Claireisms

Chad wants to chime in this time, in honor of Claire whose first birthday into God's family we celebrated today (with a candle stuck in a grape)...

Here are a few various Claireisms from comments she's uttered or written on cards or schoolwork. We need to save stuff like this for posterity (and her future husband!). I've typed it word-for-word or "un-grammatically-edited"...

"What if I burp in my sleep? I wouldn't be able to say Excuse Me."

"Madison wants to be a doctor when she grows up so that when she's sick, she can go to herself." (Madison gets credit for saying something similar but reworded slightly by Claire)

Cards... (of course, it's better if you SEE her neat handwriting and cute little pictures)...
I am thankful for you because... you are a Christian... and you are special. To Mommy

From Claire, to Mrs. Clark [her 1st grade teacher] -
Poem. I think you're a piece a cheddar so here is you're letter!
thanks a lot for teaching! I want you to teach every grade I'm in. I think you're a rainbow. All week all week. I have fun with you!

Schoolwork (on handwriting paper)...
I like to make snowmen with Katie. Since the head of the snowman falls of, we make it a two-balled snowman. I also like to have snowball fight.

My favorite season is spring because the weather is breezy. I also like spring because the flowers start growing and the grass is so green. When we pick the flowers they get really pretty every second.

This is a Sycamore tree... Every time I go outside, the first thing I see is my very own tree. I climb a tree. I first tell my Mom. Now is the time when I tell you how to climb a tree. First I run to my tree. Then I stop just in time so I don't hurt myself. By for if I am wearing shorts. I could hurt myself by the wood scraping me. The wood is hard. But then I wanted to change trees. I wanted to change trees because the wood was too hard. I changed to an oak tree. First I reached to the first branch. When I got to the top I saw birds.

[For Thanksgiving, with a colored turkey picture]...
First, I get up when there is just a little bit of light. Then, I eat breakfast and get my gun. Next I tiptoe to the forest. While waiting in the bush, I hear a, "Gobble, gobble!" We make sure the turkey isn't cute. Finally, we shoot the turkey, take it home, and cook it on Thanksgiving Day.

[This one answers the question, What would you like to find in a friend?] [and it's my personal favorite :)]...
I would like a friend that is not just pretty. But a friend that is good inside the heart. I would like a friend that is a girl. Sometimes boys. I already have a friend that is a girl. Her name is Rachel Rao. I know that she is a christian. I play a lot her. She is my bestest friend. Every day she is pretty.

End of CA Trip

It really was a good trip in lots of ways-- kids did really well with the flying (Micah fell asleep during or right after take-off a couple times; Claire was a chatterbox cuz she was so excited/nervous); all our connections went well (just a bunch of small delays on the last leg-- plane late leaving Chicago, wait on tarmac for gate, wait long time for our luggage, wait more than 20 min for our "bus" to the parking lot); weather was great.

Had a lot of fun seeing the cousins play together. They fought a couple times, too :), but not too much. It's nice they had a chance to get to know each other better. Loved seeing Nate and Wendy's house, neighborhood, church, work, grocery store :), park, zoo, etc. Even had dinner with their friends, Ron and Brooke, who were brave enough to invite us all over for an evening!

Nathan drove us to LAX Tues morning, early. Left Visalia at 4:30am.

Chad had made copies of maps for the girls, drawing in the lines of our trip. Really goofy that Southwest had us going to New Orleans on the way out and Chicago on the way back, but it worked out fine. We covered a fair amount of the US that way!

This is Micah playing with the 2 little kids in the seat in front of him. He made friends with them, and they touched/passed things to each other for quite a while. Chad said it was starting to get a little annoying, but at least they were all entertained. :)

This is flying in to Chicago area. Lots of snow! Fun to see things from the air. Sure wish I knew what everything was. Maybe sometime I'll have to fly across country with my dad, cuz I'm sure he'd know what all those things are!

Kids at the Park

Micah, Madison, Katie, Caleb, Claire at the park

N & W's House, Work

This is in front of Nathan and Wendy's new house-- very nice! You may notice all the Christmas lights they have wrapped around the palm tree, and hanging from the roof-- looks very nice at night. And this is Nathan at work-- however, I think he usually dresses up more :)... he was just there to show Chad around. He was able to be off the whole time we were there.

Zoo in Fresno, CA

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas with Nathan and Wendy-- had a deliciously yummy monkey bread, and lots of other goodies. Opened some presents we gave each other and presents from Jer and Danielle. Probably J and C's favorites were the Webkinz and K's favorite was the gorgeous purple purse Aunt Wendy picked out for her.

