Happy Birthday to Our Baby Girl

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet baby Claire! We had a great big party on Sunday at our house for Talon, Claire, Lyndsay, Kimmy, and me. Lots of people, so fun to be able to have family live so close by and come to things like that. It really means a lot to me that my family supports me and my kids and everyone really, sometimes being an only child I wanted brothers and sisters who were close in age to me and so I get to pretend my cousins are my brothers and sisters. We are lucky to live so close to everyone.

Of course Claire loved the paper more than all the cute clothes she got, but that's okay with me.

She didn't really know what to do with the giant cupcake we got for her, she was so funny and kept picking off the sprinkles one by one.

Then she finally got the idea and we scraped off the 2 inches of incredibly died, you don't want to get this on your clothes, it will stain the highchair frosting. She got mad whenever anyone tried to take it away (aka her brothers and sister) but was satisfied in the end with the chocolate cupcake hiding underneath. As my mom said "Happy Birthday...for your birthday I will poison you with frosting!" We sang Happy Birthday for each and every person's birthday and she loved it everytime. She is a very good baby, we love her so much and she has been such a blessing in our lives. Happy Birthday Claire!

Teensyphauny Phil

You know Teensyphauny Phil, right? He is Punxsutawney Phil's smarter, teensy cousin. HE was the one who predicted this crazy weather, at least according to Liam.

Happy Birthday to Me

This is about how my actual birthday went....I got a Pop Tart for breakfast in bed and the kids used my preschool supplies without my knowledge to make me cards all day long. Adam and I shared a take out Cafe Rio salad and watched some episodes of the Office. Yeah, things aren't quite the same now that I'm in my 30's. Oh well, Adam DID buy me flowers the day before and the kids were pretty good all day I can't complain. And I will tell you a secret...I really like Pop Tarts.

How Could I Resist?

How could I resist going to Port Angeles? Forks was a little too far away but we needed to go to Port Angeles to get some shoes so we drove by some local Twilight spots. There were several bookstores that claimed to be the one that Bella goes to in search of a book on vampires, and the Bella Italia is where Bella and Edward (actually just Bella) ate. Somehow the movies always make it different, but it was still fun to snap a few pictures. I was tempted to go to Forks, but couldn't cop up to being that obsessed. I am SO mature you know...

Washington Trip

The most exciting thing that has happened to me lately is that at the beginning of March I got to go to Washington and see my father get baptized. I joined the LDS church when I was 18 and so it was a big surprise to see my dad get baptized at 59. I am so happy for him, so glad that he has made this choice in his life. I love you Dad! What a great treat to take a few days off of being a mom and go see Joyce, Dad and my sister Hattie too. What a relaxing and wonderful trip for me personally. Hopefully we will get to see more of Dad and Joyce when they sell their house and move down here to Utah! If you want to live in Sequim, Washington, I know a great house you might want to buy...

The Actual Standing

So Tired

Classic shot...I think I have one of these of each of the kids...is that bad? I promise I put her in her bed as soon as she fell asleep. First I had to take the picture though...

Standing

Well I have been slacking off in my blog posts as of late, as I have been reminded of by my mother...THANKS MOM!! No things have just been pretty much the same around here, kids in school, amazingly we have been fairly healthy and we are just going, going, going as usual. One new thing...Claire has learned how to stand up holding on to things. She is crawling everywhere and I'm sure she will be walking before we know it. I can't believe she is almost a year old, time really does fly...whether you're having fun or not. Ha ha. No really, Claire has been such a blessing in our lives, especially right now. We love her so much and the kids love her...sometimes too much (this would be Liam). He is loving the big brother role and thinks it means dragging her around wherever he can get away with and also putting her in "cages" and "traps". Most of the time she loves it, the other times she screams at a decibel that the whole neighborhood,dogs and dolphins can hear.

This is a cage that the kids put her in, fortunately she was on the outside of the cage for these shots. Notice Grace is holding her hands, she really can stand up to things on her own, these are early shots when she was first figuring it out.