Making Chocolate Pudding Pie

To welcome Daddy home from a business trip to Chicago, we made him a chocolate pudding pie. I had both of my little helpers on the counter!

Elisabeth looking up the recipe on my phone…

4/29/11

Clara after taste testing…

Spring!

We celebrated Spring and its attendant cultural traditions by dyeing eggs, making nest cookies, and having an egg hunt with friends. Most of the footage is on video, which I haven’t yet figured out how to retrieve and post, but here is a sweet snapshot of our nest cookies!

4/21/11

Playing in the fountain

4/19/11

Elisabeth loves to get wet in the fountain, but Clara prefers to stand back, holding the hose and controlling the water flow by bending it!

At Grammy’s House!

Nathan went out of town on business so the girls and I headed to Orlando! The flight there was so smooth and we had a great time enjoying family and the pool! Nathan joined us when he finished his work in Chicago so we were all able to fly back together!

4/11/11

Elisabeth enjoyed her first popsicle at Grammy’s house! It was a hit!

4/13/11

Clara and Grammy reading ‘Duck and His Friends’ – a vintage book. Clara walked around for several days quoting the book – “Duck is a fine fellow!”

4/14/11

Clara loved all the flowers and spent a great deal of time both in the front and back of the house looking at and picking blossoms.

Texas Bluebonnets

Sweet sisters and..

Sweet friends!

4/8/11

These pictures turned out great (thanks, Kacey!) but belie the chaos that is involved in herding four children 3 and under into a limited patch of flowers and away from the high way! The first patch we stopped at was sparser and near a road that, although it looked like a little-used side road, had trucks barreling down it. After chasing the littles around there, we loaded them up and sought bluer, safer fields. Unfortunately the best patches were on private property, but we saw a gate open at a ranch and drove in. A white pick-up was on its way out and I hopped out of the kiddie caravan and asked the driver if we could take pictures on his property. He seemed amused and kindly let us romp around, safely behind the ranch fence!

After our photo shoot, we enjoyed a delicious, but also somewhat chaotic lunch at Must Be Heaven in Brenham. At one point I made a potty run with the three girls. All three of the potty-trained persons used the toilet and I changed Elisabeth’s diaper while she was standing on the counter because she refused to lie down and also not bother the vintage ladies hats that were decorating the powder room! Another adventure, for sure!

A great Saturday

It started with donuts – Dunkin’ Donuts – and coffee (one of the first cups I enjoyed this pregnancy), then a sleepy big girl joined us, then a cuddly little one…

Then we headed to the West Houston Airport for a WWII airplane show and flyover. As we watched the planes fly in, Clara picked wild flowers and Bitty waved. Clara was able to explore several planes, as well. She was so intense as she looked at the instruments and practiced pulling back on the yoke and looked so small inside the cockpit!

4/2/11

Essentials for a good group picture

Cute children – check

Cute, coordinating outfits – check

Good lighting - check

Sweet expressions – check, um check again, and check one more time with subject #1…

Visual contact with either the photographer or the line of sight in the same general direction – um, not so much…

3/26/11

Art installation by Clara

There was one drawing on each of the drawers, card board blocks symmetrically placed on the counter, and the crowning glory of a Duplo Christmas tree. If it were up to Clara, this would remain as part of the ‘permanent collection’, but as the museum curator I remind her that dish water and residue from food preparation will harm the artwork.

‘Papa Wearing Beads’

‘A Jack o’ Lantern’

3/25/11

Thank you for the sand toys, Grammy

We love them!

3/22/11

Things I don't want to forget

A few months ago when Nathan asked Clara what song she wanted to sing during family worship, she requested "Hallelujah, Praise Ja Tuba." We hadn't started Hebrew lessons yet....

Clara was being really silly and I told her she was a little nincompoop. She replied, in all seriousness, "Mommy, don't say 'poop', Mommy. It's rude."

Two weeks ago during family worship we were reviewing the catechism and were talking about Adam and Eve. She told us that they were not supposed to eat the fruit off of one tree, but they did; they sinned. When we asked her how God punished them, she said, "He made them lie down in green pastures." This is from our girl who doesn't like naps...

This week Clara asked to sing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" during family worship and sang the entire first verse with us. She never sings a song all the way through with us, and it was very special to me because that was my Great-grandma Pszyk's favorite hymn.

Today, sitting outside eating her snack, Clara called to me "This little girl loves Jesus!"

During her bedtime snack I try to sit and talk to her and today we were talking about when she grows up. Apparently she is looking forward to giving herself her insulin shots and finger pricks. She also informed us that she will be living in Frodafrida - which is in Michigan, and is where Finger lives. When she is as old as Mommy she told me she will "Talk on the phone." She wants to have three babies - triplets - and their names will be Annabel, Mark, and Ryan.

Three months of no posts do a trimester make

Due date: October 10

This is only a partial explanation of the lack of posts - other contributing factors include my own inability to follow through with long-term projects, occasional single-parenthood due to Nathan's increased travel for work, and our embarking on a new stage of life as Clara was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Check back infrequently for more posts!

Look at all these socks!

She put on five pairs of socks and thought it was hilarious – naturally.

3/19/11

Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show

We knew we had to make it to this event while we were living in Houston, so the girls and I picked up Nathan from work one evening and took the train from downtown to the Reliant Center. I had been to a local rodeo as a child, but everything is definitely bigger in Texas! It was also interesting to see what an event people made of it, dressing in their best Texas gear…I asked Nathan if he thought they wore these outfits anywhere else!

Unfortunately Clara was either disinterested in (livestock show) or scared of (crazy, chaotic petting zoo) the animals and Elisabeth, who usually loves animals, was coming down with a fever and seemed out of sorts. However, we had a great time riding the Carousel and going through the kid’s farm exhibit that showed children the progression of food from the farm to the farmer’s market. After taking their ‘produce’ and ‘dairy products’ to the farmer’s market, the children were ‘paid’ and got to ‘buy’ a treat at the grocery store. The exhibit was well done and Clara loved it.

3/18/11

Bakery

3/15/11