We spent the day just hanging around-- watched Charlie Brown's Christmas, etc.

On Sunday we went to the zoo in Fresno. A little wet from all the rain they had had, and a little chilly, but that sure beats going to a zoo in the heat! We saw lots of great animals!

Ended the time there with a train ride by StoryLand. This was wildly popular with the under 9 set in our crowd.

Various CA pics

This is the group of cousins at meal time. Never a dull moment. Claire is standing in the house that we borrowed while visiting Nate and Wendy-- Their friend, Chris, was gone and graciously let us occupy his whole house. Worked out great!

Jenna and Madison-- this actually is at their church-- we went for a Christmas Eve service.

Arrival in CA

Adorable Madison had made this sign-- she and Nathan were waiting for us at the LA airport.

CA looks a lot different from WV!

The first night, we went to Chad's Aunt Loine and Uncle Jeff's house. Loine is Anita's sister. (can you tell?) They live in Glendora, part of LA and yet it took us close to 2 hours to get there from the airport. Loine graciously had all of us and all of Nate's family overnight-- plus she asked her 3 sons and their families over for pizza so we could all catch up a little. House full! I think 13 kids. The pic below is Nathan, Lily, and Loine.

This is part of the lovely backyard. The white railing is at the base of the playhouse Jeff built for their grandkids. Really neat!

Big CA Trip

We got back after 11pm last night from our big CA adventure. Leaving tomorrow morning for 3 days in Mechanicsburg, so I'm gonna try to quickly get this on here now.

First pic is kinda weird. :) Katie has learned to write her name and the word "chocolate" in Korean, so, in the car on the way to the airport, she wrote both words with playdough.
Here are our 4 precious kids-- very excited about our trip! This is in the "bus" that we took from the parking lot to BWI. Micah, esp, loved the bus.

Daddy's starting him out right-- making sure Micah knows all about maps, even tho, by the time he grows up, everyone in America will have a GPS. :)

Some great mountains on our way across the West. Sure wish the mountains were labeled with their exact location...

Bible Baptist Concert

On Sunday pm we went up to W's church-- Bible Bap-- for their Chr concert. Fun for us to enjoy a Chr concert that we weren't a part of. :) Got pics of bell choir in lobby before the actual concert.

Conditioner

Sat morning I took Jenna to get her hair trimmed and conditioned. Because of how curly it is naturally, and how long it is now, we've really been struggling with combing it out when it's wet, brushing it when it's dry; and she is always frustrated by how fuzzy it is. For $7, I think, they put a conditioning treatment on her hair that should last 20-30 washes. So far, she's thrilled with it. Of course, we haven't washed it yet, so we'll see what happens after the first wash, but we have high hopes. :) This morning she gave me a hug to thank me for taking her.

Marie Thrush Wingert

Yesterday we had the funeral for Chad's paternal grandma, Marie Thrush Wingert. She was a special lady, and we have already missed the "real" her for a while now. We're praising the Lord that she's now with Him instead of suffering a body that hasn't worked right for a couple years now. The pic above is her holding Claire 6 years ago-- and this is more the way I will always remember her. I enjoyed talking to her about gardening and cooking. I esp liked her potpie, ham salad, and broccoli salad. She helped us make applesauce several falls, and, for several years in December, she and I went to Denise's house to make chocolate candies. She was such a matter-of-fact person, who was known for her hospitality, cooking, and for saying, "Well, hey." :) We played oodles of games of Rummy Cube, Dominoes, and Skip Bo with her. I remember playing with her and Gpa W, who had had a stroke before I ever met him-- when we'd play Rummy Cube, she would pretty much play her board and his, since he would have trouble on his own.

Of course, Chad has very different memories of her-- he loved going to their house for several days each year with his cousin Greg, he loved going to their house and immediately going to check what kind of cereal they had :). He remembers helping to harvest and eat sweet corn every year (I remember doing this with them once, I think).

This pic is from last Jan, at her 90th bday party. In truth, I don't really remember seeing her sit up, with her eyes open, very many times after that. Her eyes often bothered her, and she slept a lot.

I'll bet she's using her eyes a lot now! :)

Concert

Above-- Jenna and Claire in the children's choir.

Sun pm was our big church Christmas concert. Chad played in the orchestra, I played in the handbell choir, Jenna and Claire were in several children's choir pieces (some of which I directed), Katie helped with the children's choirs, and I was in the adult choir. Only disappointment was that this was the first year in eons that they did not get the 2's and 3's up there, so Micah still hasn't had his stage debut. :)

The concert was a lot of fun-- probably my favorite part this year was handbells. We played all 3 of our Christmas songs.

