Bah Humbug!

Today we took Claire to see the Legendary Santa, the Snow Queen, and the Elf at the Children's museum! When he first came down the chimney, she smiled and said "Santa!" - so I had a good feeling. But as we got closer to the stage, she got more and more concerned. Here was our conversation just a couple moments before going up to talk to the Snow Queen...
"Do you want to go sit on Santa's lap?!"
"NO! Wanna go back out there!"
"But don't you want to say hi to Santa?"
"Hi Santa. Now wanna go back out there."

So then I knew it was going to be one of "those" Santa visits! Oh well! Santa called Claire's name and I handed her off. I thanked Santa, told him that we loved him (although Claire has a funny way of showing it!) and we went to pay our $20 for this.....


When we got home she talked about hugging Santa and giving him a kiss??!! Maybe next year!

Snowed In!

Friday night the snow started coming down and by the morning.....

almost 11 inches! And we thought our storm last March was good?! When Claire got up Saturday morning she was so excited to see the snow and she told me we needed a sleigh. While we don't have a sleigh, we were happy to have hand-me-down boots, ski pants that we picked up last Spring, and last-year's coat that still fits.

"Can we go outside now PLEASE??"


Since it was so deep, she could only walk in the shoveled path and the tire tracks on the road! She loved the snow and I was surprised how long she wanted to hang out in it. We went for a walk to search for snowmen, watch the kids sled, and chase the neighbor's cat.


As beautiful as it is, I am getting a little stir-crazy and am ready to get out of here! I still have Christmas shopping and errands to do, cookies to bake, etc. etc. but I have enjoyed my snow days with my girl!

Photo Shoot Bloopers

Just thought I'd share some of the funny pics from today's Christmas photo shoot! Trying to keep a 2 year old still AND get her to smile is a little harder than I thought it would be! We ended up with a good picture, but you'll just have to wait to get your Christmas card in the mail to see it! :-)
I call this the "pilgrim dress" - it's one that was mine when I was about Claire's age. By the time I got her changed into this outfit, she was getting really goofy and cracking me up with all her silly faces! (Not to mention some especially crazy hair!!)

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

Our house has been decked out and transformed for the holiday season! Claire has really been enjoying all the fun new things to look at and play with. She helped me decorate the tree - and by helped I mean she played while I decorated. Once I was done, I said "Look Claire!" and she said "We did it!" Then she immediately wanted to know if she could climb the tree.

She especially loves her Little People nativity set. She calls them "her boys" and most every morning when I get her up, she says she wants to go see her boys and the jungles (the trees which come with the nativity scene).

This is our friend, the elf. He keeps an eye out on things here and every night, he goes to report to Santa if Claire has been a good girl or not. In the morning we search for him and he's always in a different spot! She knows we can't touch him, but we can talk to him. My favorite conversation with the elf so far - "Hey there, hi elf! How ya doin' elf? Did you have a good nap?"

Turkey Day(s)

We had a great Thanksgiving and got to celebrate several times! First up was Thanksgiving Day with the Barnes side of the family.

PoPa cooked a delicious turkey, Coral made my favorite stuffing, sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes, and I brought cranberry relish and broccoli casserole. It was quite a feast!

Miss Picky Pickerson ate a roll and some freeze-dried corn for her dinner. Oh well, her loss.

After dinner, Claire helped clean up her mess.

Next in our celebrations, was a visit to Matt and Alison's house on Friday to celebrate Alison's birthday and share our many desserts left from Thanksgiving. (Claire had no problem feasting on some cake. With a mouth full, she told Uncle Jake "you got to chew it good and then you won't choke.")

Thanks to Alison's cousins Ali and Brayden, Claire got to play on this horse. She loved it, but didn't love sharing so much. I guess we need to work on that :-)

My sweet niece Katie.....love those cheeks!!!

Last on the holiday circuit this year was the Mason Thanksgiving on Sunday. We enjoyed a delicious ham dinner with all our favorite sides. We have so much to be thankful for and it was wonderful to celebrate with everyone!

Claire playing with Mimi's turkey pin on her shirt. Claire loved to say "Gobble Gobble Gobble!"

Marathon Mommy

After 6 months of training and 517 miles logged, I was ready for the Richmond Marathon! Our head coach told us to soak it all in and enjoy the miles so that when people ask what our time was we could say "I had a great time!" Well, I can say for sure that I had the time of my life! And my official time wasn't too bad either...4:35:24 in case you were wondering.

I had quite the cheering squad! Here's Claire hanging out in the stroller - hard to see, but there's Aunt Tara, Aunt Bradford, and Sam.

Uncle Matt and Aunt Alison came out with Katie! She slept through the whole thing, cow bells and all!

Here I am with 2 of my training partners with smiles on our faces!

My parents and Andy with the famous flag (works wonders for finding them in a crowd) and the cowbells! I saw them 4 places along the course and then Rob headed to the finish line.

Here I am with Coach Shawn in the last mile. I had a smile on my face until about mile 24 or so and then it was all focus and determination. Once I turned the corner onto Cary Street, I saw Rob and teared up a bit, but then I couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear! What a feeling to cross that finish line!

For more pictures from the race click here

A HUGE thank you to all my family and friends for their support. It was so awesome and encouraging to see you out there on the course. (Thanks Brooke!!) Especially thanks to Rob for all the hours I had to be away from home so that I could train. Luckily I have a very supportive husband because I've got "the bug" and can't wait to do it all again next year!

Plan Bee

Happy Halloween! Our "mommy, daddy, and baby" pumpkins on the front porch...

This year for Halloween, Claire and I headed over to her buddy Owen's house for a Halloween party and trick-or-treating with all her friends! We had SO much fun. After playing and eating dinner, we got all the kids in their costumes. I had a beautiful princess costume that my friend loaned me, but Claire wanted nothing to do with that. After several attempts, I decided it wasn't worth the fight and we moved on to Plan B - her costume from last year. She was excited to be a honey bee because Owen was also a bee.

Here's Tanner as a dragon.....doesn't he look excited?! Claire loved saying that "Tanner be a dragon and Claire's a honey bee, buzzzzzz"

Now we're all set to go trick-or-treating for the first time! I think I had more fun than Claire, but she loved seeing all the pumpkins and getting treats. She got the hang of saying "trick-or-treat" when we practiced, but usually clammed up when someone answered the door.

The first couple houses, she just busted on in and walked through the front door. One time a man gave her a lollipop so she pulled out a piece of candy from her bucket and put it in his - nice job sharing!

A few times I had to remind her that we couldn't eat the treats right then because they still had wrappers on them.

We really had a fun time! Rob was mad that he missed out to go to a UVA football game in which they lost!