Visit with Nema

We had a great visit with Nate's mom last weekend. She certainly spoiled Claire for her early 2nd birthday and had lots of time to show Claire how to use her new toys. One of Claire's favorite activities now is bring us little cups of tea and cookies from her kitchen. Susan babysat one morning which allowed us time to head up to the Missouri where, thanks to Nate's expertise, I caught my biggest trout to date. The weather turned the next day and we had quite a spring blizzard. We hope when Nema comes back in July we'll actually have some green and sunshine! Thanks for all the gifts and love, Nema!

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.

Swinging Fun...endlessly, endlessly, endlessly

Though it doesn't do much for the curb appeal, Nate kindly mounted a second-hand swing I found on the front porch for Claire. She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to swing at the park, so I thought this would be a good way to get some fresh air, even in winter. Little did I suspect she would love it so much we would have major tantrums about getting out of the swing, not being allowed to swing at 6 AM, and where Mom or Dad stood to push the swing. After a few days of this we put the swing away, and hid it too. Then I felt guilty about depriving her of something she enjoyed so much. The swing is back. The tantrums have diminished, and Nate mostly takes on the saintly role of pushing her in the cold (which allows me a few minutes to do other productive activities--like blog). Our dog, Hem, loves to sit underneath, though he takes a boot to the head occasionally. I guess in the depths of February any diversion is welcome.



When not pushing Claire, Nate's been busy tying flies for carp and trout fishing. He has turned his workroom in the garage into a fly tying station. We've had some mild days in the past few weeks and he's had a few good afternoons on the Madison River. (I think I'll wait to lose, I mean fish with, some of those new flies until the water warms up. )

If you didn't catch it on FB...

This has to be one of my favorite pictures of Claire.

Heirlooms

I used to make my 8th grade students write an essay on a family heirloom; it didn't need to be anything valuable, just something that had come from a previous generation and had a story attached to it. I wanted them to actually have a meaningful discussion with their families and get a better sense of their family history. This week I've been reflecting on how much fun it is to share some of our family heirlooms with Claire.

In the picture below, she's reading a book I won from the Boise Public Library in 1981 for reading the most books over the summer. (I know, you can tell the nerds early!) She also enjoys looking at the pictures from one of my favorite books on horses, a remnant of my horse obsession days. We even have a few books that my grandmother gave me! (Thanks mom for saving those!)

In the picture below she's about to climb on a bench that my parents passed on to me. They got this bench when we lived in Mexico City. I have many "fond" memories of dusting it's many spindles, and I can't wait for Claire to have the same chore!