Five for Friday...plus one

I keep postponing blog posts because I don't want to catch up on the busyness and wonderful-ness of our lives. We are having so much fun that it's daunting to try to catch up on it all. So instead, here it is. A 5 for Friday type of catch up. Yay! We have had many more adventures than just these, but some is better than none. right? Right?!

1. All of those holidays at the end of last year were fabulous. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas...all wonderful. Holidays with Claire are way more fun than they were without her.

For Halloween Claire was a sweet (ha, get it?) strawberry. She came to Amelia for the school parade and we went to the ward trunk or treat that night. She had a ball saying "please" and getting candy in return.

my sweetie Strawberry, Halloween 2013

For Christmas, we got to have our very first Christmas at home! We stayed in Provo for Christmas day and flew to Washington to visit on our anniversary. It was truly wonderful to have the holidays with just us. We started new traditions (pigs in a blanket for Christmas Eve and pjs for Claire!) and had a nice relaxing holiday. It was nice to be able to go see family for a little while after Christmas though.

Christmas morning 2013

Claire's Christmas dress 2013

2. Claire had a birthday! She turned two years old. I can't even believe all she does at 2. That will have to be it's very own post, but know that she is 2 and happy and perfect.

This beautiful thing is two  .  2  .  TWO!

2nd birthday!

3. For Spring Break, my parents came for the first weekend and we had a great time. Dad helped Brent make Claire's crib into a big girl bed and she is sleeping so well in it! She loves being able to climb in and out. It was a sad/happy day for this mama.

Claire's first night in her big girl bed with the blanket I made for her!

We also went to Vegas! We just stayed for 1 night but that was plenty for us. It was quite the experience and Claire was saying "big ________" for everything she saw. There were so many people! I'm glad we went and got away. It was SO nice to have a little bit of family time away from our busy lives.

We got to meet Bear in Vegas! He was chilling at the Coke store where we tried Coke from around the world.

4. Easter was a success! Nice and quiet here at home. Claire had a good time finding eggs, she looked SO darling in her dress, and she learned about Jesus. Yay for holidays!

Happy Easter 2014

Easter 2014

5. Claire has been obsessed with the "temple song" (I Love to See the Temple) lately and requests that we sing it often. A couple of tender stories for me to remember :

Claire woke up the other morning screaming. Well, she actually wasn't awake. But she was screaming. I think she was having a nightmare but she just wouldn't wake up. I talked to her, sat her up, and turned on the lights but she was out and screaming. As soon as I started singing the "temple song" to her she stopped crying, woke up, and just listened. It was amazing!

Last night, Claire woke up in the middle of the night and there was barf everywhere. (Poor thing!!) When she got in the bath, I sat and asked if we should sing a song. She said "uh huh. Temple song." so we listened to the temple song over and over.

I'm glad that Claire already loves the temple.

We stopped to walk around the St George temple on our way to Vegas. I think this is what started Claire's love of Temple Song. What a lovely place!

6. We are buying a house! Well, I guess we are Brent is building a house?! We are part of a program called Self-Help homes and we have to put in 35 hours a week on our house until it is complete. We are part of a group of 10 families and we all build each others homes. We will be getting a beautiful home for a lovely price. We are SO excited for this opportunity. I'm crossing my fingers I don't grow impatient. :)

Our future home will be built right here! It is a gorgeous place! We will have a brand new park in our back yard and our neighbors all seem like lovely people. Bring on this new adventure.