Assembly Required

Nate's mom was kind enough to order Claire a kitchen set for her birthday. Since she will be visiting this week, we'll celebrate her birthday a month early. One of the "joys" of parenting we've come to "appreciate" is toy assembly (and by "we" I mean Nate). I'd have to say this one beats all the others. As kids age does the assembly get exponentially more complicated?


Three hours, three beers, and a few curse words later!

A little break from winter

Though it's snowing again as I type this, we did manage a brief outing Saturday between bits of bad weather. We got in a short hike at Headwaters' State Park--the origin of the Missouri River. We've been so cooped up I was even looking forward to a trip to the grocery store after church on Sunday. Of course after Claire started having her normal tantrum about wanting out of the cart I remembered why I usually DON'T look forward to grocery shopping!

Cabin Fever

It's snowing outside. Again. It's been snowing off and on since Thursday. This morning's temp was -9 degrees. Isn't March supposed to be Spring? Why do they have pastel colors in all the stores and cute little sundresses? We've gone swimming, gone to the museum, played music, DVDs, puzzles, dolls, baked cookies, and read books. We're experiencing a little cabin fever around here. The picture below is a pretty good summary. Those of you who know me and my anti-clutter phobias might be surprised to see the living room in such disarray...it's been in some stage of this for a week. It doesn't help that all the other schools around here have Spring Break next week and we don't get one. I'm dreaming of a hike in Moab's warm red rock canyons right now...

We've even resorted to playing dress up with the dog, Hemingway, for amusement.

Claire, of course, is as cute as ever.