Helping Herself

Apparently tonight Mom wasn't cooking supper fast enough. Claire found a box of cereal while Mom was cooking and decided to help herself to a little snack. Mom must have been so focused on cooking that she didn't even realize it until Claire brought a completely empty box back into the kitchen.

That's our little ornery girl.

Thanksgiving

This year, Claire ate her first Thanksgiving dinner. To make her feel like she was part of the family, we even sat her in the booster seat for the first time. She still doesn't get the hang of eating with a spoon so most of what she ate was finger fed.

Claire has figured out that when the camera is out, she can be cheesy.

Gabe wouldn't let us leave him out of the pictures.

Playtime with Daddy's Camera

Mom left the kids alone in the basement for a few minutes (probably to let the dog out or go wake Daddy up in the morning) and these are the pictures that appeared on the camera when we uploaded a few weeks later.

Lights at Bluff Valley

It was a nice weekend so we decided to go to see the Lights at Bluff Valley. We had never been before and wanted to see how it compared to the Festival of Lights. There really was no comparison. The drive through display was very simple but the rest of the activities were a lot of fun. First we went through the lighted maze. Claire was more content to either sit on the ground or try to climb under the lighted sides. I think it was confusing for her since there were 3 other Claires in the maze and someone kept calling her name.

Gabe led the way for Daddy and they eventually made it out.

Next we moved on to the miniature golf course. It was pretty neat that we golfed with balls that glowed in the dark.

The kids' favorite part was the arcade inside the campground recreational building. Gabe tried his luck with the Wacky Alligators game.

Then Claire joined in the fun on the next round.

The evening ended with watching the Century High School pop band perform. By the time we got home everyone was exhausted.

Halloween

This Halloween we had a bumblebee and Superman in our house. The kids were dressed early in hopes of getting out to trick or treat before Mom had to go to work.

Our bee was not too enthusiastic about keeping her antennae up.

She was more hungry than anything and just wanted to sit in her high chair for a snack. She had no idea that in a little while she would be out getting her share of snacks.

As it got closer to time to trick or treat, her makeup started to get wiped off. The cheeks disappeared due to the fact she was crying for food.

Then she smudged the nose with her cup of milk.

Superman was excited to show his muscles.

Our bumblebee was laying on the floor showing off her stinger.

We trick or treated down half the street before the kids got cold and Mom had to leave for work. Gabe went up to the doors and just yelled "Treat" to try to get the neighbors to open up and give us candy. Claire banged on one neighbor's door and when they hadn't answered within five seconds, she started walking back towards the sidewalk as if she was impatient and wanted to move on and get more candy somewhere else. She was very eager to pick out candy when the neighbor gave her a choice on what she wanted.

September Getaway

Mom, Gabe, and Claire made a spur of the moment trip back to Illinois to see family and friends. Daddy stayed home with Koko so he wouldn't miss school that week. Grandma took 2 days off work to have fun with us. The first day, we went to the zoo. Gabriel didn't want his picture taken. He just wanted to go on to see the next animals.

Claire dressed for the occasion in her leopard print dress.

Gabriel insisted on wearing his giraffe hat since the zoo has a new Africa exhibit.

The lion was right up next to the glass. She couldn't stop following every move Claire made with her eyes. The male lion was lying in the back of the enclosure in the shade.

"I'm big, Mom" was the quote we heard a lot of when Gabe wanted to push the stroller.

We got a picture outside the zoo at the lion sculptures when we were done.

One evening Mom went out with her friend Angie and Angie's friend Dustin. The lane next to ours broke and if you look really closely you can see 2 pairs of legs up by the pins trying to get it fixed.

Mom got 3 strikes in a row! A turkey! The graphic on the screen was a lot better when it showed the turkey but we were too slow with the camera.

This is typical of Claire. She is always walking around with her sippy cup in one hand and some sort of toy in the other hand. In this case, she thought she had a purse even though I think it was a saxophone strap.

The second day Grandma was home with us, we went to the orchard to pick apples.

Claire had a bumpy ride out to the apple trees but she enjoyed watching Gabe fill the bag with apples.

The orchard had a little playground where the kids played for awhile. Gabe rode on every toy they had.

They had a little miniature golf course which both kids played on. Gabe hit the ball with the club.

And Claire just put the balls in the holes with her hands.

Gabe had a lot of fun on the twisty slide. He went on it "5" times (which is a large number in Gabe's world). It was probably more like 25 times.

Can't you read the sign, Gabe? NO STANDEES PERMITTED

After the playground, Gabe fed some goats.

Then he wanted his picture taken with Mickey Mouse.

On the trip back to Minnesota, we stopped in Iowa to see Great Grandma Anderson who hasn't seen us since Christmas. Gabe didn't want his picture taken with her since he was enjoying playing the piano at the nursing home too much. One day he will be a fantastic musician.