Joy

Monday, November 30, 2009

Mondays are Fun Days

As usual, we went over to my mom's house on Monday. I, of course, took our new camera with me and took some shots of Claire playing outside. She loves the great outdoors.
She climbs on the hammock like it's a cargo net at a play gym. She could do this for hours.


Laughing at those silly chickens.

Oh Claire, what did we ever do without you?





Claire always looks forward to Poppy coming home from work.

My Grandma is staying with my parents until after the new year. (she lives in California) She has been working on this cute kitten puzzle for a couple of days now. It's almost done thanks to Bryan "The Puzzle Master" Claire wasn't any help at this and we had to repair a side after she wreaked havoc on it for the 2 seconds we let her touch it.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Thanksgiving Week

We had a great Thanksgiving week. On Sunday, Claire wore her Thanksgiving dress. I made it out of a ladies top I had previous bought at a thrift store. She also wore her hair curly after the 3rd and final attempt at sponge curlers. It came out alright but I didn't like it enough to do it again. We will try again later, when her hair is longer maybe.
She makes that pumpkin look really heavy



Thanksgiving morning, I got up and made two chocolate pudding pies. Josh was at the youth Turkeybowl so it was just me and Claire. I guess I underestimated how much of a hindrance she is when it comes to me trying to cooking anything. This is the only way I could get her to stop pulling on my pajama legs, crying pathetically to be held.
I do not feel guilty for letting her eat spoon fulls of chocolate pudding at 7 in the morning because she did eat a huge bowl of grape nuts before hand.

We later went over to my parents' house for the Thanksgiving dinner. It was quite the gathering as there were 16 people there (would have been 17 but my cousin Marisol was sick with bronchitis. We thank you Marisol for staying home. It is something that many people do not seem to have the courtesy to do)

Claire played ping pong with her uncles.
Uncle Buddy doesn't usually look like a thug. He and a group of friends all shaved their heads in solidarity with their friend Evan, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. We then ate and ate and ate and there were a ton of left overs. This one's for you Grandpa!


Here is a picture of Steve and Michelle that I thought was really cute. We did not do our typical group family shots this year. How sad. I guess everyone conveniently forgot.

My cousin Sara brought her new baby Beso. He was the sweetest puppy. Claire loved him. Here she is petting his belly.The next day we went over to Josh's parents for pie. Claire had a good time over there as well. She loved playing with her Aunt Shelbe and she is not so shy with Uncle Corey anymore. Shelbe would hide in the hallway and pop out and surprise herWhere did she go?
There she is!

Grandpa taught her how to eat whipped cream out of the can. She was overjoyed.

Josh's parents also surprised us with an early Christmas gift.

A NEW CAMERA! A SUPER NICE CAMERA!

It is the same one the Corey had that I continually borrow from him. Hooray!!! No more wasted pictures that are all blurry! I am so excited about this.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

No More Dead, White Liquid

This week, I finally invested in some raw milk. I say 'invest' because this gallon cost $12.29 but I believe the benefits are well worth it.
I got it from Healthy Habits Health Food in Phoenix. It was so weird when I bought it, I called ahead to make sure they had some but when I got there, I couldn't find it anywhere. I asked one of the people working there and she said they aren't allowed to display it. She had to get it from 'the back' . I also wasn't allowed to carry it around the store or even to the checkout myself. SHE had to do it. I felt like I was buying drugs. Not that I know what that's like but it's how I imagine it must be.

There are a THOUSAND different ideas and beliefs about raw milk and I know this is not for everyone. If you would like to read some supporting articles , you can click here, here, here, here, here or here. If you would like to read some pro pasteurization articles you can can google the words. 'raw, milk, disease, or FDA' in any order.

I have never allowed Claire to drink regular milk. She gets some in her cereal and she has had a few bites of yogurt in her life but it just makes me nervous.

Now Claire can drink her milk! (It is only for Claire, Josh and I don't want to waste it.) Time for the taste test...
I'd say it is a-okay!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Take Two...

Well, we gave the curly hair another try, this time with smaller foam rollers and yarn strung through to make them tighter.

It looked so cute rolled up. I really had high hopes.(She had some chocolate chips while I was rolling it.
Thus, the brown drool marks on her pjs.)

In the morning we unrolled it in front of the mirror and once again, laughed and laughed.
It looks like we will be experimenting a few more times here in the next few days. Thankfully, Claire doesn't seem to mind.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Don'ts of Hair Care for Claire.

If God had given me the son I wanted....



He would have been gay.
Sometimes God knows what we want/need more than we do.

I bought some foam curlers at the $ Tree and thought they would help the front of Claire's hair curl like the back does on it's own. As you can see it is definitely disturbing. I thought it would be fun for her to have curly hair for Thanksgiving and Christmas but we are back to the drawing board. When I was taking the curlers out, Claire was sitting in the sink laughing and laughing with each one. I kept saying it was pretty hair but she knew it was silly.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Joyful Legs!!!

Joyful Legs are now for sale!
If you haven't read my previous posts about these fashionable warmers you may be wondering what they are and why they are so fantastic. Here are just a few reasons that Joyful Legs are a must this winter season.

1. They can be worn under jeans for an extra layer of warmth.
2. Cuter than pant leggings since they hug the leg.
3. You don't have to take them off when you change diapers.
4. Great to keep legs warm during nakedy butt time.
5. Perfect for crawlers. They aren't bulky and protect the legs.
6. Since they don't have feet, your child won't slide on the kitchen floor and hit their head on the tile.
7. They grow with the child (newborn to at least to 3 or 4 years)
8. Great for winter potty training.
9. Come in fun colors and patterns that you can find in pant leggings.
10. Great for spicying up a boring outfit.

I have had quite a few people express interest in purchasing some Joyful Legs, so I thought it would be easiest to start out by posting the different styles here. $5.00 per pair. Shipping is $1.00.

If you would like to order a pair, please e-mail me with the item number of the design you want.

Boys can have Joyful Legs too! Notice there are several, more manly-looking styles for the little guy in your life.

Quantities of each style are limited so don't delay!

kdulce@juno.com

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween

After Claire's Halloween costume last year, I was under some pressure to come up with something just a good if not better. (2008)
We thought we wouldn't be able to do it, but I think we did. The chicken costume. (2009)

I had been racking my brain for costume ideas. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that this is the last year that WE get to decide what she' should be. There are plenty of years coming up that she will want to be a ballerina or princess but not many that she will want to be something like this. After writing my Claire the Chicken Farmer blog, I was inspired to make her a chicken. I hesitated to tell people what she was going to be just because the first picture that comes to mind at the words "chicken costume" is some cheesy, bulgy-eyed, felt creature, dancing on the corner of an intersection with a Pizza and Wings sign.

Needless to say, that is not what I had in mind
and I am very happy with the results.

So Halloween night we went to our church's Harvest Carnival.
Josh went as the Swine Flu. He went around "sneezing" on people by spraying them with his spray bottle. (He has a pig tail in the back too:) I was a chicken farmer - mostly because of my lack of creativity and time.
She has a little feed sack for her candy.


The carnival is much more fun now the we have a child, although, she is still too small for most of the games. We wanted to get some candy for her though so we made the best of the big kid games and Claire really had a good time.
Claire was too small play the bounce house games but she did get to go in and just jump on a few occasions. She LOVED it.

All the bouncing and people picking her up did a number on the costume. Everywhere we went there was a trail of small white feathers. We hope to keep up the high standards we have for costumes but we'll see what she chooses next year.