A Budding Imagination

As I wrote earlier, Claire has recently become friends with some imaginary characters. We had lunch at my grandmother's house last week, and while we were there, Claire discovered a stash of teddy bears. She had the best time making up stories with them, and deciding which ones were the mommies who were cooking in the kitchen, which ones were the babies who needed a nap, and which ones were the daddies who left for work. Well, she hasn't stopped talking about these bears. They "go" with her just about everywhere, including needing to be buckled up in the car, and she's even started setting a place for them at her little table when she eats breakfast and lunch. It's really cute watching her little imagination taking off.

We also had our first encounter with monsters the other day. We were all having a fun picnic dinner on the patio, and Claire was playing nicely in the yard. Once it got dark, though, she ran over and started saying "I'm scared! I'm scared!" We asked her what she was scared of, and she said "MONSTERS!!!" and ran inside. Luckily, Mommy was prepared with special anti-monster powder that kept the monsters away and we were safe again. She hasn't mentioned monsters again, thank goodness, but I can't figure out where she learned about them in the first place.

A New Look

Isn't this new layout so cute?? I found it on LeeLou Blogs. Look for another new theme after Valentine's Day!

Little Lady

Claire and I had a wonderful day of shopping and lunch out yesterday. We hit the mall in search of end-of-winter sales for our South African odyssey this summer (it'll be winter there when it's summer here.) It was pretty hard to believe that I needed to get her size 3T! When did she grow up?? Claire had such a fun time walking through the mall, looking in all the windows and telling strangers walking by that she was getting new BROWN shoes. We never found the shoes, but that just means we'll have to go back. We had a nice lunch at ChickfilA, and she did an amazing job of sitting the whole time, eating her chicken and telling me all about her new imaginary friends. (I'll fill you in on those little guys in another post soon.) What a lovely day with my litte lady!

On the verge of reading

Claire has been able to identify her letters for months now, but I never realized how much she was taking in at school or while we worked on it. Last night, she and Jason were playing a game that came on a dvd about words and letter sounds, and she amazed us all with what she could do. The game would ask something like "What letter starts the word fan?" She would sit completely still for a couple of seconds, looking like she wasn't even paying attention, then announce, "F!" It was shocking. Mom and I just sat and watched her get letter after letter right--she never got one wrong!

Done!

We closed on the house on Friday! Now we get to start really looking for a new one in San Antonio!

Oops....

Please know that I am not being intentionally rude and ignoring your calls. My phone probably is now in a million little pieces all over the access road of the highway. Who knew cell phones can't hold on to the top of a car????

I'll hopefully get a new one tomorrow, but even then I don't know any of your phone numbers.....

Yay me! Time for bed....

Facebook anyone?

So I joined Facebook--but I have no friends.....anybody out there??? I can't figure out how to invite people.....