Our fam in a nut shell....a very big nut shell

As I have been talking to more and more family and friends back home the conversation tends to go like this.

So how are you doing?
Me: Great!
What have you been up to?
Me: oh just the usual, nothing to exciting
How's Jon liking school?
Me: he is so busy this semester. I am excited for it to be over.

I realized today that I have had that same conversation WAY too many times. I have decided to give a real update on how we are doing and what we do everyday. I will start with the one that keeps me on my toes...

Claire Bear:
She is officially 2 1/2 years old. She is often seen carrying or trying to carry not one or two babies, but at least 3 babies and a couple stuffed animals, preferably a puppy and a kitty, oh and at least one blanket.

She will frequently be seen trying to escape our house if any door remains unlocked. The other day we got home from shopping and she sneaked out of the garage and walked around the house to the park. Talk about a heart attack--thinking she's inside and then realizing she isn't.

She enjoys dumping out anything she can get her hands on. If she can turn it over it will be dumped out. The nice thing is that, for the most part, she will try to put it back (until she gets the urge to dump it out again). Crayons are the worst. She will be coloring so cute, and then the next thing you know she has dumped the entire box everywhere, followed by cleaning up half of them and then dumping them out again. (Maybe someone could help me understand why that makes me go crazy. As I am typing this I feel like it shouldn't matter, but for some reason it does.)

She loves to climb, jump, run, and Dance. If we leave things on the table and leave her alone you can guarantee that she will be in the middle of the table eating whatever it is we left up there. My favorite thing she does is whenever she wants to get down she will say "dump, dump" (jump) and wants me to catch her after she counts to three.

She LOVES her big sister. Marcella can get her to say or do almost anything. She will follow Marcella around and even picks on her, from time to time. This picture (above) is of Marcella yelling for me to help her because Claire kept body slamming her. They are usually found giggling together and trying to get each other to laugh. (Amie, check out the blanket! Yes she still sleeps with it every night!)


This picture just about sums up Claire. She is mischievous and curious and knows how to push my buttons, but she is so sweet and kind. Whenever anyone is sad she is the first to come and give them a hug or give them lots of pats to help them feel better. She has a smile and laugh that just melts your heart, and her sweet little voice is so adorable. We are glad she is in our little family.

Marcella Bella:
Whenever I think about Marcella I think of this picture...
She is ALWAYS creating something. She loves to color, write, draw, glue, cut, wrap millions of random presents in entirely too much wrapping paper, and more. I love watching her when she is working. You can just see the little wheels in her head turning a million miles a minute. She has created art work for my bedroom (and once everything is finished I will post the completed project).




With all of the little projects Marcella makes everyday I started to get overwhelmed with the mess and the stuff that kept piling up. I really didn't want to stifle or hinder her in anyway, but seriously--you can only hang up so many pictures on the fridge. I thought my basket idea was working out nicely. She has a basket that holds all of her creations. Once the basket is full she has to get rid of somethings to make room for anything new that needs to be placed inside. But as I was trying to figure out how to decorate the girls' bedroom it hit me: I can use their entire wall as a place for her to hang up her art. It turned out so cute. I promise to post a picture soon. I just nailed some ribbon across the wall and then made stripes down the middle. We painted and decorated 30-40 clothes pins that hang on the ribbons to hold the papers and viola--a whole wall to display her art. We both LOVE it. After that project I thought about how I need to encourage her to do more. So I have been giving her guided projects to help decorate our very undecorated house. Here is one way we decorated for Spring...

The butterflies are actually flying all the way around the room. It looks awesome.

Marcella LOVES to be outside. (Even if it is only 6 degrees, which was the temperature in this picture.) She is such an active little girl. She loves to run, jump, ride her bike or scooter (even miles at a time), and play at the playground behind our house. She is getting very excited for the flower seedlings we planted. They'll eventually make their way to the back yard.





She enjoys really good food. The grilled chicken salad above is the first dinner she ever made on her own. I let her decide what we were having and then she made it. (I only grilled the meat.) She loves to cook and helps in the kitchen for almost every meal.

