Blizzard!

This was quite a blizzard. We were all so excited to see how much snow there was this morning- we got about 2 feet!

Looking out the front door- our car is second from the left, and nearly buried!

Another view out the front.

Our first venture outside- the snow was piled up right to the door.

Lucy is standing where the front steps usually are.

She had a blast clambering around- that's just the beginning of the snow mountain on the left.

Clara helped with shoveling too.

 

 

 Here's a video of the front loader and our snow mountain!

In the meantime, we've been having fun indoors.

And making snow ice cream!

A Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration this year. We enjoyed lots of quality family time, as well as larger gatherings with our extended family. Of course the girls were super excited about it all.

On Christmas Eve my grandmother came over for a delicious dinner. Our first Christmas without Grandpa has been hard, but there was still much joy.

Before the feast, which included a standing rib roast, roasted butternut squash, mashed potatos, and brussel sprouts with browned butter and toasted nuts. Yum!

They each opened one present on Christmas Eve.

Which were new butterfly pajamas, from a friend of the family!

Grandma with the girls- smiles all around!

Christmas was a full day, which started with opening stocking presents from Santa (Lucy left him cookies and wrote him a note and was thrilled to receive one in return), and some special presents from Matt and I. See my post about those on my "Leaf by Elizabeth" blog: The two gifts.

We also got to skype with Mimi & Papa Jack in the morning, and Grandma Judy in the afternoon; it was great to share the holiday with them, even from a distance.

Opening stocking presents.

The girls each picked out baby dolls to give each other, and both loved their present. :)

Then we gathered with the rest of the family at my grandmother's house for our usual brunch and present opening. It was delicious as always, featuring my grandma's amazing yeast coffeecake. The older cousins are wonderful with the girls, so these gatherings are super relaxing for me. And we got to hear violin, piano and flute pieces from the cousins too, with Lucy performing as well.

Clara helping to pass out presents.

Lucy sitting on one of my cousin's laps. She was so excited to wear her fancy dress and new bows.

Clara looked beautiful in her fancy dress and bow too- she still has her curls!

After heading home for nap time, we finished the day with a festive dinner back at Grandma's. And the fun continued just a few days later, as we celebrated Clara's 2nd birthday!

Sorrows & Thanksgivings

It's been a hard month for us. My grandfather (my mom's father) passed away in early November, a few days after having a major stroke. A few weeks previously almost the whole extended family gathered for a joyous celebration of his 90th birthday, and it was a blessing that he died peacefully after a long and full life, but I miss him very, very much.

Here's a video of him singing "Aba Daba Honeymoon" to the girls last year.

 

It has been special having family close by in all this. My mom extended her stay by a month, and so was able to join us for Thanksgiving.

The table setting.

Mr. Turkey, which the girls and I made.

Clara snapped green beans for our feast.

And Lucy helped to fill the orange cups with mashed sweet potatos (and later she topped them with mini marshmellows).

I am so glad we live close to my Grandma, and can be with her through this hard time.

Grandma made the pies for dinner- apple and pumpkin- so delicious!

We made a Thanksgiving tree out of branches, and Lucy and Clara helped to trace and cut out leaves for everyone to write their thanksgivings on.

A picture of some stuffed folks, after Clara had gone to bed.

And now onto Advent and Christmas preparations.

Lucy decorating the tree- she was a big help.

She even hung the angel on top!

Clara had fun decorating too, and has been doing really well at keeping the ornaments on the tree.

Our beautiful tree and ornaments, with the playmobil nativity set in the back left. Lucy has been playing a lot with it, acting out the story of Jesus, as well as her own stories.

We transformed the Thanksgiving tree into a Christmas tree- Lucy had the idea of hanging the PEACE letters on it.

The girls have new stockings, thanks to Grandma Judy! I used fabric paint to write their names, and to draw the snowflakes on Clara's.

Glowing lights inside.

And on our front porch- they are so cheery.

Happy Halloween Candy

So we fell off the blogging bandwagon, but here we are. Who knows, maybe I'll catch up on the last few months at some point. In brief, we had fabulous visits with Grandma Judy and then Mimi and Papa Jack, I was sick for a few weeks, and we have a new niece/cousin, Nora Ann Rejoice!! She is beautiful and a darling and we are so in love with her.

