives down the street from the Great Bobini,
so we went to the show with her family.

This is Meredith.
I think Josh may be in love with her :)

They are so cute together....best friends.
Joshua is such a Mack daddy around her! His teachers even told me that he is very protective of her and will stand up to other kids if they are being mean to her at school. One day at preschool I heard him say what I think may be his first pickup line! He sat down on the rug beside Meredith and put his arm around her, then he very softly and gently started running his fingers through her hair and said "Your hair is SMOOTH and COLD.

Wanna feel mine?"

ha ha ha

I guess she's in love too, because her parents told me they were having dinner one day when Meredith said "I'm going to marry Joshua.", then her little sister spoke up and said
"Ya, and I'm going to marry Claire!"

Oh ya I also need to tell you about Josh's preschool halloween party! They got to go trick-or-treating at the mansion..... all the researchers told me that this is the highlight of their year!

They hiked down the path to the mansion...

and knocked on the door.

Then they got to explore the mansion and trick-or-treat in every room.
That was really cool for all the moms! Check out some of the pictures I got of the house while the kids were trick-or-treating!

Danger Will Robinson!!

For months Josh has been saying he wanted to be a pirate for halloween, so that is what we were planning on, that is until we were at Target trying on the pirate hat....he refused to put it on and suddenly announced to me that he was not going to be a pirate for halloween. He was in fact going to be a robot! Hmm....so, with Halloween only a couple of days away, I had to get creative! Well, the cardboard box hasn't failed me yet, so that is exactly what I used to make Josh's robot costume. It was cheap (less than $20 for all the materials), and actually didn't take that long to make. About 4 hours.... 1 and 1/2 of that Josh was awake and "helping".

Since we also had this cute NASA astronaut suit for Claire to wear, we decided to make it a space family theme for our ward halloween party.

Jason is the Universe....seemed appropriate for a doctor of space science :)
The "orbital rings" are made of white yarn, and the planets are made out of felt. I safety pinned it all on so he could just take it off of his shirt after halloween.

So here is our family pic!

Josh ended up being a space robot with rockets on his back, Claire was the astronaut, Jason was the Universe, and I was the stars, or a galaxy. Take your pick. Just cardboard stars hanging from wire attached to a hairband.....quick, and easy!

We even won a prize at our ward halloween party for "most original family costume".

Family Halloween Fun Day

Wow, I have a lot of catching up to do!! We've been busy, and everyone in my house has been sick for 2 weeks. Claire has had it the worst with a double ear infection, and her cold actually moved up into her eyes, so they were practically swollen shut for a few days, and we all have sinus colds and coughs. No fun. But, it's a beautiful warm (for november) day, and things are looking up! I'm going to try to get as much blogging done as I can while my kids are napping!

Sooo.....lets start with our family Halloween fun day! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and I look foreward to our family halloween day all year. This has become a tradition in our family: the last Saturday before Halloween we have a family day where we go to Hell....(yes, H-E-double hockeysticks), Michigan and get icecream at "Screams Icecream", and pick out a halloween decoration from their year-round Halloween store.
Umm no, this is not the decoration we brought home.

The icecream is really yummy, and they have a sundae bar where you can load up your sundae with different toppings such as gummy worms and m&m's, and other toppings named funny things like "shrek dust" (green sprinkles), "bat droppings" (chocolate chips), "blue ooze" (blue marshmallow cream), "dracula's blood" (strawberry-chocolate sauce), etc. This year we were sitting out at a picnic table eating our concoctions, when a man came up to us and asked if he could take some pictures of our family for the county visitor guide, so he did and made us sign a release. We took some pics of our own... I think this first one would have been perfect for the visitor guide!

Jason and Claire outside of Screams Icecream

Next we went to a cornmaze and a petting farm. Claire kept oinking because she wanted to go back to see the pigs over and over again! I chased Josh around the hay bales, and then we went into the corn maze.

Josh is saying "Arrrrr"....he said that was a pirate skeleton.
The corn maze was actually one of the better ones we've been in in a long time...we wandered around for quite awhile. Josh started wondering if we were ever going to get out, and he was not amused when Jason suggested we may have to sleep in the maze and eat the dried up corn for dinner.
Yikes! Why didn't anyone tell me there was a giant spider behind me?
I hate spiders!
Eventually we did find our way out and headed out to the pumpkin patch!

It's just this little family pumpkin patch, I don't think many people know about it. You pick out a wagon and pull it out to this little pumpkin patch on a private farm. They always have the trail decorated for halloween, and you go and pick out your own pumpkins and then haul them back to the house to pay. The kids had a blast in the wagon while Daddy pulled them out to the patch, then they each picked out a pumpkin.

I love this picture of Claire :)

She was asleep in the exact same wagon in this picture...only 1 month old.
Recognize the pumpkin hat from last year?
It fits a little better now.

Kittens!!
We had a fun day!

Claire's 1st Birthday Party

I've been meaning to post pictures of Claire's 1 year birthday party which we had a month ago! Now I'm finally getting around to it. Sorry for the wait! I made a slide show because there are so many good pictures. If you want to see any of the pictures closeup, just click on them, and you should be able to zoom in on another screen. I kinda went overboard on the party, but it was actually a lot of fun for me to do. I worked on the decorations for days and even convinced Jason to help me hang up twinkle lights in the trees. It was beautiful! But it's also a good thing birthdays are only once a year! I hope Claire can look back at these pictures one day and enjoy them as much as we do.