Christmas 2010

We all came away from Christmas extremely spoiled! We started with a three day work week, which is always nice, and Trever had a great week of sales to boot! That will help pay all of those hefty Christmas credit card bills!

We started our gift giving on the 23rd, celebrating with the Kuipers portion of the family. Claire looked awfully cute and we posed a few pictures in front of one of Gammy's many Christmas trees.
Claire got tons of toys, but she still goes back to her books. She got a couple of coloring books which were a big hit!

Ron and Caisey tend to just sit back and take it all in.

The little girls got new slippers for Christmas. Claire has been wearing hers most of the day today. They are pretty darn cute.

Not very often is there a picture with me in it. Besides having a bad hair day, it actually looks like Claire likes me in this picture!

I also have a hard time getting a picture of Maddison when she is smiling. This is kind of crooked, goofy little smile, but it is a smile!

Caisey got new undies for Christmas. Uncle Trever thought it would be funny to take a picture and send it to Caisey's boyfriend. She was pretty embarassed!

But I think she was even more embarassed by the pajama pants I made her. I made the three girls matching pj pants. The two little girl's pants turned out ok, but Caisey's were a little on the big side. From what I hear, Kyla has been wearing them and she is having a baby sometime in the next month!

The only picture I have of all three girls. Modeling their pants!

The little girls got wagons for Christmas from Gammy & Papa. They were a big hit!

They preferred to share a wagon! Their is plenty of room for both of them, and their drinks, inside.

On Christmas Eve we headed to LeRoy for the Builta Christmas festivities. Claire wore her Santa dress and looked SOOOO pretty.

She got lots of goodies and loved on one of the many babies she got as gifts.

After fighting a nap, and waking up on the wrong side of the bed, we headed to Great Grandma Builta's house. Claire helped Great Grandma unwrap her presents.

And she helped Kara unwrap her present...

and gave baby Jesus kisses.

We took the annual family pictures. Aunt Carol was home from Florida for a few days. Here she is with a portion of her nieces and nephews.

Two good pictures of Claire and me in two days. It's hard to believe! Even if Kirk did crop Trever out when he was taking the picture!

Another great picture of Claire Bear!

Our immediate family...

Kirk was apparently trying to be "artistic" when he took this one of Kenneth, Kathi & Kara. I just like the goofy look on Kathi's face!

And a picture of Grandma Builta with 3 of her 5 grandkids and Claire!

Four generations of Builtas.

Christmas morning we slept in a little bit and then opened presents at home. Claire got her very own kitchen. She has been cooking for us all day today!

This was her 3rd stocking and she finally figured out what to do with it!

Santa brought her a rocking horse. She wasn't too thrilled about it Christmas morning. She would make it neigh and gallop, but she did not want any part of riding it.

A cheesy Christmas morning picture with daddy.

After we unwrapped the presents at home, we headed to Grandma Ficklin's house.

We attempted a family picture, but you can tell how well that worked out!

We did get a good picture of Will, Kelly, Janet & Russ.

Claire also enjoyed her new sunglasses from Uncle Russ & Aunt Janet. She's been wearing them off and on today too!

Cousin Kelly looked pretty cute too!

Christmas afternoon we headed back to Gammy & Papa's for naps before dinner. About dinner time, Great Papa Kuipers, Dee & Marshall came to play. Great Papa got a new snow shovel for Christmas. The girls thought it was a toy and pulled each other on it.

Great Papa also got a balance bracelet. He had read about these bracelets in one of his magazines, and at 90 years old, he sometimes gets a little unsteady. So, we got him a balance bracelet, which seems to be all the rage with people who have never had balance issues! Trever took the test to see if the bracelet worked.

Great Papa also gives some of the best gifts. He got this pretty purple kitty for Claire for Christmas. I have to say, it is the one gift that she has played with over and over again!

After dinner we played some heated hands of Euchre. Claire hopped up to play like she knew what she was doing.

We really did have a great week of Christmas celebrations. It did feel a little rushed this year since Trever and I left for Miami the day after Christmas, but we were glad we got to spend time with our entire family!

Christmas Cookies

Claire, Caisey, Trever and I baked and decorated too many cookies tonight. Now, 9:41, she is still going strong!

Here are a few pictures from the evening. I particularly like the one where she is sneaking frosting off an already frosted cookie!

Half Birthday

Today is Claire's half birthday! She's 18 months old and halfway to another birthday party! We've had a wonderful day! It all started yesterday with a BIG day of Christmas shopping and picking up a very special visitor for the weekend.

Yesterday we left home about 8 a.m. and got home about 10:15 p.m! Claire was such a good shopper! We shopped with Gammy, Grandma, Daddy, Aunt Ria and Caisey! We got lots of shopping done, met Santa Clause and picked Caisey up to spend the whole weekend with us!

This morning we slept in. We got to play for a while before Trever headed to Rantoul to work for a while. Then it was times for a girls day. We cleaned, wrapped presents, and started making Christmas cookies.