Marcella has a lot of fun playing with Claire, and also enjoys helping her learn words and signs. She has started to read and has been making some great progress. I find her sitting next to Claire reading her a book multiple times every day. She loves to learn and is super excited for kindergarten this fall.




What a sweet girl! She is very obedient and loving. Jon and I both agree that she literally runs whereever she goes, and that someday she will make an awesome long jumper. I am surprised that she hasn't broken her leg yet. She has a zeal for life that spreads to us all. We sure love you, little one.



Kanien (that's me!)
I have been enjoying daylight savings. We basically haven't changed anything except the girls and I actually sleep in in the morning. It has been nice. I have been keeping myself busy with teaching Marcella how to clean, and she is starting to appreciate the value of doing jobs every morning. I've also been spending quite a bit of time teaching Claire how to walk up and down the stairs. It's tough, since she's really quick to lose her balance (but always insists walking is the way to go).
I have started training for a half marathon that I will be running in June. I have 2 great friends that are running with me, and I am actually really excited about running it. My longest run so far has been four miles, and I felt pretty good when it was done.
I have been making some earrings, and also finally found a pattern that will work well for some material I have had for 3 years, and will be starting a quilt sometime soon.
I just planned out some flower beds for our backyard last week, and I am excited to start digging out grass and making it look more enjoyable out there. I'll also be making room for our vegetable garden, which will mainly have tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash.
I have really been enjoying Indiana, once I made it through an Indiana February. Everyone I have talked to says Feb is the worst month here, and I add my vote to that as well, it was awful! To top it off, we're coming off the coldest, longest winter here in eight years. I don't mind snow, but feel it goes best with mountains and skiing--two things we have to do without.
All in all I have some great friends and have been having a great time here.

Jon: aka: professor/student

This picture was taken sometime during Christmas break. We went to see Jon's office and stash some goodies in it for him. The building behind him is where is office and most of his classes are. He's been growing a beard in case anyone was wondering, I just haven't taken a picture of him with it. I guess that's next on my to-do list.

Jon has been doing an amazing job at keeping up with school, teaching and not making us feel neglected. He says there is always more he should be doing, and for the most part he is pretty busy, but he is good at just being at home when he is home, and it sure makes us feel loved.

He enjoys teaching and has a great group of students this semester. Next fall he will be teaching two sections and taking classes so I have a feeling we will need to enjoy every minute of this summer break, because life is only going to get busier.

Right now he is taking 3 classes and teaching one section of freshman writing. On top of that he still cooks us amazing meals (mostly on the weekends), keeps a watchful eye on our starts for the garden, and helps teaches the 7-8 year old primary class with me on Sunday.

Life couldn't get any better. Well, Jon could be done with school, but all in due time. We are enjoying Indiana and looking forward to spring (and summer, just not the humidity). We have a bunch of visits from family coming up soon and are really excited to see everyone!


Well, if you actually made it this far you are now in for a treat. A sneak peak into the next video I am going to post. (I would have done it sooner, but I just can't find the camera!)

Love you all and have a fabulous day!

Spring Break

Spring break is over... yes O.V.E.R. and us three girls are dying to try to get back to our "normal routine" without this ....

happy, handsome, intelligent, clever, and most of all amazing mediator between

Me and

them.

After 9 1/2 days I seriously wasn't ready to give him up and be left to myself to fend off these pack of wolves... but more on that in a minute. Let's reflect on our fabulous week. It started with a super fun trip to The National Maple Syrup Festival. It was held down south in Medora,IN. Our friend Chris served his mission in the area so we went to check out the festival and go to church in Salem with him and his sweet wife Deidra. They were kind enough to let us share a hotel room, it was awesome. So onto the festival....

This cute girl woke up and said, "I have a cowgirl hat, a cowgirl shirt, cowgirl boots, cowgirl pants, now only if I had a rope and a horse, then I could be a REAL COWGIRL!!!!!

