Merry Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we all painted ornaments.  Clara thought that was the best idea ever.

Here are the ones Clara painted:

 Here are all the ornaments that got painted that day:

We had a wonderful Christmas at home this year.  It was just our family, and I loved getting to spend so much time with my little ones on Christmas.  Here are some pictures from Christmas morning:

Here is a picture of Joseph and I before church the Sunday following Christmas.  I think he looks dashing in his new outfit.

And finally, my kids being so cute as we were trying to leave for Rexburg.  (We headed up there the day after Christmas to spend some time with my mom, my sister Rachael, and her family.)

I love how how much my kids love each other.

Holiday Festivities

We were able to attend Clara's school Christmas Program this week.  I loved seeing all the Kindergarteners trying their hardest to remember all the words.  Clara sang White Christmas and a song I had never heard before about Santa's red suit.

We also had our ward Christmas party.  Santa came and I must say that I'm slightly disappointed.  I love the crying Santa pictures, and Joe really didn't do too bad this time.

We also had some friends over this week and decided to make a snowman pizza.  I think it turned out super cute.

I went outside to shovel some snow that we got and Clara wanted to shovel for me. She did the entire driveway all by herself!

Joseph found Clara's old backpack this week.  He asks to wear it all the time.

And here are some other pictures I took this week that I really like:

Fun Pictures

On Monday this week, we were able to get together with the extended Beck family and make gingerbread houses.  Clara spent such a long time on hers, and she was so proud of it.

When we went grocery shopping for the week, we overheard that Santa was there.  Since the line was super short, we got our first picture of the season with Santa.

Am I evil for LOVING pictures of my kids screaming with Santa?

My sister-in-law Kamee made these super cute hats for both of my kids.  I'm so glad that Clara loves hers and pretty much hasn't stopped wearing it since she got it.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Clara's first day day of Thanksgiving Break was also a free day at our zoo.  So we invited our neighbors and had a wonderful day.  Joe just stared at most of the animals, but the girls kept running from one thing to the next.  We saw the entire zoo in about an hour!

The girls also wanted a picture at every photo opportunity.  So we have lots of pictures of statues, but very few of actual animals. 

I was trying to get both Joe and Clara in a cute photo, but Joseph was too interested in looking at things to stop for a photo.  This is Clara trying to stay by little brother, but still have the rhino in the picture!

Why is it that the best part of the zoo is the sphere being held up by water?  All the kids were pretty wet by the time we left to go home.

Thanksgiving Day we had our neighbors over for dinner.  (The same neighbors that went to the zoo with us.)  We had so much fun getting to know them better.  I love that Clara has such a good friend right next door to us!  I don't love that I didn't take a single picture all day long.

The day after Thanksgiving, we were able to see the movie Frozen with Jeremy's sister and her family.  We haven't had any one on one time with her new husband and step children.  I loved getting to visit with them after the movie and get to know her family better.

Also the day after Thanksgiving, we put our Christmas tree.  Clara was so excited to decorate it that she was in our room at 6:45 am waking me up by asking me if it was time to decorate the tree.  Oh how I love that Clara thinks Christmas is so magical. 

We ended the weekend by visiting Temple Square to see the lights. 

There were a ton of people there, so we felt a little claustrophobic trying to maneuver at two man stroller through such a crowd.  But we did it.  And we even saw some friends of ours who were dating and married around the same time Jeremy and I were!  It was so wonderful to see you Steve and Angie Hansen along with Darren and LaChelle Hansen and all your beautiful Children.  Sorry I didn't get any pictures of you!

And I have to add this last picture.  Joseph loves Jeremy!  He'll cry anytime Dad leaves him.  This was taken Sunday morning after Jeremy got back from his early morning meeting.  As soon as Joseph heard the garage door open, he ran as fast as he could to his dad.  He then pleasantly sat on Jeremy's lap until it was time to go to church.

That was our Thanksgiving Weekend.  How was yours?

Grandparent's Day

Yesterday at school, Clara celebrated Grandparent's Day.  None of her Grandparents could make it, so I thought I could catch them up here.  First we got to watch all the kindergarten classes sing 2 songs.  Here is just a small sampling of one of the songs.

Next we headed to her classroom for cookies and things.  Clara read a book that she made about a pilgrim hunting a turkey.  Here is a picture of Clara holding the picture she drew of her and her grandparents.

We then got to go over some questions so Clara could get to know her grandparents better.  Since you guys didn't get to be there, I was wondering if you would either comment on my blog your answers, or email them to me if you don't want everyone else reading about you.  I'll then go over them with Clara so she can know each grandparent better.

Here are the questions from Grandparent's Day:
1. When were you born and how old are you now?
2. Where did you live when you were little (Kindergarten age)?
3. What was different about your house than the ones we live in now?
4. Are there things we use now that we didn't have then?
5. Did you have any pets?
6. What were they and tell me about your favorite one.
7. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
8. Did you like school?
9. Who was your favorite teacher and why?
10.  Were you a good student?
11. What was your favorite subject?
12. What games did you play at recess?
13. How did you dress?
14. How did you get to school?
15. What was your favorite food?
16. What was the first thing you learned how to cook?
17.  What did you want to be when you grew up?
18. What was my mom/dad like when they were my age?
19. Can you tell me a funny story about my mom/dad?
20. What makes you proud about my mom/dad?
21. Is there anything special you want to tell me about what you think about me or things you hope for me?

