13 Weeks with Clara

Sorry! Can't make this slide show go in the right order...so it looks like she's shrinking rather than growing!! :)

Our little Clara Marie is 3 months old this week! She is becoming more fun by the minute, too. James is just loving her and calls her 'precious'...which usually sounds like 'pweshus'...."Hi, pweshus...calm down, pweshus". I just know she'll always adore him. She's blowing bubbles and 'raspberries' with her cute little lips, too. Clara LOVES any face to face interaction she can get and smiles SO big when we get her first thing in the morning (as well as the middle of the night, when I go to feed her). We're so thankful for Clara!

Cheers, Buddy!

Mark took James outside Saturday afternoon to build a snowman. James was most excited about the carrot nose. My favorite part was that he was wearing trash bags on his feet. So cute! Needless to say, he doesn't have any snow boots.

Our snowman is a "Cowboy" Snowman.

Whenever Mark and James come in from playing in the snow (twice now) Mark makes them hot chocolate, or in James' case "lukewarm" chocolate. This time James lifted his glass and initiated a 'cheers' by saying, "Cheers, Buddy!" It was pretty sweet.

And just because she's 13 weeks today, I'll throw in a picture of Clara! Sometimes James calls her 'precious', which is also pretty sweet. Can't believe how quickly she's growing! Look at those little rolls! :)

Indoor Snow Play

I can't take credit for this activity...but just had to share it because we had so much fun! I was blog-surfing during naptime trying to come up with a fun 'project' when I came across this idea; bring the snow inside! Because I have an infant, I haven't been willing to bundle all three of us up to head outdoors but had been sad that James couldn't play in the snow. So I got out a thick beach towel, a few bowls, some of his toys, and went outside to scoop snow.

first thing, James began dumping every single toy into the snow pile

I made a snowman which he immediately claimed...and attempted to eat

his little fingers were absolutely freezing but he never complained once!

I used a small tupperware to make snow 'bricks' we could stack

James thought they were the perfect pedestals for his cars...of course!
I also packed a few of his figurines in the middle of his snow bricks to dig out and then got out the hair dryer to watch snow melt.

I saved the snow ice cream for last. (don't worry, I used 'clean' snow :) I used a bowl of un-played-with snow and added milk, sugar, and vanilla. James was in love! I thought it tasted pretty good, too, until he began to add chunks of played-with snow. I stopped eating it after that...but James slurped it all down! At one point he exclaimed, "Jackson, Sarah, Levi, Jason like this special!" He was wishing he could share this "special" activity with some of his cousins! If the snow lingers a few more days, we might have to do this again. We spent ONE HOUR playing with snow and it was FREE and clean up consisted of picking up a saturated beach towel. Can't beat that! I'd recommend this one for anybody with a toddler! :)
P.S. I have no idea what happened to his pants in that last picture...seriously!

December to January

Somebody asked me the other day what I've been up to the past few weeks....what on Earth is keeping me so busy? These two kiddos have literally kept my hands full. In the past month we had five Christmas celebrations, James had his first stomach flu experience, I had a 24-hour bug, James fractured his foot, and we've all been battling a yucky cold bug for weeks! In addition to that, Clara is more and more alert every week. This is a LOT of fun for us but also makes it more difficult as I'm learning how to delegate my time between two children!

Here are several pictures from the past month....

James is obsessed with 'helping' in the kitchen. I'm learning to be more flexible and he's learning a lot about cooking! He loves to say " raw chicken! need salt! very hot! be careful!" Here he was helping my mom and me make ham sandwiches for my grandmother's birthday party. His job was to peel off the wax paper between the swiss slices and throw it away. He was listening to silly songs while he worked. :)

James has painted a few times. He likes to use the brush but refuses to finger paint. It sort of surprised me! He did, however, desperately want squeeze the paint out of the bottle by himself...am I a bad mother for not letting him?

We celebrated Christmas with Mark's family first. Here is my dear mother-in-law. We have been following her through quite the journey lately! Less than a week ago, Lois had major surgery to remove cancer from her right lung. She has been so brave and strong. The surgery was successful but there is still quite a bit of recovery to deal with. Please pray for her as she is recovering and still in the hospital.

Our annual hand bell and caroling at the nursing home

After getting his cool blue cast on, we had to keep James off his feet for a few days. Here he had fun making gingerbread cookies with my parents a few days before Christmas.

My grandmother turned 80 on Christmas Day. We had quite the party to celebrate the day after!

James and Clara with their cousin Annie, my brother's daughter. James had fun playing with Annie!...perhaps too much fun? He passed his cold on to her. :(

This was the best we could do for a Christmas picture of our family. Kind of pitiful, huh? It is very typical, though. James is nearly always checking on Clara, touching Clara, hugging Clara, poking Clara....and she just tries to take it all in.

My extended family...grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...the works!

The week following Christmas my girlfriend Amy was available one afternoon before heading home so a few of us got together. As you can see from the picture, we all have kids and are all busy mamas now! It was great to catch up a little!

10 weeks old

11 weeks

How We Feel....

We've had a lot of these moments lately....James had his first tummy sickness a week ago, followed by myself a few days after. Then over the weekend while celebrating Christmas with Mark's family James fractured a bone in his foot when he fell off a chair! I feel like I'm going crazy (almost) keeping James off his feet so the swelling will go down and he can get a permanent cast. Hopefully today that will happen! On a side note, don't you love the hair bow on Clara? Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa! We had a wonderful time with Mark's family and everybody was SO helpful with both of the kids!

James in his temporary splint/wrap thing. He has taken it off several times on his own because he doesn't like it!

Christmas Deer & Thanksgiving Catch-Up

We've been a family of four for six weeks now...time is flying, as always. Can't believe our little girly is smiling already! We've noticed a big change in her in the past week, as she's awake and alert for longer periods of time and has introduced a consistent 'fussy time' every evening. However, the trade off is that she's sleeping a 7 or 8 hour stretch at night! Woo-hoo!
Clara's six week picture.

The highlight of James' Thanksgiving had to be receiving his Christmas deer from Great-Grandma and Great-Papa. You should have seen him jumping and shouting with glee! It was so cute.
As I type, Clara is waking up from a little nap, so I'll have to neglect captions for the rest of these...enjoy!

Clara, 9 Days Old

http://www.sorellimages.com/claranewborn/

Click on the link above to see a slide show of pictures our friend Sarah Sorell took of Clara. These were taken when she was just 9 days old! I can't believe she is now one month. I'll post some of her one-month pictures (not nearly as exciting or professional) later this week!