If only . . .

If only we had a boy and I could crochet . . .
Image Source: from etsy found here.

I don't know if it's legal to post this, even though I added the source cite. Rhett's gone to Moscow to take a test, so we'll find out when he gets back.

Claire's Birthday Movie and Our Daily Activity

Our sweet little friend Lyla had her one year birthday party a few weeks ago, and Rachel, her mom, had put together a little movie of pictures from Lyla's first year. We watched it, and I got to thinking how I never posted this. So here it is--

How do you compact a whole first year of life into two or three three-minute songs? You really can't. That's why this is THIRTEEN minutes long. But it's full of cute clips and good music. If you want to actually read the credits (Claire's one year stats), you might have to pause it as they scroll. I couldn't figure out how to get them to slow down. (You'll notice a jump at one point where Claire has no hair and then she has a ton. We lost some of our clips and pictures when our hard drive crashed.)


Lately, Summer just wants to put her dresses on and dance around. She's talked Claire into doing the same thing. Here's a clip of them "dancing" (running in circles) with their babies. (When Claire says "Baba," it means baby.)

And since Claire needed another baby, we pacified her with the panda.

Peanut Butter

Today, for lunch, the girls had peanut butter and honey sandwiches. (Well, soy butter, not peanut butter. We don't have any peanut butter since I'm allergic. But the girls aren't, so we just call it peanut butter around here.) Anyway, after their sandwiches, Summer asked for a spoonful of peanut butter. So I got her one and one for Claire too.

An hour later, Summer said, "Look mom." I was doing something, so I didn't look up, but I said, "What is it?" She said, "It's peanut butter from my ear." Yuck. How did it get there? So I walked over to her and asked her where it was. She had dropped it on the carpet. I picked up the tiny chunk of hardened peanut butter and realized it was a HUGE chunk of ear wax! Yuck!

Good thing she didn't eat it!

For the First Time EVER!

For the first time ever, I sat down at the piano to run through a few songs and the girls did not swarm me. In fact, they had disappeared. (Hopefully they weren't running from all my mistakes!) I played the song once, then decided they were being too quiet to be safe, so I went to find them. AND--they were in their room playing! (Cue in: "She Doesn't Need Me Anymore," by Peter Cetera.)

Is this a good or a bad thing???

Back on our Feet

We have finally made it through the yucky stomach flu and recovery period. The girls are now eating better, sleeping better, and feeling much better. We had a doctor's appointment just last Friday. I was worried that their weight would be super-low since they hadn't been eating very well, and also because of their occasional puking. Well, Summer weighed in at 23 pounds, and Claire was 17! We were so excited. That's the most that the girls have ever weighed. We are so happy with their progress.

The doctor's appointment was for Summer to get her ears checked--a checkup on her tubes, etc. The doctor said her left ear looked really good, but when she tried to look in her right ear, there was too much ear wax and it blocked her view. So we took Summer to another room where the doctor could scoop it out. Summer was pretty nervous. When we put her on the chair, she started crying. Then she started yelling, "I want to wait in the car! I want to wait in the car!" She tried coming up with anything to say to get out of it. Then she said, "It's Claire's turn! It's Claire's turn!" It was a quick procedure that didn't hurt, but we were sure glad when we were done!

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The girls have been doing a lot together lately. It is so fun to see them play together and interact with each other. Summer is definitely quite motherly, while Claire is just trying to gain some independence. My favorite is when Summer makes Claire laugh, which makes Summer laugh, which makes Claire laugh again, and they laugh and laugh. They are becoming good friends.

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Rhett is doing well. He got a little bit of the stomach flu too (to be honest--it almost wiped him out!), but is feeling better now. Right now, he's preparing to go to San Francisco next weekend to compete at the Saul Lefkowitz competition. We are excited to see how well he does, along with his team. He's also still looking for employment for after graduation. Anyone have any IP contacts out there? Know any Trademark/Copyright attorneys? Let us know!

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The other day, Rhett and Summer were playing. Rhett said, "You can't pass the bridge without paying the tolls!" Summer looked at Rhett and said, "Dad, I have toes!"

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Claire hasn't quite--but almost--figured out how to eat with a spoon. (Love those blue eyes!)

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I've been entertaining a few random hobbies lately . . . I signed up for a community fiction writing class where we meet once a week from 6-9pm. Since Rhett gets done with class at 5:50, I meet him down on campus with the girls, switch vehicles, then go to my class where Rhett takes the girls home, feeds them dinner, and puts them to bed. We only have two more weeks, but it's been a lot of fun.

I've also been substitute piano teaching. There is a Family School of Music about twenty minutes from here--an office building with a whole bunch of rooms where music teachers go and teach music. That way families can bring their kids and get all their lessons done in 30 minutes. They've needed a sub lately, and I've filled in for them.

