Making up for lost time...

If pictures are worth a thousand words, I hope these pictures make up for the lack of posting going on at Clare Corner lately...

These are flowers in our yard! This is our first full Spring in the valley and I LOVE it.

Seems we do pizza on fridays and hiking on Sundays around here. its yummy.

I love, love, love you Virginia.

The whole family at crabtree.

I am obsessed with waterfalls.

Lost River State Park:

So sweet.

My baby at the zoo.

Now that the weather has turned warm, we have been outdoors quite a bit and our computer has been a bit iffy. Things are settling down now and I hope to be back to more regular posts! :) Happy Spring.

Letter Boxing

Today my mom and I took my cousin Caitlin and the girls to Winchester and the arboretum to try our hand at Letterboxing. I sense a new addiction coming on. Basically you go to the website www.letterboxing.org and pick your region of intrest, print out the clues and find these little plastic containers with *handmade* stamps and a log of some sort. You bring your notebook and personal stamp, stamp their book with your stamp and your book with their stamp and thats it. Sounds lame? It was actually insanely fun. Plus we saw areas of the arboretum we have never seen before. Its a bit of a scavenger hunt of sorts really. And it adds a bit of purpose to a hike or trip to the park. So Anastasia and Isabel are a little young but this would be SUPREME for older kids and silly grown ups who never grew up....

It was so refreshing to have a nice day after all this rain. We were told the girls were exposed to strep over the weekend so I took them to the Dr. on Tuesday to make sure they don't have it and thankfully they don't. The doctor did find Anastasia has 2 ear infections again!! This is the third time this year and she never had them until this year. Its so frustrating!!! The weirdest part was that she didn't seem sick at all except for a runny nose of green snot! Yuck. And Isabel got a few shots so the past couple days have been extra fussy but I did utilize nap time to its full potential and ended up with this:

Very quick, easy and matching skirts for the girls. Now I just need this warm weather to continue so they can wear them! :) And a shot of the model who sat still enough for an indoor picture:

And of course a matching head band:

Easter 2009

We all had such a nice Easter!! Anastasia was so excited to see what the Easter bunny left her on the kitchen table! Did you notice that I actually grew my own Easter grass? It turned out really nice and worked well with a nature-themed Easter I had going.

This is why I was up until 1am Saturday night. I was inspired to make Apple bunnies. I LOVE THEM:
My cute little Isabel. I made her a hair band with a big fabric yoyo flower because everyone thinks she is a boy. She has blue frog shoes, and wears a lot of blue and green (because it looks so nice with red hair) so now she gets to wear cute hairbands.

Anastasia enjoyed her second egg hunt. Her attention span lasted about 8 minutes.

Here are the collage tags Anastasia made to go with the bird nest treats we made:


I hate Peeps, but they seem like an Easter establishment and were perfect for the nests we made for all the family members:

Here is the whole family.

It was a great big day for cute little girls.

Different Holiday... same concept!

So the other day I left my phone at my friend Andrea's house, and Nick was supposed to watch the girls while I went to confession but he took a detour to get my phone. So I took both girls and waited an hour in line while letting Anastasia play in the pews. The nicest couple in the world in front of me, (angels maybe?) let me in front of them as they saw Anastasia getting more and more adventurous wandering around the church. And as I was one person away, Anastasia ran to the back of the church towards the vestibule, and so I ran after her. She stopped at this man with a long white beard, and though he was fairly thin she kept saying "Sinta Caus, Sinta Caus!!" and so I told the man that she thought he was Santa Clause (hoping that wouldn't be offensive). He was so kind and took her hand and said "God Bless you, peace and love to you, be a good girl." I thanked him and Anastasia just beamed!

Then she thought the confession booth was a potty. lol. Ever since then she has been talking about Santa holding her hand at church. Everytime I try to talk about the Easter bunny, she remembers that the Easter bunny is at the mall, and then tells me about Santa at church who held her hand. Two year olds are such cool people.

Reflections from Lent

Less than a week before Easter... the last few days of lent and I feel as though I have gained a lot of perspective. Isabel has been teething for most of lent, and it has added an element of chaos to the life I had been used to.

I began lent with so many ambitions which I shared in bits on here. Make Etsy store, plant garden, make bags for market, go jogging, start knitting again, be that perfect mom I sometimes see everywhere else on blogland. The realities of life hit... cranky baby, tantrum toddler, fuss, whine, grrrr. I felt like everytime I sat down at the sewing maching (with the exception of the day I made the Easter dresses) everyone was 50 steps below the happy mark. And of course that put me 10 steps above the angry mark. So I spent the first half of lent frustrated with my inability to get anything done, and finally the second half of lent I accepted that fact. God's lesson for me this lent was simple: to live simply. That applies to every aspect of my life, but I had to prioritize my life, and make my spiritual life, and my family the first priorities. Everything else I do seems to order itself around that. And everybody is happier. And in my "spare" time I try to focus on our garden because it has potential to benefit our family substantially in the near future and everyone seems happy help me garden. On rainy days I can craft for fun. ;) And once Isabel is regularly happy again, and maybe when I am no longer beat at the end of a long day at home I can craft for etsy, etc. Thankfully right now, I am free to make that decision.

The less I try and accomplish the better the few things I do turn out. Well both kids are fussing now... so I hope you all have had a very profound, reflective lent.

Half of a Year

Isabel turned 6 months old today! I feel like we have only had her a few months and yet I don't remember life without her. She is such a sweet heart. And she is growing so fast. I try to keep her small and fat and cute and she keeps getting bigger and definately cuter. What is a mother to do?

She has been fussing a bunch lately thanks to a small tooth that is trying to poke its way through. But she is fine if I am holding her, walking her around, taking her outside, to new places to meet new people... she is a very sweet, content girl... most of the time. She has red hair and a temper to match. She is tough if needed and equally feminine. And she LOVES to be pampered:

Here she is "gardening" with mama. In reality she was sunning herself in her moses basket with her sunhat and glasses watching me work, the butterflies, the neighbors. She knows how to relax in style. ;) We love you Isabel Therese. Just stay small a little longer...