We had a snowstorm on Friday evening that left 4 inches of snow on the ground, so it actually looked like winter was here. It was a blizzardy storm, with lots of wind, but Saturday morning it was sunny, which made for great conditions to play in. Claire played outside for about 4 hours with her friend Katey, and I shoveled our driveway and walks with the plastic slide that goes to our mini-playground because we don't have a snow shovel. The slide worked great.
Of course while the snow was great, we were hoping for a warm Saturday because we had Claire's birthday party, and since she invited people from church, the neighborhood, and other friends, 12 kids came over. (This was Claire's first "real" birthday party with friends and everything, so she was very excited and wanted to invite everyone she knew including the 14 year old baby sitter, the 22 year old babysitter, the late 20 year old babysitter, etc. We had to limit it to 12 - and boy was that a handful) (When I first planned this, weather forecasts said 50 degrees, which with the sun and a jacket could be playing outside weather, but the next time I checked the forecast it said 28 degrees. I wanted to justify dressing them in snow clothes and sending them out still, but it was even a little to cold and messy for that.) Luckily our upstairs playroom was able to handle all of them and they all had a great time. J.J. made a great cake that she drew Max and Ruby with frosting on top, (Pretty good if I say so myself. Claire knew who it was and that is what mattered) and the kids played games like pin the ears on the Max and Ruby bunnies and musical pillows. (My friend Shara came over even though she doesn't have any kids - yet - one coming in June- for crowd control. It was great because she was able to help out with the kids and taking pictures and everything because while Paul is good at helping with the kids, if I left photos to him, we would have maybe one picture of the birthday. So she was a huge help.)
For Claire's actual birthday, Friday, she and J.J. went to the messy art class in the morning, (Claire got to eat a cupcake for breakfast which she thought was really cool. Then that afternoon, we opened presents from the Coffman Clan and Grandma and Grandpa Walker. She got so many cute and fun things) then in the evening she chose to have pizza for supper and we invited our friends Trevor and Shara over. For dessert, Bob and Esther from next door braved the blowing snow between our houses and came over for cupcakes, and they brought Claire a couple of gifts. It was fun to have them over. (They brought her a beautiful little tea set that is for her and Rachel to share and a paint by numbers kit since during the summer, Claire sits in Bob's garage with him and draws and paints. She thought that was great to have them all over)
Right now I'm watching Rachel play with a ball -- any type of ball is her favorite toy, and she is quite talented at throwing them. She can stand up on her own, but she has yet to try to take a step on her own -- probably because J.J. keeps pushing her down so that she keeps crawling :). (Actually Paul is telling fibs again. Today she grabbed one of my hands and started walking with me across the room. Okay technically that is not on her own, but pretty close. Paul is right though, I am not encouraging the walking because she is already into everything that walking will just open up a whole new world for her.) On Monday she leaned on the gate that blocks the top of the stairs when I went down to open the door for our babysitter, and the gate gave way and as I ran up to rescue her, she held onto the gate before it started to slide down, and then let go and rolled down two steps before I grabbed her. It was scary for her, but she made it through with only a bruise on her forehead. (Now there is a pile of furniture blocking the top of the stairs. I guess I will have to suck it up and screw a gate into the wall. I think I can sacrifice a few holes in the wall if it will save my baby. )
The week otherwise was pretty routine. Things are busy for me at work, but I'm sort of in the cruising speed with my classes and have just a few things I need to focus on research-wise until I attend this conference in April. We had the missionaries over for supper on Thursday, which was actually supposed to be a teaching appointment with a family of investigators coming over to eat and then be taught, but that fell through. This mission has a traveling assistant to the president who goes from companionship to companionship all month long, and he was with them -- Elder Hale from Rigby, ID, but I couldn't make any connection. He had been traveling for 4 months. We thought that would be a different sort of experience, without any area to call home.
Well, anyway, we hope all of you are well, and getting warmer. Our first "spring forward" in 9 years threw us off today -- I set the clocks back last night but forgot to turn my alarm on, so I woke up at 7:15 instead of 6:15 -- not actually losing any sleep -- and was late for bishopric meeting, but there were only two of them there, and had barely gotten started when I showed up 40 minutes late. So it worked out. Hopefully Claire will still go to bed now that it is lighter in the evening. (Didn't happen - she took a nap with me during the day and didn't go to sleep until 11pm)
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