++One++

Our littlest one is one. I could list about fifteen cliches here and they would all be true. It does seem just like yesterday that we were in the hospital with our new little bundle and she is growing up too fast.
I was reflecting on the past year to Mark and one of the things that struck me the most was this. When Claire was born (and even before) we loved her. We loved her because she was our baby and part of our family. But now we still love her for that reason but even more, we love her because she is Claire. It has been so fun to watch her grow into her own little person with a big personality.
She's walking now and that has firmly cemented the belief that she can do ANYTHING her brother can. She walked the day before her birthday. Wyatt walked the day after. They must come out programmed with some sort of deadline.
She has eight teeth. Is full of smiles. Loves to joke. Hates it when she doesn't get her way. Has decided that sometimes she NEEDS to wear her hat at breakfast, or her jacket inside all day or her shoes all the time. She loves to play outside. We're still working on figuring out how that works. At least now that she's on her feet 75% of the time she stays a little cleaner and drier.
She makes a break for the stairs the instant she sees the gate open. She'll unroll a roll of toilet paper faster than you can say toilet paper. You can often find her pushing her "pusher" around with her lovey draped over the handles, Wyatt's dirty socks in her hands and a cup hanging out of her mouth. She likes to try to make her brother laugh. She comes up behind him and touches his back or pretends to give him something and yanks it away. If she encounters any type of vessel she will NEED to try to sit in it or on it. Her favorite these days is a rubbermaid under bed box, closely followed by the "mom nest" (the spot inside my legs while seated cross-legged). Her vocabulary now includes, duck, ball, dog, cracker and shoes. I think she grew up tenfold over the past month. Happy Birthday little girl!

++Ten on Tuesday++

1. Someone in our house is walking. Watch out world because here she comes!
2. This remodel thing is just too stressful for me. Too many decisions all at once. Knobs, lights, fans, flooring and paint colors...that is for sure going to drive me batty. As I've mentioned before I tend to over think even the smallest decisions, imagine what happens with this kind of stuff.
3. On that note our living room is now a new color that was supposed to be a beige/gray color but looks mighty green now that it's up. It's not a bad color, I'm just second guessing how it looks with everything we own. Wonderful.
4. Wyatt talks the ear off of our contractor and every sub-contractor who comes in our house. Our contractor is "Don" or "My buddy Don" if you ask Wyatt about him.
5. I caught Wyatt telling Claire that something was "not acceptable" today. Hmm...wonder where he got that?
6. In Wyatt's eyes Claire is frequently doing things that are "not acceptable". She is super into him and what he is doing. I feel bad for her because she just wants to play too, but I feel bad for him because he just wants to be left alone.
7. As a result of above behavior, Wyatt slammed Claire's finger in a drawer last night. Mark was out of town (go figure) and there was blood. We've avoided traumatic injuries to date so I wasn't ready for this. I always thought I would rally when I needed to. I didn't. It didn't end up being bad. Thank goodness.
8. Wyatt has Mater underwear (from Cars). There is a big Mater on his bum. I encouraged him to "shake his Mater" to get him excited about wearing underwear way back when. He still does it. He was talking about shaking his Mater tonight when he looked down at his Toy Story pull-up and asked "who's this?" to the cowboy on the front. I just couldn't tell him the guy's name was woody. I could see where it was going.
9. We've been enjoying the Olympics but what Einstein thought it would be a good idea to tape delay everything that's happening a few hours from here, and then broadcast it from 8-11:30? Needless to say we are never awake to see the finish of the night's big event. Clearly that Einstein doesn't have little kids.
10. We've got a lot riding on "when this remodel is done." We plan to have more free time, a cleaner house, a social life, and the list goes on and on. We'll see. One can always hope!

++A trip to the Zoo++

I put Zoo in caps because I didn't just mean any zoo. I meant the San Diego Zoo. It was cool. Just as we had hoped. The crew was ready to tackle it--we weren't sure what to expect but they rallied and we stayed all day.

I put my zoom lens on and took photos all day. I did all my shots in manual. Some worked out better than others. We waited in line to see the baby panda. So cute.

Wyatt's highlight: riding on the top of the double decker bus.

Wyatt's favorite animal: the giraffe. Funny because we had them in Memphis and have them here in Seattle.

We got a super-cute hand print turned into animal souvenir. Good thing I took this photo and wasn't there to wash Claire's hand right away because the brown paint is all over that dress and it didn't come off. But I got the photo so it's all good (or I keep telling myself that).

