Joy

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wrap Up

We had a brief week home for VBS and then we went back to my mom's on Sunday, which is when Josh left for Kid's camp. We got to see Poppy on Father's Day before he headed off to New Jersey again for 2 weeks.Even though we had been at his house, he was gone the whole time. He was surprised at how much better she was with swimming.

The week was pretty fun and low key. Claire was an excellent girl, no time-outs or spanks were necessary and she was just a joy. We were laughing constantly, she says the funniest things sometimes.

She practiced swimming with her water wings.
She doesn't trust them very much so she stays over the steps.

We went for a ride on the Build-A-Bear train at the mall...
played some golf...
and just chilled.Yep, still doing that weird finger-sucking, eyelash-touching thing.

We discovered that we LOVE The Children's Place and Claire got some birthday money from her Great Grandpa and Grandma Sheila. We bought her some plain denim shorts and plain khaki shorts. (with no pink and purple butterflies embroidered all over them - this is the only store that carries such an item- what do you know!) and the white and blue halter tops shown in the pictures above. I love that everything there is simple and good quality.

Phew! I am now caught up. (well, except for VBS, but I haven't even seen many pictures from that yet since Josh has been so busy/gone.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Claire Turns Two! - Take 2

The only thing better than turning 2, is having 2 parties! After Josh got back from Africa, we went over to his parent's house to have another family celebration. Mimi (Claire's great-grandma) and Josh's cousin and her daughter (Destiny) who is also 2, came up from Tucson. Claire and Destiny had the best time running through the house and playing together. Grandpa barbecued the most delicious steak and salmon, it was so good! Claire even ate the salmon.

After a nice nap, Claire and Destiny went swimming.Claire has become much more brave in the past month.

She loves her rings.



Later, it was time for cake. It was just the same old boring kind I usually make. I hate to make cakes. I used to like to but now, I think it is the biggest hassle - mostly because I put all this time into them and they always looks either disgusting or just boring.

Claire likes her chocolate though so it didn't really matter.
She was even able to blow out the candle all by herself this time!
After cake, Claire opened her presents! She got a wagon! I super nice one too! Claire and Destiny were wanting to open it there. I am more excited about it than Claire I think. I remember how much fun my brothers and I had on our wagon. Dadda was able to put it together for her the next day before he left for another week.
I have a feeling this wagon will be well used for many years to come.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Another First

Last week, Claire had her first Krispy Kreme donut.
Of course Nana and I had to have one too:)

It was a momentous occasion....

She chose one with sprinkles...Of course I had to take pictures.
Because that's what I do.

I think people were getting annoyed with us though.

But it was worth it.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Bad Red Guy

One of the gifts Grandma and Grandpa gave Claire for her birthday was a Sing-A-Ma-Jig.
She calls it "red guy" and has had a fear of it ever since it ate some of her cheerios with her a few days ago.

(Nigh night is what Claire calls time-out)



That guy is in time-out all the time. I'm sure she will get over it eventually (although I'm sure traumatizing her with it won't help, but it is awfully fun)

If viewing on facebook, click the link below
http://withjoyinexpressible.blogspot.com/2010/06/bad-red-guy.html

Pool Time!

A few weeks ago, Claire and I spent the afternoon with Grandma and Aunt Shelbe at the Lifetime Fitness pool. We went once last year and Claire liked it a lot. This year she LOVED it.

The shoreline slope of the pool made it very fun for her and she felt in control of how deep she was getting. She got very brave with the "bubble" jets.
Aunt Shelbe brought a whale for Claire to play with and it provided all kinds of fun.

Claire practiced scooting along the wall. She did really well and made poor grandma do it again and again and again with her.
Claire played with Aunt Shelbe for the longest time while Grandma and I watched in our chairs. It was really nice. She fell while running and went underwater once but she didn't even have a huge fit about it. (just a little one)

Oh no, the back of her neck is getting wet!Enjoying some ice water.
What a fun day in the sun!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Claire Turns Two! - Take 1

On June 4th, Claire turned 2 years old! I can't believe how fast these two years have gone! (Well, not counting the first 3 months of infancy which were a living nightmare - that stage in and of itself seemed like a decade) It is amazing how much she has matured and learned just on the past few months and even weeks.

Because Claire shares her birthday with her Poppy, we combined their family parties along with my Aunt Faith's who also has a June birthday. Josh wasn't able to come because he was in Africa but obviously we had to do it before Poppy left for his work trip.

