Clarky Duke

My sweet Clara is Two years old! What a joy these past two years have been.

Luci was really sweet to her on her birthday. She insisted that I put balloons on their bedroom floor just like I did for her. Throughout the whole day she referred to her as 'Birthday Girl' instead of Clara. When she didn't have any more presents to open, Luci said "I wish Clara had more presents to open." Of course she got to play with them too so it wasn't completely selfless, but it was sweet!

For breakfast I made Clara banana pancakes topped with whipped cream and raspberries.


Our friends have us watch their fish, Bobby, whenever they go out of town and Clara loves him! That inspired us to give her fish for her birthday. We also gave her a new outfit for church and a stuffed cow.




Kirk made her cake while I napped on the coach (I know, so lazy), and it turned out great!



We had our friends over to celebrate.


During the day my family called and sang Happy Birthday to her on the phone. She laughed and laughed the whole time with a huge smile on her face. It sure made her day! I wish I caught it on film. We skyped with Kirk's parents to open the presents from them. Among the gifts were a a new outfit and pajamas. She had to try both of them on right away. Throughout the whole day she changed her clothes 6-7 times between all the new clothes she got. Such a girl!

We gave her a mylar balloon which was probably her favorite present of all. She carried it around everywhere and would randomly tell us "Happy Birthday" so we'd acknowledge that it was her birthday. I love my Clarky Duke!

Here's a peek into our life with her:

Every time we ask her what color something is she answers "green". She knows a lot of the colors, but for some reason always says green when asked.

She's been saying she's two years old for several months now. If we tried to tell her she was one, she would say "uh-uh, two!"

She hardly ever uses the word 'no'. Instead she says "uh-uh" (much more pleasant than 'no' if you ask me).

She loves dresses and skirts! If she sees one she has to change her clothes right then and wear it. After she gets one on, she usually points to the computer and says "dance", which means she wants the music on so she can dance. She's always been a girly girl and loves to wear my necklaces and bracelets. I've even caught her trying to put my earrings on (kind of scary cause she tries to stick them in her ear). The other day I found a pair of clip on earrings my Grandma gave me and I put them on her ears. She wore them around like she was a queen. It was so cute!

She has a pajama dress that she absolutely loves and refuses to take off in the morning. There has been a couple of days where I've just let her wear it all day long.

She loves "bebe's" (babies)! We read a library book to her that had Spanish words intermixed into the story, including 'bebe' instead of 'baby'. Ever since we read it to her, she will only use the Spanish version.
From a young age she's loved playing with baby dolls. She's always carrying a doll around the house with her (usually Luci's). When she doesn't have a doll, she has a great imagination and will pretend that random things are babies. The other day we were at the grocery store and she grabbed the cucumber out of the back of a cart, cradled it in her arms and said "bebe" in her serious voice. A few minutes later the tortillas were her baby.
Our close friends have a five month old baby that Clara is obsessed with! Whenever she's around Clara will not leave her side! She kisses her, pats her head, and begs to hold her. It's really sweet (and overwhelming)!


Clara loves to play with our play kitchen and food. Playing house with the kitchen and dolls is one of her favorite activities.

She's really into music. Luci's taking a Let's Play Music class and Clara loves to do the homework with her. If she ever doesn't know the words to a song she'll say "do, ti" over and over. Music has been an excellent catalyst to her speaking. I find that words sometimes come easier to her if they're put to a song rather than just spoken. Every Sunday at church Kirk will give her a little hymn book during the songs and she opens it up and sings the whole time. She loves staring at the conductor and leading the music herself.

She gives the best hugs! I love her hugs!

She does great in nursery. The nursery in our ward has over 26 kids. It's crazy in there! I always think she's going to have a hard time when I leave her in the chaos, but she sits right down and plays with a puzzle without even looking back as I leave. She has great nursery leaders and that really helps!

Her language is improving drastically lately. Two to three word phrases are becoming a regular part of her communication. She still communicates a lot through signs, body language, squeals, facial expressions, and one word sentences too. If she doesn't know a sign for something, she'll make her own up. She is still getting speech therapy , but just recently graduated from physical therapy! Yeah!