Trever brought Papa Johns home for dinner and is out doing chores. Claire is currently hiding in the corner with my cell phone and Caisey and I are watching Next Great Baker. When Trever gets in from chores it will be time to bake our cookies!

And yes, we are still in our pajamas at 5:43 p.m.

Now, about Claire at 18 months...

• she has started stealing Trevers change and likes to put it in her piggy bank.
• pulls the chair up to the kitchen counter to help
• says she wants santa to bring her "nemenems" (M&Ms)
• wraps up her baby in dish towels (apparently Papa Wayne taught her that)
• says "smime" (excuse me) and covers her mouth when she burps
• has started saying Mommmeeeeeeee instead of mama.
• fist bumps everybody, including complete strangers and the cat
  

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone and a week later I'm finally getting around to loading pictures. We enjoyed spending time with both sides of our family and had such a great long weekend!

Maddison spent a few extra days in Illinois and Gammy & Papa brought her over for a play date.

The girls had so much fun playing together! They even played ring around the rosey with Gammy!

And then they put on matching pjs and shared a banana.

Thanksgiving morning we headed to Greg & Kathy's so the girls could get some play time in. Maddison wasn't too sure what to think about Great Papa Kuipers, but Claire knows who to keep on her good side!

Of course there were lots of attempts to get agood picture for a Christmas card.

Claire thinks the Great-Grandma Ficklin's cane is pretty cool.

And attempts to get good pictures of the girls. This is the only picture where bothe girls are smiling and almost looking at the camera. So what if they have their fingers up their nose!

After lunch we head to LeRoy. There wasn't a lot of excitement with the Builta side of the family. We just hung out and ate some more!

On Friday, we worked around the house. Trever put up the Christmas tree and waited for Claire to get up from her nap to check it out. She thought it was pretty cool and has been pretty good about leaving it alone. However, I did catch her driving a choo choo train ornament across the kitchen floor.

Friday night we went to Champaign and met the Read side of the family for dinner. Claire really wanted to take Congo with us, but we left him home. That's pretty much the extent of our holiday weekend. We have a big weekend ahead of us. Claire will be spending a lot of quality time with Papa Wayne while Trever and I take 2 heifers to a sale in Chillicothe. Keep your fingers crossed that we sell the heifers for big bucks and that Claire doesn't need very many diaper changes!

17 months

This past week we went to Maroa and watched our niece, Caisey, play basketball. It was her 8th grade night and she and her parents were introduced before the game.

We didn't get very many good pictures since we were trying not to use the flash. Caisey started the game and played the majority of it.

This week Claire also turned 17 months old. We are a few days late with pictures, but at least we got one with a smile.

And one proving that the terrible twos aren't very far away.

At 17 months Claire...

• Loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and the Hotdog song
• Talks about babies and carries her doll around the house. She's also been seen trying to feed her baby cherios and her sippy cup.
• Climbs in the bathtub.
• Likes to sit on her potty chair but that's all she does.
• Reads lots of books. She likes to say "what's that?" and have us tell her. Or she will point to the characters when we name them.
• Grandma Marge has taught her what to say in response to "I-L-L" and it sounds a little like "I-I-I"
• She pulls the kitchen chair up to the counter to help make supper
• Pretends to talk on the phone but refuses to talk on the phone for real
• Pretends lots of things are telephones and holds them up to her ear.
• Holds things up to her eyes (phones, books, sunglasses) and says "CHEESE"

Trick-or-Treat

Claire had her first Trick-or-Treat experience this past weekend. She was the cutest little lion in town! She held daddy's hand as we walked from Ms. Mary's house, to Ms. Roberta's to Ms. Sandy's.

She didn't care too much about the candy but liked to walk right in the door and make herself at home! She really enjoyed her cheetos from Ms. Sandy's house!

After a couple of stops in Piper City we headed to Great Papa's house in Gilman. He was so excited that Claire stopped by to play! And Claire helped pass out some candy and fruit while we were there.

Claire had her first taste of smarties and now she's in love!

After Great Papa's house we headed to visit Uncle Russ & Aunt Janet & Kelly. They had kitties and horses so Claire was in heaven. She even gave the horse a kiss!

We made a stop at Great Grandma Ficklin's house and got a TON of goodies before heading to Gammy & Papa's house for some trick-or-treating and pizza.

We've had a big week since Halloween too! Trever was gone Monday-Thursday for work so Monday night Grandma Marge came home with me and played with Claire while I packed up some stuff and did a little cleaning. On Tuesday we got up really early so that I could go vote and then we all headed toward Farmer City. Claire spent the day with Grandma and then we went trick-or-treating in LeRoy. We went to Great Grandma's house, "Aunt" Barb's house and JP & Linsay's house. At Aunt Barb's she had her first experience with pop rocks which was pretty entertaining. We came home Wednesday night but not until we took Shelbie out for dinner and did some trick-or-treating at the Voelkers. Thursday night we hung out at home, took a bath and hit the sack waiting for daddy to come home. Trever got home about midnight and then came home early tonight so we could have a normal evening as a family. And, he is in charge of dinner. It looks like we are having pork burgers and cornbread stuffing from a box. Yummo!