We learned we have a daredevil on our hands. Claire leaned out of the tram and waved and pointed the entire time. No fear.

The weather was great, the crowds were small. What a great way to spend a Monday!

++We didn't fall off the face of the earth...++

...we went on vacation!
More from sunny San Diego soon.

++Six months in++

It's so hard to believe that six months have passed since we left Memphis. That's a third of the time that we spent there. Wow. The blog was meant to chronicle our lives through the move(s) and really just talks about our kids (who happen to be our lives at the moment) so maybe it's time for me to get back on track. For this post at least.
Here is my initial disclaimer. Moving sucks. It really does. Yes, there is something that seems a bit glamourous about it but at the heart of it all it is just a lot of work. We are very fortunate that Mark's company is good to us and makes every effort to make the transition as easy as possible but when it comes right down to it, they don't tell you which house to buy, they don't hang your pictures in that new house and they don't find friends for you. That is left up to us and no matter how many times you do it, it doesn't really get any easier.
Ok, enough of my pity party (I know Mark will give me a hard time for this one). Here is my initial analysis of life in our new town.

Pros:
++We love our new house. The jury is still out on if I love the lot it is on, but I like the house.
++ We really lucked out and I am in love with Wyatt's school. He loves it. It is full of a bunch of really good kids with parents who are just the right amount of involved. They don't take educating three-year-olds too seriously and are quite prolific with the art projects (why not?).
++On any given day, depending on where you are driving (or if the sky is clear) the views really do take your breath away.
++ You can really feel good about living in a community that gets it. The environment is important, education is important, parks, green space, community, etc. I don't find myself shaking my head in disbelief...ok maybe it is a little unbelievable that our recycling bin is bigger than our trash can or that it is illegal--that's right--illegal to throw away food scraps (we have to put them in the yard waste bin). I haven't seen any police officers sorting through trash yet.
++I found a great hair stylist on the first try! I never found one I liked in Memphis. These things make a difference. I promise.
++Mark loves his job. That is good. Since we are really a two-for-one deal, we need the one breadwinner to be happy while winning his bread.
++We discovered that in the winter time when the leaves fall off the trees, you can see the street from our house (and vice versa).
++Everyone here seems competent. It blew us away at the beginning. From the movers to the exterminators and even the postal workers (gasp!), things just seem to move a little more efficiently by people who know that they are doing and even appear to like it.
++The local news is once again tolerable. Ahhh...

Cons:
++I've really been struggling with the layout of our neighborhood. We live in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a hill and Wyatt is afraid to ride his bike up the hill so it really makes going on walks next to impossible. I'm working on finding a place with a nice flat path so that we can get out and do that.
++This has been our hardest move yet when it comes to making connections. Our neighborhood is great but it's about 12-15 years old so there are a ton of families with middle-school aged kids (read: lots of babysitters). Claire is the youngest in the neighborhood. There are a few three-year-olds but they are the youngest in their families so we're not quite in the same life stage. I've been a crazy joiner lately. I already attend MOPs, I joined the Moms Club and we're in the process of joining our church. We're giving it time, but it hasn't been easy.
++I hate that I'm about 20-25 minutes from the nearest mall. I totally took for granted how convenient our house was in Minneapolis. We could be almost anywhere we wanted to be in 15 minutes or less.
++Did I mention that it rains here a lot?

So, there you have it. The initial review. Don't send sympathy cards to me quite yet. We're doing our best. To be honest, this was going to be a tough six months regardless with Claire's and Wyatt's sleep schedules, etc. I still think I'm a Minnesotan at heart...and likely always will be!

++One more to go++

How is it that our little girl is almost one? If you ask her, she'll tell you how is it that she isn't sixteen quite yet? The thing about Claire is that pictures, no matter how many you take, just don't capture her true personality. She's funny (and she knows it). She likes to show off her tricks (which include "so big" and "oh no"). And she almost knows how to walk and she likes to practice, practice, practice.
We got her some new shoes with soft rubbery soles so she can practice outside too. She loves them. She goes and finds them in the morning and demands that we put them on. And even though she squirms through every diaper change, she holds out her foot patiently if you are putting on her shoes.

She is only a so-so model for me anymore (sigh). But I did get this shot of her for my photo class. Like it? My teacher did.

This was another shot for my class (we were working on principles of composition). I just couldn't quite get her to look AT me.

A little more about the not-so-little-one.

++She says "duck" and uses it appropriately. She carried around on the birthday card we bought for Grandma that had a duck on the front saying "duh duh duh". She also says mama and dada and baba which we think means she wants her bottle (and to go to sleep!).

