Because she can't have gum till she's 8, she said

email to Grammie:

aACACBCBAEEE 8 IS FOR GUM
A FOR AGGIE
B FOR BOOK
C FOR CLAIRE
8 FOR GUM

LOVE YOU GRAMMIE.

CLAIRE BEAR


Response from Grammie:
Good job Claire Bear!

D is for dog
E for Eggs and Elephants
F for Frogs and French fries!
G for Grammies and Grumpies and Grandmas and Grandpas!

We love you!

Grammie and Grumpy
(Grammie sent us the pictures)

sandwiches...

We were all laying on the bed after naps. Claire is rough housing with Nick. Nick grabs Claire and says:

Nick: I'm hungry. I need a sandwich! Bread, I need bread on the bottom.
*grabs a screaming, giggling Claire and throws her down on the bed*
Nick: How about some Mayo!
*covers Claire with nearest pillow*
Nick: And some blue cheese,
*adds a blue cased pillow*
Nick: And maybe some avocado,
*another pillow*
Nick: maybe some meat,
*another pillow*
Nick: and top it off with another piece of bread
*grabs Matthew and puts him on top*
Nick: This is such a big sandwich, I need to mass it down a bit so it'll fit in my mouth.
*smooshes kids, pillows and all, then proceeds to make eating noises while tickling kids to death*
Claire and Matthew: AH! AHHHHHHH!!! *laughter...the good kind*
*Nick lays back, sighs and pretends to sleep off his large meal. Matthew and Claire creepy crawl to jump on Dad*
Nick: yawn. Hmmmm...I'm getting hungry again. I need a double decker sandwich this time!
*throws a pillow on ME! then a claire (because she's the cheese with flowers on it), more pillows, a Matthew, another pillow and then himself.*

obviously there was no one left of eat the sandwich, so I pulled out from all the tickling and screaming.

Nick: oh no! We don't have bread on the bottom!
*he picks up the remaining 'sandwich' and turns it over entirely and then smashes it again.*

Can I tell you how awesome my husband is?

Simba...

Matthew has a new trick!

From crawling position, he gets up on his knees and throws his arms as high has he possibly can, and then falls flat. Nick and I think he looks like a lion stalking his prey. It is only ruined by his huge grin, which is very un-lion-like. I want a picture of it, but it's over too fast! The camera never captures it! I'll have Nick keep trying.

He has a new word: Simba! which is so fitting!

he has not been feeling well lately. He has a constant running nose, won't suck on anything, whiny, white sores in his mouth...We think it's thrush. Poor kid. Doc is out of the office today. We'll see.

Deb just had a root canal yesterday. Her first. OUCH! Be warned...gory details ahead:
I had been having tooth pain for about a year. Dentist thought we should do a crown first. Did it. Said that the tooth was not doing so hot, come back if there's still pain. there was still pain to the point of inhaling through my mouth, swishing water, eating, drinking, anything put pain on the already constant dull pain.
Dentist sent me to a specialist. I went in and just touching didn't hurt too bad, but as soon as he medicated it and then went for drilling, it was all I could do not to punch him in the nose! OH MY WORD! He finally just took a needle filled with meds and stuck it THROUGH MY TOOTH about six times. You could feel (and see) his arm shaking with the exertion of thrusting that needle through! AHHH!!!! It hurt so badly. and that didn't even make it stop. He had to drill until he reached the nerve, try to deaden it, it wouldn't, so he just cut it out and THEN it was blissful. I hadn't not had pain for months and months. wow.

Nick is in charge of hiring a team of students that he'll teach how to...contact donors...and such...I'm being cryptic because I don't know if I should tell that story fully. Very interesting.

Claire is hilarious. We are working on identifying letters. Finding them on our walks, in our books, drawing them (ha! I'm drawing them, she tells me, "momma, you do it."), etc. It's great. "Momma, look, A for Aggie! C for Claire", etc. She's great. So smart. She always wants to know what time it is. She can tell me the numbers then hands are on, but wants the specific time. I've been thinking about making a clock for her and teaching her how to read it...we'll see. I think it's a bit early. We're looking for a preschool for this fall. Mostly because I'm too quick to get grumpy with her when I teach her new things. You should see us do a puzzle. NO Claire, NO! is all I ever say! I'm sure it's only hurting her. Makes me feel awful. I'm too impatient! She's so smart, though. Shouldn't she just know everything already?

We spend a LOT of time outside. We opted not to buy a second car becuase I didn't want a car payment. Instead I got a bike trailer for my birthday in May and we bike everywhere. Last week, I did about 20 miles in one sitting. WOOSH! Props to me, I know. We have very nice tans ;)

Anyway, nice catch up because I haven't been good about it lately. My MIL just asked me for one and I had to think for a while...

because it was sent on to me...and it's very fitting...ha ha ha

tease

Matthew is such a tease. I was talking to Nick on the phone, laying on the couch, when Matthew crawls to the couch, stands up, walks along the couch and then creeps his little hands along and then grabs me and says, "boo boo!" like he was trying to scare me.

Claire: Daddy, why you tease me?
Nick: Because I'm a father, it's my job.

