Happy Halloween

So the night before Halloween, I headed in to check on Claire. Her room as laminate flooring and can get cold, so I head in to make sure she is not freezing. Well Brandon had told me she had done this same thing to him a few days before and said he just laid her back down. She sat up in her bed when she heard me open the door and walk in, but she was still alseep, yup you heard right, still asleep. I headed for the camera. she of course was playing with her blanket, total habit for her.

After she had enough sitting, she just laid back down.

Now on To Halloween day, Claire was an adorable little Ladybug

We went to Great Gram and Gramps house to start out our night to show off and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's to show them and Auntie Shan how cute those ladybugs really are. After showing off we headed to Grandma Vonnie's and Grandpa's for our fun Halloween party. We played a spoon game, where we had to get candy corn from a bowl to a cup on a spoon. Seeing as Claire is being a little bit sassy about learning to walk, I helped her out. I would hold her hand and the spoon and then help her dump it out. After she figured the game out...
she wanted to do it herself, so she would grab as many as her little hands could and then we would walk to the other side and she would dump them in. (she didn't even try to eat them, surprise, surprise)
Then of course we headed out to do some trick-or-treating. Here is the group that went out to "get candy, get candy, get candy" (Jerry Seinfeld stand-up act)
After that we played games and ate until after midnight. HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL!!!

When the Dads are away the Kids will play!

I have 3 friends I grew up with that have babies all about the same age as Claire. They were all born with in a year of each other. Sadly two of the four of us live out of the state and the third will be moving soon with her husband that just joined the army. Therefore we had to get together and play and talk. Xander havin' a great time!

The gang
Don't worry we will make a mess
Look I can crawl YAHOO!!
Benjamin
Allie and Benjamin


Thanks for coming over and playing whenever you are in town come on over again.

a little lost on what to post

So we have done a few things since I last posted about Claire's pictures, but haven't quite made it to the computer to post about it. And honestly I felt a little blogged out and needed to scrapbook. I was almost two years behind, but got myself to last Christmas and got pictures in order for the next year, so I will be caught up in no time. I realized how much I LOVE to scrapbook and they may not look that amazing or great, but I just love to look at the pictures and remember the feeling and scrapbook that emotion. That probably doesn't make sense to you, but honestly every page and picture is put together for a reason.
I have now been given the great chance to scrapbook a wedding signing book (you know the one you sign when you first walk in), for a friend, I am excited to do it and can't wait to see how it turns out. Maybe I will post about it.
Now that you have heard about my scrap booking lets get to some pictures shall we.Claire has done this twice in the past two weeks. Sundays are really hard on the poor girl!

We headed to the zoo on Saturday, before it got to cold.
We saw rhino's
Giraffes
Elephants
Monkeys, bears, zebras, and lots of other animals. Claire really likes animals!

While scrap booking one day, it got really quite and this is what I found.
Claire has been having a hard time finish her meals so I bought her cupcakes and told her if she had her breakfast and lunch and finished it for two days she could have one. She actually did it!
Conference weekend, Claire went and asked, (in her own way) if she could have some popcorn of her Daddies. Her way is to stare at you make talking noises and then look at what she wants. Brandon pretended to be asleep so she went for it.


She loves bath time, and she loves to put things in her mouth.
she is also a big cheese ball when you ask her to smile

One Year Pictures

We got Claire's one year old pictures taken, Janae again did a great job. We love them. Loved the location and the cute props.

Cheese Ball!!

Okay so Claire is a lounger, notice leg up hand out. She does this everywhere we go. Shopping cart legs up back to side of cart, stroller, high chair, you name it she lounges.

Don't you bother me!

Are you Stinkin' Kidding Me??

Mom, please don't make me get any more picture's taken!

Thanks Janae for taking her cute pictures. Love your work!!

