Hair Cut

Obviously this first picture has nothing to do with a hair cut, but it does have to do with hair... Claire loved that she had green hair when she put on this witch's hat. This girl makes us all so happy!!

We finally did it... Mia got her first hair cut. Her bangs were so long in front, her sides were getting really long and there was one really long strip in the back. So we finally decided to get a trim. Here she is before...

... and after. No there isn't a huge difference. However, she can see now, her sides aren't as long and now that long strip of hair in the back matches the rest of her hair in the back. Now she really does look like she has a little A-line cut and for the most part it is completely natural.

Thanks Aunt Janelle for giving Mia her first hair cut!!

Pumpkin Patch

This past week Claire's preschool class visited a pumpkin patch. She was so excited to go; Mia got excited too. There were so many activities for the kids to do and they loved it. One of the activities was a barn with animals that they the kids could pet. Claire loved the llama. Her babysitter does a fun little llama finger-play that Claire loves so she was so excited to see there was a llama...apparently the llama was excited to see her too.
The kids were also able to climb a hay bail pyramid and run through a hay bail maze. Claire loved it so much. She was the second one from her class to make it through the maze. She was so proud of herself.
When we were out in the pumpkin patch the kids were told to walk out and pick the pumpkin they wanted. There were so many pumpkins I thought Claire would really look around, but she walked five feet and found the pumpkin she wanted...she refused to even look around at any of the other pumpkins.
Here we are on the hay ride ready after picking out pumpkins. Mia loved Claire's pumpkin so much we decided to pick her out one too. Mia was so proud of her pumpkin. She wanted to carry it with us every where we go.
At the end of the day I had two happy girls who were thrilled to have their very own pumpkins!!

Preschool and Lessons

Claire officially goes to a preschool. This year we enrolled her in a local preschool. She goes twice a week and is loving it. She did make me feel really good the other day though, she told me she missed me teaching her preschool. I asked her if that meant she didn't like her preschool. She answered by telling me that she still loves her new preschool and she wants to go there, but she also wants me to teach her. It certainly made me feel good!! Here she is ready for her first day of preschool.
We signed Claire up for another round of swimming lessons. She was so excited and she got even more excited when she found out her friend Teancum would be in her swim lessons too. They are currently the only two kids in the class. It is so cute to see how happy they are swimming and spending time together.

She is One!!

The other day we were eating dinner at my in-laws, we had Mia in a hook chair (buckled in) at their table. I went to start my dinner plate and kept coming back to give Mia bites...after a few times of doing this I came back to find this...

This post is about Mia, but I had to include at least one picture of Claire....Here she is at one...

...now you can compare Mia at one on the same rockin' dinosaur.

Here she is on her official birthday. Thanks for the cute birthday outfit Aunt LeeAnn!!

On Saturday September 3rd, we had a pool party to celebrate Mia's first birthday. Thank you to all those that could attend to help us have a good day. We had so much fun. This is Mia with her first cake of the weekend. She wasn't so sure of it...Bryan had to help her figure out what to do.

She did love the ice cream though. Thanks Grandma for sharing your ice cream with me!! (We were so happy to have my mom and dad come up to celebrate this special weekend with us. We were all so sad to see them go back home.)

After Mia's birthday party we came home and put the girls down for some much needed rest time. Then we watched the BYU vs Ole Miss football game. After that it was another birthday party...this time at Chuck E. Cheese. Claire had so much fun playing all the games. What a great day we had!!On Labor Day we were able to go out on the river (thanks to my father-in-law) and enjoy the tubes, wake-board, water and sun. It was a fun day... Mia knocked my mom's prescription sun glasses in the river by the boat launch...Bryan and my father-in-law went back with masks to where we thought they fell in and in one dive the glasses were found...
Here are the girls, Bryan and Aunt Terin going on their tube ride.

We had such a great weekend. I didn't want it to end. I am selfish, but I wanted my parents to be here longer. Although I am grateful they could come up for the few days they did. We ended the visit with some more cake, pie and ice cream. This time Mia didn't need any help knowing what to do with her cake. She loved every minute of it!!

What a great Summer!!

We were able to go out on the boat this Summer. It is one of our favorite things to do as a family. Claire loves going out on the tube. This picture made us laugh because it looks like Bryan's feet are Claire's feet.
Mia even got to go on her first tube ride. She wasn't so sure about it, but it was a great time for us all. We took a friend's little girl with us on the tube....she was more nervous about it than any of the rest of us.
For family home evening one night we introduced Claire to water balloons. She loved tossing them back and forth and throwing them at the back fence. She keeps asking when we are going to do them again.
We visited a few sprinkler parks with a few of our friends. Claire wasn't so sure about them at first, but she loved them once she got used to them. She just doesn't like them hitting her in the face.
Mia's latest "trick" is her kissy face. It is so much fun to ask for a kiss and get these kissy/fishy lips coming at you.
We took the girls to the fair/rodeo. There was a mechanical bull there, that happened to be run by the brother of a good friend of ours, Claire decided she wanted to go for a ride. Here she is with John learning the correct bull riding form.
This is the video we took of Claire riding the bull. Don't have your volume up too loud because our cheering her on could sound a bit annoying (I think I need to learn to keep my mouth shut when anyone is video taping). She does get a bit scared towards the end because we never warned her that the bull can turn in a circle and not just go back and forth.

Videos Galore

Claire has really fallen in love with the water. Here she is jumping off the diving board.

We have been working on teaching Mia how to blow kisses. This is about as good as it gets.


This video shows how great Claire is doing at swimming. I don't think she is afraid of putting her face in the water anymore.


This video is for my mom, now you can see how good Mia is doing at walking.


In past blog posts we played the game "Claire Sings", where we would post a video of Claire singing and have you identify the song. It has been a while, but Claire still loves to sing. This is a video of her current favorite song to sing.

Home

Now that we are home from Utah, things have gotten back to normal (whatever that is). Claire has wanted to go out on Papa Don's boat the entire Summer. We have finally been out on the boat. As you can tell she loved every minute of it!!

I have really decided that I need to get back in shape. Mia is almost a year and I haven't reach pre-pregnancy weight yet. I really want to be there. I am trying to do some form of exercise at least 3 days a week (running, water aerobics, workout videos...etc.)...the other day when I was working out with Bob Harper, Mia decided to join me. I just couldn't pass up this Kodak moment.

Have you ever heard of " bedhead"? Well I thought I knew exactly what "bedhead" was, but the other morning Mia's hair truly fit the definition of "bedhead". What do you think?
When I was pregnant with Claire, our neighbor and her daughters, brought over this wagon. They were getting rid of it and thought we would really like it. We haven't really used it up until this point, but we want to walk to church. The other night we decided it would be a good idea to go on a little walk to see if Mia would actually stay sitting down. Here are the two prettiest girls on their walk.
As we have posted before we put Claire in swim lessons. She has always loved the water, but hasn't enjoyed having her face in it. That has changed a bit...she has turned into a bit of a fish. We plan on posting a video of her swimming soon, but until then I hope these pictures will make you smile. Here she is going down the slide.
Claire loves jumping off the diving board. At first she wouldn't do it unless you were holding on her hand, but now she loves it!!