Boxes, boxes everywhere!

The move is very close. All our belongings, except a few precious blankies, books and toys are in boxes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving over at my Uncle Rick's house this year. Claire and Nathan got to play and it was nice to visit with family - the last time we'll get together with them before our move. The menu was GREAT! I wish we had taken a photo of the spread. Uncle Rick, Aunt Mary, Michelle, Shannon, and Melissa did a great job fixing some yummy food. Claire had fun playing with Nathan, Maddie had fun climbing the stairs, and they both had a great time with the cat.

Happy Birthday, Girls!

Claire has an opposable thumb!

Claire had surgery this morning to correct a trigger thumb. It was a short procedure but required a general anesthetic so I got all worried about it. She was very brave and did GREAT before, during, and after her surgery. The first thing she requested upon waking was the strawberry popsicle that the orthopedic surgeon had promised her. She's making the most of this whole thing and using it as an excuse to sucker us into letting her watch lots of TV.

Before

After

Another birthday party and a big farewell

Claire went to a birthday party this evening at the local gymnastics studio. Maddie was not going to tolerate being held in a carrier during open gym time, so both girls ran around like crazy people. Claire was a bit intimated by all of the equipment at first but she quickly warmed up and was soon jumping into the foam pit with all of the other kids. Maddie ran on the long trampoline for pretty much the entire party.

Sarah came over after the party to print up boarding passes for their flight out to St. Louis tomorrow morning. I know we're moving soon too, but it was really hard to say goodbye to her, Weemo, and Daniel (and I admit I shed a few tears). I'm not sure that Claire really understands that she's not going to see them again. We sure will miss them.

I needed some cheering up this evening, so here's what I did.

Everything's falling into place

It seems like this move is coming up quickly. We accepted an offer on our house shortly after getting home from Hawaii. Woohoo! We had the home inspection on Thursday and are still waiting to hear back about that (keep your fingers crossed that nothing is wrong!) and have found out that Altus has plenty of housing available on base for us. It's tiny housing, but most of it is recently renovated and there's no waiting list, so that's a good thing. We won't have an address until we get there because we want to pick out a house in-person, but at least we know there will be somewhere for us to live. Then on Thursday the preschool in Altus called and said they would have room for Claire as soon as we got there. I was pretty excited about that because Altus seems to be like L.A., where the preschools all have crazy waiting lists. She was 9th on the list for the spring class, but they fit her in this fall so she'll (hopefully) make some friends right away. Everything is coming together.

Claire's 3rd birthday

We celebrated Claire's 3rd birthday today with several of her friends. It's a bit early, but our good friends are moving next week and we wanted to make sure they could make it. We had a luau (figured we'd still be in a Hawaii mood) and she requested chocolate cake with strawberries. It's pretty safe to say that she had a good time. Our house was CRAZY until all of the kids sat down to eat cake. You could have heard a pin drop while they gobbled it up. It's hard to believe that our little Claire-Bear is three years old!

...or click here to see the slideshow with videos.

A meteorologist wedding

So, when meteorologists get married what happens? We found out this weekend: rain, floods, lightning... an exciting weather day and a beautiful ceremony. Sam and Cindy were married last Sunday in Hawaii. They quickly changed their outdoor plans to a semi-indoor venue to protect everyone from the rain. The bride was beautiful, the ceremony was touching and everyone had a nice time. Click the photo below for more photos.

Happy Halloween!

After dinner this evening all of the youngsters got dressed and went trick-or-treating around Susan's house. Halloween in Hawaii is so fun! The girls were able to wear their princess dresses without coats and we were in shorts. It even sprinkled a little and we still weren't cold. Lots of people sat outside on their porches to hand out candy. It's so different from the chilly winter-coat Halloweens in the Midwest that I experienced as a kid.



The biggest surprise of the night for us was how much Maddie enjoyed trick-or-treating. She insisted upon walking around all by herself and she dragged her pumpkin bag on the ground as she went, refusing to let us carry her or even her bag. The bag is absolutely filthy now because of the dragging, but she really enjoyed herself. She followed Claire and Ethan up to as many doors as she could, hollering at the people who lived there (hopefully she was hollering, "Trick or Treat!" and not, "Give me some candy!" but I really couldn't decipher it for sure). She finally tuckered out when we were about 3/4 of the way through and asked to be carried, but she did much more than I had expected.

When we got back to the house everyone got to pick a few pieces of candy to eat. Mike & Ike's then Sweet Tarts for Claire; Maddie had a 3 Musketeers bar. Claire was very intersted in learning the names of all of the candy. She'd ask us the name of each piece and then repeat it. I'm pretty sure she's storing all of that knowledge for the next time we're in the supermarket check-out line. They bounced off of the walls for a little while and then were coaxed into bed. It was a very busy day.