Playing with Mia

Claire loves being a big sister and she always wants to play with Mia. This is an example of how Claire plays with Mia. They are playing with the farm together.

Here is another great example of how Claire plays with Mia. Claire is into calling people on the phone. She wanted Mia to play with her on the phones. So this is what Claire came up with.

Preschool

I have been teaching Claire and some of her friends preschool each week. I know many of you might think I'm crazy having a newborn and teaching 8 kids preschool...you may be right. Here are some of the preschool pictures I've taken. (I'm sure there will be more pictures to come in future posts) First off here is another picture of Claire before preschool. Aunt Janelle and Grandma Lois bought this outfit for Claire. She calls it her rock star outfit...she says she looks like her Aunt Terin. I just think she looks cute.

In this picture some of the kids are making Autumn Wreaths out of paper leaves and paper plates.

This past week we talked about different birds. We made an owl puppet and acted like birds. One of the things you could do with the kids is make a bird nest. Claire, Bryan and I made the bird's nests yesterday. Here is a picture of Bryan and Claire making the nests.

Here is Claire and I with our finished bird's nests. (They were actually yummy too)

Claire practices her writing skills too.

Here she is painting an apple. It is a for Johnny Appleseed's birthday. The instructions called it a pointillism painting. Basically you take the pencil eraser and dip it in paint and dot the paint on the apple shape.

Updates

These past two weeks have been quite the adventure. It has been a little adjustment to having two kids. It is wonderful though. Claire loves being a big sister. She doesn't like it when her little sister cries. She loves to sit by her sister and look at her.

Claire loves to hold Mia and always asks if she can. It is really cute.

Claire started preschool this past week. I had to have her sit on the front porch and take a first day of school picture (which is funny because I'm teaching her preschool, so all she had to do was wear her backpack outside and then back in the house for school).

Then when Mia was a week old, a good friend came over to take newborn pictures of her. The pictures were taken to showcase these beautiful silk bows. There were so many wonderful pictures taken and here are just a few of them.

Our New Angel

Last night around 10pm my water broke and we went to the hospital. By 1:26am today our little one was born. Claire was so excited to meet her little sister. Ok she was more excited to give her sister a gift and she was thrilled to get one back. Here she is getting a look at her sister with her present in the crib and Claire's present laying on her sister.

Claire finally decided she wanted to hold her sister. Here is the proud big sister.

Here is our first family picture. (Bryan is a bit out numbered)

Meet Mia Rose. 8 lbs. 2 oz 21 1/4 inches long. She truly is an angel.

Misc.

This post is labeled correctly. This is a bunch of random stuff I needed to post for a bit and some things I just decided to post. First off this is a picture of Claire in the bathtub (it is decent don't worry)...Bryan was having fun with the shampoo in Claire's hair.

The other day Lois, Claire and I went shopping and we found this sweet clearance sale on a BBQ... although as we looked closely we noticed something was a bit wrong with the prices. Is this really a sale at all? What do you think?

Those of you who know us good know that we love to play cornhole. Now Bryan has found a new game to play it is called Kubb. He made us a Kubb set; so if you want to play cornhole or Kubb let us know.

Thanks LeeAnn for throwing me a great "sprinkle" shower. Thanks to all those that attended. It will come in handy to have all those baby essentials.

Here is a picture I haven't wanted to post, but lots of people have asked. So here I am at 37 weeks pregnant.

Here is Claire kissing Baby Beluga Banana.

Claire is really excited to be a big sister. She has even taken her doll and reads to them in the rocking chair. She tells me she wants to do this to her sister when she comes.

Finally this is Claire's latest trick. I am so proud of her. I didn't teach her this and I don't know where she learned it. My mom and I tried to teach her a while ago, but she didn't get it...now she does. She is so proud of herself.

Seattle Trip

The first weekend of August LeeAnn, John, Bryan and I went to Seattle for the weekend. It was our last get away before this new little one comes. We were all grateful for the grandma's that were willing to watch our girls so we could go on this trip. Claire had a great time with grandma.

We left Saturday morning and drove to Seattle. We had a great time chatting and laughing. We stopped in North Bend and did some shopping. Then we drove on to Seattle and had lunch at Claim Jumper. Here is a picture of Bryan's dessert from lunch.

We checked in at the hotel and then did some sight seeing. We road the monorail to Westlake mall and did some shopping and saw the space needle.

Then it was time to go up to the space needle for dinner.That was a lot of fun, but a little odd at the same time. Since the restaurant rotates as you eat.

After a good night's sleep and a great breakfast, we left the hotel and headed for our ride the duck tour. It was fun. We had a great time. We got to see the pier, the Sleepless in Seattle home, Gas works park, Quest Field, Safeco Field, Freemont Street and so on... It was actually a lot of fun. Then we went over to Pike's market. Last time I sent to Seattle I never got to see them throw fish. I finally did It was so exciting.

Afterwards we drove home, but we stopped and saw Snoqualmie Falls. It was fun. Thanks for a great weekend LeeAnn and John. We loved it!!!

We brought Claire home a prize from our ride the duck tour. She has so much fun making her little duck beak quack.

Water Park

Claire and I have been invited to go to the water park by the library and we have never gone. Finally I decided to take her. Grandma Lois and Aunt Terin went with us. I was grateful for that! Claire absolutely loved playing in the sprinkler's with Aunt Terin (Thanks Terin for making this day at the water park so great). Here are just a few of the pictures we took.

Here is Claire enjoying running through the sprinkler all by herself. It took her a while to get brave enough to do this.

This is how Claire chose to relax after she played in the sprinklers with Aunt Terin.