My lovely MOPS group :)

Alexandra and Ronnie's Baptisms!

Excited to see so much family at church this morning! We visited Trinity for church because Alexandra and Ronnie were being baptized!

Grandpa and Clara, MeMaw and Emma

Emma hung out with me'n'Bryan while Clara preferred to sit with Grandpa :)

lots of snacks

This video cracks me up! Very steady and quiet for Alexandra's baptism, but once it's Ronnie's turn you can tell Emma keeps trying to touch the camera and is chatting. Hehe :)

Congratulations Alexandra & Ronnie!

Visiting with family afterwards 

"Meatball" with Clara

Sorry we couldn't make lunch work - both kids crashed hard as soon as we got home. Thank you for including us in such a special occasion! Love you guys! 

xoxo

Shrove Tuesday!

Every year on Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Marti Gras our church hosts a Pancake Supper.

I arrived early with the girls to help decorate, and then Bryan joined us from work when it started. 

The adults had regular pancakes, and the kids received yellow, green and purple pancakes (pretty fun, actually!). But Clara decided she didn't dig colored pancakes, so we swapped. 

Sissy offering little sister a pancake :)

They had lots of fun crafts for the kiddos to do!!

Trying on the mask she made - it never came off, until she was physically put into bed

:)

Decorating a crown

my pretty girl

Putting all the pretty shapes and colors on her crown

Pastor Carrie got on the microphone about midway through to let everyone know how the parade was going to go, but Clara thought we were praying for the second time. I love this girl so much.

Sweet prayer hands :)

Mommy & Clara post crafts

Back to the pancakes, mmmm

Emma crawling around keeping an eye on the crafting

Coloring

Blowing her little horn :)

Returning home to decorate the puppy with the beads :)

Two very sleepy children were ready for bed. Happy Fat Tuesday!

Sunday funday

A follow up to the recent Saturday post ...

We also had a fun Sunday!!

Our church hosted a Western themed Ice Cream Social ("Boot, Scoop & Boogie"). We had a ton of fun!

Lots of Bluebell ice cream, checkers and fellowship.

Side note: Clara no longer goes anywhere without this yellow car .... ??

They also had a western dress up area for the kids - how could I resist?

Even Emma got in on the fun!

Because these two girls are night and day on so many things it only makes sense that where Clara liked to be worn on my front Emma prefers my back (she'll hang out happily back there almost twice as long than if she's up front!)

Coke, frito pie and a baby doll :)

me'n'my sleepy baby

Then later we went to the park with our friends for a picnic! 

Before the Bunnis' arrived, there was this little boy who followed Clara around everywhere. He would try to get her to follow him too, but she kinda marches to the beat of her own drum so he was stuck doing what she wanted to do if he wanted to play with her. So they went down this slide 30 or so times before he got tired of playing her way :)

You can kinda see him in this picture too on the left - he was thrilled when she decided to play on the teeter totter instead.

my girlies

This just makes me laugh: Emma checking otu her feet and Clara getting Daddy's assistance getting out of the dinosaur. 

When the Bunnis Family arrived we had our picnic, yummm.

Love these kiddos!

Running!

"catch you!"

Clara wasn't too sure about it, but what a sweet gesture

Clara's favorite park activity: swings!

 Jonah got his first ride in a swing with his mommy!

Shoulder rides on dads are the best 

The mosquitos were so bad we had to duck out early despite the perfect temperature. 

LOVE to see Bryan and Clara holding hands. He is setting the standard. And he's doing a really good job of setting an example of how a gentlemen should treat his family and friends.

A late night teething snack - no worries, no crumbs were actually consumed :)

Hodgepodge Review

It's been so busy around here! And exhausting.

To catch you up I'll do a cliff notes version of several days all rolled into one post (sorry it won't be in order).

Some sisterly bonding :)

Goofing off on Friday after we picked up Clara from school.

I just love the many facial expressions of Clara!!!

