January Means Playing in the House (Mostly)

After bathtime the kids are so cuddly and snuggly in their PJs and wet hair. Claire has her Daisy Duck that she brought home from Disney World and she really loves it. Also, everyone loves sitting with Dad when he gets home from work.

January Means Fun in the House (Mostly)

We spent most of the month of January playing in the house. Brant likes to enlist Cate and Claire in his idea of fun. Cate is usually the most cooperative wearing the Storm Trooper helmet or chasing Brant with a light saber. I love this picture of her with her princess crown, "baby" (pink monkey) and holding the light saber. Captures what it means to be a little sister with an older brother perfectly. Claire will also play along with building rocket ships out of legos and then flying them through the house. They like to run in a loop chasing each other through the dining room, kitchen, breakfast area, family room, entry hall, formal living room and then back to through the dining room (making rocket noises). I worry a little bit about falls or running into furniture, but they seem to enjoy it. Claire likes to color the most and will ask for the crayons. Brant and Cate have not don't seem to enjoy coloring as much but they give it a go once in awhile.

Back In Black--ACDC Concert

Brian and I were excited to get an "all-night" date night this month--thanks to Mom and Apa' and Mitzi for babysitting. We went to dinner at Dragonfly with some friends and then to the AC/DC concert and Ghost Bar and then spent the night at the Hotel ZaZa. The company that Brian works for has a platinum suite at the AAC, so it is really nice for concerts and games and we really enjoy it. The band sounded GREAT. I was so surprised that even the vocals sounded so good. We headed over to the Ghost Bar for a couple of drinks afterwards and the music was great and the view is gorgeous. We even ran into one of our neighbors on the elevator ride up--small world. It was great to sleep in (until 8:00 AM--ha ha) and then we grabbed breakfast a Lucky's diner. It was a great night out to let loose and have some fun.

Cate Gets a Shiner

The girls are at that age where they are climbing and exploring the entire house and starting to want to do things themselves. Sunday morning at 6:00 AM I hear Brant on the baby monitor trying to encourage Cate and Claire to get out of their cribs. Knowing that they are perfectly capable of trying this I hurry upstairs to the nursery (half asleep, no contacts) and assist them so nobody will get hurt. I am carrying the girls downstairs and the whole time Cate is telling me, "Walk, Walk, Walk". She wants to go down by herself, but it's totally dark and I just want to get them downstairs. Well, as soon as we reach the bottom and I set them down she immediately turns around and starts back up the stairs. She IS going to walk down by herself. She gets about 3-4 steps up and turns around to walk down and falls. She ended up getting a goose egg on her forehead and a small cut and black eye. The worst part is as soon as the bruising starts to go away she slipped on the playground and got another bruise on the same eye. She's pretty much had a shiner the whole month of January.

New Years Resolutions!

Happy New Year! I am looking so forward to 2009 and all of the things ahead of us this year. I usually try to stay away from New Years resolutions, but since last year's worked out pretty well I thought I'd try a few more in 2009.

Last year I resolved to become more up-to-date with technology. I started a blog, went completely digital with the cameras, joined Facebook and FINALLY started using my IPOD so I felt pretty good about that. This year I'm hoping to continue with this resolution by actually blogging much more often and starting to scrapbook all my digital pictures.

There are certainly more items I could add to the list, but I think I'll try to simplify by just trying to make mine and the family's life more healthy and green and really take the time to enjoy every day. I already bought my re-usable grocery bags so I'm off to a good start.

Some recent pictures of the kids . . .

Just some recent pictures of the kids for everyone to see! The first one is Brant, Reese and Collin (my niece and nephew) at the balloon festival. The last ones are some that were taken of the girls for my neighbor's clothing line. The middle picture of Claire made Earnshaws, a magazine for the children's retail industry. She's famous I guess. :)

Brant's First Day of Kindergarten!

I cannot believe that it is here at last. I definitely shed a few tears this weekend. I am so proud of Brant but worried about how he will like school and if I made the absolute most of the time I was home with him. I think he will enjoy school once he makes friends and gets used to the routine. Luckily, he has a couple of boys in his class that went to preschool with him at the Callier Center the year before last. I hope they will remember each other. I pray he will make friends easily and find school to be rewarding and fun. He did enjoy picking out his Buzz Lightyear backpack and was excited to wear it this morning. I can't believe how fast we have arrived at "big boy" school. For a mommy it is a hard day, but at the same time we are incredibly proud of how well he is doing!