Selfies Galore / Week 29

Just a warning, I took a lot of selfies with the girls this week.... :D

But first, a cute picture of Audrey! She is holding herself up so well these days! She turns her little head to see what Clara is doing, and needs to hear/see mommy or daddy or sister, otherwise she cries loudly for attention!

Some of Clara's art from school! She is loving school and talks about school and her friends when we drive to school and all the way back! She particularly loves her friends Emily and Audrey and David!

Clara, Audrey and I also attended her first friend birthday party - a school friend named Elisa. It was princess party and when the princess showed up, Clara looked at me like this and asked to go home... She was scared of the princess... only our Clara Beara would love princesses and yet be scared of the real princess.

One morning, Audrey refused to let me put her down, so into the Ergo she went. Around the house the two of us went, with sister as our shadow... dishes, laundry, playing outside, reading books. she quite liked it!

These are tiny alphabet pasta shapes... I asked Clara to spell something out, and she said, "dadddy!! d-a-d-d-y!" And then she stopped after D and A, because the letters really are tiny and she got bored. :D

One of my favorite times of the day is from 3-3:30, Audrey wakes up from her second nap, but Clara doesn't get up until 3:30. It's Audrey and my time to hang out together... so we took selfies!

Not included in the series is when she latched onto my face, blew a raspberry on my neck, and generally clawed at my nose.

Clara always wants to take selfies! Here she is just over my shoulder!

She loves to pretend to play instruments. Here she is playing a flute!

I guess you won't have to wait until next week to see part of her costume! She will be a lady bug! I love these pictures, I couldn't resist!

Mommy and Clara shared a large ice cream cone... Yummy!

And my sweet unicorn Audrey after a bath!

On Saturday, we went to a pumpkin patch! Obligatory trip, but I still loved it, all 10 minutes of it!

I think the pictures are so worth it!

Audrey's favorite thing to do right now is blow raspberries/bubbles - all the time, all day long. Daddy taught her and he is very proud.

And so is she!

Such determination!

We are now through two nights of transitioning Audrey out of her Magic Merlin Suit into a normal sleep suit. I know, super late... but she was just sleeping so well. I didn't want to disturb all of our sleep. The first night she did really well, only waking up at 10pm once to complain for about 5 minutes. And the second night she complained a little at the beginning and then fell asleep. She likes sleeping on her side, sweet thing! Now if I can just get her to stay asleep in the mornings like she used to in the Merlin Suit... :). Oh well, can't win them all!

Sweet girl has discovered her unicorn friend!

29 weeks old!

My Clara Beara (2 years 10 months)

There are so many things I love about my Clara Beara. She is funny, she is full of life, she loves to dance and read and jump and play pretend instruments and ride her Plasma Car in the backyard. She loves to use her binoculars (both the ones we made out of toilet paper rolls and her pretend ones she makes with her hands around her eyes) to look for things around the house.

What I love most of all right now are her words and her singing! I wanted to write them down so I don't forget.

I love how she says gorilla ("go-wri-wra") and caterpillar ("cat-er-pi-wrar") and kitten ("kittnen"). She has no problem saying rhinosceros or hippopotamous or kangeroo. She says so many big animal names well, but those pesky r's and n's give her some trouble :).

Oh and she also used to say Buttercup ("Buh-yer-cup")! It's part of a book we read together, and it always makes me smile when she says it.

And books, oh man, she memorizes books so quickly! It only takes one or two read throughs before she knows the short books, and 4-5 read throughs for the longer books. She loves her books and is almost a little too possessive of them.

When she was a baby, she used to say yogurt as "yoh-yoch" it was adorable! And she used to say "sunna" instead of "going to" or "want to" -- so she would say "Mama sunna eat it" if she wanted me to eat something, or "Clara sunna do!!!" if she wanted to do something.

She also sings beautifully in the car along to her toddler tunes, both the classics and the Christian classics. She sings both the melody and harmony, both in her normal voice and in falsetto, and does so mostly on pitch! She will sing along with the music and when it goes up past her normal register, she sometimes sings even louder and her little voice cracks as she stretches her voice. It's absolutely adorable!

Oh and for a little while, when she first started singing along to the songs in the car... she would sing, "Mary had a little man" and I just laughed and laughed and laughed!

She dances with her whole body to her favorite songs, and she plays pretend drums, or her tamborine, to the beat of the music. She loves the song, "Jesus Loves the Little Children" and asks for it constantly. She is learning new songs at preschool and brings those home to sing too!

When her cousin Nate comes over, they like to jump up and down screaming "Hulk Huss Game!" which was originally "Hulk Hulk Smash." You can guess who came up with the original saying :).

Recently, she's learned to draw by herself with chalk, and loves to draw circles and lines and shapes. There is so much more, but this is what I can think of right now. Clara is amazing and bright and wonderful! She is my joy and my love and one third of my heart (Shane and Audrey are the other two thirds!)

Fever Week / Week 28

We had our first ER trip ever this week for one of the girls and it was for Audrey. Long story short, Audrey had a high fever and our pediatrician's office strongly suggested we take her to the ER, so off we went. We were there for almost 3 hours and Audrey was a little champion. She is all better now, but here are some pictures from our trip.

Cuddles with Clara <3.

This is what Clara's costume was going to be... but we found a better one. You'll have to wait and see!

Clara and Mommy had a playdate at the zoo! Clara loves her new sunglasses :).

Selfies with Audrey!

Well, the glasses didn't last very long. Good thing they were a 6 pack! :P

Yeh Yeh and Nai Nai played with the girls while Shane celebrated Grampy's birthday!

And then on Sunday, we celebrated Grampy's birthday with Great Grampy and Peaches!

Clara can't wait to get a bite of this ice cream cake!

Sweet sisters are so happy together! This video is the best!

Then on Monday, Nate came over for a playdate! Auntie Christina took the best pictures!

And yesterday, Clara had a high fever too! It's just fever week over here. Fortunately, she was totally herself all day long. Clara had a grand old time eating popsicles, visiting daddy, and watching Frozen.

28 weeks! What a joy to have our girls!