birthday at home

My parents are dying to see some of the Thanksgiving pictures- since we got to go visit them for the long weekend! So I better finish off her birthday!

Here she is eating pannekoeken or as Claire says 'cookin' (think crepes) for her birthday breakfast. She loves to eat hers with raspberry jelly- so does mom! And her toys are too awesome to not play with even while she eats. Fortunately for me, she is a very clean eater and usually asks me to clean her hands whenever she gets stuff on them.

Tea party with dad, tiger, buddy and bear with a hat- Here she is watching daddy's example...

and trying it out herself... gotta add some milk

Now showing off for mama- Dad helped her setup this hot chocolate party :) but since she has setup more parties on her own- so cute!



Something about the end of the song, with all the pressure, makes it difficult to blow out the candle, but the middle of the song- no prob :)



From mom and dad she mainly got some winter clothes, and we tried not to spoil her too much, but she did get this cool toy... here she is after dad set it all up, giving her potato head dog and cat a ride in the back

Claire's growth
newborn- 1 year

2 years

Its crazy how fast they grow, and how smart they get! We are so blessed to have Claire and are excited to find out on Friday if she will have a baby sister or brother!

birthday party

Here are some pics from the Claire's birthday party with Jason's family

Claire loved her monkey cake, it was too hard to look at camera as well :)


Popping balloons to get the candy treat inside



As you can tell, she was pretty excited about all her presents :)

(left) She loves pink... so the outfit is perfect! (right)And she was pretty protective of her little cat.

(left) She had lots of helpers, patiently waiting for her to ask for help- even though it never came
(right) Monkey Cake found here: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2010/05/monkey-cake-and-cupcakes.html



Singing Happy Birthday- (left) She loved turning around to see the people singing to her (right) We are about finished singing...' Oh yeah, I am supposed to do something... wait for it'

Trying to blow out candles... maybe its too far away

Still having problems...thanks grandpa :)

YUM!

Entering the real world....

In the midst of a fun Halloween week, Jason got a full-time job! He has been applying to lots of places near and far since September and been going to all the career fairs and applying to all the jobs on e-recruiting (byu's job listings) in his field. And its funny because he only interviewed with one company out of state (out of many applications), but all the companies in state that he applied to, basically all wanted him. I guess that tells us where we should stay. So he will be entering the real world with a job at Qualtrics in Provo, UT as soon as his dissertation is done and approved (which is right on schedule :)). He is already working there part-time and loves its! YAY!
So he got his bachelors in 3 years and masters/phd will take 5 years (in april)...8 years of college done already! So we celebrated his new job by going to Jason's deli, YUM!

Oh yes, just to brag about my babes more, he was chosen for the job out of 50 other people that interviewed for it. Yep he's amazing: Technical whiz (learning PHP at Qualtrics now- who needs a degree in CS when you program for fun), Statistics master(taught several semesters at BYU), with lots of coursework in leadership and business

Halloween fun

Claire was a cute little ladybug for Halloween! And maybe because it was her first Halloween that she could actually walk around trick or treating and mom was fine with her having some candy, we decided to do all the local Halloween parties we could find :)

Oh yeah, I found some great tutorials online that I modified to make her costume.
For her skirt: http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2009/10/halloween-tinker-bell-costume.html
and tutu: http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2009/01/want-to-make-your-own.html
And the wings are from the dollar store, score!

Gotta love her cute poses

On Monday, the library had a party with a magic show and crafts. Here we are tracing her hand to make the wings of a bat.

On Wednesday it snowed a little.
(left) Claire kept touching the snow then realizing she didn't like it and would stick her mitten out to have me wipe it off (left) forgot to take pics of our garden, luckily I harvested everything before it snowed

and this little guy was trying to find a new home

On Thursday, BYU had a party:
Claire favorite candy: suckers. Whenever she gets to pick a candy out of her Halloween stash, she always goes for the suckers (right) fishing for rubber duckies

At home, Claire decorated her pumpkin. She was pretty excited that she got to use the permanent markers, which mom and dad never let her touch. :)
(left) decorating pumpkins is serious business, even if its all vertical lines

On Friday was the ward trunk or treat- forgot camera- but it was perfect weather- Claire got tons of candy in such a sort period of time... it was great!
On Saturday we went trick or treating with cousins and aunts/uncles, (left) here is the gang (right) meet the ladybug family

I am so glad I made Claire a warm hat last second, because this is what it looked like right before we went trick or treating... it looks like snow, but its hail. Here is a link to the hat's tutorial:
http://fromanigloo.blogspot.com/2010/09/warm-winter-hat-pattern-and-tutorial.html



After a few minutes it stopped hailing and was only raining, and we decided to brave it

But this cute little ladybug was still pretty cold and dad ran home to get her a blanket. We only went down the street and then back, but as you can tell Jason is pretty wet(even though he had an umbrella the whole time)


The day after Halloween, we had a Halloween party at Claire's Monday music group: (right) I love how cooperative Martha's kids are when we asked the kids to waive :)

(I think the wings make Claire sit up straight, but she looks so big... I found out this week she is 83% for weight and 93% for height with a BMI of 51% so the doc said she's perfect :))

We pretended to be mummies... at least the kids
Here is Thomas and Spencer being mummified

Maddie and Claire were excellent mummies as well

We had a great Halloween week, and an even better birthday week... more to come soon :)
Update: I almost left out Claire's cute kitty pumpkin...

Nebo Philharmonic Concerts

If you live in the area, come watch me play in a concert- the best part- its free! It usually costs $5 per person (or so), so yay- what a deal.

I honestly like all but one of the songs (which is saying alot)! And that is the main reason I actually am excited to invite people to come.

Friday, November 12, 2010- 7:30pm- Scandinavian dreams
at American Leadership Academy
898 W 1000 S, Spanish Fork, Utah

This same concert will also be on
Saturday, November 20- 2pm
Spanish Fork Veterans Hall
400 N Main, Spanish Fork, Utah