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.