Lucy dictated the picture captions to me (and chose the post title). Enjoy!

This is Clara wrapped up in my favorite blankey.

This is me putting Papa Jack's hat on Clara, wrapped up in my blankey again.

This is me and Clara. I am tracing the yarn from the sky to the balls down low on the ground, and Clara is just drawing with a pen.

This is me and the rainbow dinner. The little red things are strawberries. The orange were carrots. And the two yellow ones were deviled eggs and corn. The green things were broccoli. And then the blue things are blueberries. And the purple things are grapes. I thought it was very nice and it was a rainbow dinner.

This is me and Clara sitting on Mama's lap at lunchtime.

Mama is a rock star. I am Minnie Mouse and Clara is a bunny. That is us on Halloween night. We had very fun and we went out with our friend Afra and she's my very good friend. We went to neighbor's house and we said "trick-or-treat" and one friend gave us apricots. These people are our neighbors that we're talking about. Clara liked the things too. And one of our neighbors was dressed up as a parrot.

This is me and Clara standing on Halloween night too. Do you see the little bitty heart on the door? I colored it. It's taped on. It was hard to get Clara's costume on. That is my trick-or-treating bag. I colored a rainbow on it and I drew a big pumpkin on the other side of my bag that you can't see right now.

This is Clara smiling, playing with the dollhouse and that is our back porch. And she is smiling in her ballet dress. But she does not do ballet yet. It just has pink hearts and pink ballet slippers with ties on them.

This is me riding my bike with no training wheels at the park in my rainbow coat. It has regular rainbows and star rainbows and heart rainbows that are very pretty on my coat and it is purple on the outside. There is a little bit of yellow a little bit of red and a little bit of green on the rainbows. On the seat is stars.

Country fair and new favorite hike

Here are a few highlights from the last month!

Aplayhouse we made from a huge box.

Complete with a window and doors!

Butterfly face painting from the country fair.

We also had fun eating cotten candy, riding on the fire truck, and listening to bluegrass music.

Lucy & Matt at the top of our new favorite hike. It's only about 1 1/2 hours round trip, and at the top there is a gorgeous view of forest and hills.



Matt and the girls enjoying the view.




Snack time with my Clare-bear.



Clara the toddler

Clara seems to have officially graduated from baby to toddler these past few months. She's getting taller, can run pretty fast, and had an explosion of words over the summer.

Here's the list of new words I gathered, starting in mid to late July: book, "sigh"- outside, boots, swimsuit, potty, flush, "ee-see"- Lucy, beach, bye, hi, two, happy, bubbles, hot, up, "pop"- popcorn, "bee-bee"- blankey, truck, light, bath, blueberries, "yah-yoh"- yogurt, "nola"- granola, "pah"- pretzels, blue, blow, feet, toes, "peeze"- please, "tah-too"- thank you, bless you, get you, coffee, soda, treat, cake, shut, loud, tea, bone, salt, out, yellow, peach, "tout"- time out, cup, spoon, in, cat, towel, sad.

A few of the words deserve a bit of explanation. Clara has learned "two", because when we go to my grandparents, she always gets two pretzels. So now if I give her just one of something, she says "two". And just the other day, I gave her two pretzels and she said, "tee" for three. :)

Also this summer, Clara started saying "happy". It took me awhile to realize what she meant, and that she seems to be describing how she feels. Some nights when I'm holding her before putting her down in her crib, she says "happy". And she says it other times during the day too. I'll ask if she's feeling happy and she nods. Then she says, "ee-see" and "Mama", asking if we're happy too. Clara has also learned "sad", and when she hears a baby cry, she makes a point of coming over to me and telling me "sad". Also, whenever Lucy is upset, Clara goes over to her and pats her.

I love seeing her personality develop and come out. On the whole she's a sunshiney girl, easygoing but mischevious, and with a mind of her own. She loves to do anything Lucy is doing, and makes herself quite at home with big kids.

One of my fave pictures of Clara from the summer.

Being silly with a hat over her head.

Clara's eyes are still bright blue!

Putting little people on her fingers; Lucy used to do this all the time too.

In true little sister form, Clara likes to do everything Lucy is doing, including playing piano.

She's so ready to be a big girl, even helping carry the sand toys to the car.