Pictures for the grammas...

I had a request from the grandmas and great-grandmas to print up some pictures of Clara for them. Since we have entered the digital age of facebook albums and blogging, I never print pictures anymore. I decided to do a quick little photo shoot of Clara at the park nearby, and printed up a variety of 4x6's, 5x7's, and 8x10's for family as a Christmas present. I even had my sister stop by with Ella so we could get some pictures of the cousins. It was a really quick attempt, and it didn't go so great. It is hard taking pictures of a wandering 15 month old! I left the park thinking it was a waste of time, until I got home and uploaded the pictures. Amazingly they turned out pretty cute! I love how you can see Clara's little personality in them, she has so many facial expressions and she is just so stinkin' cute. Her and Ella are so cute together also, she loves Ella, and I was glad I got some good ones of the two of them.
We had a really nice Christmas, it was a busy day, but we were able to spend good quality time with both sides of the family. Clara was spoiled rotten with all her new toys, and I am trying to figure out where to put them all. That little stomach bug definitely made the rounds, we were dropping like flies. I think EVERYONE in the family got it. Thankfully we are all on the mend, because we are leaving for Big Bear tomorrow to ring in the new year! I am very excited about that, it has been our yearly tradition for probably the last 10 years, and it is so much fun. I hope you've all had wonderful holidays, and see you next year!

Stomache bug :(

I had been looking forward to Monday night for a long time. My mom, grandma, mother-in-law and I had tickets to an American Christmas at the Hotel Del Coronado. It is a spectacular show, in the ballroom of the Hotel Del, with a five course meal, and hours of entertainment, in the setting of 1910. Both my brother-in-law Jesse, and his fiance Holly were in it, and when it costs $120 a ticket, that was pretty much the main reason to splurge and go. However, on the drive down, on a very very rainy and stormy night, I began to not feel so well. At first I thought I had overdone it earlier in the day with cleaning the house and getting ready and not snacking enough, I thought it was just residual pregnancy nausea...I was so wrong. I was in the back seat with my mother-in-law Debbie, who had been kind enough to give me her coat as a pillow so I could rest, when I felt like I was going to throw up. I immediately notified them to pull over because I was going to throw up, it took them a while to figure out where was the safest place. I asked, "mom, do you have a grocery bag back here?" Sounding much more urgent this time. She said she had one in the trunk, and as they were deciding who was in the safest place to get the bag out of the trunk, it became too late. I spewed everywhere. On my mom's new car, on Debbie's coat, on myself. Then I opened the door and spewed multiple times on the road, hanging out of the car in the rain, I even managed to get it in my hair. It was mortifying, especially since I was on the side of traffic, that was slowly creeping by. At this point I thought it was still random pregnancy nausea, and that if I could just manage to clean myself up, I would be fine now. So we continued on, while I spent the remainder cleaning off as much as I could with baby wipes. When we got to the show, and I couldn't eat anything, and even the simple bread and soda I was sipping on wouldn't stay down, I knew it had to be something else. Unfortunately during the show, I had to run to the bathroom 3 times to throw up. And of course our table was the furthest from the bathroom. By the end of the night, I was wiped out. I made to the car and slept the ride home, throwing up one more time before crashing in bed and thankfully sleeping the night through. Needless to say, I missed out on the yummy food, and I was definitely not able to enjoy the show the it's fullest. I gave other people control of the camera, so I do have a couple pictures...
I was thinking in my head, thank the Lord, Jordan is home tomorrow, and I can just rest and he can watch Clara. No such luck. He developed the nausea overnight and was pretty much incapacitated the entire next day. I felt a little better that day and was able to keep Clara fed. She was an absolute angel for us, she took 2 loong naps, and played quietly all by herself, I think she knew something was wrong with us. You see, this all started with my sister, actually with a friend of my sister's who came to visit. It is some kind of nasty stomach bug that is very contagious, and we have all been passing it freely amongst ourselves. Thankfully this morning, both Jordan and I feel much better, and we are both showered and ready to go today. Unfortunately, my mom has it now, and spent last night throwing up, ugh! I am sure you all wanted to know all those grimy details, so I didn't spare you a bit, ha ha! I am just so thankful we are over this by Christmas! Oh, I forgot to mention that Clara had it as well, she spewed in the car on the way home from L.A., after Jordan's family Christmas party, and guess who was in the back seat with her? My sweet mom-in-law Debbie, who has now been puked on or around enough to get her through the rest of her life...sorry Debbie!