Well, when we got there, we had to wait at a school to get loaded onto a bus to take us up to the festival.... We waited for 1.5 hours in line.....

hence the "this better be cool and worth it" faces.
(Marcella was just happy she was so close to being a cowgirl she just kept smiling!)

We made it outside! It was so beautiful outside we didn't mind the wait so much.

happy bus riders.
When we got there they had a petting zoo. The girls pet some animals...

and goats.

Waiting in line again to get to make her very own rope. People kept cutting in front of us so it took us a while to actually get up to it, then when she was making hers the guy said they would have to wait to finish making ropes until after a ventriloquist show. (I am glad we made it!)

One step closer... now about the horse...

They had some fun reenactments of what it was like to harvest the sap. They ended up making this batch into maple sugar and gave us some to try.

Yummy right?
actually it wasn't too bad.

Marcella ended up tying up some bad guys...

and then we were off to dinner and the hotel. All in all we had a great time and seriously are talking about going back next year. Thanks Deidra and Chris!

On Sunday we went to church in Salem. It was the smallest sacrament meeting and chapel I have ever seen. I really enjoyed the meeting and everyone was really nice afterwards. We decided since we were pretty close to Louisville we would take a quick trip down to see the Temple.

It was a small Temple, but still just as amazing. The girls had fun getting their pictures taken and just walking around. Afterwards we headed up to Indy to see John and Lindy. Some friends from my brickyard days. We had such a great time and had a fabulous dinner. Thank you again! (p.s. Lindy, last week Jon asked me if we could go to Target after dinner.....ok, but he hates shopping, I should have known. We ended up getting 2 nerf guns!)

Well back to the present, It has now officially been a full week after spring break and I think we will survive. Hope you have a fabulous day.

Cowgirl

EDIT: Marcella loves the idea of being a cowgirl. This isn't something she's obsessed with, but she definitely likes playing cowgirl from time to time. She has cowgirl boots, a cowgirl hat, cowgirl pants, and cowgirl shirts. The Saturday before last (March 12), we went to a maple syrup festival in southern Indiana. Marcella got all dressed up for it--boots, hat, shirt, and pants. As we left the house, she said, "I wish I had a rope. Then I could be a real cowgirl."

At the festival, an old cowboy (the real-deal, spent his life raising horses, only four teeth in his mouth) was showing kids how to make rope from twine. He used a machine similar to the one seen on this page, only his was two or three orders of magnitude shoddier. But it did its job, and Marcella came away one happy cowgirl.

Summer 2010

Wow time flies. I am sorry it has taken me so long to post. I wanted to start out with this video mainly because I am so excited for spring and summer this year. I can't wait for the sun to come out and to see all the pretty flowers. Plus I love looking at old videos and seeing how my kids have changed. Marcella's hair is about 5 or 6 inches longer than in this video and she claims we are growing it out until we go to Utah and then Chantelle will cut it for her.
This is also a pre-quel to what we did the other night and I wanted to show you how the girls got their start. ;) No more hints, you will just have to anticipate the coming of the next video.



p.s. don't forget to check out all the other fun videos. Just a little snippet of our lives lately. Love you All, Ciao!

Another Christmas Morning Video

Christmas 04

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning

Marcella playing Jolly old st. nicholas

Once there was a snowman

The meaning of Christmas by Marcella

Little Claire eating lunch

New Year resolution = warning, alittle long and personal

I have been thinking a lot about how the new year brings a sense of starting over. Re-commitment. Hope. Maybe even a desire to finally accomplish what we have been putting as our new years goal for years now. This year will be it. As I thought more and more about what I was going to set as my goal I have been able to think about what this past year has brought me.

Last Jan I decided this year was going to be it. I was going to lose weight and I would be healthy and basically look like super women. ;) I decided it would have to start with me working out with someone else. That is where I got super super lucky. I became friends with Carlee. Carlee is super woman and so amazing. She became my personal trainer and was nice enough to let me trade her training for babysitting a few hours a week. So we started.

