Sunday, October 26, 2008

Breakfast

Claira is quickly gaining publicity at our house for being a waffle snatcher so she gets her own now.



Elsie was amazed that Claira's waffle matched hers.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Reunited

The last time I remember seeing Teddy is when we went to Missouri in July for Eric and Randi's Wedding. He's been MIA since then, and we've heard about him daily. Whenever Elsie is tired, fussy, doesn't want to go to bed, hears thunder, gets hurt, wants to snuggle, she wants Teddy. We've searched our house from top to bottom with no luck. After 3 months of listening to her sad little voice say, "I want teddy. I miss Teddy." everyday, I ordered two new teddies as replacements. The bear originally came with the Teddy Bear Nursery from Little Tikes, and I can reorder it as an extra part from their website, but there was no picture. Naturally, I started to worry that they may have changed the style of bear or color of ribbon or something since we bought the nursery two years ago.

Well, they arrived in the mail today, and I was happy to open a box to some familiar faces. The package came while I was in the middle of doing a load of laundry, which means the girls were playing in the playroom so I had the perfect opportunity to open the box and stash teddy somewhere for her to find him. I stashed the extra teddy in a box on the shelf in our closet for safekeeping, and put the other teddy under Elsie's bed. Then, I went downstairs, finished my load of laundry, and brought the girls back up. Elsie was playing with her bunny rabbit, so I asked her if she'd seen Teddy lately? She said, "No, I miss him though," and I suggested she look for him. She wanted to know where so I told her to look behind the rocking chair, in her toybox, and finally underneath our beds.

I found Teddy!



She was literally jumping up and down while squeezing Teddy with all the strength she could muster. Almost immediately, she said, "Teddy, I'm taking dance class now!" She spent the afternoon showing him all of her new moves, and giving him more hugs. One thing's certain, this is one well-loved bear.


Thursday, October 23, 2008

Elsieisms

Elsie calls crumbs "seeds." So far this week, we've cleaned up cheerio seeds, cracker seeds, cookie seeds, and waffle seeds.

Last week, we were about halfway home from dance class when Elsie asked from the backseat, "Mommy, are you sure this is the way home?"

She's really into taking care of Claira right now. A few days ago, I was holding Claira while she was fussing, and Elsie walked over to us, pulled Big Bird out of her pocket, and said, "Here you go, Claira. I was saving Big Bird in my pocket for you just in case you needed it."

Last night, we were getting ready for church. Elsie and Claira were sitting at my feet while I was brushing Elsie's hair. She told Claira, "I'm going to miss you when I go to class, Claira, but you'll be okay. Just stay with Mommy and Daddy and listen to what they say. They know what to talk about." I think she meant to say, "they know what they're talking about," but who knows. She cracks me up.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Pumpkin Patch

We went to Goebbert's today with a large group of friends from church. It was a lot of fun aside from one detail. It was 80 degrees. In October. We were sweating. That didn't slow Elsie down though...she was on the move!



Elsie looking at the llamas. Last year, she spent a LOT of time letting them eat from her hand. This year she did it once, and it freaked her out. About two seconds after this photo was taken, a llama walked over to her, she FREAKED, and I was trying to juggle the camera and trying to get to her before she fell. Luckily, we had lots of friends with us and Danette rescued her!



Claira's funny face


Goebbert's




Breanna, Elsie, and Riley in the corn stalk maze



Elsie during a (rare) still moment

We have to drive about 45 minutes to this pumpkin patch, but it's well worth the drive. We went for the first time last year, and it was cool they had a lot of cutouts for the kids to enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised that they seem to keep up with what's popular because this year they had a bunch of new ones: Arthur, the Little Einsteins, the Backyardigans, and Disney Princesses. There's lots of climbing toys too like a play train, bus, and ship. Needless to say, we had to try all of them out.




Most importantly, there are pumpkins! And lots of them!







Confession: I totally forced them to put jackets on before we left for these pictures...they were entirely not necessary, but I wanted it to look like we visited during October instead of July!


Thursday, October 9, 2008

Elsieisms

Today, Elsie came to me and held up her hands in front of her. "Mommy, have you ever seen this move?" she asked. Puzzled, I shook my head no. "Well, I did for the very first time today," she responded. She walked away repeating it to herself and moving her hands...at first, I didn't know if she was talking about one of her "tricks," but I really think she was just talking about the plain and simple movement of her hand. Silly girl.

