Holiday Greetings!

I wouldn't be holding your breath waiting for our Christmas card or letter to arrive in your mailbox this year... or any year. But maybe we'll start a tradition of a Christmas video! This one is around 4 minutes. Hope you like it!
Happy holidays to all our friends and family,
Will, Kate, Claire and Lise

Claire growing up

We found some old clips of Claire. Here's a video of her growing up - from ~18 months old until this past summer. I can hardly remember when she was that young and not talking a mile a minute! The video is about 4 minutes long. If you like this one, watch for a new one tomorrow morning featuring both girls...

Where does the time go?

As Claire would say about posting on this blog: "We not done that in a long, long time, Dada."

So, we're busy people, okay? We've got a few other things going on this time of year. And besides, it's not like our girls or cute or anything.

Why have kids? This is why.

Child labor laws? Nope.

"And the bear snores on" ("for pretend")

Thankful

Sunny in November

Birthday celebrations

Claire recently turned three years old. We are a little slow getting the pictures out, but here they are. Since her birthday was early in the week and the family party the weekend after, we decided to do two cakes. Here is Claire on her actual birthday.

For the family party, many were able to make it, so it was a lot of fun! (Nana, Ma, Pop, Jo, Drew, and E were all there.) There was some running this year, too. (a new family tradition?) I think she was significantly faster than last year. (video) (Pictures from 2nd birthday weekend)

This picture is a little blurry, but seems to be the only one we have where a certain sparkle can be noticed on my little sister's finger! Congrats Ellen and Adam!

Claire wasn't too interested in trying to blow out the candles, especially in front of a large audience. The apple cake was good (thanks, Will!) Same cake recipe as Claire's first birthday cake!

Playing the Ladybug board game, a birthday gift.

Reading stories with Nana.

The girls together.

It's difficult for me to believe that this was three years ago. And these too. Time flies when you're having fun... and getting very little sleep!

Baby Camo

Happy Halloween

Today was the first Halloween that actually meant something to Claire. We had a great day home as a happy, healthy family. This morning Claire and I went down to the last outdoor farmer's market and bought our eggs, garlic, and honey. Within the first block after leaving the car (yes, we drove down this time) Claire was complaining about the cold and the wind. Her mood brightened considerably after she realized that all the vendors were handing out treats to kids. After we got home it took her no less than 30 seconds to have her candy out on the floor where she had to count it all. Pumpkin carving followed.





This was followed by some chores. Since Claire will be three in a few days she will be taking on new responsibilities. One of those will be helping to clean the bathrooms. Here she demonstrates good form scrubbing the floor.



After some time spent helping plant garlic for next year, eating lunch and taking a nap we headed over to Ma and Pop's house for a one-stop trick-or-treat. After returning home we headed out again for some more candy. What really excited Claire most, though, was handing out candy to those who knocked on our door. While she did that we enjoyed our favorite homemade pulled pork sandwiches. Mmmmm. (What was Claire dressed up as? A "Wild Thing.")

In other news, Lise has taken the first step toward adulthood. She is eating "solid" food. No, make that a semi-solid food - mashed up bananas. She will start developing her gourmet tastes tomorrow, when she tries rice cereal. Mmmmm. Or not.



Enough verbiage. Here are the pics you want to see:

Happy 1/2 birthday!

Lise turned 6 months old yesterday!

Claire has the flu (probably, and we hadn't even fed her pork either! jk!) but livened up enough to help us sing happy birthday to Lise at dinner last night... and then she kept singing and singing and singing it. I think she might have sang 'happy birthday' once for each day that Lise has been alive!

Here's a picture from a month or so ago, when everyone was healthy. So far the flu isn't so bad, but we're all just sort of waiting for everyone else to get it. Claire is very good at sharing these days.

Broccoli

There's something about sending the girls to daycare that makes them seem to grow up much faster. Or at least that's what we determined this past weekend after getting to spend lots of time with both of them. When you're away from them most of the day for five straight days, it turns out that they change and grow up. Quite a lot, actually.

This weekend was a busy and fun one. On Saturday Claire and I walked down to the downtown farmer's market. Yes, Claire walked the whole way there and most of the way back. I didn't think too much of it, but then I remembered, "Oh, yeah. She's still only two. That's a long way to walk for a two-year-old." Combine that with having her Pa and Grandma Fran come visit in the afternoon and Claire was one tired girl Saturday night. Lise was as happy and talkative as we've ever seen her. Now if she'd just sleep without waking us (me!) up multiple times every night...

Both are doing really well at "school," as Claire calls it, and we're getting good reports on both of them from their "teacher."

Here are some recent pictures.






Now, why was this post entitled "Broccoli?"






Now you know.

-wch

It's been a long time

It's sweater weather!

It's been a while, but we're still here. We just don't find the time to blog anymore.

Life has been crazy and will get crazier as I start my new job* this week and the girls start full time daycare. It will be a major adjustment balancing two jobs, an hour of driving in the car dropping off/picking the girls each day, two of us trying to get our daily running in, etc. Will life be better? We'll see.

In the meantime here are some recent pictures.

Lise now has her own seat at the table for meals

Here's Lise

Psychedelic Claire

*My official job title is "Stimulus Coordinator" for the City of Dubuque. Basically I'm in charge of all things related to federal stimulus grant funding - getting, administering, and reporting. Dubuque has been actively pursuing stimulus funds for lots of things, but especially those related to sustainability and IBM's Smart City initiative, so I will be working on some pretty exciting things.

-wch

When important things happen in the Tri-States...

... Lise knows where to turn. Like her sister, Lise has become an avid reader of the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

If it were allowed Lise would become a literal "consumer" of the news every morning.

A satisfied TH reader

Claire: "Hmmm. I wonder what tomorrow's news will bring?"
Lise: "Pffft."