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

This Christmas was really the first year that Claire started to understand Santa and she really enjoyed all the fun "extras" that Christmas brings (decorating cookies, opening the doors on the advent calendar, seeing the Christmas lights, etc.) I'm not totally sure that she understands that these things aren't permanent, but we'll deal with that next week!


Even though we are far away in Italy, Santa did manage to find us and leave presents and many friends and family sent us wonderful gifts too. We waited to open everything on Christmas morning and nothing was put out until Christmas Eve Night. All in all, it was quite a haul for both Claire and Eloise.


Claire was really excited about seeing that Santa had filled her stocking. That part of the day was a big highlight!
Mommy was very happy to find matching jammies for the girls, too!

Opening presents on Christmas morning truly was a marathon. It literally took us all day to unwrap the gifts and by the end of the day, we still weren't done. There were still a few left over for the next day. The vast majority of the gifts were for the girls, and because Eloise isn't too into unwrapping yet, the burden of the work fell on Claire. Which, she happily embraced.

When Claire would open a present for Eloise, she would happily bring the gift over to her, unwrap it in front of her, and then place the gift on or near here. Here is a pic of Claire opening one of Ellie's gifts. This was a box full of baby toys that were Claire's (that we put away ages ago) that Santa found to give to Eloise.

Then, when it was Claire's turn to open a present for herself, she would unwrap it and then want to play with it for at least 30 minutes, so that is probably why it all took so long.

The girls got a ton of wonderful toys from Santa and family and friends.

Here is Eloise with some new blocks from Grandpa Richard and Grandma Deborah.

Here is a picture of Claire trying out her new Dora trike from Grandpa Otto and Grandma Roberta.

Here Eloise is enjoying her new squeaky giraffe toy from Grandma Roberta and Grandpa Otto.

Eloise and Claire also got matching tutus and butterfly wings from Grandma Libby and Grandpa Paul. Too cute!


Now, I'm pretty sure that Santa brought these blocks for the girls, but I guess they'll have to share.


Santa also brought Claire a Rainbow Brite doll, which might possibly have been more of a gift for Claire's mommy.... so I guess we all won!

Overall we had a great Christmas and I'm sure next year, Claire will be really into it and Eloise will probably really enjoy the boxes and wrapping paper.

Merry Christmas to all!

Eloise's First Food

Today we gave Eloise some rice cereal mixed with milk.... it didn't go badly, but she's not the biggest fan just yet...
Claire also wanted me to take a picture of her while she was eating... there are certainly some moments of sisterly jealousy and attention getting, but it's not too bad, yet.

Getting Ready for Christamas

Even though December is not quite halfway over, we have done a number of Christmas activities to get ready for the big day. Claire is really enjoying all of the Christmas lights and special activities and she sort of is getting the Santa thing. Whatever the case, she is really enjoying it this year and Eloise just really likes staring at the lights.

First, we decorated our Christmas tree. Claire was a big "helper" by putting on all of the ornaments she could get her hands on. I managed to give her the mostly unbreakable ones and she put them all on the bottom two branches of the tree. It took everything I had to resist re-distribute them evenly over the rest of the tree. I did manage to resist, and her ornaments are still there, clustered at the bottom.

Then, Santa arrived to the base, making his rounds on the base riding the fire truck. When we heard Santa over the loudspeaker we ran out to the deck to wave at him going by. Claire was very impressed and later we went into the mall to meet him. Because we were on our way to the last soccer game of the season, she was dressed for soccer. As you can see by the picture, she was a little in awe of the big guy and a bit speechless, but she enjoyed meeting him for the first time this season. There will be a couple of other opportunities for Claire to see Santa this year before the big day, too.

Claire has also had a lot of fun decorating (and eating) gingerbread cookies this year. She's lucky that she has a mommy that has let her do it a few times already this year.

Today, we also put together our gingerbread house kit and Claire loved decorating that one too. Here she is putting sugar "snow" on the tree.

And, finally our finished product...

Eloise's First Hanukkah

Andy was away for work for most of Hanukkah, but he made it back home on the final night. So, we cooked some Hanukkah foods, including challah, potato latkes, and beef brisket and Andy lit the menorah with the girls. We also played dreidel with Claire and both girls got a gift. Claire really enjoyed the driedel game, but she certainly doesn't "get it" yet.

Playdates and Saying Goodbye to Friends

Claire is so lucky to have so many friends nearby to play with. Claire has lots of opportunities for play dates and outings to the park, full of cute photo ops, of course.


Here is Claire and her friend Addy "swimming" at a recent play date.


A few days later, Claire and her other friend, Ava, ejoyed decorating gingerbread men.

Getting Dressed

Claire is really developing a sense of indepencance, which is great, but can be tricky. Increasingly, she wants to do more and more things for herself and by herself. It's a great step, but often she gets very frustrated when she can't physically do something... then we often end up with a major temper tantrum.

Claire is getting better and better at dressing herself, so much so that mommy likes to challenge her with complicated outfits. I usually just lay out what I want her to wear on her bed and leave the room as she gets dressed. The other day, she came out of her room wearing her outfit like this...


