Santa Baby

This was Claire's first experience of Santa--ever! :) Needless to say, it was a typical holiday picture moment...just about the same as every other one year old's reaction to Santa. Austin and I went to my parents' ward Christmas party, and they were taking pictures. We couldn't pass it up! :) We had a great time with the 1st ward, but by the end of the night, Claire was ready to go to bed. Maybe next year she will be more interested in the "Santa moment."  Daddy and I love you, Claire!

Claire Loves To Help

 Claire LOVES to help rake the leaves! This was from today, in our backyard (out by the garden plot).

She did such a great job helping, maybe I should have paid her some Christmas money. :)

Claire loves these leaves. She especially likes to rake the pile of leaves, then go and sit down prim and lady-like in the pile. Sometimes she'll let me put some leaves on top of her lap to "bury" her in the leaves, but not today. :)

 Our busy little girl. She hasn't been quite herself, what with teething, a bit of a runny nose and cough, and all the Christmas-time busy-ness going on at our house.

 Austin was so excited to unwrap a nutcracker from Britta this year for Christmas! Claire was loving on it, but was not particularly happy about the getting her picture taken part.

Austin and his first official nutcracker for our home. :) It's almost Christmas! We are getting so excited over here at our house! :)

Christmas FHE

Usually Austin and I just read a Ensign article for Family Home Evening. But I thought, "Hey, Claire will be going into nursery in a few months (this upcoming March). I bet that we could start teaching FHE out of the nursery manual Behold Your Little Ones to get her used to listening to a "real" lesson. :) So last night, that is exactly what we did. Since Christmas is coming up in a few weeks, we learned about the lesson titled "Jesus Christ is the Son of Heavenly Father." (This was the Christmas lesson.) The picture above is the one pictured in the manual. We talked about Jesus being born of Mary and about Him being born also as the Son of God. I pointed to the baby and told her "this is baby Jesus." She looked at Austin and I, then pointed at Jesus and said "Baby!" This was a precious moment to me...to hear Claire reacting to us trying to teach her about her Savior. We pointed to the Star in the background, and Claire started doing the actions for "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." We explained that the Star was a sign of Jesus' birth. I love how quickly Claire is learning and growing. And at this Christmas time of year, I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to teach my sweet daughter the reason for this joyous season--the celebration of Christ's birth, the Redeemer of the world.

Consider the Lilies...

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" (Matthew 6:28-30)

 Lately we have been dealing with a weevil problem at our house. We have had to throw out considerable amounts of food, and it was discouraging to see so much food that Austin and I had saved be wasted. But the Lord is always aware of each of our struggles. This afternoon I went outside in the backyard with Claire to enjoy the beautiful day. The basil plant in our garden has been OUT OF CONTROL for over a month now, and so I decided to let Claire play around while I cleared it. I found a few HUGE carrots (the big one I'm holding above in particular) after I cleared out a lot of the basil. Then I started digging around the green beans that I thought had died out this summer, but had started growing back once the weather had toned down from scorching to bearably hot. :)

 Can you believe how many beans Austin and I picked? At this point Austin had come home, and was snuggling Claire while the two of us talked. I pulled up a bit of the greenery of the green beans, and I exclaimed, "Look at that!"Austin and I went through, and found a TON of green beans ready to be picked. It was certainly a tender mercy of Heavenly Father. His way of saying to me, "no matter what, if you are trying to do what is right, I will always provide." Within a few minutes, we picked a whole entire bowl full of produce!

What an amazing blessing! I'm so thankful for tender mercies of the Lord. I know that when I do what He asks, and try my best, He will ALWAYS provide for me and my family. Hence the scripture I started out with. What a wonderful Father in Heaven. This garden (which we were sure hadn't turned out to be much), turned out to be a symbol of hope and mercy and love.

Pigtails...Finally Another Hairdo!

Claire finally let me do her hair again...so here are some little piggy tails! Hurray!

Trunk-or-Treat...and the Great Reveal!

 Claire was a Fairy Princess Ballerina this year for Halloween. I think Mommy had as much fun dressing her up as Claire did! Here we are, getting ready. These are the shoes I showed last night that I sewed.

 Claire in all her Fairy Princess Ballerina glory.

 I would have loved it if she would have let me keep this bow clip in her hair...it matched just perfectly! Alas, it was not to be. :) Oh well.

 Such a happy girl! It's amazing how much difference one year can make. A pea in the pod last year...now a walking (running, really) little ballerina girl.

