I decided to build my sewing skills by making Claire's costume this year. She wanted to be Cinderella and we had blue fabric so it ended up being just as cheap to make it as buy one, except this way I learned a lot about making clothing :) I'm excited to start my next sewing project ( a cowl neck shirt) Wish me luck.

You might think that Craig was dressed as a cowboy for Halloween but that's actually how he looks when he comes home from work :) Pretty cool huh? 

I'm a lucky mom. I get to play with these adorable girls all day. 'Course right now, Claire is yelling at me to plug in her movie (not so adorable) but I got the good stuff on video so I have proof they're cute and I can remind myself when I need to. Anyway, I hope you like these videos. Juliet is growing up so much. So is Claire!

I feel like the luckiest mom on earth when I catch moments like this! I get to see all the times Juliet laughs at Claire just because she decided Claire's her favorite person. I see the times when Claire leans over and hugs Juliet's head in an awkward and tender way :) I love these two lovely ladies and the light my life up.

July was a fun month and her in Manassa Pioneer day is a huge celebration. There are two days of parades, a banquet, rodeos, a demolition derby,live bands, carnival rides, a great hamburger stand, and dances! It was great to see all of the town come alive for the celebration and everyone was busy entertaining family that came into town. It was wonderful! I wonder if I'll ever find a place to live that I love as much as Manassa. 

 

I think it's okay for me to say that I have the most beautiful daughters on the planet! They are sweet and loving! Sometimes Claire and I fight over who loves each other more. The only one who might have place to say they love these girls as much as I do is of course Craig. I was prompted to think of my happiest memories last week, and even though they're pretty new, my happiest memories are now the days when I watch Craig tickle or tease the girls and they laugh and tackle him. There's nothing novel about it, but there's so much love and peace in our home especially on those days that they've hard for any other memories to compete.

Hello friends/family we have a new camera, and I'll be posting some of our new exciting pictures soon. It's late now and I'm going to bed soon, but I wanted to put at least something down. I'm trying not to realize that I'm lonely so I thought it I distracted myself with everything possible it wouldn't hit me. Craig and his brother Scott went to the mountains this morning to build fence and they won't be back for a while. It hasn't been a full day but I miss him and am dreading tomorrow. I should have gone to bed hours ago, because I'm babysitting a set of wonderful kids. I'll go now, and post later :) I love you all, wish me luck if you want.

We're Buying A New Car!

I'm very excited because just this morning Craig found the perfect car for us! We've been searching and praying to find a car that will be safe and reliable for us when the new baby comes and hopefully for years to come. Today, Craig found it! It's a 2004 Buick LeSabre, and it has just over 27,000 miles on it! It fits us so nicely too! It's roomy, has a huge trunk, and it's gold! (not as gold as the lovely car we have now, but enough to look great). We test drove it today and fell immediately in love. So...we've put a small down payment on it and on Monday the keys will be ready and we can bring that beautiful car home :) To give you an idea of what the car looks like I found pictures and I'll post them here.

Alyson came home from her mission!

Texas Roadhouse

We've found out this summer that Claire loves ribs! This was her second time to Texas Roadhouse and she still loves the ribs. We found out that she likes spicy food pretty well when she kept asking for the buffalo wing bones. She's sweet, we love her, I'm glad we get to keep her :)

Videos

Pictures of Claire

I haven't posted many pictures of Claire for a while, so here they are:

Claire's Birthday Party

So for Claire's first birthday we decided to throw a party and invite all our family and friends in the area. We had a lot of people packed into our little apartment and we ate a delicious cake that my awesome friend, Karen, made for the party. Then after talking and eating we went outside to hit open the pinata! This was my first time making a pinata and it was so fun that I think I'm going to make a birthday tradition! Here are some pictures of the process.

It worked really well, too. It lasted through most of the guest and cousin Andy was the one to smash it open. There were lots of little toys from the dollar store inside and some candy. I had a blast and hopefully everyone else did too. Here's a video of us singing happy birthday to Claire and her first tiime eating cake :)

I'm really glad we had a party and I think we'll keep trying for parties for other kids we have. It was a great day.

Her First Giggling Video

This was the first time we heard her giggling about something she thought was funny.

Here's Claire!

Okay, so two months isn't all that 'soon' to put up pictures of Claire like I said I would, but here they are anyway.

