Clara Ann

We are so happy to share the wonderful news that Clara Ann was born on Monday, December 27th at 3:53 p.m., braving quite a blizzard! She has beautiful blue eyes, lots of dark brown hair, and long fingers and toes (just like her big sister), and she weighed 7 pounds 4 ounces and measured 21 inches at birth. We’re all home now and enjoying bonding as a family. Lucy is delighted to have a new little sister, and loves helping with Clara as much as she can.

Clara means clear or bright; she is named after Matt’s great aunt, a lovely, spunky and wise woman who worked as an engineer in California starting back in the 1930s and who passed away a few years ago at the age of 101. Her middle name, Ann, means grace, and honors 4 special women in her life; Elizabeth’s mother (Ann Elizabeth), Matt’s mother (Judy Ann), Elizabeth’s grandmother (Ann) and Elizabeth (Elizabeth Ann).

We are so thankful to God for the gift of this precious little girl. Here are some pictures of our her and the whole family!

First snow!

We finally got our first snow of the season today. It was only a few inches, but we had lots of fun with it, shoveling, making snowballs and snow angels, cleaning off the car, etc.

Lucy made a gingerbread house at preschool last week. I think she had lots of fun decorating it.

And wrapping presents has been fun too.

Fun with color

We finally have some color up in the girls' room- hooray! Grandma Judy gave us some beautiful and fun curtains (if you look closely you can see the monkeys on them). I love how they brighten up the room; they are such a nice change from the beige curtains we had up before. In between them I've hung a picture of a strawberry from my grandmother's garden.

And here are the two bed/cribs. Our furniture is a bit of a pot pourri, but at least the changing table and the new crib match. :) In the middle is our "Guess how much I love you" picture. I'm still thinking of ideas for what to hang on the walls over their two beds.


And now for some random pictures from the week. Lucy rolled herself up in the yoga mat this morning.

We've been doing some painting this week for homemade Christmas presents. Lucy gets very absorbed and is quite thorough!

A picture of me and kernel. We're counting down the days now, and are very excited! Thankfully, I'm still feeling pretty comfortable, aside from being tired.

In other color news- I'm participating in a "color week" this week, which a friend has put together. Each day there is a different color that you take and post pictures of. You can check out my posts at http://www.leafbyelizabeth.blogspot.com/.

Advent anticipations

I've always enjoyed the season of Advent; our family had a number of traditions which make it a special and meaningful time. It's been so fun passing these along to Lucy and creating new ones as well.

Every morning we hang an ornament on the advent calendar that my grandmother (on my dad's side) made. We also hang up an angel (in the picture Lucy is choosing one from the angel book). Lucy usually asks me at least 3-4 times throughout the day if we can hang another ornament and angel. So we're definitely getting practice with anticipation and delayed gratification!


After dinner we have advent time with our advent wreath. We light the candles (adding one each week), and read a bible story, sing a hymn and pray. We're keeping it simple for Lucy, so the first week we sang "Angels we have heard on high" each night. This week it's "O come all ye faithful". She looks forward to this time each day, and is really catching on to the songs (it helps that the second half of each of them is repeated words).


Getting and decorating the Christmas tree was a real highlight. Lucy hung up at least half of the ornaments (and we have a lot of them!).

Here is Matt lifting Lucy up to put the angel on the top. It almost looks like she's the angel. :)

And the fully decorated tree. I haven't found a way to capture on camera how beautiful it is- the rich green needles, glowing lights and colorful ornaments. It's a strange tradition, when you think of it, bringing a big tree inside. But it's such a deeply ingrained part of celebrating the holiday for me, that looking at the tree fills me with warm fuzzies.

It's interesting to be anticipating both Christmas and the arrival of kernel (hopefully the former will come before the latter!). We sorted through the baby clothes recently and Lucy has been picking out outfits for baby. She chose tights, a dress and a hat, and then asked where the baby's underwear was. When we're at a store she always wants to get a present for kernel. Earlier this week she picked out a little koala bear (thankfully on sale for just 2$). It reminds me of the stuffed owl that I got for my sister when she was born.

Thanksgiving Feasts

We had 2 wonderful Thanksgiving celebrations; we hosted my grandparents on Thursday, and then we gathered with the extended family at their place on Saturday. My grandparents split the cooking with us, and Grandma and I agreed that it worked out perfectly- neither of us felt stressed or overwhelmed that day!

Here Lucy is helping me assemble baked carrots, one of Grandma's recipes that we love to make.



Earlier in the day we headed out for a walk. It was a bit chilly, but nice to get some exercise before the big meal.

These red berry bushes are in front of our house- I love how bright and cheerful they are.

And here we are gathered together. We are so blessed to live close to my grandparents and to be able to see them so often.

Over the weekend we set up the crib for baby kernel. She will probably be in our room in a bassinette for the first few months, but I knew it would be easier to set it up now with just a toddler, as compared to with a toddler and newborn! We also needed to rearrange the furniture and wanted to give Lucy time to get adjusted to it. It feels good to have that done, and I really like the way the room looks. Once we get some art on the walls I'll take a picture to post.

I also started getting out some baby stuff- Lucy had fun pretending to feed her dolls on the boppy pillow, and climbing into the baby's carseat. She picked out a toy rattle for the baby at the store today, and wanted to get some shoes for the baby too. She definitely likes getting things for the baby, and I think will be excited to help pick out clothes, get diapers, etc. It's all starting to feel much more real, for all of us- just about a month to go!

Acting out "Ollie"

Another of our favorite books these days is "Ollie". It's about a little gosling who is still in his egg and doesn't want to come out. Matt got the idea of acting it out, and it's become a nightly ritual to act out the story, each of us taking turns with different parts. The first two videos below are with Lucy reading, Matt as Ollie, and me as Gossie and Gertie. If you have the patience to sit through the story again, we change up the parts in the third video (Lucy explains who is doing what).