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Claire now says "Ow," "mo" (more), "baba" (baby), "apple," "up" (help), and "Buzz" (Buzz Light year). She has the necessities down.

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Summer's been on this kick about putting things to bed. A few days ago, she made this bed out of blocks for her fish. (Notice the pillow!)
And a few nights ago, before she went to bed, she said she needed to put her sheep to sleep. Later, we went into the kitchen and saw this (complete with a binky and bottle).Just today, I was doing laundry and she grabbed her pile of underwear and put them to bed--on her pillow and under the blankets. Good thing they were clean!




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More Accidents

Claire had a rough week last week. Last Wednesday, we went to the girls' school. We had just gotten home, and I had set her down on our door mat while I unlocked the door, when she started heading for the stairs. I quickly grabbed her hand, and then just lifted her into the house. I heard her shoulder pop, but thought nothing of it until a bit later when she hadn't stopped crying and she would barely use her left arm. I called the doctor. I felt it with my fingers, and it didn't feel out, so the nurse said it might have popped out and popped back in. She suggested I take her to the ER because they needed to xray it to make sure the arm was back in place. Just as we were getting ready to go, I noticed she had stopped crying and had crawled on it. Then she tried putting her hat on--raising her arm up all the way without any whimpering or anything. So I knew she was okay, and we decided on not adding another ER visit to our stay in Spokane.

The next day, I was in the other room, when Claire just started bawling. I asked Summer what had happened, and she said she was shutting the bathroom door and Claire stuck her fingers where the hinges are. Claire's thumb was indented for almost an hour. It was purple and red. I was worried she broke it. We tried putting ice on it, but that didn't last long, so I got a pile of snow and put it in a bowl. She ate it with her right hand, and periodically, I would dig a hole and stick her thumb in it for as long as she would let me. She would sit there for a few minutes, and then suddenly say, "Owwwww!" So I'd let her take her hand out. Poor thing.

Both girls have been feeling a little under the weather too. They both have a yucky cough at night and a runny nose. Because Summer's mouth gets really dry while she sleeps, we let her take her sippy cup of water to bed with her. Last night, she was soooooo tired that she didn't wake up when she had to go to the bathroom. This morning, she came into our room and she had wet the bed. She felt bad about it, so we didn't make it into a big deal.

Claire woke up once in the night and wouldn't go back to sleep so I went in and checked on her. She had thrown up on her bed. I did a little clean-up, then helped calm her until she fell back asleep.

When I do laundry, there's usually a batch in the washing machine ready to be dried by the time the clothes in the dryer are done. So I unload the dryer, putting the clean clothes on the floor in the hallway, then I put the wet ones in the dryer to dry. Well, today, I was switching the laundry over, thinking to myself how much I do not like doing laundry, when Summer walked up to me and threw up all over the pile of clean laundry on the floor.

I laughed at the irony of it.

Then threw them back into the washing machine.

Our Holidays

We had a great Christmas and were able to spend some wonderful time with our families in Southern Idaho. What made it even better was that the girls were almost angels all the way there and all the way home. Summer and Claire did a great job for the 8+ hours it took (one way).

We first had our Christmas with Grandpa Barney and Lori.

I was definitely here supervising this.


Then we had our Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Searle's.
Lance tried reading Luke 2 overtop the crying kids, the hee-hawing donkey, and the adults giving commands to the children. The picture in no way portrays the chaos. Luke 2 lasted about one minute--it was the condensed version.
The grandkids on Grandma's piano: Claire, Summer, Mabree Searle, and Noah Nelson (not pictured: Brecken Searle, Anniston Searle, and Graham Blatter). We sure missed Graham!
And then we celebrated the holiday at Grandma and Grandpa Kartchner's.Claire sporting her new slippers (and pigtails!).We sure missed Andrew and Maria, but it was fun spending time with Blake and Sable. One of Summer's funniest moments was right in the middle of singing, "Two Little Blackbirds" for everyone, when, from a small glimpse in the corner of her eye, she spotted a picture of Sable, and excitedly ran over to the picture yelling, "Sable! It's you Sable! Sable! Look! It's you!" Everyone laughed pretty hard.

Sable opening Rhett's awesome home-made gift to her:


We ended our trip by heading up to my parent's cabin for a day--which actually ended up being a few more days because we got snowed in.

For Christmas, Noah got a Mickey Mouse club video with four episodes. At the end of each episode, Mickey Mouse and his gang sing the "Hot Dog" song. This song was the cue to bust the moves. As you can see, it wasn't just the grandkids that loved this song.
Summer got to play in the snow for her first real time ever. She got some snow pants from Grandma Kartchner, and where better to put it to use than Island Park? She got to go sledding on the the snow machine, and then got pulled behind in the sled. She loved it.

Summer catching snowflakes on her tongue.
Claire's pretty eyes:
Thanks everyone for making our visit so comfortable and enjoyable. We made great memories this year, and look forward to the coming years with just as many presents memories!