Christmas Eve

After Birthday is done and baths occur it is time for Santa to arrive. We were blessed that he was well prepared and had most everything assembled and wrapped early!!

 The kids both received penny banks for Christmas as they earn pennies for extra chores, good behavior, and Uncle Mark is building their college fund by donating quarters EVERY time he sees them! Matt thought the pigs in the stockings were a little creepy! I suppose they were.....

 The Tree. There is something magical to me about the tree. Santa came early and it was a good time!

 The FHE fish died while the kids and I were in Utah this Summer. So Santa kindly brought new ones. (for the record, they are both dead now, have been for a week. Sigh.)

See the baby doll that looks as though it is drowning? That is what Clara got. The letters Ben is putting on the wall. Those are his Christmas Eve gift.  As he doesn't like to wear pj's and she has plenty of them I decided to go with something they had both been asking for, bath tub toys!

Clara's Second Birthday

Finally got the pictures off my camera! Crazy update number 2ish coming up! Let's begin with Clara's birthday!

This all appeared while she was napping! Daddy had to work that morning but he was able to be home just after lunch!

Bet you cant guess what this is! Some how I don't really have that many pictures of her birthday, none of the dinner and treats, none of the bike and helmet. Crazy. but she loves it!

Uncle Mark, Cousin Dalton and Cousin Brayden came over to visit. We really missed Aunt Melissa, she was very sick and we didn't get to see her!

So these are all little board books that Melissa found, Clara loves them! She has to have them most nights and bedtime reading!

 I think this may have technically been her Christmas present, but she LOVED it her and Ben each got one and they race them almost every day! It is a remote controlled car with soft sides and only two buttons!!

 We had grandma and Muggs on Facetime, sorry for the strange commentary! The kids dig Facetime!

 Aunt Lisa and Cousin Isabel have really great taste in clothes!

When the folks at Toys R Us where daddy was working found out that it was Sissy's birthday they sent him home with a bunch of balloons, always a birthday favorite at our house!

Did I mention that I CANNOT believe my baby is TWO?!?!  I the time is just going sooo fast, I ask her and ask her to stay little and she just doesn't!  Let me tell you a little about her for the records!  She talks more than any other person in the house! Her vocabulary is surprisingly diverse! Example, a couple days ago she was towing Ben around by the arm and calling him Daughter! Instead of the most common toddler defiance cry of NO she employs NO WAY! complete with an eye roll and or a huff! She has more attitude than any of us knows what to do with! One of her favorite things to say is "ME DO IT!" most often said to Brother as he is trying to "help".  She is big into dollies all shapes and sizes but she totes her Aurora doll around the most, it is "princess baby".  She is a Hello Kitty fanatic! it is sooo cute! she has never seen the show but loves the little kitty! She has "big Hello" and "little Hello" that is what she calls her two hello kitty dolls, one is actually a back pack, and it has a lot of tea parties!  She also has a very big soft spot for Minnie Mouse. Uncle Brandon brought her some Minnie Mouse ears complete with bow back from his trip to Disney and a Minnie Doll about clara's size. She wears the ears around and sings! Minnie has a permananet spot next to "big Hello".  Clara does her best to keep up with Ben in EVERYTHING.  He is learning the alphabet so she is too, she walks around singing "abc, abc, abc" occasionally she gets to D! Her other favorite song? Baby Signing time, she only signs please these days, but she still LOVES to watch Baby Signing time.  We have yet to meet a food she wont eat! She can use the toilet at will, but currently preferres the ease of pull-ups. I honestly have mixed emotions about this, it makes me oddly sad to think that soon my baby will be out of diapers, but then SO happy that we wont be buying diapers. Its a confusing feeling ;) Next week we go in for our 2 year check up. I will post the stats then, but she is a healthy, happy baby girl and we all adore her! She is

PreChristmas Pictures

I know traditionally one would choose the best picture from the session and post it, but I think it is much more fun to see all the antics that led up to that one photo that goes in the Christmas cards. So, Enjoy!!

Love can build a bridge...

 For those of you who preferre Wynona to Miley! ha ha!

Anyway, Ben built a pretty cool bridge with his mega blocks a few weeks ago. he was super proud of it! So we got some pictures to share!

Its The Climb

You read the title and now you have that Miley Cyrus song in you head dont ya! HA HA sorry! Anyway, Clara is a climber, and a fearless one at that! We put them to bed and a few minutes later heard crying and "help!" coming from the bedroom. We rush in there to find this:

Yup that is clara clinging to the bookcase one shelf up! Where is her big brother you might wonder? Sitting politely on his bed reading!! We laughed! and obviously left her hanging there long enough to get the camera and take a picture, yup we are those parents!

Snacks and Sunshine

Here we are just chillin in our own back yard. Enjoying the beautiful fall that TN seems to favor.

Jackson Ward Campout

The first weekend in November our ward had a camp out in Natchez Trace State Park. It was a good time. Just one night, we cooked dutch oven potatos over the fire and shared a tent with Aaron and Rachel.  We are blessed to have such a great group of people to spend time with!

Halloween 2011

We have 2 huge sweet gum trees in our back yard and they drop A LOT of leaves!! I mean A LOT.  Our first year in this house we raked and bagged them all, we has 60+ large leaf bags! So now we bag a few, burn a bunch, and leave the rest to blow away in tornado weather ;) Matt had the idea to put some into some halloween bags this year as our yard decor. It was fun. Since Halloween fell on a Monday we did FHE lesson on working and then went out and worked together to fill the bags.

Of course we played al little too! I dont seem to have gotten any pictures of them once they were full and in the front yard. Oh well. Later that night we had a group of friends over for a fire and hot dogs and smores. It was the best Halloween so far!