++She will not wear a bib. I have given up. I am going to order her some of those that are towels with the holes in them so she can't get them off as easily. I guess I could find tie ones too. Target had some of those towel ones but they had Elmos that were bigger than Claire all over them. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't get my arm to put them in my cart.

++She discovered something very important somewhere between ten and eleven months: that she can express her opinion! Now, as much as I want my daughter to be unafraid to stand up for herself...this is a little early. The best part is the flop to the floor and kick her legs move when she doesn't get what she wants.

++She still puts any and everything in her mouth. Wyatt wasn't like this. She also has lots of sharp teeth and will bite you if you go fishing for what's in there.

++She is in that stage where she likes to put things in other things. This is cute to watch...we just now need to sort through the trash cans from her room, etc. for stray balls or little people.

Now...off to planning her birthday party. Sniff...sniff.

++Twenty on the twentieth++

I'm so far behind with blogging. Some of you may have notice that I have been back-dating the old posts. I just can't skip over stuff. I'm going to have to or I'll never catch up. Here's a quick summary of what's been happening in our house as we kick off 2010.

1. We rang in the new year with New York and then promptly went to bed. We were all still a little jet lagged from our trip. Crazy, I know. Honestly, I can't remember the last New Year's Eve where I had more than one drink.

2. I started a photography course. It is kicking my butt. I waited on a waiting list for a year to get into it. It's online. You get assignments, they get critiqued. You have to shoot everything in manual. I'm finally learning what all those buttons on my camera do. I'll post some of my assignments sometime soon.

3. The only toy that has been played with in our house for weeks are the couch cushions. No joke. They come off every day, both kids climb all over them and laugh. The rest of the toys stay put away in their homes. Maybe we'll get Claire a new couch for her birthday?

4. I think it has been sunny twice in January.

5. We are up to our eyeballs in planning for our remodel. They will kick it off the first week in February. Coming soon: a brand spankin' new laundry room/treadmill room/craft room (if they would only make basements none of this would be necessary!) and a super-duper mudroom crafted out of our former laundry room. Stay tuned for details.

6. I wonder if anyone will keep reading all the way to 20.

7. Cora came to our house for the day last weekend while Larson took his first ski lesson (which you can probably read about on Susan's blog). It was really fun. I find you really get to know kids when their parents aren't around. Wyatt enjoyed being her caretaker.

8. Wyatt is obsessed with our collection of adult games (like trivial pursuit--get your mind out of the gutter!). He insists we take them down off the shelf to "play" them.

9. Wyatt went to the dentist for the first time today. He did ok. He wouldn't get in the chair but he cooperated on my lap. We practiced a few times in the days leading up to it. On the way there he asked me "How is Dr. Woo going to count my teeth in the back? My tongue is in the way." I love that kid. He's an over-analyzer just like his mom.

10. We're starting to book stays in the Pacyna hotel for spring. If you are interested in making one, let us know.

11. I can't watch stuff about Haiti without thinking about the kids and tearing up. Kinda just wants to make you fly there and bring a bunch home with you, doesn't it?

12. I volunteered to be the Class Rep for Wyatt's preschool class. I thought it might help me meet people. It was a bad idea. Don't ever do it...I guess someone has to do it...it's just not for me. All I do is ask people for money.

13. As of today, we have been gone from Memphis for six months. Crazy. More on that later.

14. My list of resolutions, as always, is too long to post here. Maybe if I did I would be held to some of them. I asked Mark the other day if we'll ever reach a point where we're not trying to "be better" about something...doubt it. Perhaps it's the perfectionist in me.

15. One of the resolutions is to eat less-processed stuff and cook more. I realized I gave up on cooking and because I was determined to only prepare one meal for the family, we were all eating 3-year-old food. So far it's not going so great (for Wyatt). My goal for him in 2010: add one food to your list of acceptable foods. One.

16. Claire is trying to decide if she needs one nap or two. I'm not sure where I stand on this one. I guess I vote for one, as long as it's a LONG one!

17. Today is my half birthday. I think I'll buy myself a new laundry room sink or something.

18. The outdoor pests have left us alone for the most part recently. I type this with hesitation. I know some of you have been looking for an update, though.

19. I'm almost there. Really running out of things to say.

20. This was typed from our new computer that we had to get because I crashed my old one with too many photos. I can't say I love it, but it is much better that it doesn't keep shutting down on me all the time.

There you have it! Kind of caught up. Photos soon. We're living somewhere between the old and new computer and so are the photos so it makes things a little more difficult.