Merry Christmas!!

The one side of our family. Cole and Adam were there in spirit.

A glimpse into the future

Clare is into a talking on the phone phase.  She is always talking into her play phone to firefighter Bob whom she will say his name, "Bob". So if you want to talk to a chatty 1 1/2 yr old give her a call. She would love to talk to you. I have the privilege to talk to her most evenings on my way home from work. She says, Hi Momma, good, mommadaddananielzach and bye. It's very cute. She will ramble on and then say Nananiel(nathaniel). 

Santa!!

At least there are three kids in the picture...success.

Merry Christmas!

Red tailed hawk

Happy Halloween

 didn't know minnie mouse was a good baseball player did you?

Clare mimicking Zach practicing her swing.

Halliday is so good, he'd be a Mariner if he played baseball!

Picts of the red-tailed hawk to come.

Cousins! (and the pumpkin patch)

and today we went to the pumpkin patch.

a watermelon of fun

 who knew a watermelon could be so much fun!!

 even Clare got into making funny faces.  it only took her a couple looks at what those brothers were doing for her to get in on the action making funny faces.

 Nathaniel's first day of 1st grade.  and he was most excited to tell us his favorite part of the day was the THREE recesses he gets.  this guy just loves to play tag at recess. it's running shoes every day for him.

and he lost his second tooth this morning!!  the permanent tooth was fully in and had pushed the baby tooth forward so it was really bothering his gums and lip.  so glad it finally fell out because the tooth fairy was going to have to pull it out tonight if it didn't. we thought about it last night but decided to wait one more day.

Clare is saying a few more words every day. she said "Puppy dog" clear as day today. she repeats in gibberish most things we ask her to say. my favorite by far is the way she says Yes and Nathaniel.  they are similar in the way she moves her mouth.  For Yes, her mouth moves just like it but no sound comes out.  i have a cute video of it but it isn't loading at the moment so stay tuned...

Daddy's girl

Tonight Pete and Nathaniel went to a Volcanoes game. This is what it is like whenever pete is gone. Do you think she's a Daddy's girl? 

Our summer so far

This is our summer so far in one post.  kind of disjointed but here nonetheless.  first picts are from our super fun camping trip to Shasta National Forest meeting up with the Gibbons.  Poor Clare got Strep throat the day before we left so pretty much was just like this top picture the entire time.  head hurt, couldn't turn her head, fever, achy. the second picture was the biggest smile we got all weekend, and it took a bit of convincing and was a quick one.  the older kids all had lots of fun and left with the scrapes, bumps, and bruises to show for it.  They got to go fishing and we all went on a good hike to Heart Lake. We'll have to do this again soon!

 Love this adorable swimsuit from Amy and Gracie.  Clare also loves the tutu and loves just hanging on to it.

Nathaniel is holding his mustang painted the exact same as this one we saw at the Dallas car show.

she has found our little cut outs in the dining room and likes to go hang out there.

She now joins in (and loves it!) to the after dinner game of chase around the house chomping people with oven mitts. Nathaniel still forgets she can't run very fast so sometimes she gets drug around a bit.

I knew Clare looked a lot like Pete but for some reason this picture really hit it home for me (and it wasn't because of all the carrots all over her face).  not sure why but she totally looks so much like Pete (same nose, shape of face, chin, smile, and cheeks).

Thanks to uncle tj and aunt heather, i can be a train engineer! choo choo!

More camping pictures!

and these two brothers up to no good! :)