December 2009

What would Christmas be like without a visit to Santa?? When Claire was Aspen's current age, she would have nothing to do with Santa, but Aspen and Santa are apparently tight....she kept going back to him over and over....
We had lots more family visitors this month, Grandma and Grandpa got to come visit!!
(Aspen did not want to stop playing to sit still for this photo...) One day they even got to go with Claire on her school field trip to the art museum and they went to school to eat lunch one day with her another school day. Here is a photo of Claire and her 4th grade teacher whom she loves.
There was lots to do while Grandma and Grandpa were here and we tried to do it all! We took them driving to see Christmas lights and to the church creche display (this creche was Claire's favorite) and the church Christmas play (where Claire was an angel). Grandpa read to Aspen a lot which she loved! Shortly after our visitors left, Brenda and Claire got to attend a concert in an arena filled with thousands of pre-teen girls screaming.....

Then there was that mischievous elf of Claire's...she puts him on the mantle every night in the month of December, and you never know where you'll find him come morning. Here are just a few examples. I am glad I finally had a chance to sit down and update the blog site...we are running at break neck speed it seems!

Christmas Eve was fun with friends that came over for dinner. Claire was so excited she could hardly stand going to bed in anticipation of Christmas Day!
Christmas morning came far too slow for her, but at last it was here and what a fun, fabulous day as a family!! Aspen enjoyed ripping the wrapping paper and playing with her new toys.
Gma and Gpa gave the girls a larger than life stuffed Teddy Bear!!!
Another Grandma sewed Claire a cute little purse

Some friends gave Claire 2 dwarf frogs, which she was thrilled about as she LOVES frogs! Claire was so excited to get a gift certificate in her stocking to go and get her ears pierced!! She has been wanting to do it for a long time but was too fearful of the pain involved....but she obviously got over that! Claire got her ears pierces at "Claire's" jewelry store, quite fitting!
She chose amethyst earrings as they are her February birthstone. She was so brave she didn't even flinch. She wanted me to put the video on here so you can see how brave she was...

Claire and Aspen love to play and sing together, here is Aspen's favorite song, "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", sung by both girls.
Here is a video of Claire at a piano recital, it was actually a couple months ago, but it is easier to add it here while I am working on this entry...

This brings us to the conclusion of 2009...and on to new adventures in 2010!!! We wish all our friends and family the very best and hope that this can be a happy and healthy year full of learning experiences that make us all stronger and wiser :-)
Much love from David, Brenda, Claire and Aspen

November 2009

Aspen's absolute favorite stuffed animal is her little dog, she drags that poor thing everywhere. Mom has to give the puppy a bath at least once a week in the wash machine. Aspen loves to walk around in everyone's shoes but her own....and Claire likes to teach Aspen how to do Claire's chores....
Aspen also had her first haircut, finally!
While on the subject of hair...one day Claire decided to try straighten her hair, so with the help of her friends, this is how she turned out....quite a cutie!!
Claire created a piano composition after what she learned from her piano teacher. Then she decided to enter it in a contest at school, so she recorded it with the help of Dad and she won first place for the entire 4th grade! Here she is receiving her medal.
Then one of Brenda's sisters got to come for a visit. Claire and Aspen were thrilled to have their Aunt Natalie there. Claire was on the honor roll in school again for her excellent grades and received free tickets to attend a professional ice hockey game, so she took her aunt with her.
Brenda and Natalie got to go be adventurous on a zip line one morning...a thrill for sure!

Halloween 2009

Halloween was lots of fun this year. Aspen went dressed as a flower and she was the cutest little flower you've ever seen! Claire chose Aspen's costume...I hardly get a say anymore!
Claire and her 2 buddies made their costumes and went dressed as the 3 Musketeers! The girls had a sleep over to make their costumes and Brenda had fun making them a silly breakfast.Aspen wanted a sword like theirs, but too bad!
Claire and Aspen helped me decorate the back of our car for the annual "Trunk-or-Treat" and it was a hit!

Aug and Sept 2009

With school rapidly approaching we tried to play as much as we could. Here are the girls on the playground.
Claire started 4th grade in August, which she was quite excited about.
Here she is on the first day of school!!
While Mom was busy getting Claire off to her first day of school, Aspen decided to help out in the kitchen and do the dishes.....

We had a great time visiting the pumpkin farm again this year-twice! Aspen tried to pick up all the pumpkins that weighed at least 100 times more than her body weight, needless to say she was unsuccessful, but not for a lack of trying. Claire patiently followed her around and helped Aspen choose the lucky pumpkins that would get to come home with us. (I actually feel sorry for the pumpkins as David and Claire use them for target practice in the backyard every year after Halloween is over...)

