Mark's Wedding

Jeremy and I were able to attend the sealing of a dear friend of ours. Most of my friends know him as "Little Marky." I am so excited for him and Nylia. It was a beautiful ceremony. I left with that newly married feeling myself. I am so grateful I have Jeremy for a husband and want desperately to be the best wife and mother I can be. This life really is all about families and their ability to help each other make it back to our Father in Heaven. Thanks Mark and Nylia for inviting us to be a part of your special day. We felt honored.Here are some other random happenings for the week:

Clara was sitting on my lap this week. She turned her head up to look at me and said, "Love you Mom," without any prompting on my part. It melted my heart.
I then replied, "Love you too, Clara." Clara thought that was funny for me to add the "too" on there. So now she says, "Love you too" all the time, even if no one said 'I love you' first.

Clara was playing with her Little People during sacrament meeting. She was having her Little People lay face down on the bench while she was making chomping noises. Clara then turned to me and said, "Girl eating bread. Yummy bread." I love how her little imagination is taking off.

Firsts

We had our first snow fall of the year this week. Most other neighboring towns had their first snow fall a few weeks ago, but for some reason it never snowed at our house until this week. All day long, Clara kept wanting to make a snowman. She was so sad when she discovered there just wasn't enough snow to build one. She sure had fun tromping through the snow though!Clara received some new bows for her hair. As soon as she saw them, she had to wear all 4 new ones at once. I'm glad she likes them so much!
Another first for this week is a new recipe. I love homemade soups. With the cold weather, I figured I should try out a new soup recipe. Jeremy loved it, which is a big success as far as soups go. So if you are wanting to try a yummy warm meal, here's the recipe:

Sausage & Spinach Soup

5 Tbs unsalted butter
1/4 lb fresh mushrooms, washed, dried, trimmed, and diced
1 scallion, chopped
5 Tbs all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
black pepper (preferably freshly ground)
ground nutmeg (optional)
1/4 lb cream cheese, softened and cut into cubes
1 cup grated Swiss cheese
3/4 lb fresh spinach, washed, trimmed, cooked, and chopped
1/2 lb Italian sausage, cooked and crumbled

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. In it slowly sauté the mushrooms and scallion until tender. Add flour and stir just until flour is cooked, a couple of minutes. Whisk in first chicken broth and then milk, stirring until thickened. Add salt if desired, pepper, nutmeg if desired, cream cheese, and swiss cheese; stir until melted. Then stir in spinach and sausage. Heat and stir very gently. Season to taste. Serve hot.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Clara loves to wear hats. We got a few cute pictures of her trying some on this week. I've posted them for your viewing pleasure. :)

StarFall

Clara loves the website starfall.com. That is where she learned her ABC's. We now do a lot more than just look at the letters. Tonight we found this: http://www.starfall.com/n/puzzle-shapes/baby/load.htm?f. When we did it, I had to laugh at Clara's reactions.

I will try to explain Clara's reactions so that you don't have to follow the link if you don't want to.

So as we were watching this page, Clara said, "Baby clean." The baby's face never gets cleaned, so she got mad when it was over and the baby wasn't clean. Clara still loved it, so we watched it again (she requested that we did.) The next time we watched it, she got mad that the baby isn't using a fork. She said, "Mom baby fork hiding? Find it." She got mad at me for not finding the baby's fork! (And yes, she still mentioned that the baby needed to be cleaned.)

The third time we watched it, Clara could predict what was coming. Notice that it says, "The baby wants to eat." When I asked her what was next she said, "Baby tummy hungry."

I'm amazed that Clara can use alternative words already. This isn't the first time she has done that. She tells me something and if I don't understand she is smart enough to tell me using different words. For example, we were visiting a relative's house. So I was talking to the mom and Clara had been playing with the other kids in a different room. Clara left them to come and talk to me for a few minutes. As she was leaving me she said, "Play kids, Mom." I didn't understand the word 'kids.' I always repeat back to her what she says, so when I said it incorrectly, Clara thought for a few seconds then said, "Play friends Mom." I understood that one and was so proud of her to recognize how to use different words to mean the same thing.

Temple

Clara was having issues when I was trying to do her hair for church. So I dumped all her rubber bands out. She had a blast playing with them and let me do her hair without any more tantrums! Cute story: We decided to take Clara to the temple grounds yesterday. She was so sad when we showed up and she couldn't go inside. So we distracted her by asking her what color the temple was etc. She then was talking about the temple like crazy. She would say things like, "Big temple," and "white temple." Out of the blue she then said, "Happy temple." I was so impressed that she could tell the temple was a happy place even if she couldn't go inside. It melted my heart for her to recognize that without me talking to her about it.