Who is this child???

I love looking at pictures of Clem. The pictures I posted of last year's Christmas got me looking through all of our archived pictures. She was such a little tiny thing! Looking at this independent movin' and shakin' little girl today, I sometimes forget that she used to be so little and cuddly! She is growing up so stinking fast! She's getting a new tooth every two weeks or so now and learning about 2 words a week (her latest word is baby--but she says it "BAY-BEE!"). So is SOOOO independent and sweet and growing like a little weed!

I took this picture a few days ago of Clementine waiting so patiently for dinner in her highchair. She looks like such a little lady to me! So grown up. And I've made the decision that there really is nothing cuter than Clementine in overalls!

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Clem's first Christmas in her too big pjs! She was so tiny!


Clem's second Christmas in her adorable jammies. We finally got her to sit still--but notice, she's still holding her rubber ducky!!


Remember this one?? Such a little tiny bug!

Our Christmas Story

We had such a great little Christmas this year. Very low-key with the three of us but enough delicious food to feed a small tribe.

Christmas Eve we spent here just the three of us. We made a roast, potatoes and green bean casserole. Clem loved every bite. Then she got to open two things: her new Christmas pjs and Peekaboo Christmas board book.

Her jammies were so cute I could hardly stand it.
Cam tried reading Christmas Peekaboo to her but the roast got to her and she temporarily went wild. She was zooming all around her room, picking up random things and hurriedly taking them all over the house. See her bottle of vitamins and rubber ducky??


The next morning, we got up around 7:00 (yipppeeeee!!!) and Clem opened the gifts from Grandma and Grandpa and from Santa, too! She was a little unfocused but got the hang of it eventually.

After lots of present opening, we were very hungry so we had home made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then headed on over to the Ray family farm. We piled into our snug little car and trudged on through the Bellingham ice covered roads. But as soon as we got to their house, my Ford Focus got stuck in about a foot of snow and it wasn't moving! :(

This cemented in our minds something we already knew: Ford Focus was ready to be put out of it's misery. It's not a Bellingham-weather equipped car, it's too small for our family and it was beginning to require more time and money than it's worth.

So I got my Christmas present today:A Mazda Tribute!! HOLLA'!!! We got an excellent deal on this SUV thanks to Cam! My payments on this baby will be nearly the same as on the Ford Focus! If I had known that was possible, I would have done this a million years ago!

Happy Jingle Balls!

We have been very fortunate the last few days to live within walking distance to the grocery store. Every night when Cam gets home from work, I've taken a breather to walk down to the store for dinner fixin's. This is not as easy as it may sound; we live in the slums of Bellingham, remember.
First, I had to battle my way through a foot of snow with a nice thick layer of ice in some places. Then I get to brave not only the freezing cold temperatures but the drunk drug users standing around between our place and the store. Once past the sea of whirly twirly gumdrops I'm in the home stretch. More than once this week, I was nearly wiped out by people trying to get to the same store as me--only they were SKIING!!! Yesterday on one of these very walks to the store, a familiar drunk stopped me to wish me "Happy Jingle Balls!" At least that's what I think he said....

It's been seven long days trapped in the apartment. Cam has been able to make it in to work twice but has mostly been working from home. Finally today, instead of more snow, we got rain. We were able to get out of the house, into the car and leave for a good long while. We were all so very very happy! Clem was chattering away and bopping around in her car seat while I kept begging Cam to keep driving. It was good for all of us to get away for a bit.

Tonight we had a really nice roast for dinner with plenty of carbs. Clem had a much needed bath after dinner, got in her new Christmas tree jammies and semi-listened as Cam read her new Santa book to her.
It's hard to believe that this time last year we had an itty bitty 8 week old baby on our hands. We could hardly keep her awake through dinner last year! This year she was chowing down and even had a bite or two of roast!

I have pictures to post tomorrow once my camera recharges. Hope everyone is doing well and is safe, warm and full bellied tonight.

Guess what we had for dinner!

Cookie Party!!!