 Fairy wings! :)

 Daddy and his little girl. :)

 Austin was a pirate again this year. This was our spiffy trunk! :) Austin stayed and handed out the candy...

 while Mommy and Claire walked around and trunk-or-treated! Here we are...matching! :) (Well, sort of.)

Mostly Mommy had to carry Claire. But here is proof that she walked around in her costume at least at first! :) We had a great Halloween trunk-or-treat. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Pumpkins!

 We carved pumpkins this afternoon after visiting with Aunt Shelly, who we are very sad is leaving tonight. Happy Halloween!

 Claire was (slightly) more involved in the pumpkin carving this year.

 She thought it was all very interesting...

 She wasn't quite sure about it...

 And I couldn't honestly say that she really liked the "pumpkin guts." Too bad. That is MY favorite part! Pumpkin mask, here I come!

 Austin's pumpkin.

 Claire's pumpkin.

 Family pumpkins!

All lit up!We were all set for our trunk-or-treat tonight. We are so excited for our own family Halloween!

Trick or Treat...Preview!

Our ward Halloween trunk or treat is tomorrow night. This is a preview of part of Claire's costume that I made tonight. (The ribbon will be trimmed to size tomorrow when I try them on Claire.) What do you think our cute little girl will be this year? :)

Family Time

Austin's family was just here visiting this past week, and it was so wonderful to get to see them! They arrived on Wednesday, and stayed until Sunday. While they were here, we showed off our new house--and Austin and his dad worked on the back shower! :) All the tiles are up now...it is a miracle! :) They worked long and hard on it all day Saturday, when Austin was off from work. It was so nice getting to see almost everyone--we were just missing Denya, Wade & Kimberlea, and Landon & Megan. And they brought the nice weather along with them when they came from Colorado! I'm so glad for family time. :)

Harvest!

 My garden. The far left is the green beans...nothing yet. The middle is the basil that has gone wild!

 Basil close-up.

 Behind the basil by the fence is my favorite--lemon balm! :)

This is about half of the carrots I harvested from our garden yesterday evening. The bigger carrots went into the homemade chicken noodle soup Austin made...it was delicious! We also left the tiniest carrots outside for the little bunnies that live out in our backyard. Happy Harvest! :)

Claire Turned the Big 1!

 My sweet baby Claire turned 1 year old yesterday! Wow, the time sure has flown by! Here we are the night before...we had just bought the balloons home for her party. Claire absolutely LOVED these balloons, and was so gentle and loving with them. Happy birthday, baby girl!

 I have watched as Claire got bigger...and bigger...and bigger...and bigger. She is still very little, but now I can teach her to hold up her pointer finger for one year old!

 Claire can walk (run, but you only notice if you're the one chasing after her, haha!), and she has started feeding herself with a spoon. She can say "mama" and "brmm", but I know she understands a lot more. She especially understands the words "no" (that one gets practiced a lot when she is trying to get into electrical outlets and such!), as well as the word "shoes" and "bellybutton" (she just recently learned about where her bellybutton is). She also learned to blow kisses and has been waving "bye-bye" for a few months now.

 Claire's birthday party was a success! Claire was still asleep when everyone arrived in the afternoon, so she was a bit surprised when she woke up and saw a bunch of cousins there to celebrate her birthday! Overall, she was a bit overwhelmed, but was very happy. :) We had some snack food and punch at the party, and then played a couple of games--pin the candle on the cupcake, and the standard, good ol' penny toss. Next we opened presents, and then came the cake! Above was Claire's reaction to the cake. She really wanted to touch it, but we were trying to keep it nice for everyone else.

 Happy birthday, Claire!

 Claire was NOT sure about the cake. We cut her a little piece, put it on a princess plate, and gave it to her...and she threw it on the ground! I think it was more a reaction to everyone watching her, since we gave her a piece today and she loved it. :) Less pressure, I guess. :)

 "I think I will just watch everyone else eat cake. I don't wanna eat it..." says Claire.

 "This cake looks prettier on the floor, don't you think? I don't really have to eat it, do I?"

 "No thanks!"

 "I'd much rather eat this carrot than eat that cake," says Claire. What a silly girl! :)

 This picture was taken this afternoon after we got back from church. Claire loves this big toy from Uncle Michael and Aunt Heather, and we both really love this sweet, pink dress from Aunt Kristie and Uncle Barth!!! :)

 Claire, I hope you feel like the birthday princess, because you are the princess in this house! :)

 And what a wonderful birthday princess she is.

 I love that cheesy smile, baby girl. I have loved every minute of your first year (those dirty diapers don't count, right?). :) I am so blessed to be your mother.

My silly girl. One year older and wiser too, happy birthday to you!