Thanksgiving

Jeremy and I drove to Rexburg for Thanksgiving weekend. Before we left, I attempted to make Clara some bows. When we brought those other bows home for her and she loved them so much, I though, "Why not make some myself?" So I finally found the clips at Sally's Beauty Supply. (Thanks for the tip Keri!) And was very excited to come home and start making them. The first 2 took me about an hour to do as I was trying to figure them out. But then the other ones only took me about 15 minutes for each pair. Thanksgiving was a wonderful break. I brought our camera, but failed to take any pictures. Clara was the only kid there, so it's a little awkward taking pictures of just adults... Oh well. We were able to play LOTS of games. I never got tired of those. Luckily, Jeremy had just a little bit of homework, so he was able to play with us most of the vacation. That was something Clara and I weren't used to, and we both enjoyed getting to spend so much quality time with Jeremy.

On our way home from Rexburg, some friends of ours called and asked if we wanted 2 tickets to the BYU vs Utah game. We jumped on those and drove straight to the game. Clara had never been to a football game before. The first time the crowd erupted, Clara started crying. I figured that once we got into our seats, she would calm down. She didn't. She buried her face into my chest and held on to me for dear life. She cried for about the first 10 minutes we were there. I wasn't about to leave the game for her, nor did I wanted her in constant fear for 3 - 4 hours. So I was trying my best to get her to calm down. I showed her the big TV (both of them.) I tried explaining to her that the people weren't yelling, they were clapping and saying, "Woohoo!" I finally remembered how much she loves for people to run fast. So I told her that there were people down on the grass that were going to run fast. She finally unburied her head long enough to watch them run fast. The crying stopped, but the uncertainty was still there. It wasn't too long after she started watching that a punt took place. As the players got into position, I told Clara that they were going to kick the ball. Finally, she got excited and loosened her death grip. After the punt, she clapped with the crowd, and the fear was gone. Thank goodness! We were then able to enjoy the rest of the game. Thanks Michael and Colette for the tickets! Here is a picture of her clapping, and as you can tell, she was still a little nervous in this picture.Yesterday we had some great friends be willing to spend about an hour with us at 2 different locations to take family pictures. Thank-you so much Aubs and Aaron! Jeremy and I spent hours looking at all the pictures and can't decide which picture to get printed. He has his favorite and I have mine. I told him that since we couldn't agree, I would post some options on our blog and let our viewers help decide. So please vote for your favorite family picture below. Choose wisely since the one you pick will be our family picture on our blog for a year! Which is your favorite, #1, #2, #3, #4, or #5?

Picture #1

Picture #2

Picture #3

Picture #4

Picture #5

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.

Halloween

What a weekend. Clara ended up loving trick or treating. I tried to get her to say trick or treat through out the day so that she could say it that night. She wasn't very interested at all. However, at the ward Halloween trunk or treat, she realized that if she said it, she would get candy. She loved carrying her bucket around and saying "tick treat." After the ward Halloween party, we drove up to Taylorsville to visit Grandma and Grandpa. We were discussing something and Jeremy said "trick or treat" somewhere in our conversation. Clara started clapping and saying, "yay," really loudly. The one downfall is that she didn't like having to carry her bucket too far. We were lucky enough that she would pass it off to us. However, a few times, we weren't paying attention and she just left it on someone's lawn as we passed by. But as soon as she saw us heading for a door, she would grab her bucket again, put it on the door step and wait patently until she could say "tick treat."

So now on to all the pictures. I always take way more pictures than necessary, and then I have a hard time narrowing it down. So even though it might not seem like it, I really did put just a few on compared to all the ones we took (there were over 50.)

We colored our pumpkin on Friday this year. I kept trying to wait for a time that Jeremy could be home to do it with us, but it never worked out. Clara LOVED getting to color her pumpkin. She kept hugging and kissing it after we put it on our door step. Silly girl.Jeremy decided to dress up as Mario again this year (mainly because we were too lazy to come up with a different costume.) When he got his hat out, Clara had to wear it. (She loves to wear her Daddy's hats.) So during the day, Clara was baby Mario. For trick or treating though, she wore her costume from last year too. But it seemed to fit her a lot better this year.All her Beck cousins came to Grandma and Grandpa's too. So I was able to get all the families and their costumes. I loved Pooh, and he loved his Piglet! And Clara especially loved Elmo. She kept trying to touch Elmo and follow him around.