You Fill Up My Senses

 Is what Claire was singing at the top of her lungs last night. I loved hearing her little voice as you can only really make out the last word of each sentence. Watching as she would get louder and throw her head back to really scream (like a mountain in spring time!) and then tuck in her chin and look at the ground for the soft effect. (a sleepy blue ocean) She knows when to be loud and when to be soft. It actually is one of the first songs she would sing the whole song through. Good old John Denver.

   As I watched her I knew I had to capture this moment. I understand that raising kids is tough. A lot of times it is not a picnic and really far from it. Lately I have been trying to put my feelings down about how raising a child with a disability is just .... and that is where I get stuck. It is just what exactly, that isn't just like raising a "normal" child. Then last night as Claire was singing at the top of her lungs while hiding out in the pantry doing what she does best... whatever I tell her not to do... I thought of a way I might be able to explain a small thought of what it is like for me.

Claire you fill up MY sense of

Joy with your adorable eyes that turn into rainbows when you really smile.

Happiness with the way you say "ughs!" (hugs)

Frustration when I realize I have no way of knowing if you really understand.

Urgency and worry when I realize you are no where in sight and I have no clue where you have run off to.

Relief when the neighbor down the street has saved you from getting hit by a car.

Sadness for the things you won't get in this life

Amazement at all you have overcome and accomplished in your short 3 years

Compassion.

Love.

Life.

Little Claire

 A few weeks ago, Claire and I were playing a game. As we played I had an a-ha moment where I realized she is so grown up. I found myself wishing I could just freeze this moment and keep it in my memory. I wanted to remember how excited she was when it was her turn again.

 I wanted to remember how little her hands are and how much I love it when we hold hands. So soft and little.

 I wanted to keep telling myself, LOOK! She has learned how to play a game, an actual game where you have to take turns and follow directions. She does something daily that is exceeding my expectations (good or bad) of what I thought she would be able to do. 

I love that she is talking more and more everyday. I love her little sentences as she would turn over a card and say, "oh what is it?" and then 8 times out of 10 say what was on the card. I love that she will tell me knock knock jokes and laughs and says"that so funny" I love her "ughs" (hugs) and "isses" (kisses).  The way she dances and screams "WELLA, WELLA ide, ide." (Cella, Cella slide) even if Cella is right next to her and continues until she slides with her. oh my little Claire, I sure love everything about you, thank you for letting me capture these moments with you.

How do you Nap?

 Claire has it down to steps. It goes as follows:

Take everything off your bed. Including but not limited to your blankets and sheets.

Move any large object in your room that will enable you to turn on all your lights and the ceiling fan to make your already freezing room completely frozen. oh ya and remove pants and diaper. (everyone knows it is better to sleep naked?!)

Take your favorite pillow and blanket and position your face up against the hinge side of the door, so you can 1. shove things under the said door while you are starting to fall asleep and 2. make it so no one can enter.

Love you Claire-dee-Bear-dee!

I got it. I sat and waited the minutes it took for Marcella to give me the look I wanted. I captured her shy, oh you caught me and extremely happy face and I couldn't be more elated. And after I got it, I went downstairs to thank Jon again for buying me a new lens for my Birthday/Christmas.

Marcella has always been (fill in her age) going on 16. She loves to be right in the middle of whatever we are doing and doing it right along side us. She is a night owl who at 18 months proved to Grandma that she would be able to stay up until someone put her to bed. (we finally drew the line @ 2 am.)

She has so many teenage attributes now that I hope when she is actually a teenager she will have outgrown all the bad ones and be heavenly. She would sleep in until 10:00 every morning if we let her.  On school days she always protests, saying "Can I please just stay home from school today? Please?"

She loves learning and always has a book or two she's reading. She tells me all sorts of amazing facts, like, "Did you know that some frogs not only eat insects, but eat other frogs?" or "Did you know that sharks are always growing new teeth? They use up more than 10,000 teeth in their lifetime." or "The Trap-Jaw ant can snap her jaw shut at the speed of 145 mph. That is fast." She loves to sew and is always asking when she'll get her own sewing machine.

But beyond all this, she has followed in her dad's footsteps and loves playing computer games. When it's my turn to host craft night, Jon and Marcella are usually both upstairs playing some game together. So you can imagine the pure joy she displayed when Jon surprised her with her very own steam account.  She is now officially a PC gamer and our house is filled with lots of talk about Terraria, Minecraft, Farm Frenzy, and most recently some racing games. (I know super hard core right?)