Claire still loves Elmo so we got her an Elmo balloon. He was a good investment because he hung around for over a week and was always a fun toy.

Faith and Marisol, Steve and Michelle and their dogs Minx and Anna all came. Claire loves her Uncle Didi, (Steve) they played together almost the entire day and even in the following weeks she asks about Didi and Shel and Minx.

Uncle Didi played in the backyard with her. They ran races and he taught her how to stand before the race.Claire didn't win very often.
After many, many races, she finally got tired but still had enough energy to be chased and act silly.
(I love this picture)
Later, Didi braved the cold water to go swimming with her and Claire loved every moment of it.Gift opening time for Claire is never a highlight. She always disappoints us with her lack of gift opening skills. She also doesn't know what to do when everyone is staring at her.

She got many lovely gifts. Didi and Shel always give her a Little People set - which she loves. Aunt Faith got her some nice chubby paint brushes and paint jars and several books from Cousin Marisol. Nana and Poppy got her many little gifts and among them was Hi Ho Cherri-O. She loves the little cherries and counts them. This is how she counts. "1,2 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15!" How can you possibly know 11-15 but not 3-7? I don't know, we have been working on it.

A family at church gave us an old-timey tupperware play set. It looks like it has never been used. She loves it because Nana has the exact same pitcher and calls it her "food toy."
Even though Uncle Buddy is still up at Summit, he managed to show off his sense of high-fashion and bought her a very popular hat and halter top to match. Somebody taught her how to model.

Finally, the torture of opening gifts was over and it was time for cake! She couldn't blow out the candle but that's okay. Poppy helped her. We'll keep working on that too.

What a fun day for Claire! The best part is that she still had another party coming!
We waited until Josh got home to celebrate with his family. But that is another post.














Catching up!

Wow! I have a ton of catching up to do! I haven't been able to update my blog due to technical issues with blogger at my parent's house and the fact that once I got back home from our two weeks stay there, I left my camera card at their house. I am once again at my parent's house and discovered that blogger only works correctly using Mozilla, not a Juno browser or Internet Explorer. Computers!

So, no, I have not been so overcome with grief over Harley's ordeal that I haven't been able to blog. I have been basking in the glow of a hair-free home and I am still surprised when I sweep the kitchen and tumbleweeds of hair don't migrate across the floor.

Anyhow, back to blogging.

Josh left for a two week mission trip to Mozambique at the end of May. I packed up and left to stay at my parent's house so I wouldn't have to entertain Claire all by myself all day, everyday.

It actually worked out really nicely for both me and my parents because my dad went out of town on business for two weeks so my mom and I were husbandless together.

Claire loves to be anywhere but our boring house so she was so excited to be at Nana's. There are so many things to do! The first few days were really exciting for her because my parents
drained their pool and were in the process of refilling it. We let Claire play in it as it was filling. She LOVED it.Way down in the deep end!

The next day the water was up to the shallow end. She played for hours and has some cute tan lines.She learned how to use a ring when it was shallow and now she is a pro!Later that day, Poppy mowed the lawn before he had to go. Claire helped him. She looks unamused but she asked for more so it must have been okay.

The next day, they got their flood irrigation.

Claire loves throwing the ball for Cali.She spent quite awhile playing in the irrigation water.

Claire for whatever reason was a little punk most of the time that we were at Nana's. We thought she might be teething but there are still no molars coming in so she has no excuses.

Typically, when Claire misbehaves we spank her, but you can't spank her for incessant whining - it just makes the crying and whining worse. (trust me, I have tried... many times) My mom was watching her one morning while I was gone and Claire wouldn't stop complaining because she wanted "uppies" but my mom was vacuuming so it was not even an option. After listening to it for so long, my mom made her "go to bed" until she calmed down and got over her little nasty. To our surprise this form of punishment worked wonders. Claire stopped crying and loudly announced "All done crying!" and after that, she was a happy girl. I have always stayed away from "timeout" forms of punishment because I hate when parents only do timeouts when their little brats obviously need a good swat. But like I said, spanking for whinyness wasn't getting us anywhere but this did. She now has her pack-n-play set up and knows that if she is crying or complaining for no reason she will be put there.
What a difference it has made! Hurray for Nana!

I'm working on Claire's birthday party post. Now that we are up and running computer-wise, I will keep them coming until I'm caught up.