Thursday, March 22, 2012

Stylin'

Claire was looking fancy today.  :)  A t-shirt and skirt with Baby Legs is a favorite outfit for her, but today she accented it with her pink sparkle shoes, sunglasses, and her sweater.  She's been obsessed with sweaters the last few days - right as it's getting too warm to wear them all day, of course.  She looks like such a big girl to me in this picture!

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Flowers from Claire

We spent a couple of hours playing outside Monday afternoon - I'm trying to take advantage of this great weather since I know it won't be long before it is miserably hot.  My sweet Claire brought me these little flowers - "Mommy, I picked these for you."  Loved it!
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The kids enjoyed playing with some new sand toys that we got from Costco that morning. (Check out Will's haircut - he looks like such a big boy now!)
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Will did a lot of exploring.
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And...Will learned how to climb up the playset stairs by himself.  Now he just has to get comfortable sliding down.   :)
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To the Top!

Last Friday we spent the morning at the Children's Museum, and the kids were excited to try out the new outdoor exhibits.  Will was enthralled with the music exhibit - not surprisingly, he had a blast banging on everything.

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Claire made a beeline for the new climber.  It took her a few minutes to get up the nerve to try it.  She went up a couple of steps, and then got a little nervous.  I talked her through how to get back down and just kept encouraging her to try to go, and soon she was all over it like a little monkey.  She would make her way up, come down, go up another way, come down, repeat, repeat, repeat.  :)  Will was going back and forth between the music makers and the water table, so it was easy to keep up with both of them.  Eventually Claire made it all the way to her top, and she was so excited.  "Mommy, look!  I went all the way to the top, all by myself!  Mommy, I so happy!"  I was really proud of her, mainly just for sticking with it and not giving up when she wasn't sure she could do it.

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Sunday, March 04, 2012

Claire's Creations

Claire loves to organize and make patterns, and she is getting pretty creative.

A little over a year ago, her creations usually looked something like this:

Week 3 / Tuesday

Then a few months later, she graduated to things like this:
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And this:
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She really liked sorting my shoes:
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In the last couple of weeks, I've realized that I need to start recording these.  This was a little over a week ago. She started changing this one, but shortly before I took the photo, she had made lots of little pyramids out of her legos and arranged them in a circle.
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In the playroom, books lined up on the window sill, each with a piece of her letter puzzle on top.
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She put this one together with things she gathered from our bedroom and her toys.  It may be her most creative yet.
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I think someday I'll have to make a photo book comprised of her special projects!


Saturday, March 03, 2012

Catching up

I've had several projects going lately that have been filling time I could otherwise use for blogging, like:
  • Working with a lender to refinance our mortgage (taking advantage of these low rates!)
  • Cleaning out our office (we got a new desk that doesn't have a lot of drawers - time to reorganize!)
  • Reading a book for Book Club
  • Keeping up with a couple of studies with church
  • Working on our 2011 blog book
  • Figuring out what we're going to do for Claire's 4th birthday
Before I get any further behind, I finally sat down and went through all of the photos I've taken so far this year and hadn't blogged already - you can scroll through January and February or use these links to see what you've missed!

The First Day
A Night Away
Train Fail
January Random
January Random - Food Edition
Our personal playground
Visiting the Children's Museum
Feburary Random



Claire-isms

It's funny now to think that I used to be worried about whether Claire would talk - she is such a little chatterbox now, and her speech has just continued to improve.

Today Will slept in (hallelujah!) and we had a little more time together with just the two of us than usual.  She takes a computer class at her school and gets to play games sometimes during free play and has gotten pretty knowledgeable about computers (especially for a not quite 4 year old!).  She doesn't get much time on our computer at home, usually because Will is underfoot, but today was a good chance for her to play.  I was already getting ready to type in the site she likes when she said very matter-of-factly said "Mommy - go to PBS Kids dot org."  Her enunciation was so precise, and I loved that she got the "dot org" in there - it was all I could do not to crack up.

Crawford House comes to town - Part Two

Team McCormick invited us all over for a play date Friday morning.  Jill, Lindsay, and I have all been friends since college, and it was so nice to be able to get together and enjoy spending time with each other and all of our children.

Future golfer?
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Chalk fun!
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Always up to something...
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We were sad to see the Crawfords go - hopefully it won't be as long until we're able to see each other again!

Crawford House comes to town - Part One

Lindsay's eldest son had a winter break this past week, so 3/4 of Crawford House came to San Antonio for a couple of days.  They arrived on Wednesday night, and Claire was so excited to see the boys!  She ran through the house squealing and giggling - it took awhile before she was able to calm down enough to even say hello to them.  Will wasn't sure what was going on, but since Claire seemed to think it was so exciting, he just joined in.

On Thursday I took Will to school and kept Claire home so we could have some fun with just the bigger kids.  While Lindsay and I got ready to go, Claire, JTC, and AJC bonded over some game time.

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We spent most of the morning at Kiddie Park, a local old fashioned amusement park with rides for younger kids.  They day was slightly drizzly and overcast, so there weren't many people there.  It was perfect - the kids were able to ride every ride at least once without standing in line.  The park is small enough that we could let them run from ride to ride and easily follow them around, allowing us to actually visit.  We all had a great time!

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After burgers and fries at Cheesy Jane's, we went home and Claire, AJC, Lindsay, and I all got naps while JTC watched a movie.  I picked up Will, and the kids had fun in the playroom until dinner.

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