Fishing....for Hippos??

Claire's little imagination is constantly coming up with new adventures. Recently, she's been very interested in fishing-with the hose, in the swimming pool. She dips the end into the pool and lets it sit there for a few seconds, then she cranks her arm around like she's reeling in her line, and announces with great enthusiasm what she just caught. The first few times were (fairly) normal catches: a red fish, two blue fish (hmmm, wonder what book she's read??), and so forth. But the other day when Aunt Jamey was over to babysit, the wildlife "living" in the pool changed. Now she catches dinosaurs, rhinos, zebras, and hippos!

Here she is waiting for the bite:

And after a long day of fishing, the pole magically changes into a microphone:

Birthday Dinner

Aunt Jamey, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa each has their birthday, about one week apart, starting on March 14 and ending April 5. Because that could potentially be A LOT of cake, we typically do one celebratory dinner somewhere in the middle. So this past Saturday we went to a very nice dinner at Grey Moss Inn, a great restaurant just outside San Antonio. We were a bit worried about how Claire was going to do for that long sitting at a table at a nice restaurant, but she exceeded all expectations! We had gone shopping at the dollar spot at Target earlier that day and stocked up on all the stickers and stamps we could find to help her stay entertained during the meal. She was able to stay sitting nicely, with only two 10-min walks around, for the entire 3 HOUR dinner! Yay for growing up! She wasn't too thrilled with pictures that night, but here's a funny one of her "hiding" from the camera:

The keys are ours!

The closing went well, and the keys are ours! Now the work begins: the painter starts on Friday, and new carpet is being made this weekend and will be ready to install Wednesday. We have movers scheduled for next Friday, and then we'll be in! Yippee!!

Must be getting close to summer!

Claire has discovered that she LOVES watermelon. (Or, as she calls it, "watermaywyon".) Last year, she liked the taste but hated the texture, so she'd suck all the juice then spit the rest out. Looks like we won't have to deal with that loveliness this summer, thank goodness. She was feeling exceptionally hammy the other day, and insisted on taking some pictures with her slice. Enjoy!

House Update!

We just found out that we'll be able to move the closing up--to tomorrow! We met with the carpet guy and painter last night, and we should be all ready to start moving our things in in about a week! Good bye purple walls and horrible carpet!

Our whirl-wind trip to Houston, KELLIE :)

We had a great time last week visiting all of our friends in Houston! We played with Emma, caught up with Mommy's teacher friends, visited Houston's new park-Discovery Green-with the group, saw Mrs. Marie (Claire's nanny from when I worked in the fall), and even visited Mommy's old school and saw her kids. The highlight of the trip, though, was getting to meet the newest addition to the playgroup--Nathan's baby brother Nolan! He's so cute and cuddly, and he was so nice to let me snuggle with him for awhile at the park. Sigh.... We had a great little vacation that definitely helped pass the time while Daddy was away. I didn't take many pictures, but here are a few from Discovery Green:

I don't know what they're doing, but they sure had fun.

Brady, Nathan, and Claire on the slide.

Cash and Saige watching the big kids

Cash is walking!!

And they all fall DOWN!

A fun weekend and an exciting week ahead

Jason has been out of town since last Wednesday, and won't get back until late Friday night (yay military training), so we've been keeping ourselves busy with adventures to pass the time more quickly. Our first adventure was a trip to Sea World on Saturday. Claire LOVED it! She liked the dolphin petting and watching the penguins the best, and she also found immense joy in chasing the blowing leaves all over the sidewalks. We brought our map home, and she's been looking at it with Honey every night, talking about what we saw. On Sunday, Claire got to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa while Mommy went shopping. It was so nice to be able to take my time in the stores and actually try things on!

Today, we're embarking on our next adventure--a road trip! We're heading to Houston for the next few days to see all of our friends. We've got a jam-packed schedule with lots of fun planned, and I'm sure it'll be Friday before we know it.

Here are a few pictures from Sea World:

Learning about penguins

Watching the roller coaster speed by

Fish!

Dolphins

More dolphins

Morning Person

The last 2 mornings Claire has woken up in a wonderful mood. Yesterday she came into our room and starting poking me, saying "Cake up, MOM, cake up!!" And this morning, as soon as she woke up, she started reciting a knock-knock joke that she made up. It went like this: "Knock-knock. Who theeeeerrrre? Honey Gram. Honey Gram who? Honey Gram." It's so cute to listen to her endlessly chattering away now, and it's hard to believe she ever had an issue with her speech.