Claire Turns 2

Claire's second birthday has come and gone. She grew up so fast. I know she's still little, but she has long since been a baby. I adore the little girl that she is, but it pains me how quickly the seasons of life change.
Claire was the most perfect angel of a baby. She has always had such a sweet nature. Now that she is a big girl, she's also getting a bit of sass. She is very sharp; she picks up on word usage and intonation very quickly. She speaks not only in full sentences, but in paragraphs. It is so funny to hear phrases like "that's hilarious", used correctly, coming out of her mouth.
She has a very active imagination and enjoys pretend play. For many months, she has often "talked" to Tessa when she is all alone. Usually, she is practicing being mean to Tessa, though it is normally the other way around when the two are together. When we are riding around town, I will hear her in her seat saying "NO, Tessa!" Once I heard her say, "I'm not a baby, Tessa! You the baby!" Another time, as Claire sat alone at the kitchen table, she pretended to feed an invisible Tessa some of her snack.
Claire's other favorite pretend-play antics include crawling around on the floor while making pitiful crying sounds and then calling out "I'm a baby". Or she will put some sort of bag on arm and tell me she's going shopping. "Hugs and kisses," she'll say, as she comes over to receive them before heading out on said adventure. Then she'll walk away, wait a few seconds, turn around and proclaim, "I'm home!" And then we have a joyful reunion before she heads off again.
Despite our best efforts to steer our children away from animals, Claire is an animal lover. She has a particular affinity for cats. She has a favorite cat that lives across the street, another at Mimi and Pop Pop's house, and yet another at Papa and Mema's. She's always excited to see them and always wants to know "where's kitty kitty?" She even has a couple of stuffed kitty kitties that she loves to tote around.

Claire has already taken to "helping" me in many tasks. I can rarely cook or bake anymore without her immediately dragging a chair over to the counter to help. She loves to dig her little fingers into all the ingredients to taste a pinch, a technique she learned from her big brothers. She's also at my side for any other projects I do during the day. 

Though she's starting to pick up on some really nasty mannerisms from her housemates, she is still such a tender little girl. She loves affection. Every afternoon the poor girl gets stuck in the car about an hour and a half as we go pick up the boys from school. She's very tired by that time each day and fusses quite a bit. Though, admittedly, it frustrates me to no end every day as she whines and carries on ALL the way to and fro, I can still recognize how perfectly sweet it is that she wants to hold my hand in the car and it will usually soothe her. She also enjoys holding hands with the boys, even when she doesn't need comfort.

Claire also recognizes when others are sad or hurt and is good about offering comfort. She will ask, "are you ok, buddy?" And she will give hugs.

One of Claire's favorite things to do is to go for rides on anything that can be driven for fun. Since Dad got a new lawnmower, she has taken a particular interest in lawnmowers, spotting them right away at stores. She loves to ride in his lap at any opportunity. 

Our neighbor's grandson swings by usually once a week to take her for a spin around the block in his dune buggy. There is a particular sound that we can hear inside our house when Carter is out driving and any time she hears what she even supposes to be the dune buggy, she excitedly goes to the window and says "Carter!" When she comes out, he always stops to pick her up.

Claire has a particular tenderness for babies. She adores them. She is so happy whenever she can get her hands on a baby, the littler the better. She holds them in her lap, so gently and close. 

Claire gave up her pacifier quite easily after her trip to the dentist. They suggested we get rid of it right away because of the effect it was having on her teeth, and though I knew it was what needed to be done, I wasn't ready. I miss her with a paci. Taking that away helped solidify her transition from baby to big girl. And though I am so pleased with the results it has had on her teeth, I long for the days when she would carry around one paci in her mouth and one on each fingertip. 