All of this finally brings me to that perfect picture. Jon had set up a time to play Terraria with his brothers, and of course Marcella wasn't going to miss out. Jon set it up so Marcella could chat with them while playing using some old headphones and the speaker on his laptop (since at the moment we only have one headset. geez.) And here she is in all of her adorable excited six year old glory playing games with the people she loves.


Love you to pieces Cella Bella!

Christmas

Christmas Eve Started with Marcella saying "Hey Mom do you remember that Santa Claus called me last year?"

(A little Blurry, but...) She was so excited when he called her again this year!

The girls opened their Christmas Eve presents from Jon. A pillow case.

Their fun presents from Santa. Can you tell that they love books?

Marcella wanted an American Girl doll so bad and she Lucked out and got one. She couldn't stop smiling. She was so excited and happy. She got Marie Grace.

Claire received a slide and continued to go down it for about 2.5 hours. Both girls were in bed and asleep by 6:45 that night. They had so much fun and were so worn out.

This was one of my favorite moments of Christmas. I helped Marcella finish a quiet book that she could give to Claire for Christmas. This was the card she made for her and then she read it to her while Claire opened her present. It is so amazing to see how much fun these girls have together.

Loved all the video chats with family. You guys are the best! Even though a lot of you had technical difficulties, and some may or may not have sounded like robots, we still loved chatting.

Good night!

I turned 30!

I kept going back and forth on what I wanted to do to Celebrate the big 30, and when it came down to it I decided to keep it low key and I had a FABULOUS Birthday. One of my favorites so far--hands down. It started the Friday before (12/16) when we went down to Indianapolis to check out the Lego store. I picked up a sweet set:

Here's Marcella and I ready to dig in Sunday after church. We both decided it would be best to separate all the parts by shape and color, and make a few different groupings...which eventually made Jon quit. (Did I say eventually? He quit before I'd gotten past "sort" in "sorting". Girls and boys just have different ideas of how to put stuff together.)

Only an hour and a half later, they're all sorted and ready to begin putting together (sorting 1600 pieces takes a while!).

It took us two days working off and on to put them all together. It was a fun ongoing project, but I didn't take any pictures of the final product.

On Saturday we had some friends over for a no-kids dinner party. We ate good food and enjoyed chatting. It was so relaxing and wonderful. (Again no picture. ugh)

We spent Monday (my actual birthday) making candy. This has been a big tradition in my family and I have had fun continuing it. It was a perfect way to spend my Birthday.

Just for You Amie!

I made the girls Christmas Dresses this year. These were the best pictures I could get. All the other ones were blurry and yeah, when I said, "picture time," the girls were less than enthusiastic.  December brought another visitor! Amie, I can't believe we didn't take one picture! She was my crafting sidekick and helped me finish a ton of my Christmas projects. Thank you so much for all your help and for the fun. I loved all our laughing, chatting and cinnamon roll making at all hours of the night. Miss you bunches!

12 Days of Christmas (Work in progress)

For the past few years my Mom has done the 12 days of Christmas for the girls. She sends us a big box with 12 presents, and we open one each day. Sometimes they're fun (yay games!) and sometimes they're inspirational (conference talk, anyone?). They have had a lot of fun each year she does it and this year was especially fun for us. Thanks so much mom! We know it takes you a lot of time to come up with 12 ideas, wrap a bunch of gifts, and get it all shipped to us before the 12th of December. I tried to take pictures of each day, but as you can tell I missed a few.

The 1st day we got a little craft--a Christmas countdown advent calendar.

We read a talk and received a board with the word Believe on it.

Hot potato. This has to be the loudest game ever. But Claire loved to play it. We had lots of fun playing, but Jon hid it somewhere to keep himself from breaking it.

Read a talk called, "Look up, Stand up and Cheer up!"

Mickey's Christmas Carol and some popcorn.

Super cute aprons and some ingredients to make coconut balls. We modified them and experimented this year and they were soo yummy.

There was also a puzzle, a book and some money given for going out to ice cream and doing service. Everything was so fun and we loved it. Thank you so much!

November

At the moment I cannot find any pictures from November. I am hoping they didn't get deleted, because I had a bunch of cute ones. But as I am trying to get caught up so I can be a better post-er (ya, is that even a word?) this year, and so I can tell you why I am so excited to be a better blogger (that is propably a better term) I will just let you all know that November was awesome.

We had MORE visitors! Miriam and Jack came to see us. As my parents were driving to Chicago to make their flight I was heading down to Indy to pick up Mim and Jack! I had such a fun time with Miriam here. (If you find cheap flights again let me know and I can try to come see you!) I think they basically froze, even though we were loving the 60 degree weather. We had fun catching up on Downton Abbey and "experimenting" with some crafts.  I loved having company and someone to chat with. Thanks for coming Mim.