Recent Happenings...

Jordan has been working on getting our garden all set up for the spring. He has built 4 planter boxes, and irrigated them, and he has plans to build 2 more. We decided to try them out with some winter crops, and here is our lettuce just sprouting! Clara loves going out and "working" with daddy, she gets all dirty and finds many little projects to keep her busy, like moving rocks, digging dirt and inspecting what Jordan is working on. It's pretty cute and I know Jordan loves having her out there with him...
Jordan's most recent Craig's list purchase is a new bike trailer. He loves to go bike riding and has a road and mountain bike, and now he can take Clara on some rides with him. It even has room for two kids, which will be perfect, and it turns into a double jogging stroller. We tested it out the other morning, and although Clara seemed to have more fun playing in a bucket while he was getting set up, I'm pretty sure she is going to love bike rides with her daddy...
I also had to capture Clara's early morning "look." She has a blankie and paci that she loooves, and she has them with her always in the morning. If I get her out of bed and then go about my business getting ready, she always has to go back and get them. She looks sooo cute walking around all sleepy looking, in her jammies with her favorite blankie and paci. She even pets the blankie and hugs it and she already has a preference with paci's, she'll only take the pink ones. I don't let her take them downstairs or anywhere else though, because I don't want it to be become an unhealthy attachment. They are only a naptime and bedtime thing, and she knows it...
Obsessed...addicted...? You would probably be correct with either assumption. Yes...we went to Disneyland...again! We have gone 4 times since June, and it has just become a really fun free afternoon and evening activity. We even know how to park for free and make it into the park really conveniently (if the monorail is open...which it wasn't this time and I was not happy about that!) We went with our friends Matt & Jeannine, and met our friends Chris & Michelle up there. We also left Clara home with family this time, which made it nice and relaxing! Of course, it was lots of fun and very very festive!

This last week I also went into a baking frenzy, every night after Clara would go to bed I would break out my mixer and bake away! I made a collection of my all time favorite Christmas cookies to give away to some friends, neighbors, and family. Clara helped us go around and deliver the cookies to our neighbors, she loved handing them out, but then she would want them right back, it was funny. It was nice to say hi and visit with our neighbors, we are blessed to have very nice people around us. One of the cookies I made is more of a rice krispy treat that we call Chocolate Scotcharoos, they are not very well known, but they are delicious and easy to make. Here is the recipe if anyone wants to try...
Chocolate Scotcharoos

1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup peanut butter
6 cups rice krispies
1/2 pkg choc. chips
1/2 pkg butterscotch chips

Boil sugar & corn syrup for 2 minutes. Stir in peanut butter and rice krispies. Press into greased pan.
Melt choc. chips and butterscotch chips and spread over.

The combination of Chocolate, butterscotch and peanut butter is absolutely delicious! We have been having a great December, this is definitely my favorite time of year!

Magical...

Going to Disneyland for the Holidays is a MUST for me, especially if you have season passes of course! Jordan, Clara and I headed up there for the afternoon a couple days ago. It was magical as usual, with everything decorated beautifully. We watched the parade and the fireworks and enjoyed the "snow" that comes a couple times a night and after the fireworks. Clara loved watching everything, she had moments of absolute adorableness...and moments of being an absolute terror! I think we have been ushered into the world of a having a toddler. Now that she is walking she wants to go where she wants, when she wants, and that isn't always appropriate. While we were waiting for the parade she wanted to explore everything, and we were totally fine being her shadow and letting her get some energy out. But then when the parade started, it was no longer appropriate to wander about aimlessly. She would sit on our laps and watch everything, until there would be a break in the parade, then she wanted down. We couldn't let her down and she was not happy. Thank goodness for snacks, we managed to keep her occupied until the next thing came by, and "phew" we made it through the parade. She also did not want to be in her stroller, she wanted either to be walking about uninhibited or have me hold her. The bigger I get, the less that will be possible too!
We had a lot of fun, but by the end of the night, we were exhausted! It's hard because you can't really reason with a 15 month old, I feel limited in the amount of "training" or "teaching" I can do at this age. I guess we need to start being more selective with the types of activities we take her to, and begin to teach her that throwing a tantrum does not accomplish anything. I'm pretty sure those things are going to keep us occupied and on our toes for years to come, ahhh the joys of parenthood!! (I also think we have definitely gotten our monies worth out of those season passes!)