Our Date

On Saturday, Chad took me out for a surprise date!

The PTF at school provided babysitting for any kids that are potty trained, so we dropped Jenna and Claire off there. Katie stayed home with Micah.

We went to a performance of parts of Messiah-- something I'd been wanting to do for a while-- and LOVED it. It was in a beautiful Lutheran church in Hagerstown, and, since we were one of the last people to arrive, we were seated in the front row of the choir loft-- off to the side and a little elevated. We were right behind the organist (I could read his music :), and we had a perfect view of much of what was going on.

Probably the best part was the sign singer that did sign language thru the whole thing-- that was wonderful! Such a neat way to show pictures of the words in the songs. And he was dramatic about it, too. Most fun was when the singers were on one of those long words-- like "appeared"-- that lasts for a couple measures. It was fun to see how he made that sign last for as long as the word lasted.

It was a performance by the Hagerstown Choral Arts (which is a group I'd love to join in my spare time (he-he)!) with the Barbara Ingram School for the Arts (new public magnet school, admission by audition only).

Woodstove

Started using our woodstove in the past couple weeks. All our girls did very well with staying away from it, after lots of instruction and observation, etc. Micah's the first one to have to "see for himself". :) I think he'll probably remember not to touch it now, cuz he sure fussed (not too hard, but long) about the little burn on his finger-- til he went to bed that evening.

At the Mall

This morning, our handbell choir played at the Martinsburg Mall-- fun experience. We have been working REALLY hard on 3 pretty difficult pieces. I really enjoy the challenge of doing something musical that's so different from a choir or orchestra/band. It's also fun to play with a bunch of people of different ages-- 3 are high school girls, 1 just graduated, we have a few of us in the middle, and there are a few women closer to my mom's age. :) You can see me there in the middle. Chad came with the kids to watch. We played thru our pieces once, and then there were a few piano pieces (I played one) and then Dorthea's homeschool choir sang-- very lovely. They include the homeschooling kids and any parents that want to join, so it's also fun of diverse ages (down to kindergarten!).

We did our whole program twice through, so after Chad and the kids hear the first time, they checked out the rest of the mall. Found this really cool mirror...

Heart Anniversary

Yesterday was the 6th anniversary of Claire's heart surgery. We are just so happy that this is something we don't even think about that often anymore. Thank the Lord for her health, strength, growth!

The pic above was taken today. Katie did Claire's hair for her-- cute, huh? Claire's trying to grow her bangs out (I think :).

Birthday Bash

On Monday, we had an itty-bitty party for Anita-- Don brought a purchased cake, since I had just returned from quiz trip. A few presents, a song or two :), cake and ice cream...

I think this is a nice pic of her with her WV grandkids. Kinda funny how the colors even look coordinated.

Safety

Praising God for safety again. Here's the whole story...

Katie, Jenna, and I went to Walmart after supper-- main goal was to buy things for our Christmas shoeboxes for the rescue mission, but we also got a few other things. By the time we finished, they were pretty tired, and really ready to be home. (Me, too!)

Then, at the checkout, my credit card wouldn't work. Oh, boy. This was the first time that's ever happened, and you know my business manager husband keeps all our accounts in perfect order. I did not have enough cash to pay for it, and I only carry that one credit card. After the people behind us were good and mad (the line was already a quite pokey one), I got the cashier (older man who wasn't thinking very fast at all) to get a manager, who tried my card again. When it didn't work, he sent us over to customer service. We spent 15 min or more here. I had called Chad, who called the company, who said that they had not let that purchase go thru because it was more than we'd usually spend at a Walmart-type place. (Huh? I really didn't think it was that much more. By the time we buy diapers and some groceries...) It actually took another call and a few more tries by the cashier. After probably 10 attempts at scanning my card, it finally went thru, and we quite relieved to leave.

Headed right out to 81 North. We only have one exit to go to get home from there. Partway up the exit ramp, I saw the traffic was at a standstill; then I noticed the tractor trailer in the grass perpendicular to the road, just 10 cars or so ahead of us.

We only had to wait 4-5 min, and then some traffic sneaked thru. I read in the news reports that they closed 81 for 2 hours in both directions, but some of us sneaked thru before they closed it.