She loves to color. Since about 18 months she's been able to hold a pen the proper way! Anything she sees us write on, she'll write on too. That includes our scriptures, my calender and magazines.

She's likes to be naked. There was a period of time when every night I checked on her she was buck naked, sleeping peacefully with her hands behind her head and her pajamas and diaper on the floor.

She loves shoes and is always trying everyone's shoes on. But, whenever they should be on, they're not. One of the first things she does after I buckle her in the car, is take off her shoes and socks. So frustrating!


She loves to do things just like her big sister. And in some cases her big sister loves to do things just like her.


We're so happy to have her in our family!


A few more pics.

My Luci

My sweet Luci turned five last week. Where did the time go? I have been a Mother for five years now! My child is going into kindergarten this year! How could that be?

She got this shirt from a kindergarten fair we went to. Class of 2025! Ahhh!!

Her birthdays always make me feel older than my own birthdays do. Funny how that works! When she was younger I would feel sad when I realized how fast she was growing up. When I saw kids younger than her, I'd think "oh, Luci used to be that small, I miss that." I still occasionally get a twinge of sadness, but mostly feel blessed for the past I've had with her, and excited for what lies ahead! The same goes for Clara!

Here's a little about this sweet five year old girl that I love:

She really loves me. When she was Clara's age she went through a phase where she didn't like me very much. I blamed it on my being gone all the time with my internship, but who knows. It was a hard phase for me as a parent! Now she loves me a lot! She always wants me to cuddle with her and spend time together. On Sunday I was asked to teach her primary class for a little bit. She was so excited to see me when I walked in! She ran right up to me and gave me the biggest hug. I even kissed her, right in front of her friends, and she loved it! It's nice that she adores me, even in public!

Almost every morning Clara wakes up before Luci. Since she is still in a crib, and hasn't figured out how to climb out, she screams "Luci, Luci, Luci!" (pronounced 'duci'), until Luci wakes up. She then commands Luci to come get me by simply saying "Momma!" . Luci knows what this means and will almost always drag herself down to my room to let me know that Clara's awake and needs me. Of course I usually wake up at the first "Luci", but it's fun to lay in bed and listen to them interact.

Luci loves to collect 'treasures'. At one point she was saving everything from pieces of string to empty yogurt containers. We let her have a drawer in the desk to keep her collections in, but that quickly overflowed into every room of the house. On more than one occasion I threw things away when she was sleeping, but always made the mistake of not taking the garbage out immediately after. Needless to say, she caught me. I felt so guilty after one particular incident. She looked at me with tear filled and asked "why would you do that?". I felt like the worst mother ever! That clutter was her most valuable treasure! She begged me to never do that again, and for a while I didn't. On a few occasions I would enlist Kirk to throw something away for me so I wouldn't feel guilty. Eventually reality sunk in again and I couldn't stand the mess it made. We set a rule that for every new treasure she wanted to keep, she had to throw out something she already had. We also discussed what things really are worth saving and she's cut back quite a bit. (And I still throw things away when she's not looking. It's for my sanity and hers.)

Luci is very smart! She knows how to read and write a lot of basic words. I can't take any credit and neither can her preschool (it's pretty much a playschool, not a preschool). She's picked it up on her own by asking questions and watching her Tad's Letter Factory Movie. She is also very good at math and can add and subtract the smaller numbers in her head.

She can get really goofy! When I get in my weird laughing moods, she is quick to join in! I love having someone to laugh with!


She has the best memory! She can remember the tiniest detail from a memory that happened over a year ago. She thinks I'm really crazy because my short-term memory has gone out the door with this pregnancy. On Friday we were driving to the grocery store together to buy stuff for her birthday cake. Me being ditzy and in my own world, drove right past the store and on to her preschool. I didn't even realize I had missed the turn until she said, "I don't have preschool today". As I was turning around she asked why I didn't turn in the right place and I tried explaining it to her by saying "I just got daydreaming forgot. People do that sometimes." She then replied, "I don't do that. I'm not a crazy Mom yet.".

One of Luci's favorite things to do is color and draw. She is constantly drawing pictures. I love that most of her pictures have a story behind them. The other day she drew a picture of Kirk and her at the duck pond they went to last year. It even add small details like the bridge they walked over.