We *finally* got out of the house yesterday! Oh, it was divine to be out of here! Now that the snow is almost to Clem's knees, she's not so enthusiastic about playing in the snow.


So we were invited to a Cookie Party at Cam's friend's house. We all had a blast at cookie party--especially Clementine. She LOVES cookies.


Clem got to sit on Cam's lap while we all decorated snowmen, ornaments and gingerbread people. Cam was smart and gave her the very first cookie. This occupied her long enough for Cam to decorate his own cookies.


Every time Cam picked up a new cookie to decorate, he set it down right in front of him--started chatting, looking for decorations, etc. Soon he discovered that these cookies were disappearing. Guess who?


We figure Clementine must have had somewhere between 3-5 sneaky cookies! What a goober!

Clementine By Numbers

1--Whoo hoo! We're down to just 1 nap per day!
2 best friends: Jack and Kirby the bear
3 perfected dance moves: the bop, the butt wiggle and the gangsta lean
4 winter hats--she's become pretty well known at daycare for coming with a different, funky hat each day!
5 Meals per day
6 Teeth and counting!
7 Friends in her class at school
8 pounds gained since starting daycare in August! Chubby baby!
9 months in Bellingham!
10 hours of sleep at night-pretty much all through the night now (my Christmas wish is granted)
11 minute attention span
12 words she knows (mama, daddy, hey, hi, hello, Jack, kitty, uh-oh, wasdat?, up, yeah, yogurt)
13 books read so far today
14 months old

1,000,000 laughs, snuggles and kisses each day

Happy Birthday G.G.!

Today is G.G.'s birthday! Happy Birthday G.G.! We love you very much.

Here are some pictures (a few weeks old) of Clem and Granny Great snuggling and reading together! And look! No binky!!!

Life with a One Year Old

Sometimes life with a one year old means you find your shoes in the kitchen drawer.



Sometimes it means mood swings.



Sometimes it means learning new things.



But most of the time life with a one year old means mood swings.

Snow Day!

We woke up to a blanket of snow this morning! Clem was so excited to go outside she was banging on the windows.

So first we bundled up, Christmas Story style




Then we went for a little walk in the backyard





I love Clem's little shuffling footprints in the snow


I think she likes it too!

You're probably thinking to yourself "I KNOW there's only 21 days to Christmas but what about the new house?? Oh, look at Clem's long hair...it's practically covering her ears!"

So the latest on the house is this: we have gotten past phase 1 which is getting the Homeowner's approval on the offer. We got that. Now we're waiting for the bank (who is foreclosing on the house) to approve our offer. Our Agent says this could take awhile. Like two months.

The Final Countdoooowwwnn...

My very favorite scrapbooker (Ali Edwards) has been putting together a December Daily Scrapbook. I can't imagine scrapbooking anything right now but will TRY to do a December Daily Blog Post!
Here is Clem in her pjs this morning reminding you that there are only 22 days until Christmas!

For Thanksgiving this year, we did a lot of visiting, a lot of driving and the obligatory a lot of eating. First we took a scenic tour of Mercer Island to go see Aunty Kelly and Mario. Clem was acting very very shy so she mostly banged coasters together and hung close to Cam.





Then we went to Seattle to Aunty Sissy and Uncle Bunny's house. We ate turkey and all the fixin's and Clementine tried a little bit of everything there. She LOVED it!






We had to leave before my personal favorite part of Thanksgiving--dessert--so we could get home to poor, crated Jack. To get our dessert fix we made a few mini-pumpkin pies with the left over crust and filling. Clem got her own bite sized pumpkin pie.


I think she likes it!

Does this mean we're actual grown ups??

Last night we decided to throw out hats in the ring (whatever that means) and we put an offer on a house. A real offer. On a real house. I feel like this should be something we whisper as it hasn't been accepted yet but I really want to holler the news from the rooftop of our apartment in the ghetto.