 

 

Reading to Mommy:

Reading with Daddy (sorry about the weird camera stuff that happens, I was multi tasking):

Clara ensured Emma was read to as well :)

 Just a couple of adorable pictures of Emma from the past few days :)

hehehe, love those cheeks!

 Sweet snoozes and big blue eyes

  

Emma is starting to really discover her tongue and lips:

Trying the bumbo for the first time!

Clara tried to make Emma feel better about sitting in there with some mixed results. Emma enjoys watching Clara, so that helped, but did not enjoy the bumbo, so when Clara got distracted and wandered off, the entertainment factor was lost and Emma remembered where she was. Doh.

Can you guess which child enjoyed the Bumbo more?

 

Friday night our church put on a date night. It was completely free - dinner, games and childcare. Can't beat that!! Our associate pastors and some of the church staff even volunteered their time to be waiters/waitresses. Talk about serving your parishioners!  Goodness!

Before we left, Clara thought she'd get all dolled up for the date night .... and found my lipstick. And got it all over my shirt. Thankfully I did have another outfit I could change into! Silly girl! What a mess!

It was a lot of fun. We dropped off the munchkins at the nursery, which Clara was not at all pleased about at first, but then she ended up making a 14 year old BFF (I really need to get her number so she can babysit!!) and having a ball! She also did much better once they served them dinner :) I'm told she kept eyeing the kid's plate next to her - they decided to give her another couple of chicken fingers so she wouldn't steal, haha.

Emma on the other hand was a grouch the entire time. They finally had to remove her from the nursery, swaddle her, pace with her, and put her in the swing in the hallway to get her to calm down and stop making all the other babies cry :( I guess colic isn't a home specific thing. I felt really bad, but look! she's snoozing! (in the hallway).

After the 2 year doctor visit last Tuesday we went to the Methodist Church playground with Lulu, Michelle, Riah & Jonah: 

And Emma and Jonah had a long drawn out conversation. It was HILARIOUS! I didn't think to try to get a video until they were kind of slowing down:

Clara discovers she likes veggie spring rolls that night! who would've thought!?

Today (Sunday) we went to the Children's Museum and dinner with our friends the Bunnis family.

Before hand Clara drew me the first picture she's ever drawn where it was "something" specific!!

"Yuk, Mommy, is da sunshine an' sky!" 

Can I confess I was blown away and super proud without sounding mushy? :)

Clara's first *intentional* masterpiece

 Her face cracks me up here! post-no-nap and on the way to the Children's Museum!

Once there, there was lots of playing to be done! Such as the kitchen/house:

She's "ringing up" a little girl's purchase of lettuce... this seriously made me laugh. She was on her tippie toes just banging away on all of the number keys, going "here do! here do!"

Bryan is apparently another child patron :)

 

 Fun playing in the sand:

Clara was a firefighter! 

Checking out the fish:

Daddy did too :) 

The two daddies coloring with their offspring:

We had dinner the Republic Grille after, which is quickly becoming one of our favorites. Sweet potato cakes, yummmm.

A pool playdate and dinner at my parent's house on Saturday!

Clara loves wearing this football jersey - it cracks me up! And, of course, Babydoll is along for the ride.

 

 "Woo woo? I home!" heheh and Maverick and Clara waiting (im)patiently to go swimming :)

 

 Clara loving the little float and Emma splashing away:

 

 Riah got in the float with Clara briefly... but he wasn't a huge fan.

Clara doing this very strange hop and splat thing which looked very painful. We finally talked her into a different activity.

Video:

The two "Em"s together and the two muchkins:

 

And Lulu with Miss Emma! 

And lastly, a video of Clara putting Daddy to "night night". She had been doing this to me for over half an hour when Emma got hungry. Clara was so sad to loose her "baby" (AKA Mommy) so Daddy was volunteered in my stead :)

Sorry for the random nature of the update and the hodge podge timeline, but I'm pooped out and ready to go to bed, so it's just going to have to stay this way for now :) Goodnight!