Claire: Why?
Claire: Why?
Claire: Why?
This child is in that stage. But instead of really wanting to know the answer, I feel as if she is just testing my knowledge. She asks me 'why' to questions she knows the answers to. I discovered this when she started to correct me to the answer that she thought was more probable. My new response is to ask her "why?" directly after she asks me and usually she will tell me the answer she wants it to be. In the cases that she doesn't know the answer, she makes it up. Something like:
Claire: Why are you checking your email?
Mom: Why?
Claire: Because...it makes you feel better.

reasons I know my hubby loves me...

Whenever we go visit my mom, he wants a detailed list of jobs that she needs done around the house. He always, ALWAYS is helping with the kitchen in her home.

He takes my daddy on drives. I don't know what it is about that generation. I do not like to sit in cars any longer than necessary, but my dad loves to just take a drive and look at the scenery. My hubby will go with him. Talk to him. My father has had two strokes and three heart attacks and isn't able to do much, so this is one of the few ways that you can spend time with him and my hubby suggests rides with my dad regularly.

I am a bit of a clean freak. Whenever I come up with a new place to put the *towels, he tries to remember that and puts the *towels where I ask him to.
*towels stands for any random change I make.

My dishes are always done because I told him how much it bugs me to go to bed with a sink of even rinsed dishes.

When I tire of laundry, he takes the brunt and I will build up the pile and he'll do them.

If I leave him a recipe, he'll make dinner.

He does every kid duty that I do that doesn't include nursing, carrying the child in uteri or birthing the child.

He LOVES his kids. Does everything he can with them and for them, but still allows me to be the boss of how we discipline (though he is allowed to have input).

While I'm teaching, Nick is a full time daddy.

Let's me sing even though he could go his whole life without ever wanting a performing wife, he deals with it (Nick doesn't like to stand out---he likes to be in the background and with a loud wife, that makes it pretty hard).

I feel very lucky to be married to such a guy.

Matthew's first birthday!

a shirt of frosting


seeing Claire's and wanting more...

It has taken me weeks to get these pics because they were on Ashley's (newest wife of a BIL, Greg) camera. She was going to email them and then it was too hard to send the file. Then I was going to upload the video of my adorable baby going after his cake with abandon, but it was too big and I'm not capable of cutting the footage. Besides, I think the only people who would watch it would be my family! And maybe only for the first 30 seconds. I digress...sigh.

This is from Matthew's birthday party a few weeks ago. We mostly just had a cake with some family around and let him make a mess. Claire kept trying to put her fingers in it and was finally put in time out because she couldn't leave it alone. Poor girl. I bet I would have had a hard time with a cake sitting in front of me and seeing Matthew making a mess (very little eating went on here) and not have tried some for myself. But you know me, I'm a particular mom. It wasn't her turn, so she had to sit in time out.

STATS:

Matthew is a rolling 23 lbs, putting him in the 45th percentile for weight. He is 29 inches tall (5th percentile), which makes him the squat little boy that he is. His head is a circumfrence that I never remember other than it was in the 45 percentile, like his weight.

Claire is 60% for height AND weight (a shock for her mother).

Matthew:

cutest, sweetest boy. He loves his momma. Likes his daddy, but amazingly, the kid prefers his momma (I guess that's cool because Claire prefers her Daddy). Nick thinks it has something to do with the fact that I'm his walking milk jug, and will often call out to me "Ahn na! Ahn na!" when he's wanting for milk. While this is true, I hope that it's really because of my sparkling personality.

Matthew is not interested in sign language at all. AH! We're still working on it because I do not want a kid to whine to get what he wants.

He LOVES:

-balls

-water

-ropes (foreshadowing here, I'm sure)

-trucks, wheels

-HAIR (my hair is preferred, but he if he can reach Claires, it's a good substitute) to put in his mouth or pull really hard on

-SINGING! (can a mom be proud of this?!?) whether he's doing it or I am doing it matters very little to him.

He doesn't love:

-real food

-being told 'no' (too bad, kid. You cannot play with electrical cords!)

-holding still

Accomplishments:

-He can hold Claire down

-walk holding furniture or me

-crawl

-has 4 teeth

-communicate with specific word babbles for specific needs (ahn na! for milk, doo doo doo for ball are the 2 that come to mind)

I love this kid. He's the best 'mistake' we made.

matthew's 1st bday

sx mb m,nnmtevfg mvth gtmik fbnu vgmg bh g mklkL.

that was Matthew telling you how much he liked h7i0s3w his cake. He is still talking about it because he keeps trying to tyP@E more.

Ohmigoodness, you little boy. We love you so much. You are so cuddle-y. So funny. Your smile is so big. You LOVE milk. But only if it's Momma's and served in the correct method. You cut your first tooth at 11 months. You crawled at 10 months. You climbed stairs at 9 months! (Yeah, I know) You love to play hide and seek. You LOVE hair. If you are hungry or tired you grab it and try to stuff it in your mouth. You and your sister will end naps with Claire in your crib, you screaming and her jumping up and down. We know that one day you are going to clobber your sister and we don't feel bad for her at all. She really loves you to the point of mothering and disciplining. You love to crawl in her bed all by yourself. Any climbing you can get away with, you do.

You don't like bottles, sippy cups, or cups. You don't like waiting for anything. You hate it when i try and make you do sign language. You whine if I'm too far away when you're hungry.

there is just too many things to love about you.

WE LOVE YOU! Happy 1st bday!