Some of these pictures are a little older, most of our memories of Claire now are on video because she's fun to watch crawl or laugh. I'll add those too. She's adorable and lovely. She got her first tooth 4 or 5 days ago and it seems like she might be getting at least one more! I don't know why but that makes her seem so much older. I don't know if Dad sent around the story he wrote about Claire's incident with the Carpet cleaning that went on two weeks ago, but I'll post what he wrote here anyway, it'll be my next post I think. Well, let's see...Pretty much everything I talk about is related to Claire or my project for Dad. It makes me feel like a broken record, but I'm guessing you came to read about Claire mostly, so I'll just tell you more about her:

I think she's become afraid of the water because the last few baths she had it takes her about ten minutes to calm down and enjoy splashing around. It's weird that it bothers her now, especially when she used to love bath time. Maybe I'll figure that out sometime. She's starting to talk a lot and it's definitely one of my favorite sounds. The sounds she makes are usually happy and sometimes we sit and just laugh at each other. Those are my favorite times. She's definitely harder to put down for a nap!!! It's a battle now. And all her pacifiers end up under the crib so every once in a while I have to try and coax her to sleep without one. And that is where I feel like I've either lost or won World War III.

Well, let's see...I'll tell about other things that have happened: when Mom came out to visit she helped me decorate my apartment as a birthday gift and it was the best gift ever! My apartment feels like a home now! Even with the awfully orange couch that I love! Mom helped me find things that would work with that couch to create a peaceful looking home :) I think I've been happier lately because of it. I wake up and bring Claire out into the living room now and I feel like I'm home, it doesn't feel so temporary anymore. Thank you Mom!

Today has been stellar because I was able to get so much done! I got to work a lot on Dad's project and now I only have two models to build and then I'm on to finalizing storyboards and animating! How cool, huh? I'm excited! I was thrilled at how fast it went today! I got a tank and blimp and bomb all made in two hours! I'll put in a picture of the tank and maybe a pic of the General's office. It's really fun to be working on something cartoony!! I'm way excited about all of it. After the models are done, I'll be about 1/2 way done. There is still a lot to do, but it is definitely doable. Plus it's a blast to finally get my hands on all parts of the process. I didn't know until this summer that there's a recording studio in the JFSB that is totally free for students. You just have to reserve it and it has great equipment! Especially when it's free. Andrew, our cousin, has been helping me out a lot with the recording. He's been doing all the voices so far, and he's great at it. I feel weird blogging about my work, when I can talk more about family, so I'm going to switch and talk about Craig now. He's under a huge class load this semester! Some of them are just labs but they still require a lot of work. He's taking Functional Anatomy, Genetics, Advance Physiology, Chemisty?, and Humanities. But I feel like I'm missing a bunch. Tonight he's gone til after 10 and tomorrow it'll be about the same, he probably won't be home til 11. It's rough when his work starts at 7am.

I'm excited for the weekends though, usually we're not too busy and we can spend more time together! I'm just glad he decided that PA school is what he wants to do because I don't think I could survive Med school. Two years of grad school is enough for me!

This weekend should be really fun, Craig's Aunt Harriet's niece on the other side is a graduated art student from BYU and she's going to be teaching oil painting this saturday at Harriet's house! She normally teaches classes out at Sundance all year round, and she also invited me to go out there sometime and I'm really excited for that opportunity too because those classes are usually $95 dollars for two hours and she said I can do them for just the price of supplies ($10). I think it'll be great experience, and I'm thrilled she invited me. I'm also trying to convince Craig to come and paint with me this Saturday and I think he might. He's naturally talented at a lot of things and I'm a little nervous that he'll show me up, but at the same time it would be great if he did.Well, I'll stop jabbering about random things, and just post pictures. We love you Family :)

Welcome to Our Family!

Hello! We thought it was time we started a blog, so here it is! Hopefully we'll get lots of pictures to post and have great stories to tell, for right now we won't tell too much. Schools ending for the summer and fall semester is only a couple weeks away. We're pretty nervous to try it with having Claire this time, but it should be good. I'm glad I took the class this summer to work my way up to this fall. I'm excited to be taking my last class though! Very excited! Well, I'll try to find some great pictures of Claire and post them now, so I'll write again soon.
Love,
Briana