Happy Thanksgiving

The week of Thanksgiving gave us our first snow of the year. We live on a hill that turns into a sheet of ice, but our Subaru (the winter wonderland car) can handle it and gets us down to the main road that gets plowed. We were only able to work half days because the daycare was on limited hours, but that was better than a lot of people who couldn't get out at all. I quite enjoyed the snow and I hope we get more this year! The snow thawed just in time for Thanksgiving dinner, which my mom and dad kindly hosted. Events like these can be pretty overwhelming for Claudia, but she did better than she has in the past and was a little more independent especially when playing with some of her favorite toys. The long weekend gave Glen time to do his project of painting the bathroom. The cabinets are now white and the walls are light blue, which really brightens it up in there. It was a learning experience for us so it's not perfect, but it looks pretty sharp and it's definitely better than the sickly green we had before.

Claudia is such a joy lately. She is really enjoying doing things herself and mimics our everyday behavior, so even though she's too young to do many tasks, that doesn't stop her from trying to put on her own diaper or dressing herself. She still loves cats and meows every chance she gets -- at pictures in books, at her stuffed animal, or if she's lucky, at my parents' real cats. Her other current fascination is babies. She has started playing with a small doll, we now sing "Rock-A-Bye Baby" at bedtime, and she is pointing at and saying "baby" every chance she gets. We watched the documentary movie "Babies" several times together over the long weekend. She now has a purse that she takes with her to and from home, which carries either kitty or baby. Again, this is purely mimicking of me because I did not encourage a purse. She just started grabbing any bag she could find and dragging it out of the house, so I thought a kid's purse was safer and cuter than a grocery bag.

It's been hard to take photos lately because I always seem to be holding Claudia, so I don't have any from Thanksgiving and only one of the snow. Shoot. But I added a couple more from Australia that Gina gave me, and a couple from Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Claudia and Glen in the snow.


Playing inside with mommy's winter hat.


Driving the "little car" at the U-Village shopping center.


Snuggling with Grandma.


Getting a bath from Grandma in the sink.


A few more from Australia:

Gina holding a koala.


Claudia's first ice cream cone.


Gina & I at Whitehaven Beach (it was windy).


Glen & I in our wet suits heading out snorkeling.


A short video of Claudia playing with a kangaroo.