Saturday Fun

So I kind of forgot to post about this, was looking through pictures and so here they are. I ran the American Heart Assocations Heart Walk/Run 5k on Saturday at Sugar House Park and took some time off my last 5k. Before the race

Claire looking like she is having fun waiting for Mom, "GO MOMMY"

Done, in 30:16 I took 2:46 off my last time. hopefully that will get better!

Then we headed home and Daddy headed up to school to get some much needed work done. We cleaned the house and Daddy mentioned he wanted some more popcorn. So we made some.

Claire is a great helper, she was holding my grocery list so I could get stuff written down.

Wanting the popping popcorn

Yum that looks good

Aren't Saturdays fun??

Faith Factor

As some of you may know I have one of the greatest callings, I am the Achievement Day leader in my ward for all the 8 to 11 year old girls. I love these girls, they are always willing and wanting to do what I come up with. This activity was, I thought, fun. We had faith factor
(sorry I can't take all the credit I got the idea from sugardoodle.net). We divide into two teams and had scriptures written on the board that I would uncover before each new activity. The team that found the scripture the fastest (all the team members in there own scriptures) was the winner. After finding the scriptures they had to tell me the Faith word(s) in the verse(s). Then if there team won they got to pick there activity.

(for the privacy of my girls I will be changing names)

Sour Lips-object to get as much juice from the lemons as possible in 30 secondsGertrude and Pamela are at there best Gertrude, getting the lemon juice out.

Pamela, spitting hers in, hoping she can get more then Gertrude

We had an Ice Melt-object is to have your whole team melt there ice cubes, in there hands, the fastest.

The Brady bunches hands were absolutely frozen by the time they were done

Apparently jumping up and down makes the ice cube melt faster


Next Shakira and Nancy were Breath Taking, object to get the cotton ball of the opposite side of the table

Nancy, blowing so hard her face turned a little red, but working so hard.

Shakira in action, wanting to win, blowing, blowing, blowing.


Shakira and Pamela were ready for bounce. Object to get as many tennis balls to BOUNCE into a garbage can.
Doing great ladies



We had a Drop Zone- Object to drop three goldfish into there teammates mouths before the other team
Megara, Winny, Apple, and Montana all were at there best, never giving up and being cheered on by the rest of the team.

We also had Slime Ball, where teams had to get down to the slime of a grape by taking the skin off. Creepy Crawly, they used a stick to get gummy worms from a bowl to cup to cup and see who had the most in the end cup in 2 minutes. and Black Hole two girls are blindfolded and throwing balls and there partners are holding the bowl to toss into, first to get there two in wins the point.

Thanks for a great activity girlies!!

our last day

So our last day in Sydney took us to the Powerhouse Museum. We saw lots of fun things. Like this bike that I tried out And this shoe that is made out of candy but is really a bike. My kind of shoe!

And I got to play the piano with my tootsies

We got to see coral beds crocheted. It was amazing, they were all different colors there hand to be a couple dozen different coral beds

And of course we played in the kids area. Well everyone but Claire she was snoozen
Lift this...

Pull or push this

Then dump it and start all over.


After we hit the museum we went and met the kiddos at home and Kevin worked at home that day so we could go SWIMMIN'. They took us the the Sydney Olympic Pool. Now I have taken Claire to a pool before and she sat there and cried most of the time. This time she made me nervous she had no fear and went under the water a few times and I had to grab her and she came up a spittin' . She loved floating on her back and get dumped on with the giant bucket of water, and playing with the other kids. There was a lazy river and a slide. And we all had a great time, thus the lack of pictures, sorry to much fun, not time to pose.

Then we had to say our goodbyes and packed up so we could leave for the airport before 6:00a.m.

Claire and Daddy waiting for our plane to leave.

FREEDOM after our long flight she was crazy and all she wanted to do was crawl, so we let her. then onto our flight home

THANK YOU so much Stacy, Kevin, Madi, Cooper and Rylee for letting us come and stay. We loved visiting and seeing you and all the places you love to go. Thanks for letting us use the Hutchinson Hotel for a few weeks.