Claire and Her Camera

Claire's imagination is at work again. Just call her Paparazzi Claire. She found a piece of cardboard, folded it, and voila - a camera!

On the crawl

She follows us all over the house, up and down the hall, into the rooms, and into everything!

Comfy and cozy

Once in a while you catch a moment when they're all quiet, when they're not jumping and hitting and yelling and fighting, when they're happy to be brother and sister. But just for a moment...

Happy Birthday #5

We attempted a train cake. I stole the design from my friend who made one just last October for her son's third birthday. Thanks Heidi! (Hers was way cuter but I think ours turned out ok)

Grandma E finished the quilt she was making for Emma's birthday in December.

This is the quilt that Grandma E made for Paul's birthday. Cool!

Presents were one of the highlights as always.

Fun Organization

I have been tired of the clutter in our office. And instead of actually tackling the mess, I've been thinking up cute ways to organize. I'll get to throwing things away and filing, this is just more fun right now.

A while ago, Emma made these beautiful feather flower creations. I think they look so...what?...so sweet, soft, peaceful, beautiful...you get the picture. They were in the clutter and I finally decided to make frames for them so I could look at them every day. Then I realized that I don't have a 2011 calendar for my office. I saw this cute idea in some magazine (I'll look it up) where they framed the calendar to make it cute, and left the glass off to make it functional. So I fashioned my own calendar. Each month, I'll just change out the month in the clip. Fun, I know! I'm going to add some little plaque type something or other in between the top frame and the calendar that says remember or something. And maybe something on the right side above the feather flowers. (Any thoughts?) It looks cute, but there's still quite a bit of clutter in the office. Tomorrow, right?

And I'm finally using this cute little creation that my friend gave me last spring. I know!

Tim McGraw

We've been listening to a lot of Tim McGraw's new song Felt Good on My Lips. Claire was watching the music video on You tube, rocking out in the computer chair (in our messy office...I know!)

One of the eight tiny reindeer...

Lainey in her nice, warm reindeer suit. It has been so painfully cold lately. She's making kind of a funny face, but she's just really happy.

"I got a dollar! I got a dollar!

"I got a dollar, hey, hey, hey, hey!" (that's for any of you Little Rascal fans)

Emma lost her first tooth. We're glad it's out. Simple things like losing a tooth can become quite the ordeal around here let me tell you. It's one of the bottom front teeth; this is the best smile I could get out of her.

Name that tune

My sister Shelly led us in a game of name that tune this evening. She went between the Hymn book, Children's songbook, and Disney songs. It was fun away from the TV for a little while. The kids really liked the music too.

I told Shelly that had we lived in Jane Austen's day, I would have done a poetry reading and she would have regaled us on the piano forte.

Lainey: no stopping her now

Bet you thought I was done with blog posts since I've done it for the past year... I just couldn't give it up! Here's today's...

7 months and she's already pulling herself up. There's no keeping her down. She loves to stand...and I think she looks pretty happy doing it too.