Making faces

How to take a picture...

"Okay, baby Clayton. Mama is going to take our picture. "

"Here is what you need to do."

"Smile, like this. "

"I said smile, and instead you try to eat Mr. Bear!?"

"Oh brother. This is NOT going well."

Growing with Mr. Bear

Growing with Mr. Bear - 3 1/2 months

Growing with Mr. Bear - 21 months

This too shall pass...

The past few nights have been a little interesting. Clayton has reverted to bouts of fitful sleep and seems to wake every 20 - 60 minutes throughout the night. Needless to say, when baby doesn't sleep, Mama doesn't sleep. Let's hope this will pass soon and he'll go back to sleeping longer stretches. This morning, I was up trying to put Clayton back to sleep for his morning nap for the nth time, when from the kitchen, I heard "That's neat!" from Caroline. I didn't think anything of it. When I went downstairs a minute later, I quickly found out what she found so "neat". We have a rule "only draw on the paper". If you ask her, she will even tell you where she is allowed to draw. This morning, she seemed to have temporarily forgotten that rule and had taken her red crayon and drawn all over the white wall in the kitchen. I mean ALL over. She had also continued her artistic expression all over the wood floor. Thank God for washable crayons. I HIGHLY recommend them to anyone with a toddler.

The Lord is Good to Me!

Here is our latest song. This is what we sing when we "say" grace at dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We hosted Kim, Jim, and nieces Sarah & Alyssa for our first Thanksgiving at our house.

Everyone wanted to hold baby Clayton.

Clayton & Caroline

"This is the Day!"

The past few days...

With big sister Caroline always singing, Clayton has decided to start "singing" too. He does little octave leaps while he's cooing!

Doing tummy time together...

Riding on her toy leopard

Smiling man

Family picture

Playdough and spitting up

So - what have we been up to this week? Caroline got to play with playdough for the first time. It's nice because you can make it yourself using baking ingredients so that you don't have to worry if your kid eats it by mistake.

Clayton is smiling more and more, but also spitting up a LOT. Ugh! I will change him into new clothes, look away for a second, and then look back and he is soaking wet already.

Do-Re-Mi

De Re Mi

The laws of toddlers....

- When you try to pick up and put away a toy that has been untouched for the last 30 minutes, that is the toy that your toddler all of a sudden wants to play with.
- When your toddler asks for eggs for breakfast and you make them, the second they are put on the tray, you hear "I want pancakes."
- When your toddler says "I want up" and they are not picked up, they proceed to say "I want up. I want up. I want up. I want up" continuously until they are picked up. Of course, when they are picked up, you instantly hear "I want down."

Yes, they can be exasperating, but then they smile or laugh or give you a hug and you fall in love with them all over again.

The ABCs...almost

First attempt at a video...