Claire is the queen of our castle, and right now, I don't think there's anyone who minds. Her brothers are still excited to see her when she wakes up in the morning. Often they rush to her room, trying to be the one who gets to get her out of her crib. They are so sweet to her, helping her when she needs help, reading to her, singing to her. And she equally adores them. She loves to play at Nathanael's side. She enjoys playing in the dirt and sand right along with him. And she is always happy to go eat lunch with "Boy" at school. 

Claire has her daddy wrapped around her finger. Before we ever had one, he used to claim he didn't know what he would do with a daughter, wouldn't know how to relate to one. He sure has figured it out awfully quickly. Claire is his shadow when he gets home. Dad has learned all of the Frozen songs, just for Claire. They sing them together every day. They love each other.

Claire has two men wrapped around her fingers. Her Papa is pretty smitten with her too, but the feeling is mutual. No weekend would be complete without a trip to Papa's house. Claire loves to cuddle with him and go outside with him.

Claire is a fun little girly-girl. She loves getting make-up on her eyes and lips. She often requests for her nails to be painted. She points out her clothing, "see my pretty shoes", "see my pretty dress". She loves to sing. Her favorite songs are Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Popping Popping, Follow the Prophet, Jingle Bells, and Teach Me to Walk in the Light. She loves reading and will sit to read a stack at a time. She loves to do stickers and color. She makes my heart well up with joy.

Fall Sports Finale

Since Sam first began playing sports, I have never been as pleased to see the end of a sports season come as I was this fall. Nathanael's season of soccer was not nearly as burdensome as Sam's football season. Soccer only occupied one hour on Saturday. Sam had football usually 2 times a week for close to 2 hours each time, and the days varied. I think the inconsistent schedule bothered me the most. It's just hard to get home from school, get homework done, dinner made and fed, and get to one of three football fields on time. It has been a whirlwind since August.
Sam played for the Saints. The team was undefeated for the season and even won the Super Bowl. They got to play the Super Bowl on a real football field at Southside Christian School. Sam really enjoyed the experience and is undecided (though leaning towards yes) about whether or not he will play next year.

Nathanael enjoyed playing soccer again for the same coach as last season. He also was happy to play with his buddies, Dallin and Henni. Max was also on the team, playing for his first season at the Y, but after two weeks, Max quit the team, announcing that his future is actually in golf. Nathanael played hard, but I'm not sure he is really committed to the sport.

Fantastic Fall Fun

Fall is my most favorite season. Unfortunately, it is somewhat hard to tell when fall begins and ends around here. One day it's 80 degrees and sunny, the next day it's snowing. Truly. Our first snow came on November 1st this year, while on Halloween night it was warm enough to trick-or-treat in short sleeves. This back and forth persists nearly until Christmas, leaving the kids' closets packed full of clothes suitable for hot or cold, testing the limits of the cheap wire shelving and causing the brackets to pull ever so slightly away from the wall. Oh, how I look forward to the day when I can finally pack away those shorts and tees.
This fall we enjoyed many of our traditional activities as well as a couple new ones. We always enjoy a trip to Sky Top orchard for apple picking, though I usually like to save the trip for a weekday closer to my birthday, when the leaves are more colorful, the temperatures are cooler, and the crowds are thinner. This year, however, we opted for a Saturday in early October so that we could go with friends. I will never, ever go to that place on a Saturday again. The temperatures were quite cool that day and it was an otherwise beautiful day, but the crowds were incredible! The first bad sign was when we got in a traffic jam about a half mile from the orchard, as people were having to wait for parking spots to become available. We actually opted to park across the street from the orchard, where some landowner was charging $5 to park. Never had to do that before! Our first stop was a cluster of picnic tables, crowded with other families, where we planned to eat a quick sandwich before looking for apples. I stayed at the table with Nathanael and Claire, while Paul went off to scout out where to buy apply cider donuts. I literally had my back turned to Nathanael for ten seconds, long enough to help Claire with a bite of her lunch, when he disappeared. I discovered he was gone just a few minutes before Paul came back over, but wasn't terribly concerned about it because I knew he was anxious to get over to the playground (right beside the picnic tables) and I assumed that's where he had headed. Paul came back and asked where Nathanael was. When I told him I had no idea, he wasn't very pleased. I stayed at the tables, in case he should wander back, and Paul went to look for him. After several minutes, he casually came back over and said he hadn't found him. We switched roles, and this time I took Sam with me to go look for him on the playground. I tried to have Sam go up inside each little playhouse while I scanned the perimeter, but Sam wasn't being very cooperative. Panic began to rise up inside of me the longer I went without finding him. There were so many people there! What were we going to do if we couldn't find him?! Thank goodness we wouldn't have to figure that out. After Paul took his second trip over to the playground, he found Nathanael hiding in the very first playhouse, the one I tried to get Sam to go inside to check. After that momentarily frightening start, our trip to the orchard was quite pleasant. Once we wandered back into the apple trees, we lost most of the crowd and were able to enjoy our day. Claire's favorite part was feeding the goats. The boys enjoyed finding apples and picking enough to fill their baskets.