Reading "Titch"

"Titch" is one of Lucy's favorite stories, and she's pretty much memorized it. Here she is reading it...

More pumpkins

We finally carved our pumpkins last weekend, since we were sick over Halloween weekend. We were going to just wait until next year, but Lucy kept asking if we could make faces on our pumpkins. She had lots of fun helping Matt choose the shapes to cut out, and even scooped out some of the seeds with her hands.


They kept us company on the back porch during dinner the first night.

Here are some random shots from the week. Hiding behind some stickers...


I framed some book covers to decorate our toy corner. I'm hoping to do some more for Lucy's room.


One of Lucy's favorite activities these days is playing with water and various implements (sponges, plastic animals, kitchen tongs, measuring cups, etc). It's a great way to keep her occupied while I make dinner.

B is for butterfly (and for bugs and birds and babies!)

We've had quite a few weeks- Lucy brought home a cold from preschool. Of course she got over it in a few days, whereas for Matt and I it's been 1-2 weeks! Lucy is quite animated in telling other people how she "shared my cold with Mama and Papa". At least she's excited about sharing, right?

Lucy had fun getting dressed up for Halloween costume day at preschool. She was a butterfly (it was sold as a fairy costume but she decided it was a butterfly one), and loved wearing all pink and flying around.

The other day we got some supplies for a home project, which Lucy also enjoyed trying on.


A fun picture of Lucy laughing at something Matt said/did.


And this is one of my favorite paintings she's brought home from preschool. It reminds me of water gushing into a dry, barren place.



Lucy's been asking interesting questions lately (which I often don't know the answers to!), and it's fun to see her mind at work. The other day she asked if bugs could talk, so we looked it up online and found how different types of bugs communicate (through smells, lights, and buzzing sounds). Then a few days ago she asked if birds have ears. I said yes, and she asked, "then why don't I see them?". I had no idea what bird ears looked like, so we looked that up too (hooray for the internet), and found that bird ears are basically large holes, covered by feathers (which help to keep out the background noise from the wind). It's really fun learning about the world with her.

We also got a little taste of having an infant around recently. Some good friends visited who have an adorable 6-week old daughter. I held her for awhile (it was a good refresher for me!) and Lucy at different times said, "Well, you can hold two..."; "I want all of you to hold me", and "Can you give the baby back now?". :) She does enjoy playing with her baby dolls (feeding, diaper changing, singing lullabies), so hopefully that will transfer to her interactions with little sis.

Apple picking!

We've been enjoying the fall activities/weather, even though I know that bare trees and cold weather are in store. The weather has been beautiful, and the leaves are truly amazing. I love looking out our kitchen window at the bright yellow tree, and seeing gorgeous red and orange trees on the way to preschool and various errands.

Last week Lucy and I went apple picking with some friends. Fresh-picked apples are so delicious- night and day different from even good store-bought kinds. We made delicious apple muffins the next day, and I'm looking forward to making more apple creations.

Here's Lucy sampling one of the apples. There were lots of low ones that were easy to pick.




A beautiful tree in the late afternoon light.


This orchard has some animals, including a llama!

The bountiful harvest.

We had fun picking up pretty leaves and leaf-crunching on a recent walk.

A friend recently loaned us a bassinette for kernel. Lucy wanted to see "how it worked" so I showed her how her dolls could sleep in it. She then started singing one of our usual lullabies (Guide Me Oh Thou Great Jehovah- the tune is welsh, and my grandmother often hums it as a lullaby) while patting the doll's tummy. She even put a shirt over the doll's eyes, which is how Matt and I sleep (Lucy often requests a shirt to put over her eyes too). I caught the end of her song in the video below.

Pumpkin adventures

This past weekend was gorgeous (after a week of pouring rain), and we were all excited to be outdoors. We headed to a local pumpkin patch with my extended family to pick pumpkins, and then celebrated my grandfather's birthday.

Lucy and I on the hayride.


A family picture with our pumpkins- you can see how my little pumpkin is really popping out!

Lucy and Grandma in the patch.

Lucy picked out her pumpkin- quite a cute one. It was funny watching her try to pick up some of the larger ones!

Lucy did a great job helping Grandpa blow out his candles.

And a bonus picture- we picked up a costume for Lucy since she'll be having a Halloween/dress up day at preschool later this month. She LOVES it. She calls it her butterfly costume, and is so excited that it has wings. Here she's doing an "attitude" (ballet position she learned from our summer nanny).

Dancing the night away

A few weeks ago my uncle organized a fun concert/benefit, with awesome music (he played the ukelele in one of the bands!). Lucy completely surprised me by dancing for almost an hour straight, even though a lot of the time she was the only one out on the floor. She'd dance for awhile and then run over to the table like a marathoner, grabbing a grape and a sip of water before racing back out. There are 2 videos below of her dancing moves.

Lucy's been asking more questions about the baby recently. "Can I help put on the baby's diaper?" "Will the baby roll over?" "Will the baby wear shoes?" She will ask if the baby is asleep or kicking, and the other day said, "I want to see her eyes." One time I suggested that she say night-night to baby (after she'd been doing her question asking), and she proceeded to sing all of the lullaby "Tender shepherd" to the baby while stroking my tummy. So precious.

Lots of smiles and jumps!

My mom is a great photographer- I wish she was around to photo-document our lives more often! Here are a few fun shots from their visit. I love the light in some of these.

Such a beautiful girl.


Being bounced by Papa Jack.

3 generations...

I love this one.