In April I ran my first 5k. I will preface this with I don't like running. I have never been one to enjoy it or have a desire to do it. But Carlee said I had to so I did it. ;) I finished the 5k and was hooked. I ran 2 more races, then life started getting in the way again. At this point I had lost 11 pounds and about 10 inches. I went from size 12/14 to 9/10. Then we moved, twice. Started school and getting settled into our new area.
In Aug and Sept I decided I need to get back in my exercise routine and keep working on my goal. I kept track, I ran daily with my new friend. I gave up most treats. Then the end of the month came and I weighed EXACTLY the same as the first day I started. Talk about depressing. I just gave up. In October I was talking to my friend and told her I was giving myself until next summer to lose the weight I wanted to and if I didn't lose it I was just going to be happy with the weight I was and just try to maintain that. We then decided to start counting calories and keeping tabs on each other.
This is where I hope this helps any of you whose New years goal is losing weight. We started tracking our calories on Livestrong.com It is a free website where you can keep track of your calories. The best part is it will tell you how many calories you can eat if you want to lose 1 or 2 pounds a week. It has been amazing. We have been going since the end of October and as of today I have lost 10 more pounds and just bought a pair of size 6 jeans. I love that I no longer start feeling bad when I slip in my diet, then eat the whole bag of candy because I messed up. so I will "start over" tomorrow. I now just have to count it in my calories and then I just can't eat other things. I feel like I have a new found freedom.

Overall I feel like I have actually accomplished what I set out to accomplish this year. What a fabulous year! I hope 2011 brings just as much sense of accomplishment. On my to do this coming year: Half Marathon. I will let you know how it goes. Happy goal setting. Ciao.

Merry Christmas Dad

This year my Dad took a job and is away for Christmas, so I thought I would do a little Christmas post for him.

A BIG thank you to my Mom and Dad for another fun filled 12 days of Christmas. I tried to get a picture for everyday and some days I failed, but I hope you enjoy the ones I did get. We had so much fun opening gifts and feeling your love and kindness. Thank you so much. It has really been great.

Gingerbread House. We have been making them every year for a few years now and we had a lot of fun putting this one together. Claire helped for a minute, but then got upset because she kept getting frosting on her fingers and she hates getting her hands sticky. So Marcella finished it and it turned out pretty well.

This was a big hit. We got a recorded book from Hallmark, Twas the night before Christmas, with my Dad reading it. Super fun.

This year I had a fabulous Birthday. I got to hang out with my friend Cyndi, then Jon and I got to go out Friday night and he surprised me by getting Cyndi and Heather to watch the girls for us over night. It was so fun and relaxing to just hang out together. Especially after a hard semester. On Sunday my actual B-day we had some friends over for cake and ice cream. I sure love Birthdays and this one was super fun.

This was a big hit, if you couldn't tell. It is the Elephant game. Claire LOVED it. The girls would just laugh and laugh. We had lots of fun playing it.

Christmas Eve was a little different this year, being our first one away from family. But we got to spend it with some new friends and we had a fabulous time. These guys have become our family away from family. Love y'all.

When we got home from our party the girls got to open there pj's and a book.

Santa Came. We are so excited. I can't wait to get up in the morning and start all this fun-ness!

Here are a few random pictures form the past couple months that I took off my phone.

Marcella has been having so much fun sliding down the stairs in a sleeping bag lately. Well she was doing this one day and then it got quiet and so I went to check on her and she had fallen asleep in the middles on the floor in the sleeping bag. I guess she wore herself out going up and down the stairs.

We went and saw Tangled to celebrate Jon being done with the semester. When we got to the theater we realized it was only playing in 3d. Claire did pretty well. I was impressed. She was being bribed with popcorn and chocolate, so she stayed seated the whole time.

Yes that is the top of a screw and yes it got burned into my thumb. don't ask, just know that a couple days and a few cuss words later, I finished this bad boy:

I also made a stove and oven. I hope Claire enjoys it.

We went to eat at a Mexican place called Taco Rico. Super good, but my food was so spicy that my lips were burning for a while afterwards.

Well, Dad we hope you have a Merry Christmas and We will try to get some videos up tomorrow. Love you lots and lots.