The potential house is a new home and has three bedrooms, a two car garage, built in bookshelves (I said built in bookshelves!!!) and the ideal kitchen; one where I can see straight into the play room and into the backyard, too. Oh, a backyard--with a fence! And it has a separate utility room that I didn't even know I wanted, but now that it's on the table I realize that I can't live without it.

I don't know what to do with myself as we wait to hear something back from the bank. I know what I WON'T be doing is looking on any more websites, taking any more tours or going to any more Open Houses for awhile!

Hunting Season

Every minute of every day--well, I should say the minutes we aren't chasing/feeding/clothing/snuggling/clapping/singing to our big girl--we are looking for a house. A *H*O*U*S*E* house. Cam has been a major rockstar in this adventure while I play the damsel in distress. I will say it here publicly that house hunting may do me in. It may give me grays that no dye can cover. It may age me 10 years--I will forever blame my crow's feet on this nightmare. And the tears...OH, the tears I've cried! If you've ever met me in real life you know that I am what some might call *sensitive*. Every time I step over a threshold, I fall in love. Then my heart breaks.

The worst of the worst is Gray House. I love Gray House but it's out of our reach--sort of. Okay, mostly out of reach. I've loved Gray House for 3 weeks. I haven't found anything else I love as much as Gray House. We reached the conclusion that Gray House just wouldn't work out. I mourned the loss and tried to move on. Then it seemed Gray House might just work out--a week and a half ago, the financer offered a sweet deal. Cam thought it's may not be just sweet enough. I mourned once again. Realtor dropped the price over the weekend and now I feel those familiar sparks flying one more time.

How does anyone get through this?? Cam is as laid back and nonchalant as ever. I, on the otherhand, am a trainwreck!
Almost everyone we know has already bought at LEAST one house already--so give us your advice!! Please?? How do you stay objective? What would you advise a couple of crazy kids trying to buy their first home?

Revisiting Halloween

Yes, I know that Halloween was ages ago but I forgot about these pictures and didn't want them to go to waste.


So, in short, Halloween was not all I had hoped it would be. I picked Clem up from daycare with the intention of getting her dressed up and going to visit some friends and neighbors. Well, I was the only one on board with this plan as Clementine was very crabby on this day (turned out she still had ear infection) and Cam had to work until nearly 7 (Clem's bedtime). Clementine had two costumes to wear: a Jack o'Lantern costume that she crawled on top of and tore in less than a minute and her strange fitting Princess Leia robe w/ cinnamon bun wig. In the end, she got dressed up for about 15 minutes. Clementine was Princess Leia while her best friend Jack was Yoda. Another issue was that Clementine's cinnamon buns wig was so big it fit my head!


The too big wig, the too tight Princess Leia robe and the ear infection was certainly not what I expected this year but she sure worked that costume!

Creative Genius

I'm convinced Clementine is a genius. One of those eccentric, adorable, nudist geniuses.

A few nights ago, Clem decided it was no-pants time and that wearing only one sock will do. Shortly after she got rid of her burdensome clothing, she found a bunch of game cards and spread them out all over the floor. Diligently, she sorted and stacked these into an empty checkbook box for the longest sustained time she can handle--5 whole minutes!

Some cards she sorted and stacked into the checkbook box, others went back on the floor. These discarded cards had to be stacked far away from the box.

As I watched her, I wondered how she decided which pile each card belonged to. The teacher in me tried to make sense of her logic and I held myself back from taking down anecdotal notes. I fought back those teacher urges and just watched my genius baby learn and play.

Clementine refused to wear her sunflower headband.

So Jack wore it instead.

Peek a Boo

Clementine has a new favorite game. It's called "...BAH!" which is her own special way of saying boo.

First she finds a good hiding spot. This good hiding spot happens to be the same spot every time we play the game.


Then she hides and waits.

"Where is Clementine?" we ask. "Have you seen her Dadda?" "I just saw that love bug!" She giggles from her hiding spot until just the right time.


"BAH" she'll say. Or sometimes "HERE I AM YOU GUYS WERE TOTALLY FOOLED!" Sometimes she says that but not very often.