On the southbound side, we saw a few smashed cars, several other cars pulled off the road, and several emergency vehicles. Saw one stretcher being hauled to an ambulance. Heard no sirens, tho, so all that happened before we got out there.

Which led me to believe that the accident was right around the time we should have been out there. However, I just looked on my phone to see what time I had called Chad, and that time is 10 min after the time the news reports say the accident was reported. Sure am thankful for safety, tho!

And, Micah and I went shopping all morning. Spent money at several different stores, and my credit card worked in all of them. :) Sure was nervous about it, tho.

Claire's Thoughts

I have handbell practice Wed pm at 5:30. This is an interesting time for our family. I have Devon's lesson at 3:45, and Tangene usually brings the girls home from school then also. At 4:30 we eat a quick supper-- sometimes Chad's home to eat then, too, but not always. I leave a little after 5pm and I usually take just Claire with me. Katie can babysit for a short time til Chad gets home, but definitely not all 3 kids. Taking Claire out of the mix just reduces potential problems exponentially. :) Plus, she likes to go with just me, and she's happy to sit thru our bells practices. She likes the music and she likes to just sit and do something fun by herself. Usually, she colors or draws. Sometimes she reads or plays with Pollys.

Last night, as she and I raced out the door (essential to not be late since we're playing at the mall on Sat!), we grabbed her Pollys. So, when we got to church, as she was getting out of the car, I reminded her to get her Pollys. She did, but she also said, "I don't think I'll play with my Pollys very much."

I said, "Why? What are you going to do?"

She said, "I have something that I can do without touching anything."

I said, "What's that?"

She said, "I am just going to finish some thoughts."

This past weekend was Katie's (and my) first Quiz trip with the IBC Quiz Team. Lots of people had told us how much fun these trips are, and that it would be an inspiration to Katie for continuing to memorize so many verses-- and they were right. It really was a great experience. At left is one of the only decent pics I got of her with her team.

IBC took 6 teams, 3 senior teams and 3 novice teams (I think novices are ones who have never quizzed before or have only quizzed one previous year). Katie's team was full of greenhorns, and they didn't score so well, but I think they learned a lot from it. The other teams were so quick to buzz in-- esp the senior teams would buzz in before they even knew the whole question. They would hear the key word and then they'd have 30 seconds to formulate the rest of the question and the answer. Yikes, you have to know the material well! I thought I knew it, but I couldn't answer most of those questions-- at least not at the speed they did it.

At left is the hotel we were at the first night-- beautiful! I had 3 7th grade girls in my room-- Katie and 2 of her friends-- and it really went well. Katie loved being with these girls. They all wanted to go swimming right away, so, both nights, as soon as they could get their suits on, we were down to the pool. And they would have stayed for hours, I think. The first night the pool was pretty crowded, tho, and the second night, the chlorine was really bad-- after a while I couldn't even see because it was burning my eyes so badly, and I wasn't even swimming in it. Kids still managed to have tons of fun, tho. :)

Actually, when we got home, Chad asked Katie to rate the trip on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best possible. She said the trip overall was a 9. The busride was a 7 and the quizzing was a 5.

The busride, really, was like a several hour long party. :) It took about 12 hours for us to get to Chicago on the way out; on the way home, we went partway on Sat pm, so we only had 9 hours or so to do on Sun.

Our church had recently purchased a coach bus, and this was a vast improvement over previous trips on a school bus! Quite comfortable seats and heat, reading lights, even a bathroom in the back. I mostly read books, talked to people, and slept, but the kids played games, drew on the foggy windows, played guitar/drums and sang songs, listened to iPods with each other. It was really fun to see different things going on all at once. Someone would call out, "Hey, we're going to play Rook over here! Anyone want to join?" And different kids would do things with each other-- not cliquish-- and the middle schoolers were often mixed in with high schoolers.

On Sunday morning, while we rode, they announced an "open mike" (PA system on the bus) for kids to go up and tell what they'd learned from the Scripture they'd memorized this year or in past years. That was really cool!

Here's what Katie did on the bus...

She worked on a math project for school-- something about moving a "knight" around a chess grid to fill up every box...

She played Apples to Apples...

And she even took a nap on my shoulder on the way home. :)

So, the actual quizzing was kind of discouraging for her since she didn't feel much success, but I think she learned a lot about what to expect, and maybe how to prepare better. And, I really think she did a great job. She probably buzzed in as much or more than anyone else on her team. She's really good at the ones that say "Locate this verse..." and she has to name the chapter and verse; and the ones where she has to finish a verse or quote a verse. She had a lot harder time with the ones that asked a question.