Luci is very sensitive. She reminds me a lot of me. Sometimes we really butt heads because of our emotional similarities. At times I wonder how I'll survive the drama, but at others I'm so grateful for my sensitive little girl. The other day I was on one of my emotional pregnancy roller coaster rides and broke out into tears for a reason that I can't even remember. She immediately ran out in search of paper and a pen. A few minutes later she came up to me with a picture of the sun she drew to cheer me up. Moments like that, make all the many challenges of Motherhood so worth it!

Luci can be very shy on some occasions, but very outgoing on others. When we went to the kindergarten fair at the mall a couple of weeks ago she was so shy. It reminded me a lot of me. A few days later we had a man come to test our apartment for lead. When he walked by her she immediately started telling him all about her day at preschool like she'd known him forever.

She's getting very good at fixing her own hair. She rarely lets me do it these days. Usually it's 'plain' as she calls it with a headband or a flower clip. A month or two ago she figured out how to put a ponytail in her hair all by herself. Below, is a picture of the first one she did. I even let her wear it to preschool. She was so proud of herself and walked in to school so confidently. I love seeing her own little style come out and how happy she is with her appearance!


The night before her birthday, Kirk and I stayed up late decoration the house. Kirk pumped up a bunch of balloons and we spread them all over the floor in her room. We used crepe paper to spice up our boring living room too.

The girls had a lot of fun with them!

When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday breakfast, the first thing she said was cereal. Since she has that almost every other day of the week, I convinced her to choose something else. Her ultimate decision was a pancake waffle. I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, so I stuck a pancake on bottom, whipped cream in the middle and a waffle on top.

For her present we got her a brand new bike. Since we couldn't wrap it, we made it exciting by sending her on a scavenger hunt to find it. When she finally found it all she said was "oh". I think she was more excited about the balloons!


Later that day, we made a trip down to Chuck E Cheese. Originally Luci wanted a friend birthday part, but I didn't feel up to planning and hosting one. We bribed her with a trip to Chuck E Cheese to get out of it. Some of our friends made the drive down there to be with us (45 minutes from where we live). Such great friends!


We're so grateful to have Luci in our family!

Today Kirk brought home a rose for each of us as a late Valentines present. Luci was so excited! She carried her rose all around the house with her, with a big smile on her face. So sweet!

January

January has been a fun and busy month for us. Here are a few highlights.

Snow

Our winter has been really mild this year (Yes!!). It has only snowed a few of times, much to Luci's disappointment. A couple of weeks ago we had a bigger snowfall and my girls were so excited! We made it out there as a family to build snowmen and had a lot of fun.

The snow was really hard to roll into balls so we made piles of snow and carved the snowmen out of them. Kirk, Luci, and I each made our own and Clara roamed around trying to knock them down. Once Kirk's snowman was done, she stopped trying to knock it over and was really sweet to it. We even caught her giving him a kiss:)


Kirk's
Mine (inspiration from pinterest)



Luci's
Luci was determined to make her snowman without any help. A few times she broke down in tears because it wasn't working, but still refused to have any help. In the end she was very pleased with her snowman. I'm glad she's such a hard worker!


Foot Rub

The other day I got lotion out to rub Kirk's feet and the girls thought it looked fun so they took over. If I had known all we needed to do was get the lotion out and they'd drop everything to rub our feet, I would have been doing this a long time ago.


My girls

I love seeing my girls bond. I found Luci in bed with Clara again, so sweet!


Buying a Home

Our biggest news lately is that we are buying a house (half of a duplex really)! It was built in the 1940's after World War II, but fortunately has a lot of updated things in it. We are buying it through a first time home buyer program that helps make the cost more affordable by leasing us the land and selling us just the home. We won't close on our loan until the middle of March, but they started letting us have the key to clean it and prep for paint. Yesterday Kirk spent the whole day working on it. The girls and I stopped by for a little bit too, but found we were more of a burden than a help.

Buying a home is bittersweet for me. I'm so excited to have our own little place! We get to paint the walls and have a yard! It is also a sign that we are committed to living here longer. There are may things I like about our town, but I really miss family. I never thought that we would move across the country and stay here. But, here we are. Kirk has a job that he is really happy with and we have good friends, so we can't complain.