Fun and Relaxation

Clara and I put together a Little People town in our toy room.  I'm trying to do better at spending more quality time with my kids and even letting them pick the activity.  So Clara picked Little People.  I loved making up stories with her to act out.

 Now that Joseph is walking, he is seeming so grown up.  He follows Clara around and wants to do everything she does.  Luckily, she doesn't mind most of the time.

And as we were finishing up dinner the other night, Joe decided to relax by putting his foot up on the table.  As I came over, I had to laugh at his little belly hanging out too.

All About Joseph

He's walking!  We've been excitedly waiting for this day for quite a while now and are thrilled to announce that he is officially walking.

Joseph has also started putting cloths on his head.  Because we laughed the first time he did this, he now thinks he is the funniest person ever.

Joseph also got to go play in the snow for the first time.  There wasn't a lot of snow, but since Clara was so excited to go play in some snow, we took Joe with us.  He loved being outside and just kept giggling.  Here is a picture of our first snow man of the year.  Since there wasn't a ton of snow, we have a baby snowman.

And lastly, some pictures of him walking.  I love how happy he is in the first picture and how much he's concentrating in the second picture.

Poor Joe and Happy Clara

During our grocery store visit Monday morning, Joseph fell asleep in the shopping cart!

2 days later, I discovered a rash all over his torso.  Come to find out, he's been so sleepy due to a virus he's been struggling to overcome.  His poor little body was having such a hard time fighting it that he broke out it in a terrible rash.  Since it was just a virus, there was nothing the dr could to for him.  I felt so bad for my poor little guy.

Clara had a 1950's party at school to celebrate the 50th day of school.  I made her this scarf to wear so she could be dressed up as a girl from the 50's.  She had such a fun day at school learning "new" dances called the mashed potato, twist, and the swim.  She thought they were all hilarious and hasn't stopped doing any of them since.

Happy Halloween

Here are the pictures of my Fairy Princess and Circus Monkey:

We started the day bright and early with a little girl who was so excited to wear her costume to school and be in a costume parade.  She was ready to go an hour and a half before it was time to leave.

I sent her off to school and then drove Joseph and I to the school 10 min later.  I was glad I got there early because I had to park a few blocks away and then walk to the school.  It was crowded with beaming parents and students!  But I loved getting to go to my first school costume parade.

After school, we got to drive up to Jeremy's work where they were having a trick or treat.  It's always fun to see where Daddy works and meet who he works with.  Clara was fascinated by the fog machine they had outside the building.

We then came home and got to go trick or treating with Clara's best friend and the friend's mom.  The adults had fun walking from house to house visiting while the kids were running from door to door.  Clara not only always said "Thank-you" to everyone who gave her things, but she also wished them a Happy Halloween as she ran away.

After trick-or-treating around our neighborhood, we headed to a Halloween Block Party.  I love that we have such friendly neighbors who like getting together to just visit and meet new people.

I think we celebrated Halloween this  year more than any other year.  Usually it seems to be a holiday that just goes by.  I'm glad we had so many fun things to do this year.

Halloween is Coming

We were able to talk Clara into coloring the pumpkin instead of carving it.  We let her decorate it all by herself and we let Joe think he was helping.

 The finished project:

First Steps

Joseph recently took his first few steps.  He's still only taking steps when being coerced by his parents, but he is willing to walk behind a box all day.

Update

For this week's blog post, I wanted to give a brief update of my sister Rachael.  She starts her chemotherapy tomorrow.  She'll have 6 treatments that she will receive every 3 weeks.  They were able to catch the cancer as early as possible, so she is expected to make a full recovery!

Clara's Birthday Week

Clara started her week by being spotlighted in school.  She got to bring in a poster that was all about her.  She wanted to do the poster completely by herself - insisting that it didn't need any words.  So here is her poster along with my explanations of each picture.

Top left picture: Clara loves to design clothes, so those are some of her creations.
Middle left picture: Her family
Bottom Left Picture: Her favorite picture (of her and Jeremy at the temple.)
Top Middle: Herself
Top Right: She loves to draw
Middle Right: She loves to pick flowers
Bottom Right: Her and her best friend Keely (just after they dressed Joe up to be a princess.)

Friday was her actual birthday and the first snow fall of the year!  Clara wasn't too excited that winter came on her birthday this year.  She said that she hopes spring comes quickly. 

Friday was also the very first friend party I've ever let her have.  She was so excited to pass out invitations and have people come.  This is all her friends who came.

Addilyn, Camrie, Addison, Melissa, Melanie, Keely, and Clara

The party's theme was Pinkalicious.  We started it by coloring - one of Clara's favorite activities.  While the girls were coloring, I read them a Pinkalicous book so those girls who hadn't heard of her would know who the party was all about.  We then got to have a Pinkalicious pinata. I loved that it was the kind of pinata you could pull strings to open so we didn't have any mishaps with a bat.....

We then had presents and chocolate chip cookies.  Clara only recently discovered that she likes chocolate chip cookies, so that's what she wanted at a dessert.  It was interesting putting candles into cookies!
We ended the party by having all the girls make bracelets.  It was fun and I was glad we didn't invite too many kids to the party.  I'm also grateful that Jeremy left work early to help out with taking care of Joseph while I tried to keep 7 girls on task.  He also did great at taking pictures for me!

We ended her birthday week by having a family birthday party for her on Sunday.  She once again chose chocolate chip cookies and added in some chocolate ice cream.  Happy 6th Birthday Clara.  Hope you had a wonderful week!