We went on a hay ride (which was fun but made Aspen start wheezing...) We managed to sneak away for a couple weekend to go "cabin camping" and hiking with friends, which was fabulous for us all. Claire loves to carry Aspen on piggy back rides....

During one of the weekend get-a-ways Claire had to make a diorama about a Native American Indian Tribe (we are not fond of big projects being given over holiday weekends...) so she chose the Inuit Indians and made a cute little igloo of sugar cubes and frosting (she first tried super glue to hold the sugar cubes together...which we learned was not a good idea...it melts the sugar...)

David and Claire got to do some archery on our weekend trips and I even got to shoot a few arrows!Claire went to a cooking class with a friend when the movie














"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" came out and they made miniature candy hamburgers and spaghetti...they had fun!

Family Reunion

At the end of July we all flew to Utah for a reunion with David's side of the family. One afternoon we hired a photographer and had lots of photos taken. This is the photo of the whole group (above), and a couple of just the adults (below).

Cute photo of Grandma and Grandpa (David's Mom and her husband).

Here are some photos of Claire and Aspen and their cousins. Claire has lots of female cousins her age and Aspen has 2 boys and one little girl cousin her age. It was not an easy task getting photos of the little kids all together, but here they are...

This is a photo of the girls with their cousins and Grandma in the middle quite enjoying all their attention!

We had a lot of fun for the 5 day reunion. We went to a rodeo, ran a road race, saw fireworks, had a picnic in the canyons,

played in the water alot,

had a tee-shirt decorating contest so we could wear "matching" tee shirts when we all went to an amusement park, the kids made a lemonade stand,

had a manicure/pedicure session

with all the little girls running around and even one of the little boys....and we had lots of quality time eating and talking at his brother's homes.

The 4 of us also had some photos taken by the photographer and there are some really cute ones of Claire and Aspen as you can see...

The plane ride with Aspen was an adventure, she was 18 months old and likes to be independent and does not want to be confined....so it was a challenge keeping her busy and occupied on the 4 hour flight. Claire was a good helper though and we survived!

We are still learning what kinds of things trigger Aspen's breathing problems, and learned of more on this trip...so she was on several breathing treatments a day but we managed it just fine and she was not upset or sick. She is so used to the breathing treatments now, that she will hold the mask onto her face by herself. She loves to watch her Baby Einstein videos while she is doing the treatments.

Aspen is in such fun developmental stages right now and every day is something new. She can show you where all of her body parts are if you ask her, the newest one is her "elbow" and it is so cute to hear her try to say the word "elbow". She loves to show you her teeth, of which she has many! She likes to say things with a "B" sound: bubbles, balls, baby, elbow, bee, buzz. She loves to shake her head "no", only she looks like a bobble head doll when she shakes her head. She rarely walks, everything is always in a run now, and it is a cute little run. She of course falls down a lot and seems to constantly have skinned knees or bruises, but it doesn't bother her a bit. She is very reactive to bug bites, they leave nasty welts on her little body.

Claire is really enjoying all these fun developmental stages with Aspen as well. She LOVES to be the one to go get her out of her crib when she wakes up, and if Aspen wakes before Claire, I always go put Aspen on top of Claire and Aspen will proceed to play with all of Claire's facial features until Claire wakes up, and they both love it. Claire's loves it when I bring Aspen to school to have lunch with her so she can show her off to all her friends. Everyone at school knows who Aspen is and she always gets lots of attention. Claire has started sleeping on the regular bed in Aspen's room because she likes to be around her as much as possible.

Claire just started 4th grade and she is such an eager student and loves all of her classes. She never complains about going to school and loves riding the bus. She always has her nose deep into a book whenever she can, and she loves to read books to Aspen too. She is also busy with the year round swim team, (going on her 5th year of competing on swim team). She is really good at the butterfly which is a challenging stroke. She also recently mastered doing a back dive into the pool and a back walkover on the floor, which she is quite pleased with herself over. She is still playing the piano and though she doesn't like daily practice, she loves to be able to read and play music and has even started to write her own music. Mostly in "rap music" style, but it is always very funny or sweet.

Brenda had a bit of excitement recently when some thieves were brash enough to smash the drivers side window of her car while she was standing just a few feet away...they stole her purse and had a fun time with the contents right away..... A lovely mess to clean up after.

Otherwise Brenda has been quite busy lately volunteering at Claire's school now that they are back in session. David has been busy at work and serving as the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the surgical lecture institute he works with outside of his regular work day. He and Claire like to go fishing whenever they can.

Be sure to click on the SHUTTERFLY link on the left of the blog site if you want to see all the photos from the reunion trip!!