Then came Thanksgiving. This year we had a small one again, but we weren't alone. The Hartwells joined us and we had a feast. Then I headed out for Shopping and put up all the decorations for Christmas. I sure love the Holiday Season.

All in all I LOVED November!

October

A couple weeks after the McCanns left we had more visitors. My Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa Dougal came.

1. Marcella had a Birthday party with her friends a week before they came. She had a Bug party and had a lot of fun.
2. I started making bread and one morning I came down and saw this. Jon and I both new it was Marcella (she is the one who LOVES the crust on bread and will usually eat that and not the middle) We started teasing he and telling her that a little mouse must have been hungry and eaten some of our bread.
3. Getting ready to start carving pumpkins.
4. Grandpa helping Marcella
5. Our masterpieces. I will let you guess whose is who's.
6. Ward Trunk r treat. Go UTES!
7. Reading books with Deidra
8. Playing games with Grandma
9. Trick or Treating
10. Grandma and Grandpa Dougal
11. Mom and Dad
12. me. I got called to be in the Stake YW's. A little overwhelming, but exciting too.

All in all we had a nice relaxing time with my family here. Jon and Claire got sick, which was no fun. But I enjoyed having them here and I miss them all dearly. Come back anytime. We love you!

Marcella's 6th Birthday

Marcella was one lucky Girl this year and she got to celebrate her Birthday in a HOTEL! She turned 6 and loves being 6. The McCann Clan was here over her Birthday and so we decided to take a trip up to Chicago and stay a couple nights. Thanks guys it was awesome! Greg was working in Ohio and had a layover in Chicago. He was able to stay for a day and help us celebrate as well. It was awesome.

The first night we were there we walked down to Navy Pier. We rode the Farris Wheel (well worth it, you could see the whole city). Then we headed out to dinner and actually sat down to eat at 11 pm. Both girls ate a little and then fell asleep. They were so tired.

Monday morning Marcella woke up to her head board decorated. She was pretty smiley the whole day. We went out to breakfast and then headed to the Lego store and the American Girl store. Both were a must. She had some money and in the end chose to get some legos. Then we went over to the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) and went up to the top. Marcella thought it was amazing and talks about it all the time. I was surprised when she said that it was something she wanted to do, but I am glad she had fun.

Then we headed back to the hotel for naps/lunch/PRESENTS! The rest of the day is a little bit of a blur to me, but I know that she had doughnuts instead of b-day cake and rice for dinner again @ 10 pm or soo... these kids were troopers! We also headed to the Bean and got a few pictures there and they got to play in the water fountains and went swimming back at the hotel. Looking at that picture of them in their swim suits makes me shiver. All in all we had a fabulous time and thanks to the McCanns for planning such a fun trip. You guys are the best!

Mcann's came to vist!

They experienced a Jon and Kanien Date to Vons and poor Finn got scared to death by the Boiler Maker Express.

We went to the Columbian park zoo, Claire was a little scared of the caterpillar...

They have an awesome spot where you san watch the river Otters.

We sure love you guys! And Miss you! Come back!

Memories

Starting right to left
1. Jon's Birthday
2. Marcella and I headed out to Utah early and got to ride on the airplane. Claire and Jon drove out a week later.
3. We had a nice Sunday dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Wallin
4. Impromptu tea party
5. Practicing in the hot tub
6 & 7. Headed up the canyon
8. Fun visits with Friends
9. Naps in the sand (can you tell she is burried?)
10. Family fun at Pine View Thanks again guys!
11. Baby Finn, the whole reason I went out early with Marcella, and I didn't get a picture of this cute little guy until he was about 2 weeks old!
12, 13 & 14. Celebrating the girls B-days a little early with my family.
15. Headed to the Zoo with David and Rosalee and boys.
16. A favorite from the cabin trip. Every picture I have of Isaac chopping wood, he has his eyes closed! ahhh watch out!
17. For some reason it chopped M's head off, but she did get a new sweatshirt while we were there.
18. Little Claire chillin' by the fire
19. Grandma Katherine helping us make Apple struedle. yum. Thanks
20.All the kids at the Cabin
21. Cousins!
22. Great Friends
23. Relaxed in the McCanns new backyard.
24. New hat
25 & 26 Good-bye to Grandma
27. Found a little friend that made his home in our tomatoes
28 and 29. Our tomato harvest, well a part of it at least.
30. School starting
31. Painting... couldn't make up my mind.
32. Helping with dishes
33. Little Marcella fell off her scooter and got banged up...did I mention this was the day before school pictures?!
34. Claire got croupe again during conference weekend so we spent a nice weekend isolated at our house.
35. Playing in the rain!