Thanksgiving

We had a really nice Thanksgiving here at our house. We had both of our families over and some friends, for a total of 16 people. Everyone brought something for the meal, so we were in charge of Turkey, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. The day was very nice and relaxing, we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and waited for guests to arrive. Before the meal, I was able to sneak out with my sister's little family and take some pictures for them for a Christmas Card.
It's amazing how crazy things get right before the meal is completely ready, the kitchen had been mellow and clean all day until it was time to do last minute preparations. The kitchen turned into 5-6 people flurrying around getting things ready to serve, and the kitchen looked like something blew up. But the meal was absolutely delicious, and Thanksgiving is one of my favorite meals ALL year. I am still eating leftovers and loving it! Unfortunately, I didn't take many other pictures of things, so here are a couple random ones from the day...

Clara & Pappy

Since the fall decorations have been put away, we have replaced them with Christmas ones! This last Sunday we went and got our tree, Clara got to sit on Santa's lap at the Christmas Tree farm (we had to bribe her with a candy cane). The tree and house have been decorated, I'm still waiting on Jordan getting a chance to put our outside lights up. We even managed to get out and take our family Christmas Card pictures, which was very interesting. I thought that if I could get my camera settings just right, then I could have anyone take the pictures. It didn't work out as well as I thought, the sun kept coming and going behind clouds and I kept having to interrupt things to reset the camera. We had both my mom and Jordan's mom come, one to take the pictures, and the other to jump up and down behind the camera to get Clara to look and smile. It was pretty funny but thankfully we managed to get some cute pictures. Here are some funny ones that didn't make it to the card...

Clara loved decorating the tree. I had helped my mom decorate her tree a little earlier, so Clara had a pretty good idea of how to do it. She would pick an ornament, then take it to Jordan to help her put it up, then she would go run grab another one. Grammy and Pappy came over to help us decorate and I made some yummy turkey soup for dinner.
I don't know if you can tell in the tree picture, but my 20 week belly is definitely growing. We had our formal ultrasound last week and they confirmed that it is a boy, so we are working on finalizing a name now. I think we have it pretty much picked out, but Jordan is in charge of the boy names, and he hasn't given me the go to publish it, he says he is still thinking. Christmas is just beginning and I am already having so much fun. I can't wait for our Christmas events and parties to begin, although I am not really looking forward to Christmas shopping (Clara is a terrible shopper, I'll have to teach her better ;). Sorry that I have been such a bad blogger, it'll just have to be random things right now, not much else going on!

Family Beach Day!

This last weekend we had family visiting from Minnesota, and while they were getting a foot of snow back home, we took them to enjoy a San Diego fall beach day! The weather was perfect and we all had such a kick out of watching Clara charge the waves. We took Clara to the beach a couple months ago, and she wanted nothing to do with the waves and water, this time she was completely different! As soon as we set her down she was heading to the water, and she wanted to stop for nothing. Even after the cold water hit her, she wanted to keep going. We had to keep pulling her back, and she would just crawl back for more. She was having sooo much fun, squealing with delight the whole time. Clara would not stop playing in the water, so we eventually had to tear her away after she began to shiver with cold. Stripping her down and wrapping her up helped her to get warm again!

Jordan's Aunt Amber and cousins Elle and Emma loved watching Clara enjoying the water. The girls were such a good help with her the entire time they were here, I know Clara will miss them! While they were here we also went to see Jesse's Lambs Players show "The Glory Man." Which was excellent, and we just spent good quality time as a family! Clara is 14 months old, and she has been walking now since the beginning of the month. She still is a little wobbly, and when she wants to get somewhere in a hurry (like the ocean) she will crawl. It is so cute to watch her walk, and she has begun to say some more words. She can say shoe, teeth, hot, Ella, cookie, and gram gram (not perfectly by any means). We are having so much fun with her it's not even funny!