The thing that was so funny about it is that she really thought she had it right. HA!

Thankfully mommy was able to convince Claire to fix her outfit, so we ended up with it correctly.

Dream Come True... Harlem Globetrotters

For ages, Andy has really wanted to see the Harlem Globetrotters and every now and again, I search their schedule online to see if they'll be playing nearby. With about a week's lead time, we learned that the Harlem Globetrotters were coming to visit the base and would be performing steps away from our house. Andy had a bit of a work conflict, which he was able to work through, and we were all able to make it to the game. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the performance.

Dad and Deborah Visit Italy

We were so lucky to have my Dad and step-mom Deborah visit us for Thanksgiving. They flew all the way from Seattle to spend the long weekend with us and to meet Eloise and spend time with Claire. We had a great visit with them. The main goal of the visit was to spend time with the girls, of course, but it was really nice to be able to spend Thanksgiving with them and to do a little sightseeing.

We had Thanksgiving dinner at our friends David and Sarah Mack's house. The food was delicious and it was really nice to be able to introduce Dad to some of our friends.

We certainly got some quality time hanging out at our apartment on base, and we also did a little sightseeing to the Caserta Palace and Gardens and Pompeii.

This is a picture of Andy, Dad, Deborah, and Claire in front of the palace. Eloise and I are taking the picture. To tour around the HUGE gardens, we took a horse and carriage ride. It was a lovely ride and Claire really enjoyed the horse.
The highlight of the ride, however, was when Andy had to haggle with the driver about the price and the route... IN ITALIAN! Andy has done so well learning the language and we were all very impressed with his bilingual haggling skills.


On Dad and Deborah's final day here, we went to Pompeii and left Andy and Claire at home. We got lucky with the weather (no rain, thank goodness) and they enjoyed exploring the ancient ruins of the city.

Four Months Old Today!

Today, Eloise is four months old. I was able to get a cute smile, but she has a bit of a rash on her cheeks, hiding her lovely dimple. She is a very happy baby and loving her big sister.

Claire also wanted to get in on four month photo shoot action too!

Yay for toys!

Eloise is starting to have fun grabbing onto various toys and putting them into her mouth. She especially likes her play mat where she can roll over (only from front to back so far) and play. Today in Kindermusik, she even held and shook her own jingle bell!

Potty Training...Success!

We'd put off potty training Claire for a number of reasons. We didn't want to jump in before Eloise was born, thinking she might regress or feel like we were kicking her out of the baby slot. We were further delayed by our sudden move onto the base. We thought the transition time wouldn't lend itself well to potty training either.

For the last several months, we've been introducing her to the idea and encouraging her when she wanted to use the potty, but we didn't do any specific method. I think both Andy and I were hoping that it would just happen on it's own as Claire did show some interest, but there was nothing consistent.

Finally, over the long Veterans Day weekend, we decided to follow Lora Jenson's three day potty training method. The method is really child centered and does not have the parent putting the child on the potty at specific intervals, rather it tries to teach the child to pay attention to his/her own body.

Going into it, we were skeptical as we didn't really believe it could be done in three days, however, even though it really wasn't a three day "quick fix" the method really did work. It was a tough several days and she really didn't seem to "get it" until the very end of the third day. The fourth day was much better and she continued to improve from there. In addition to using the method, we did end up using various small rewards with her, which really seemed to work.

Since then, Claire has definitely had some accidents, but most days are good days and after about five to six or seven days, we were ready to declare success with the potty. Claire still has accidents sometimes, but she is doing really well with it. Interestingly, she does particularly well when we are out and about and many of her accidents are at home. She (and all of us) are still trying to work out the kinks, but in general, we are all much happier about it.

And, it is SO nice not to have to change two sets of diapers any more. Yay!

Halloween Fun!

I always seem to be a little behind with my postings, so, here is Halloween, a little bit late.


We had a great weekend, filled with lots of Halloween events. Claire totally got into it this year and had been happily wearing her butterfly costume for almost two months (mommy ordered it early)! She was really excited about it for weeks and would tell anyone who asked that she was going to be a butterfly and Eloise was going to be a strawberry. They were both so cute in their costumes!
Here is Claire with her friend Sadie marching in the Halloween Parade. Below is a picture with more of the kids from the parade.


The events started for us on Friday morning with a "trick or trunk" and parade with the mom's group, Connect the Tots, that I'm a part of. It was fun seeing all the kids walk around in their costumes.

Later on Friday night, we went to the Spooktacular at Carney Park, which was fun, but very crowded. Claire enjoyed the little trick or treat booths and the "spooky" train ride. She really loved hanging out with her friends Sadie, Ava, Alec, and Lauren.

On Saturday we carved pumpkins with the girls, but alas, I forgot to take pictures with the finished product.
Then, on Sunday, Halloween itself, we had a bunch of friends over for dinner before trick or treating around the support site. It was a great, but VERY fast party... people were in and out in a little over an hour.
We saw a lot of Claire's little friends out trick or treating, including Sophia, who had the same costume as Claire! Too cute.

Three Months Old!

On Saturday the 30th of October, Eloise turned three months old. Time is flying by!