Clarissa is 10!

 Clarissa decided to have a swim party this year.  She invited Cailin, Jericca, Jessica, Brooke, and Makayla.  They had a blast.

 After the pool they all came back to our house for pizza...

 presents...

and cake.

Some of the things we love about Clarissa at this age are her big, beautiful smile, how easily she makes friends, her love for animals, her creative stories, her optimistic view of everything in life and the way she gets messy with anything from markers to paint to chocolate to dirt to make-up...

Happy Birthday Clarissa!

What a Difference Four Inches Makes

 I love Amber's long blonde hair.  Her hair is thick and naturally has some wave to it (not in this pic because it is damp) and is always pretty...except for when she wakes up in the morning and all those long locks are in snarls.  I finally decided that I need to simplify my life and one way to do that is to spend less time combing her hair. So...

Four inches later it is a much more manageable length and still beautiful, even if not as wavy as before.  I was worried that I would be sad, but I am actually quite happy with it and seem to be the only one who can even tell it's shorter.

Pregnant and Freezer Crazy

 

I am 28 weeks along in the pregnancy now and feeling pretty good.  I have had some rough days of pain and low iron where I've had to lie down in between getting things done, but I've still been able to stay very busy, which is a good thing.  The last two weeks that Chris was in China I found myself going crazy missing him and decided to pass the time by baking and cooking and then freezing the proceeds.  I made 6 freezer meals, 4 loaves of bread, 2 loaves of carrot bread, 2 double batches of baked oatmeal, a double batch of pancakes, 24 orange-berry muffins...

 

and then cooked up 6 quarts of chopped chicken, 8 lbs. of ground beef with veggies and 5 containers of chicken broth for the freezer.  I could do more, but our freezer is getting full.

 It might have something to do with the head in the freezer and the fact that I need to defrost it, and have needed to for a looong time.

Another crazy pregnancy habit that I have picked up is eating things I don't normally eat; mainly, Bavarian/Boston cream doughnuts, Girl Scouts cookies, and any sugary candy like lollipops, Swedish Fish and especially Hot Tamales.  I normally don't care for candy unless it's chocolate, but with this pregnancy, I just can't seem to get enough.

It's the Little Things

Chris has been in China now for over a month and everyone is missing him horribly.  Overall, we are all doing great, but we find that we need to look for little things to bring some extra happiness into our lives that we would normally get just by seeing Dad walk in the door at the end of the day.  Some of the little things that have helped have been having Grandma come stay for a couple of the weekends, a trip to Taco Bell to experience it for the first time (Chris doesn't like Taco Bell so we've never been before), painting Valentine's T-shirts, Frostys and dinner at Wendy's to celebrate filling the piano treat jar, and a shopping trip at Walmart to buy toys with Christmas gift cards from Uncle Mike and Aunt Sarah.  While at Walmart, we also browsed through the clearance racks and found these adorable T-shirts for $3 or less.  The girls love their cute shirts so much, I can barely get them to take them off to be washed.  Sometimes it really is the little things that keep us going.

In the Nick of Time

 Just as we thought that Spring would get here without any snow to speak of, we woke up on Monday morning to this beautiful sight.

 Monday was President's Day and as many of the schools were out, it seemed like a perfect day to let the kids play with their friends in the snow.  The older kids were brave enough to go down the hill by our driveway.

 The girls were out running around in the forest and they looked tired when they got back.

 Especially after climbing up our hill.

 After lunch, they went back out for some snowman building and snowball throwing.  Jared made a head and named him General.  Then he put him downstairs in our freezer.  We haven't told Chris about it, we're waiting to surprise him when he gets home from China, won't he be surprised to find a frozen head in the freezer!

 

On Tuesday it was really warm, but there was just enough snow to build a fort and have a great snowball fight.  I hope the kids enjoyed it because Spring is on it's way, we've had several days of 70 degrees lately.

It's a Palooza!

The 8-11 year old girls have been planning a family dance at church for several months. Clarissa has been so excited for us to go to this dance and see the decorations that she made. Plus, we love dancing.

I am 24 weeks pregnant and ready to go dancing!

Amber, dancing with some of her friends. The best part of the evening was when one of her little boy friends asked me to dance and she was just standing there with her hands on her hips, so put out that her friend asked me and not her. I convinced him to dance with her and she was glowing. So cute.
Krystal was trying out some of her ballet moves to rock music, it was pretty cute.
Clarissa and Amber's friend Danielle are dancing to the Wii Just Dance.

Jared was so good, he danced with all the little girls. These are some of the decorations that Clarissa made for the dance. We all had so much fun. We just missed Chris because he was in China on a business trip.

Family Clown

Umm...need I say more? The best part about this girl is how she keeps a straight face when she's making us crack up and she comes up with this stuff all on her own.