Butterflies

Yesterday, Clarissa, Clayton, and I went for a walk, and Clarissa wanted to try to catch a butterfly. We had a nice walk, and many other kids admired her butterfly net, but we didn't even see a butterfly.


Today we went for another walk, and we walked out the door without her net. As soon as I locked up the house, I heard Clarissa's excitement as she watched a butterfly (moth) right outside. I went back inside and grabbed her net. She had a lot of fun trying to catch the butterfly, but no luck.

We walked out by our garden, and she still wanted a butterfly, but wasn't fast enough. She kept asking for my help.

So, after a few of her own attempts, I took the net and chased after a few, and finally caught a nice yellow moth.

I'm sure you can't really see it in the net, but she had a lot of fun holding it and watching it, then we let it fly away. Thanks Grandma Judy and Grandpa Randy for the butterfly net, we had a fun afternoon chasing butterflies.

I just wanted to share this picture, it is one of my latest favorites. I love it because it shows Clarissa's long, curly, blond hair; and I think Clayton just looks cute in this picture. Although, sitting in that chair makes him look all grown up.

If You're Happy and You Know it...

Make a silly face!!!


Clarissa sings this song in nursery, and this is her favorite silly face. She makes this face quite often, even when we are not singing the song. There have been a few occasions that we are saying "hi" to someone, and I have asked Clarissa to say "hi", but instead she greats them with this face!!!! Isn't she so sweet???

Where's Clayton?

Last night I got the kids ready for bed, and then just let them play in Clarissa's room for a few minutes. Quinn wasn't home yet, and I ran downstairs for a second, and then I heard Clarissa yelling as loud as she could "Muhner (mother), muhner, Quayton (Clayton) is under the bed, Muhner, Quayton's under the bed!!!" I thought he was probably fine because I knew there wasn't much under the bed that could cause a problem, but Clarissa sounded pretty concerned.

I ran up to find Clayton just crawling around under there, and loving it. We have an extra crib mattress tucked under there, and he was crawling all over it. After I took a few pictures I pulled him out, but he didn't like that. He went right back in and Clarissa joined in on the fun.

It was so fun to watch them play under there together, they were both laughing and giggling. It was especially fun to see how much fun Clayton thought it was.

Maybe he was just trying to give me a hint and tell me he was ready to go to bed since he kept laying his head down.

After I took him out from under the bed, again, he decided to try to crawl into Clarissa's kitchen. Lately this little guy has really enjoyed crawling in between things and into things. I've got to keep my eye on him. It's fun to see his little personality come out more as he's getting older.

Swimming

The Friday before Labor Day, I decided to take the kids swimming one more time before our pool closed. Clarissa was very excited to go. Unfortunately I didn't take them as often this summer as I should have considering we have pool in our complex.

Isn't this a classic picture?

I think it could be used as a good blakcmail picture when she gets older. Just for the record, I only put the swimsuit on her, she insisted on everything else.

Clayton loves swimming, so I decided to get him this floatie to help a little, but he didn't like it, he just tried to crawl out. We had a fun summer, although it went way too fast.

1st Day of Preschool

Today is Clarissa's 1st day of preschool. I'm very excited for this new step, but also very sad, my baby is growing up.

Clarissa was very excited to go to preschool today, and to take her backback.

Daddy and Clarissa walking to the car to go to preschool.

(There's that smile again)

On the way to preschool, Clarissa told me that I could not stay there with her. I'm so glad that this was an easy thing to do and that she was very excited to go.

I need to go bake some cookies now, so that when she gets home we can have an after school snack of milk and cookies and talk all about her first day.

Expert Picnic Packer

The other day Clarissa found her blue lunch box and said she needed to pack a picnic. I asked if she wanted to make a peanut butter sandwich to put it in, but the answer was no. She went to our pantry and told me exactly what needed to be in her picnic lunch. A can of pineapple, some cashews, and of course, strawberry poptarts. She was very excited about her picnic, although I think she only ate the poptarts.

Don't you love the smile??? Last night when Quinn and I were looking at pictures, we noticed that this same smile shows up in a lot of her pictures.

The Circus

I'm still trying to catch up on everything that happened in the last few months. I finally got a computer that will do pictures, so hopefully I can keep up on it now.

At the beginning of August the Carson and Barnes Circus came to our town. They were selling discounted tickets, so we decided to go.


When we first drove up and saw the tent, I was surprised that they could fit a whole circus in the tent. Granted, it wasn't a 3-ring circus, but it was pretty fun for a little traveling circus. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in a circus and have that life-style. I have no plans to join one soon, since I already feel our home is a circus on many occasions now!!!

I couldn't take really good pictures, but there were a lot of fun acts.

I think Clarissa really enjoyed it, she still talks about it. Thanks to Grandpa Randy and Grandma Judy for watching Clayton, I don't think he would have enjoyed it very much.

"All I wanted was the spoon!"

At 10 months old, Clayton is already a pro at making messes!



This was actually my fault since I left the jar too close to him and turned my back. I should have known he would try to grab the spoon. This isn't the first time this has happened, although it was the first time with a glass jar. Hopefully I have finally learned my lesson and won't leave anything too close to the edge, he is a grabber!!!