Olympia works for March of Dimes, so this year the little girls participated in the WonderWalk at the zoo. They enjoyed a cool morning of cousin time and eating donuts. Some did not enjoy posing with props. The crowd here was pretty heavy also, and once again Claire's favorite activity was feeding the goats. She's such a little animal lover.

One afternoon, I got to go to Nathanael's class to be a Mystery Reader. Nathanael knew that one day I would come to his class to read, but he didn't know which time it would be my turn and he didn't know what book I would read. I picked Otis and the Scarecrow because it seemed seasonally appropriate. It was an ok book. I took them goody bags filled with pumpkin stickers, Halloween pencils, and pumpkin spice puppy chow. I really enjoyed dressing up and being able to participate in Nathanael's class. 

Mid-October the weather was beautiful. We took advantage of one lovely afternoon and went to the downtown airport park for some play time and to see some really cool WWII planes. We got to watch as a couple of them took off and landed. Later that night, Paul set up our tent in the backyard and the kids enjoyed watching a movie outside and later Sam even went to bed out there. We brought him inside after he was asleep. 

 Nathanael spent much of the month guilting me about getting a pumpkin. He claimed to be the only kid in his class who didn't have a pumpkin. So we decided to take a trip to pick out some pumpkins one evening. However, upon realizing that a decent sized pumpkin for carving at this "for charity" operation would cost more than I'd pay for a nice outfit, we opted for some small pumpkins the kids could just paint. And then we took some awkward family photos to prove that we have been there. We promised Nathanael we'd get a real pumpkin later and he reminded me of it every day until I made good.

For the first time in a number of years, we participated in our ward trunk-or-treat. The Ludwigs were our guests. Though as crowded as expected, the kids at least had a good time and brought home some good candy for us to eat. 

Finally, Halloween day arrived. After school we did our traditional grocery store trick-or-treating, first at Food Lion and then Publix. They always have the best goodies for the kids and Publix even does games. The best scores this year were hardcover children's books the kids got to pick and chocolate covered apples (we actually didn't even end up eating these because of all the other candy we had amassed, but it was still pretty exciting to get them).
After dinner, and a costume change for both boys who were tired of being Mario and Luigi (instead Nathanael wore part of a ninja costume and Sam just wore his football uniform minus his pads and helmet....they hardly looked dressed up at all), we hit about 6 streets in the neighborhood, until the boys were tired of walking and were pleased enough with their haul. Claire was probably the most excited one of the bunch to be out trick-or-treating! She caught on quick. She ran up to each door, trailing her brothers, and excitedly proclaimed "I got some!" while holding up her bag as she came back down each driveway. When we got back to the house, I did something very unlike myself: I allowed them to gorge on their candy until they felt sick.

The next morning we awoke to a light dusting of snow on the ground and more coming down. It was pretty and exciting for the short while that it lasted. It was as if it was bringing in the holiday season, my REAL favorite time of the year!