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.

Envy

Joshua has dozens and dozens of trains. He plays with Thomas the Tank Engine trains everyday, all day. We read Thomas or other train books before he goes to sleep every night on his train pillow beneath train blankets with his tracks next to his bed. He wears train pj's and underwear, has a Thomas alarm clock next to his bed, as well as an engineer's hat, a Thomas pocketwatch which he carries around daily, a thomas piggy bank, and a set of train russian stacking dolls. When Josh wakes up in the morning he brings his trains to the table to eat breakfast on his Thomas placemat with his Thomas cup. On the way to preschool we listen to Thomas stories in the car, and when he gets to preschool he plays with trains ALL DAY. Then he comes home and has a nap with his trains in his bed, and when he wakes up he takes his trains out to the sandbox until dinnertime. He even has train bath toys and coloring books, and will only watch train movies. We think it's great, but there is one problem....

Joshua doesn't like to share his trains. Ever.

Now, Joshua's baby sister Claire really looks up to him. She wants to do what he does, and so she too has begun to take an interest in his trains. However, Joshua isn't quite as enthusiastic about her interest. Whenever Claire crawls over to pick up a train that Josh has set up, he will pick her up and carry her as far from his trains as possible.

Today we decided to give Claire a train of her own. Her train is Rosie:

Right away, Claire LOVED her train! She got a big smile on her face and she knew it was hers. She started playing with it on the floor and crawling around with it. Joshua however, wasn't so happy about Claire's gift. Jealousy reared it's ugly head.

Maybe it's time Joshua learns to share.

Claire's 1 year Birthday

Yay!! Claire is 1 year old!

Since Jason and I both had a busy evening, we decided to celebrate Claire's birthday at lunch time. And we celebrated in style....McDonalds!!! haha
It was Joshua's request that we go to Mickey D's, and we all had a blast!

We were planning on having a party for Claire on Saturday, but decided to move it to Tuesday because it's supposed to rain Saturday through Monday and I want an outdoor party with twinkle lights in the trees!

I think the birthday girl enjoyed herself.

She was very excited about her birthday cake, but wanted it right away, so she's a little distraught in this picture! Patience child!

Hold on Claire, we have to light the candle!!!
We got special permission from the McDonald's manager to light her candle, as long as I promised not to burn down the joint.

oooOOOOoooo fire....



mmmm..... lip smackin' good!

Claire was fascinated by the cake's squishiness.

Yay Sugar high!!!

After McDonalds, we took the kids to the toy store to play for a little while.

Later on, Claire unwrapped her presents.

She loved playing with the paper and took the ribbon off and tried to put it on her head.
Isn't that what ribbon is for?

Now Claire has a zoo train to play with when Joshua is playing with his trains!

... and a wooden duck that flaps its wings!

Nana gave Claire a little toy microwave and some toy doughnuts.
Josh and Claire have been chewing on them ever since!
Hopefully they are lead free! haha :)

mmmmm.... PLASTIC DOUGHNUTS!

We also gave Claire a little Jack-in-the-Box, that plays "pop goes the .... " BEAR?
The idea behind the teddy bear was that it would a nice cuddly, soft, and furry alternative to the more frightening clown popping up, which is usually the norm.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

However, this turned out to be Claire's LEAST favorite birthday present.

Poor little girl. So sad.

Today Claire was still suspicious of the bear-in-a-box, but a little more daring.
She crawled over to it and touched the bear very tentatively, then tried to push it into the box and close the lid. After some assistance in closing the box, she touched the music crank and looked at me, so I started to turn the music box. I've never seen Claire move so fast AWAY from something! She crawled about 6 feet away (a safe distance I guess) and waited for the bear to pop up, then gasped with her eyes wide, looked at me and smiled a huge grin!
She did this about 4 times in a row.
So, I think she may be warming up to the bear.