Happy Birthday

Ella's 1st Easter at four days old.

Eight years ago today we were given a very special gift. I remember these baby days so clearly and I can't believe they were already so many years ago!

We'll be celebrating with a very busy day today. Ella is dancing in a local dance production of the Wizard of Oz this weekend. She has two shows today and we are excited to see her dance.
Mother nature is even in a festive mood and sprinkled out some white confetti to help us celebrate today! We are looking forward to a great day with our eight year old.
Happy Birthday, Isabella Mae!

Our Little Helpers

We really have great kids and they each like to do things around the house to help out. During our last snow storm (hopefully the last of the season!), James shoveled our entire driveway by himself. We were so proud of him and he was very proud of himself, too! He was even more thrilled when we gave him a whole dollar for his efforts! That's pretty cheap labor!

Not to be out done, Claranna also wants to be a big helper around our house! Here's her handy work from tonight:While I was away at yoga tonight, Mark discovered that Claranna had "helped" by feeding the cats. When asked, the little one said she didn't eat any cat food, but it does make me wonder...
It is never dull at our house, but we wouldn't have it any other way!

Wacky Hair

Ella had "Wacky Hair Day" a few weeks back at school and I can't believe it has taken me this long to post a picture of our creation. She was pretty proud of her wacky hair do and had a great day at school showing it off.

It's Easy Being Green

We made cookies on St. Patrick's Day when our friends Jenny, Kate and Devin visited.
We also had lots of green food! Who doesn't love green macaroni and cheese, green jello, broccoli, green grapes and green kool-aid? James was quite excited to tell Ella that a leprechaun sneaked into our house and left silver coin candies and caused other mischief while we weren't looking. What a fun day!

Joy!

Claranna's sweet laughter brightens any day!
Enjoy the video clip:

An End to an Era

The day has been a little rough around here. Mark had an early morning phone call from his dad letting him know that Mark's grandpa passed away very early this morning. Even when death is expected, it is never easy to say goodbye and Great Grandpa O will be very missed. He was the last living grandparent for Mark and me and so begins a new era where our parents represent the oldest generation in our family.

As if our sad news this morning was not enough to dampen the day, Claranna awoke not feeling well again this morning. I was hoping that March was going to be the beginning of a healthy month for our family. We have earned it. Between strep, a stomach bug and colds, there were about three days in month of February where everyone in our house was feeling great at the same time. Claranna's illness today helped me to experience a new first. While I was carrying my sweet baby down the stairs this morning, she threw up all over the both of us. Just like that. She was all snuggley and cuddley one second and in the next second, we were both covered in goo. I guess she wanted to overshadow my "lego retrieval" experience from earlier this week when I had to carefully extract a tiny lego from her tinier nostril with a tweezers. Fun stuff!

Right now, Claranna's napping and James and I just put a batch of brownies in the oven to bake. While we were mixing up the brownies my budding scientist, James, told me, "I love you all the way to Jupiter... and that's a lot farther than the moon!" It's those little moments that brighten even the gloomiest day.

Snow Day!

There's not much to do today, except to watch it snow. We did make it to church this morning so that I could sing with the choir, but the roads were terrible. I'm glad to be stuck inside today with my wonderful and beautiful family. I'm sure we'll be making it outside later to do lots of shoveling. James thinks shoveling is so much fun, so he probably has the best attitude about this fresh snowfall.