Claire

I thought that I would take a few minutes today and write about Claire so that you all didn't think that I was bias toward Reese. I will write later about Lance. What can I say about Claire. This should about sum it up, especially for those that have known me since I was little, or for those of you who just know me well. Claire is her mothers daughter in every way. She is so much like me. She will not do anything unless she wants to, and most the time unless it is her idea. She can at one moment be very happy and without anything happening she can be very upset. But she is very caring and loving. She is really into pretending to fed her baby doll, and putting her stuff animals down for naps. She will often walk through the house saying; "Shhhh, baby sleeping." She tries really hard to share her things with Reese, and gets frustrated when Reese won't take a toy from her. Last night I found her trying to feed Reese the crust from her sandwich. I had to rescue a small chunk from her mouth. It crushed Claire and she started to cry. It is so hard because she was just trying to help. She is a good big sister but we struggle with being a little sister. She likes to tease Lance and if he asks her to stop she does it more and louder and pretends that she doesn't hear him, which really makes Lance mad. She enjoys this and I remember well doing those sort of things to Layne. At the end of the day when I walk into her room to see if she is indeed asleep I find myself looking down at her and actually being grateful that she is so independent and stubborn, because I know that in today's world she will need those characteristics to survive. I also look at her and find myself just wanted to pick her up and hug her. I know that I probably should find some way of disciplining her but often when she is in the middle of one of her meltdowns I find myself remembering feeling frustrated because I couldn't get anyone to understand how I felt, so I just stoop down, pick her up, and hug the life out of her. Soon enough she calms down. It doesn't solve the problem but it helps her get her emotions under control enough to tell me what is wrong. I love her to death. She is the child my mother always wished I would have (pay back I suppose) and I am so glad that she is mine

Reese

Okay this is fun. Zack has informed me that I need to put more pictures in. I think that he just wants to show off his cute kids. Well I must admit I do too. I wish I could report that Reese had rolled over or got teeth, but she has done nothing like that. In fact we are still working on trying to get her to sit up. Deep down inside I am afraid that I don't want her to grow up so I don't push her or give her a chance to do things like roll over. But that is not true she lays on the floor a great deal of the time. But she is just so happy to lie there and chew on her hands. She really loves her hands. I think that they must taste like chocolate because she just chews and chews on them, in fact she tries hard to chew on them in her sleep. She is such a beautiful baby. I have said it before and I will say it again, she is my calm in the storm. When everything around me is crazy and I am just about to lose it, all I have to do is look at her and she smiles her real big smile and I just calm right down and the rest of the world just melts away and it is just me and her, and I find myself cooing at her singing to her and acting like a fool just to get her to giggle and smile some more. I really love being a Mom.

Welcome

Well after some convincing I joined the world of Blogging. I am not quite sure of the benefits since right now everything takes so long because I am so new at it. But I am sure in time things will improve as I get more proficient at this whole thing. A lot of new things have happened in our lives. Claire turned two, Lance turned four, and Reese is five months old today. They are all so fun. Lance loves to learn and has really started to use his imagination while he plays. Claire has finally entered the terrible two stage that she was born into. She is a very independent person, just like her mother, and just like her mother she is very good at getting what ever she wants. Reese is getting bigger everyday. She is a very happy baby, and will smile whenever you look at her. She likes to wake up every two hours in the night and I would be angry with her if she didn't look up from her cradle with the biggest grin at the appearance of your face. We celebrated Easter together this weekend like I am sure that all of you did. The kids received kites from the Easter bunny and we enjoyed watching them run through the back yard last night for family home evening trying to get then to fly. I am very sorry that I didn't get video of it because it was very funny. We ate ice cream for dessert and Reese took hold of my cone and wouldn't let go for anything. I finally pried it from her little fingers as she screamed loudly in protest. It put new meaning to "you scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream."