Joy

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Christmas Pictures

I was bummed that it was raining on the day that we took our Christmas card pictures so they had to be inside. I am not a fan of indoor photos; the lighting is always terrible. We set up a little background in my parents' arizona room (best lighting...we thought) and snapped away.
Hurray! We are looking in the same direction!

Unfortunately, the cloud cover and time of day changed between photos so all three of them have totally different lighting - in case you were wondering.

I absolutely love Joy's
What a trooper. She was in that box for quite a while. Her biggest problem was that she wanted to stand the whole time. Trying to force a baby to bend at the waist is comical and rarely successful.

Claire's camera smile is improving but my mom and I had to stand behind Josh and act like weirdos to make her smile genuinely.
A sister picture never did happen, for obvious reasons.


And some that did not make the cut.
Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Little Ballerina

We enrolled Claire in another parks and rec class and it just came to an end. Claire seemed to enjoy this tap, ballet, tumbling combo class but after watching her performance on the last day I see that she actually liked the ballet portion of it best. I think that her sudden interest in princesses helps; she thinks she is a princess when she puts on her ballet skirt and she often wears it over her jeans at home.
This class was SO much better than the last one. I was unimpressed with the teacher because of her bizarre personality, but I see now that she really taught the girls a lot in such a short amount of time.

Here is one of the many little dances the performed.



Believe it or not, she actually was one of the better ones in the class.
We definitely were proud of her after her performance.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

My Little Helper

Claire always asks to help me when I am making something in the kitchen. I try my hardest to always say yes. I don't want to discourage her from helping but sometimes it is really hard. It's more like saying "Yes, come make a huge mess and double the time it should take to make this." I have been letting her help for about a year now and it is starting to pay off. Now she knows how to help a little better - and I know what to trust her with. In other words, please do not be alarmed that she is stirring pots on the stove. She knows to be careful and I always stay right there with her.
She was proud of herself that she could stir both pots at the same time.

She has also learned to taste as she goes.
I have passed on some chores to Claire. For a while now she's been helping me by putting away the silverware from the dishwasher. I have always hated doing that for some reason. I save it for her to do now and she likes it.
Joy watching her sister help.
Joy is so funny, She always looks on, longingly, as Claire and I do things together or when Claire and Josh are playing, she can't take her eyes off them. I think she wants to be a big girl too already.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Christmas Handprint Art

The day after Thanksgiving, we started Christmasing; putting up lights, decorations, baking and crafting. I haven't blogged because all my projects have been half done for the past few weeks but I am finally starting to get them all wrapped up. Plus, I have had zero time.

The first "craft" we did was hand print art - ideas stolen from Pinterest.

Claire made a Christmas tree.

She enjoyed it but needed some help in the self-control area when we were stamping her hand. Sliding you paint covered hand all over a white canvas becomes much more irresistible when your mom tells your not to. (Note - I found both canvases at thrift stores for $1 each!)
For Joy, I did a snowman footprint painting; Claire helped paint her sister's little footy.

I am glad we took the time to do these projects. Now we will have these precious pieces to bring out each Christmas and remember when our babies were still little.