Everybody loves and adores Claire!
Ollie and Lily both love time to hold her.
Claire is growing like a little weed! It's probably that middle of the night feeding that's helping out.
She is a happy smiley baby! We are enjoying her immensely!
Ollie is going through a phase where he loves to take pictures. Here's his favorite toy after he dressed monkey up in Claire's clothes.
Two more pictures captured by Ollie.
The top was taken on night setting.
The bottom one is a cute one of Claire, who he loves to take pictures of.
One day Ollie did Lily's hair for her. They both had fun taking pictures of the finished product. Ollie took DOZENS of pictures of her. Lucky you, you only have to see one. :) This also show Lily in her favorite shirt which she wants to wear every day. It says, "happy sparkly day" on it. Fortunately, it gets dirty and she has to wear something else.
Ollie definitely wins best big brother of the year. At night while Papa sings "Little Bunny FueFue" (sp?) to Lily, Ollie puts the build-a-bear Tinkerbell costume on his head and dances around as the 'good fairy'.
Ollie wanted to take pictures of his rock tower. I convinced him that pictures are more interesting if they have people in them. Again, Lily is in her favorite shirt.
Ollie loves school. He's been learning all sorts of things. One day they learned about slaves. Ollie came home with TONS of questions. It was fun to explain slavery and the civil war on a six year old level. The conversation started with him saying that he learned about the underground railroad, "but it's not underground and it's not a railroad."
He loves to read and just devours books! One day after picking him up from school we stopped by the library. He did make it into the house but that's as far as he got before he had to start reading. Sometimes he doesn't even get out of the car when we get home after a library visit. I have to go out after about 30 minutes and remind him that he can come in and read his book. The rule at our house is if you can play ball inside than you can read outside. Yes, we play ball inside.
Lily loves to play outside! She loves to get dirty. One day we were working outside and she was just filthy! I couldn't resist taking a picture. The picture doesn't do justice to her dirty face that had burgers smeared all over it. Thankfully children are washable!
Lily got a cape in the mail from Grandma Beck. She loves to wear it with her crown and dance around the house. Lily is learning her alphabet and counting to 10. She loves it when I take time each day to have school with her. She especially likes it when I pack her lunch in her lunch box. One evening we built a fire and roasted marsh mellows. I cooked one nice golden brown for her. When I offered it to her she said, "I'm not eating that! It's dirty!". I was more than happy to eat it for her.
One day I walked into the kitchen, only it had transformed. It had turned into a lake! The dishwasher had broken and it was a mess. I quickly stopped the dishwasher and spent a good while cleaning up the mess. It was beyond being fixed so we bought a new one. After a week of no hot water in the kitchen and dishes by hand Spencer and Lily installed the new dishwasher, after replacing the sheet rock. We do still have to fix the warped baseboards but other than that it's good as new.
We've been hard at work in the backyard. We added a veggie garden. It took a lot of time! We spent forever getting the soil all ready. We found a worm that fascinated the kids. We are also rebuilding out deck to get it away from the house. We are hoping to avoid termite problems on the house. They can eat our deck... just not our house. :) It's been a big project that is still ongoing. I'll post pictures of the finished product. We are also fixing up our playground for the kids. Hopefully we will get everything done and it will be a nice safe place for the summer. Plan on coming swimming soon!
Sweet Papa took the kids outside and helped them build this wonderful fort. Mom and Clarie took a nap.
Claire admires her Uncle Ben. He can fit his mouth around the rim of a cup and drink the water that way. She's trying to stretch her mouth out by eating her fist. Just keep practising Claire!
Ollie and Lily decided that their snack was the left over brownies. Papa was surprised when he got home from work and all the brownies were gone.
As you can see we've been busy! Life is full and we are enjoying it! Here's to hoping it's not two more months before I post again. :)
