Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas. We hope everyone else did too. Santa was very good to us. Claire loves the "big" present he brought her. I say big because it is bigger than she is. Here is her big present.
You do ask her what she has learned. She will tell you that She learned that you don't climb on the doll house because it will give you an ouchy. She climbed on the doll house and it tipped over on her. She now has a step stool to help her reach to top of her doll house so she doesn't need to climb anymore.
Another gift she got was a trunk full of dress ups from grandma Lois. In the trunk she got a Belle dress, Cinderella dress, Sleeping Beauty dress and this one (my favorite):
She is my little ballerina. I think I might need to sign her up for dance lessons. She loved to be in the ballerina outfit. She asks to wear it every time we go up to grandma and grandpa's house. She has to wear everything...even the little ballerina slippers. She even will turn around, jump and kick her leg out. It is adorable!!!

Ugly Sweatshirts

For those of you who don't know it is sort of a family tradition that we exchange ugly holiday sweatshirts. It is also a bit of a competition. Here the family picture so you can vote. We need to know who is wearing the ugliest sweatshirt and who is wearing the most creative. Although voting will be closed in one week (New Years Day)...get your votes in quickly. Share the picture with those in your house and have them vote....the more the merrier.
Here are the names of everyone so you can vote. On the ground is Don. In the swing you have Terin, Claire and Stacie. In the back you have Lois, Janelle, Tucker and Bryan. I'll post voting results later.

Christmas Dress

Here is Claire in her Christmas Dress. She loved how sparkly it was. Thanks Aunt Janelle for helping us find such a cute dress.
The only issue with this dress is that it leaves glitter where ever she goes. It is cute, but oh my on Sunday the church bench was covered in glitter as was any kid who got close to Claire in Nursery.

Rowdey

We have a new nephew as of yesterday at 5:17pm (MST). He was 5 lbs 7 oz. 18.5 inches long. Here is Rowdey.
Here is another picture I just got of Rowdey. He is holding onto my brother's finger. It is just so obvious how little he is.

Rudolph??

As you may have guessed Claire loves to sing. We finally got her singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. She has her own way of singing it; here it is.

Then if you help her sing she can actually sing the song. So please forgive my singing with her, but just enjoy Claire's singing.

My Reindeers

On Black Friday my sister-in-law bought our dog Buddy a costume. It is so cute. He's a little reindeer.
My mother-in-law bought Claire a blinking Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer nose. She loves it. I think she has worn it so many times. I mean she has broken it a lot and Bryan has been "mister fix it" for Claire. He's fixed it a lot. Claire loves to put it on with her Santa hat then she'll sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. She doesn't quite sing the whole song unless you help her. I'll try and record her singing it in the next few days and post it. Anyway, here is a picture of Buddy the Reindeer and Claire the Santa Rudolph.
Now here is another picture that I love. Claire has such a cute cheesy smile and Buddy looks absolutely annoyed he is still in the costume.

Our Homes

For Bryan's family's Annual December Family Home Evening we made our gingerbread houses. I didn't want to buy a kit and I felt too lazy to try and make real gingerbread. We did the opted for graham cracker houses. Although when we got to Family Home Evening we were pretty much the only ones (until Bryan's cousin and his family showed) that actually made a house out of something editable. Most of his extended family made their homes out of boxes and wood. One nice thing about having a man in the construction field is our house is very strong and durable. We made a little house for Claire to decorate and also one for Bryan and I. Claire had a little help (thanks Grandma Lois and Grandpa Don). Claire loved eating more candy then she put on the house. She put a lot on the house so that should tell you something. Here is a picture of our graham cracker homes. We had such a great time. It was fun to see how much Claire loved to do it.

Of course Claire's house is the littler one. She put Pez all over the roof and she loved putting the fruit loops on it. I think she ate the more fruit loops than anything. We used pieces of gum for our roof. We thought it was rather creative of us. Its the first time we used gum. We had fun making these houses. What do you think?

Santa and His Reindeer

On Black Friday, I along with thousands of others went shopping. I have a supportive husband who is ok with my craziness and is willing to watch Claire. I went with a good friend of mine. After we got back. Bryan and I ran a few errands. We decided to stop and let Claire see some of Santa's Reindeer....(story will finish later) She loved it so much a couple of weeks later we took Claire and her friend Teancum to see them too. Here is a picture of Claire and Teancum with one of the reindeer.
(To finish the Black Friday story) While we were seeing the reindeer we noticed that Santa Clause is there. Claire was so excited. The only problem was, Claire didn't have her hair done. Since I'd been shopping it was Daddy's duty to get Claire ready. He isn't so fond of doing her hair. He can do her hair; he just says it takes him too long. So I went into the store and asked them if they had some ribbon I could use to do her hair. The lady I asked told me she didn't understand me because she had boys, but another worker heard us and said "I have girls. I'll help you." We got a ribbon and made it into a head band. Then we had to wet down her hair a little bit. She had her hair braided the day before so she had a bit of a fro going on. Since I was able to sort of fix her hair, we paid for a picture of Claire sitting on Santa's lap. I was able to take a picture of our own. Here is one of the pictures I took of Claire sitting on his lap. They are discussing presents.
She loved Santa, but wasn't sure she wanted to sit on his lap. She was ok once he asked her about what toys she wanted for Christmas. The pictures turned out cute despite her having hair from the late 80's (you remember when crimping was in style).

Guess the song 4

Here is another video of Claire singing. The only thing is she just starts to sing Cinderella then she changes to the new song. She is so fun and I love how much she walks around the house singing. It is so much fun. Hope that you guys enjoy this too.

Guess the song 3

This song is an easy one to guess, but we think it is so cute. When she sings it, she uses a different voice. It is hilarious. We're not sure why she uses a different singing voice with this song opposed to any other song, but she does. Enjoy it!!

What does she mean?

Claire has used her imagination to make something wonderful.

Now here is the part we need help on.

We know what she is calling it. She says it is a "cap-in-otter". We just have no idea how a basketball turns into a capinotter. Can anyone help us out?