Katie Comes to Town

This weekend my dear friend, Katie, came to visit from Colorado. She is one busy woman and she certainly deserved a little getaway. She squeezed it beautifully between her busy high school volleyball season and her club volleyball season. It was such a treat to have her around. She makes everything fun - which was a great trait to have around, given the fact that we had a bit of a random weekend of activities planned. She came along for some family pictures in downtown Spokane. We went on a run around our neighborhood.

We celebrated Mr. Benjamin turning one. We cozied up by the first wood fire in our home (thanks to Jono's two hour determination). We cuddled babies in the church nursery. And went out to eat and to Harry Potter on Sunday with some dear friends (yahoo!).

We drank quite a few lattes (four?). Read many a books to the Claranator. Witnessed her mad food eating abilities. And got to experience the first SNOW together. Let me just say my little one already has a bit of an obsession ("touch" "toUCh" "TOUCH" is chanted every time we walk outside). And it was Katie's brilliant idea to make our own waterproof boots. Genius, I know.

Oh, and it was her idea to make a snow angel. Again, genius.

It was a great weekend. Thanks for making the trip, Katie!

Eighteen Months

Here is Miss Clara in a picture I snapped this morning. All eighteen months and fourteen days of the massive, healthy (yahoo) Claranator.

Why massive? Today was Clara's eighteen month check-up. She's kind of been a monster all along, but today's appointment proved it further. Here are her stats:

Height: 34 inches (97%)

Weight: 26 pounds (75%)

Head: 19 inches (90%)

I suppose it's not too surprising that she's a large girl. Her mama is a bit of a large girl herself. I'm just wondering how much her largeness will start extending over her waistline? While sitting down as a toddler, I could basically balance cheerios on the "shelf" that was my belly. That could be Clara here quite soon. Only time will tell. We are truly blessed. To the max ;).

Happy Nana!

Clara's nana and papa are both sixty! They reached the landmark birthday just five months apart. We celebrated John's birthday in June with a weekend getaway to Silver Mountain.

This past weekend we celebrated Kathy's 60th birthday. Her request was to share a family evening together at their house on Saturday and have everyone stay overnight. We ordered take out Thai, Anna made a delicious cobbler, and we just relaxed. It was lovely. Clara was pretty much in heaven on Sunday morning, waking up at Nana's with so many of her favorite people. That morning we had brunch as a family and then had friends come over later to celebrate.

It was a wonderful weekend of celebrating sixty years of a life well lived. We certainly have a heritage in Christ and we are so thankful!

Anna did an amazing job baking a whole assortment of gluten free, dairy free goodies. The breakfast gingerbread was to die for!

Anna and I planned the gathering together. Actually Anna did most of it because she menu planned and organized all the food. I was the gift planner and the maker of these lovely poms. I'm a huge fan because they are easy, cheap, and oh so pretty!

I can't decide the best part of the weekend because it was all just lovely. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures...

And now Clara keeps on saying "Happy Nana", which, surprisingly, has replaced "Happy Eeya". Since Sophia turned one in September, Clara has not been able to sing the birthday song to anyone other than Miss Eeya. Times are a-changing, though. Our next birthday is for Mr. Benj, so it'll be interesting to see what happens next! Will it be Happy Eeya, Happy Nana, or Happy Benj?

Nana, we love you. Clara loves you too! Happy 60th birthday!

Thankful

My favorite holiday is just around the corner. There are so many reasons I love Thanksgiving. The food. The family and friends. The quiet. The reminder to slow down and count my blessings. It probably also has to do with the lack of commercialization. There is really not much money to be made on a holiday that involves purely eating and being together (and maybe some football. But I suppose someone makes money on TVs. And probably table runners. Okay, and porcelain turkeys. But that's about it). I think that fact makes me like it all the more.

For many reasons this fall has seemed to fly by at a record pace. Maybe it's because I have a little girl who is growing and changing so rapidly, I can barely keep up. Or because volleyball and football season have come and gone, faster than ever, it seems. Or it could be that I'm just a bit mentally slower to adapt to the world around me. It's probably that.

