Happy Birthday Claire!

What an exciting day! Claire is a whole handful of years old! Can you believe she is 5 today? I'm not old enough to have a 5 year old, and surely we haven't had her that long! She is such a blessing to our family and such a great help to me! She loves her little sisters so much (even though she can push Meredith's buttons like no other!). She's a little cheerleader to everyone. Let me give you a quick example: At lunch on Tuesday, I was making grilled cheese sandwiches. I seriously burned the first two sandwiches that I made (there are certain tasks that you shouldn't multi-task...laundry and grilled cheese is one of them). Anyway, so I began my 3rd grilled cheese and I decided to stand there while it cooked. I flipped the grilled cheese at the perfect moment, and Claire starts clapping and cheering! "Mom, you didn't burn it this time! That is so great!" :) That truly brightened my day and encouraged me in my cooking quest.

Claire is extremely athletic and picks up quickly on anything that requires coordination. Playing golf and wrestling with Daddy are two of her favorite things. She is full of "great ideas" and will gladly share them with anyone who will listen! She loves to write and is really looking forward to reading. She has been such a joy to all of us, and we can't wait to see her grow up even more over the next year...especially since she is starting kindergarten in the fall! We love you so much, Claire; you are such a special little girl!

Here are some pictures of Claire throughout the last 5 years!

Fun with the Girls (and Emmett)

Ok, so over the weekend we had a lot of fun. At the hotel that we stayed in, we were able to swim in the pool on the 19th floor. Let's just say, I'm glad I wasn't staying on the 18th floor (we were on the 3rd). I mean, seriously, that would be a huge bummer if the pool fell through the ceiling of your room. Who ever thought it was a fantastic idea to put the pool on the top floor? I guess it works and all, I just wouldn't think of it as a genius idea. Uncle Andrew and Aunt Jill took the kids swimming on Saturday night, and Josh and I took the kids out to dinner and then swimming on Sunday night. It was a whole lot of fun! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the trip...Josh had the camera packed up in his truck :(



Our dinners out were fantastic! Josh went out to dinner on Thursday, and the place they went prints new menus every night for dinner. In honor of Amelia's birth, the gentleman that was taking Josh out had the menus printed especially for us. Every menu that was delivered to every guest that evening had "It's a Girl!" printed on the top of the menu. How cool is that? We have a few copies, and they also gave us a card. So nice. Anyway, so one of my favorites was getting macaroni and cheese at the nice steakhouse on Saturday night. Who knew? Mac 'n Cheese at a steakhouse. It was mmmm...tasty! So unique too. And a HUGE thank you to Jill and Drewski for watching the kiddos while we had a couple of nights out! So nice.



The good news is that Julie had her camera when we visited there, so we have a few pictures of our trip to Julie and Emmett's. Emmett was lucky enough to sleep in a house with 6 girls! Wow, that is a ton of estrogen in the house. He survived pretty well, I think. Julie cooked us some awesome lasagna on Tuesday night. She claims it came off of the back of the Barilla box, but I'm skeptical. It was really good...so check it out if you need a new lasagna recipe. BONUS: You don't even have to boil the noodles. Anyway, so we hung out with a fun Moms' group, played in a fun play-area at the mall, shopped at 2 stores (you can't shop for long periods of time with 4 little girls), rescued Harper after she ran out of one store...she's kind of a shopaholic, played at a super-great park, and had lunch at a Panera-type restaurant. I had a grilled brie cheese and apple sandwich. It was great, and I'm ready to go back and have another one.



The kids got along pretty well. Claire, of course, was trying to "help" Harper do everything. This proved a bit troublesome for Harper at times as she didn't like Claire in her face all of the time. On a related note, Harper (16 months) really liked Amelia. She thought Amelia could be her own little baby doll. As most 16 month-olds do, Harper thought she could pull Amelia's hair and drag her around by her legs. Thankfully, Julie was always nearby and Amelia wasn't scarred for life :)



Julie also just became a Creative Memories consultant (scrapbooking supplies), and I know she is going to be great at it! I can't wait to hear of all of her successes. She already has some events planned, and I'm ready to buy a few products (and I don't even scrap!). They have this fantastic picture frame that I'm going to have to put on my birthday wish-list. For any of you planning to get me something great, I am turning 30 on Thanksgiving Day this year! Ok, back to Julie and Creative Memories...anyway, so she has this software from CM that can create scrapbook pages and lots of cool stuff. So, we put our heads together and created Amelia's birth announcements! So cute. I'm pretty sure most of you will be getting one. If not, I will be posting the announcement here for all to see once I get them mailed out. Thank you Julie for helping me!



