I Love This House volume 1

There is so much to love about this house; let me count the ways:

1. Love the storage
2. Love the skylights
3. Love that the roar of frogs at night is deafening
4. Love our fenced backyard (and so does Jack)
5. Love that the sun seems to flood our home at all hours of the day
6. Love the sunsets we see from the front porch
7. Love Clementine's cheery purple bedroom
8. Love my deck
9. Love the blank canvas (that would be our walls)
10. Love that it is ours

Easter

Easter this year felt like an actual Easter. Clem was able to help dye and find Easter eggs, we ate too much candy and the sky poured buckets and buckets-making it impossible to get outside this day!


The Easter Bunny came to our house during Clementine's afternoon nap. Her basket was filled with peeps, egg shaped sidewalk chalk and new pink spring sandals for more walks on the beach.


Clementine LOVED finding the Easter eggs. She loved it so much she hid them all in Cam's shoe and wanted us to experience the same joy. She was very pleased with herself.



She did not, however, love eating Peeps. She took one bite then tried to feed the rest to me or Jack. Neither of us were takers, so she wiped chewed up Peep on her drums. That was a fun treat for me to wipe up!

The Children's Museum

The highlight of Spring Break 2009 was our first trip to the Skagit Valley Children's Museum, which is just a 30 minute drive from here. I want to go there everyday. I'm pretty sure Clementine would be on board with that, too.


The Children's Museum had just about everything an 18 month old could wish for.
A sheep to pet (later she found a hairbrush and brushed its hair, too)

A horse to ride
Oh, jeez....stairs to climb. This girl has not yet learned her lesson.

And a steering wheel to spin around (she's a future sailor!)


A tunnel to climb through (or just play Peekaboo w/ YaYa)

A semi truck to "drive" and play with all it's buttons. Clementine loved turning the windshield wipers on and off.

And, of course, fishies to watch in the aquarium. Here is Clementine kissing the fish.



We had so much fun at the museum. Clem was engaged in all the activities for just about 2 hours (a lot for this active little girl). She could have stayed there all day! We'll definitely be back there soon!

A Total Ham

Clementine has already used most of her material on Cameron and me. We always laugh, but there is nothing like a fresh new audience member to perform for. Luckily for Clementine, my mom came up to visit for a few days last week and Clem utilized each second to play up her talents and work on her stand up comedy routine.

Here she is stealing the show at the scrapbook store; wearing YaYa's glasses:
This one made everyone laugh, even the two cashiers were loving this bit.


Here is her climbing routine. She has a whole system down to climb up the chair to get to the couch to climb on the pillows and reach things she's not supposed to have.
Luckily, this time all she was really climbing for was YaYas lap.


Notice the tongue in this next one. Where there's climbing, there is lots of tongue.


And bath time just wouldn't be bath time if there wasn't a duck eating performance included!

She knows she's cute.
AND..........Scene.

Today at the Beach

Our day at the beach:


Doesn't she look ready for an adventure?




She loved watching Cam throw and skip rocks
She immediately put this rock in her mouth.
Here's Clementine giving me sandy kisses on the beach
It was so beautiful and sunny out. She loved it. I have a feeling we'll be spending a lot of time there this spring and summer!

What We've Done to the Place

Not a lot has happened with the house so far. We have been unpacking and trying to organize. This seems like it'd been a super easy task since the house is bigger than we're used to and has a ton of storage. Our problem is that we are used to unpacking knowing that 12 months from now we've got to pack it all up again. That mindset just doesn't work in a house!

So here are a few pictures of what we've got so far:

We've got furniture pretty much squared away where we want it. Now we're hanging up stuff on the walls, too.
Clem's room is finally done but she's sleeping in there so I can't take a picture. I'll have to post again soon w/ our Master and her room!

Rocky Racoon

Last week, Clem got her very first black eye. Actually, two black eyes--but on the same eye. Let me explain:
Clementine is obsessed with our staircase. We're okay with that because we usually have a baby gate to block her scramble up the stairs or we follow right behind her.
On one such occasion, I was standing at the foot of the stairs when Clem started to go up. She made it to the second stair, turned around and said "Hi mama!" and fell back into our banister. The mark was instant bruising. I felt horrible, Clem cried for about 30 seconds and then was ready for her next adventure.

Two days later, I get a phone call from daycare. She had fallen from her little chair at the table during lunch. This fall also knocked her chair over which caught her in the same place as the battle w/ the stairs. She had so much bruising on her eye it was disheartening!!! My poor girl.

Luckily, neither battle wound has slowed her down any. She's a quick healer and is already back to full throttle.