Last night I finally hung my "thankful" sign. I meant to hang it two weeks ago. But I had to make it, so that slows the process down a little bit. Okay, a lot bit. The best part is that when I laid it out on the floor to show my husband, saying "what do you think?" He said, "It's nice; what's it for?" That made me feel really great about my effort. I countered his indifference with the statement that the entire thing took me like $2 to make - and that it's one of a kind. He seemed to appreciate it more after that.

My goal over the next few weeks (and always, really) is to take more time to think about the many ways in which I'm blessed. I certainly have a tendency to think of the frustrations more easily (dirty house, old cars, dark/cold season, nasty face rash ;), etc.....). So I'm hoping my lovely sign will remind me that I have much to be thankful for! Here are just a few things I've been reflecting on recently. I'm thankful for...

*The fact that my thankful sign is done - projects are hard to complete around here ;).

*The constant babble of my little girl. I may grow tired of it one day, but I love being surprised each day as she adds new words and phrases to her repertoire. She said the words "I love you" for the first time to her Bammy (Grammy) the other day.

*Eggnog lattes in the morning.

*The fact that God is in control of my life (not me) and that is a really good thing.

*Friends with little ones who want to go through life together - and who are transparent about the joys and challenges of motherhood.

*Making soups and stews, lighting candles, piling up firewood, and adding an extra blanket to our bed (I'm trying to look at the positive side of this daylight savings dreariness!).

*Being married to my favorite person on the planet.

My list could be much longer. I am one blessed woman. And I want to remember that.

Clara's Revenge

This is what I got for leaving the little darling alone in the kitchen during breakfast to write an email in the other room. It was too quiet; I should've known.

I think I've learned my lesson.

Swimming in Chicken

Thanks to this lovely coupon blog, I now have eighty pounds of chicken in my freezer (half is pictured above). How in the world did I end up with that much? Well, it's because I decided to order 40 lbs. of chicken for 1.48/lb (an amazing deal). It's also because I entered into the blog drawing and won another forty pounds.

It is literally the first time in my life I have won anything. Seriously. I am the one during raffle drawings who is holding my breath thinking this has to be the time, only to find out it is not the time. But alas, my time has come.

And it's great timing, at that. Come on, if I had to choose a great first time to win something, it would definitely be forty pounds of free chicken. Horrah.

So if you're hungry for chicken, you know where to come.

P.S. The four hours of cutting off fat from the breasts and learning how to use my sister's mother-in-law's friend's food saver was pretty much death. But now I'm a happy camper. I think it will last us for a long time.

Clarabelle the Cow

I'm happy to report that Halloween this year was far better than last year, although anything compared with last year would be a vast improvement. For starters, Leah was here and got to experience our co-op Halloween day. Plus she was here for most of the actual day before she flew back home.

It was also a great day because we gathered with dear friends, the Edmonsons & Pickerings, for some trick-or-treating and good food. Of course putting the kids in costume and watching them respond to the whole ordeal was a highlight.

I wasn't quite sure what Clara would think of the whole trick-or-treating thing, but let me tell you, she ate it up. It might have been the combination of following the older kids & carrying around her little bag of goodies? Whatever the reason, she loved it. She never wanted to be held but just hurried her fastest (which is not all that fast) trying to catch up with Andrew and Addy. She even got the hang of the whole holding out your bag for candy thing. Saying trick or treat? was a little beyond her capabilities. But she uttered please every time and only ran inside one house (the first one we went too - it was a bit embarrassing).

All in all it was a great first Halloween (because lets be honest, last year didn't count).

Bammy & LEE-YA

My sister was here this weekend. Sigh. She is gone again, just like that. The time we spent together was lovely, although never long enough.

My mom organized a girls weekend centered around the Beth Moore conference this weekend. It was great. Inspiring. Encouraging. Challenging. A great reason to get together.

And our time outside of the conference was wonderful as well. Eating out together. Staying at a hotel downtown. Taking in the gorgeous fall colors (despite the fact that is was so grey and cold). Walking around downtown. Just relaxing and being together.

Times like this are precious, especially since they come so few and far between. Lucky for me, I only have to wait 24 short days until I see my sister again. Horrah!

Random highlight: Clara can now say "LEE-YA" just as clear as a bell ;). And she's nearly as close with grammy. Her adapted version is "bammy". Love it. Here's the Halloween costume preview...