I've included a few pictures from the trip. Getting all of the kids to look at us in any one picture was impossible (as you all know!). And Julie and I are trying to figure out how we didn't get any pictures of the two of us...oh I can probably figure it out. I think it has something to do with 4 little adorable girls in our lives!

Harper and Amelia (who doesn't look like she's having much fun)

Emmett, Harper, and Claire swinging in the hammock.
Julie and Emmett have a beautiful backyard.

Claire, Meredith, and Harper in the cool airplane at the park.

Harper, Julie, and Amelia: Amelia really did love Julie!

We're Home!

Hello all! Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but we just made it back into town last night! I'll update soon on our happenings. But a quick sneak-peek:

We had been driving in the van for a couple of hours. All of the kids had been sleeping and Claire wakes up:

Claire: Mom, are we almost home?

Me: No, but we're gettting closer. You slept for over an hour.

Claire: I haven't been sleeping!

Me: Yes you have...for almost an hour and a half.

Claire: No, I wasn't! I was just being really quiet back here!

what's.in.her.mouth?

This afternoon, Claire and I were burping Amelia after she ate. This is how our conversation went....

Claire: "Wow, she's really spitting up a lot!"

Me: "Yes she is!"

Amelia: (obviously poops)

Me: "Wow, Amelia! That was a big poop. You've got it coming out of both ends!"

Claire: "She has poop coming out of her mouth?"

Josh and Me: (laughter...laughter...laughter)

bird.feeders

Last week I did a fun and easy craft with the girls. We decided to make bird feeders. We took old bagels and covered them with Crisco. Then we dunked them in bird seed and hung them in the tree with some string. I think we hung them on Tuesday morning, and we've been watching all week to see if any birds are interested in eating them. We have seen a lot of birds, but we haven't seen any eating off of our bird feeders. We woke up this morning to find our bird feeders completely gone! Claire asked, "What do you think ate them?" I said, "Probably a bird or a squirrel or a chipmunk." Meredith added her own theory...."I think a giraffe ate them! They have long necks that can reach up in trees!"

Logical thought process on a certain level...deer, maybe....but giraffe, not so much around here. Where does she come up with this stuff? Regardless of where it comes from, it makes me laugh, and so I'm thankful! :)

let's.fight

Conversation in our kitchen this evening....

Meredith (while holding Amelia's pacifier): "How 'bout we fight over this!"

(Claire ignores Meredith.)

Meredith: "Claire! How 'bout we fight over this!"

Me: "Meredith, why do you want to fight over something?"

Meredith: "So we can say, 'It's mine, it's mine!" "No mine! Mine!"

Seriously?

Christmas.all.year

No joke! We found Christmas lights on the big pine tree near our driveway on the edge of our property. Josh and I completely cracked up! Now we just have to find out if they work... :) At least they'll already be up for Christmas; the girls will be so excited.

Ahhh yes, the siding. Here is what most of the house looks like on the outside. The top pic is the front door/front porch area. The second pic is the back of the house located outside the dining room and beside the covered deck.

This is what the sided part looks like. This is the back of the house, and the door heads into our utility/laundry room. (Honestly, the picture doesn't do it justice.)

The side that is closest to the pole barn is also completely sided, however I didn't take any pictures of it yet. I can't wait until the whole house is done! It will look so good...although I will miss the green/blue color as well as the "EasyGard" print stamped all over the house. And even when the entire house is sided, Claire's name will live on forever under the siding. (Who knew the siding wasn't going up right away? She wrote her name on the house wrap back in October...right next to the front door!)

three.favorite.girls

Today is Amelia's 4 week birthday. Last night, it finally occurred to me (after 4 weeks) that I don't have any pictures of my three favorite girls together. I've thought about taking a picture of all of the girls several times over the last few weeks, however, Claire and Meredith typically look something like this while hanging out at home:

I think there is something oxymoronic about this photo.

Notice the striped tights and the Barbie sandals.

Let's just say that they really like to choose their own outfits (which is fine at home), but they typically aren't "photo shoot" outfits. So, last night, I was feeling extremely guilty for not having any pictures of all three of my children together. (Gina would have been SO on top of this type of thing....please don't disown me as your SIL.) Anyway, while everyone was in their pjs, I grabbed the camera for a few pics. I'll definitely get some better settings/outfits in the future, but this will do for now! It just seems like when everyone looks good, we're running late to wherever we're going. And by the time we get back, people are hungry and look frazzled! Who can relate?

On a side note, I was outside taking pictures of the new siding today (I'll post them soon), and I am just so excited! We have a fantastic lilac bush next to the garage! Josh was excited that I was excited. After the poison ivy and all of the mosquitoes last week, he said I needed something to get excited about here in the great outdoors. If you put your nose up to the screen, you can almost smell the sweet scent :)