Last night, all 4 of us were in the kitchen. Claira was eating a snack in her highchair, and Elsie was entertaining her. Then, Elsie got up to leave the room and told Claira, "Come see me if you need anything. My door is always open."

This month is Pastor Appreciation Month. On Monday, we made dinner and delivered it to our Pastors. I had bought them flowers and a card, and I asked Elsie if she wanted to color on the card. She did, and quickly began to fill the card up with circles (her specialty). As she colored, she said, "I sure hope Pastors like circles."

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Bargain High

Jason's grandparents, Grandma Rose and Papa Russ along with Grandma and Papa Lamers, sent me money for my birthday a couple of weeks ago...I hadn't used it on anything yet, but tonight I was shopping at Target and this caught my eye...



I am so absolutely excited about it! It's a bedding set, and it's complete! I know, I know...what's all the excitement about? We purchased our bed and mattress shortly after we married, but I've never bought a totally new bedding set. Actually, the bedding that we've been using since we married belonged to Jason's parents at one time (thank you for it!) Seriously though, bedding is expensive. I've found a lot of sets that I loved over the last few years, but they've also been quite expensive. So, when I spotted this at Target with a clearance tag that read $24.86, I HAD to have it, especially since it came with EVERYTHING: a comforter, flat sheet, fitted sheet, bed skirt, two shams, and two pillowcases. The next aisle over, I found those two throw pillows for $3.24 a piece. YAY! Anyway, I'm thrilled, and I can't wait to sleep tonight! Thank you to all of our grandparents for the birthday cash that enabled this purchase...I REALLY appreciate it!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

27 days until...



I finished taking the pictures for her invitations this morning, and already sent them off to be printed...aren't they sweet? I LOVE them! We're having a ladybug party, if you can't tell!

I can hardly even believe that my baby is 11 months old now and will soon be one. She is growing (nearly 24 pounds now!) and changing everyday, and I find myself wishing for time to slow down so I can enjoy more of her just the way she is today...she's just full of giggles. She cut three teeth this month, and she's eating more table foods...like carrots:

and waffles:



She's crawling faster everyday, and pulling up and cruising on just about everything. Her favorite color must be yellow because she is drawn to things that are yellow...her favorite things to carry around are some plastic corn from Elsie's play kitchen, a yellow "cookie" shape from a fisher price puzzle, Big Bird, and bath books. She definitely has a preference for the color, which amazes me. I remember how hard I tried to make Elsie attach herself to a lovey with no luck at all...I leave Claira to her own devices, and she picks plastic corn! It makes for fun conversation with the cashiers when we're out shopping though. Luckily, we haven't lost it yet. She also loves to take baths...I had started the water for my shower earlier today when she came crawling into the bathroom. I scooped her up, and she was so excited--thought the water was for her! I can remember how much joy Elsie brought to our lives when she joined our family, and it's hard to imagine another child being able to add to that, but Claira definitely has added joy to our household. She and Elsie are great buddies, and I love to watch them play together.

Claira and her corn:



Claira at 11 months:




Happy 11 months, sweet girl!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

You can't eat dough, it's not good for you

I'm stingy with the play-doh. I don't mean to be, but I can count on one hand the number of times Elsie has played with it. Before today, all of those times took place before Claira was born. In my ongoing effort to be the most super cool mommy ever, I agreed to plah-doh today. Claira went down for a nap, I dusted off the jars of doh (literally---this is not an attempt to be funny). and we settled in at the kitchen table making penguin eating sharks that were later turned into spaghetti.

That was about 3 hours ago. Before I knew it, an hour and a half had past and Claira was waking up. She got a diaper change, I nursed her for a few minutes, and then we set her in her highchair for some cheerios. Of course, it didn't take long for her to want down. After that, it didn't take long for her to try and get her hands on the play doh.





She must be using a lot of effort to make that spaghetti!





Claira's making her move!


Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Playtime!

The girls have been playing together a lot the last couple of days...and not just fighting over toys either. Our living room and kitchen are separated by a wall with a doorway on each side, which makes it great for running in circles. Elsie will run through the kitchen, back into the living room, shout BLAST OFF!, and be on her way again while Claira bursts into a fit of giggles and trying to climb up whatever is in front of her from the excitement...it must give her an adrenaline rush to see Elsie running through the room. They crack me up. Anyway, they were playing together nicely today so I snapped a few pictures of them.