Clara's favorites.

Recently, Clara has developed some true-blue green favorites.  She's been eating Life cereal for the last two months straight.  It's the first thing she asks for in the morning!  And she's relentless 'till she gets it! It is one of the first foods (besides milk) that Clara has just loved.  She eats most foods, but she LOVES LIFE!

When Clara started tinkering around with going on the potty months ago, she earned an M & M for each time she produced!  She always chose green.  Always!  And that has transferred out into other areas of her life.  If there is ever a choice, she'll choose green!  Every time!

Her favorite toys are still her babies and stuffed animals.  She carts them around all day long.  And she doesn't hold just one at a time!  She usually stuffs as many babies as she can in her arms and carries them around with her!  She loves to pretend that her and her babies are going places.  I'll watch her sit on the stairs and pretend to buckle her baby in, then buckle herself in, and then she tells me where they're off to!  I love how much her imagination is working these days!

She loves watching television and movies (way too much!), and she does have a few shows that she always asks for.  She loves Sesame Street, Clifford,  Caillou, and Curious George on PBS.  The movies she loves lately are The Fox and the Hound, Aristocats, and Nemo.  Although I have to say, the old Disney movies are SOOOOO sexist and even racist at times.  So I've avoided showing her any of the other oldies by Disney.

In the car, she begs and pleads to listen to Taylor Swift.  It started because her Auntie Emmy was listening to T Swift once, and we made the connection that it was Auntie Em's music.  Since then, it is all she wants to hear in the car.  There's only so much of it I can take, but we listen to it frequently for short periods of time.

Those are some of Clara's honest-to-goodness favorites.  I love that she's got such a personality of her own!

And here she is eating her beloved Life cereal this morning!

potty training.

One of my most important goals for the summer was to potty train Clara.  We were gone once a week throughout the month of July, so potty training wasn't in the cards for the entire beginning and middle of the summer.  So the Monday after I got back from wine country, I knew it was time!

That was August 5.  So she's been working on potty training for the last two weeks.  Except, it really only felt like training for about 3-4 days.  She was just ready to use the toilet!  Clara had pooped and peed on the toilet many times before, but we hadn't been rigid about only going on the toilet until now.  She still wears pull ups during nap time and at night, but boy oh boy, I think we can say she's potty trained!

Day 1 - 1 big accident (potty) in the morning.  After that she had two tiny accidents that day when she started to go in her undies, and then stopped and yelled that she needed to use the toilet.  We sat on the potty about every 30 minutes or so (or whenever I thought about it!).  She resisted pooping on the toilet at first, but after trying a couple times and her refusing, she finally gave in and just went on the toilet!  Yay for 2 M & Ms!

Day 2 - she was with Grandma Janet so I could work in my classroom.  She didn't have any accidents that day.  They were outside a lot in the pool, and Clara just swam in her natural state, and Clara would pee in the grass.  She loves peeing in the grass!

Day 3 - I took Clara in to my classroom for a short amount of time.  We brought her potty seat, and I have a toiled IN my new classroom which actually worked out wonderfully for potty training.  She was pooping and peeing on the toilet at this point without problem.  She may have had one accident this day.  Or the accident happened on day 4.  I can't quite remember.  But I need to note that I forgot our potty training reward (M & Ms) at home, so this was the day that she started going without rewards (by accident, but hey!  I'll take it!).

Since day 3, we've tried to only go out of the house for very short times.  When we go somewhere, I usually make her sit on the toilet right before we leave, and sometime while we're gone we visit the restroom.  She didn't love public toilets at first, but she can potty on them just fine now.

I am so glad to have gotten this done before returning to work two days ago!  I panicked a little when I realized how little time I'd have to train after all the time away from home mid-summer.  But I think the waiting may have helped us in the end!  Like I said before, she was just ready!  Yay for undies!!!

And BTW, we love boy undies on Clara (even though in the photo she's wearing girl undies), and she loves them too.  Her favorites right now are Cars undies (like the movie!).  I have a real problem with how little coverage some girl undies provide.  Seriously...she's two!

I'd like to remember this...

Ever since she learned to control her arm movements, Clara has twisted and twirled her hair while drinking milk.  She did it when she used to nurse, and she still does it at 2 and-a-half when she drinks her cup of milk.  It is just who she is!

the day Clara slayed 'em.

We took Clara fishing last weekend at CJ Strike.  From the moment her pole was cast into the water, she was bringing fish after fish in to the boat.  It was unreal.  That Barbie rod must reel in at just the right speed for perch, because she couldn't keep fish off her pole!  She loved it for about an hour, maybe an hour-and-a-half, but then she was done.  And when Clara is done on the boat, there's nothing for her to do and nowhere for her to go.

So while our fishing trips may still be quite short, at least we've got a fish slayer in the family!

girls trip to wine country.

The baby of the family, Emily, turned 21 on July 22!  Since this birthday is so significant, we allowed Emily to convince us to travel to wine country!  Not that she really had to twist our arms to get us there!  We decided we'd leave Boise on Wednesday and return on Sunday.  The trip would be quick, but packed full of fun!

We arrived on Wednesday evening and had time to check in to our hotel, grab a bite of dinner, head to Trader Joe's for picnic lunch fixings for the week, and crash after the long drive.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early and headed to the first of the wineries in Napa, Andretti Winery (yeah, the race car driver owns it!).  We enjoyed walking through the grounds and tasting the vino of course!

 Isn't this tree beautiful?

 These hens and chicks were larger than my hand, seriously!

 The Andretti Winery cat was appropriately named Merlot!

 After Andretti, we drove down the road to Clos du Val.  It was beautiful as well.  We liked the look of these little outdoor cabanas, but forgot to call ahead and reserve one!  Shucks!

 It was beautiful as well, and we ended up tasting some great wine there!

After Clos du Val, we went to a little lake called Hennessey Lake for our picnic lunch.  We may or may not have had a bottle of 2-buck-Chuck with lunch!

After lunch, it was off to a few more wineries.  We walked into Mumm, but left because it was so expensive to taste, and they only had sparkling wines which we weren't super enthusiastic about!

These were the zinnias outside of Mumm.  They were stunning!

 Then we went to a winery called ZD .  This wasn't our favorite winery, but it was still fun.

 After ZD, we went to Pine Ridge Winery, still in Napa, and had fabulous service and great wine!  This was our last winery in Napa, and it was a fabulous place to visit!

Thursday evening, we ventured to Sonoma for dinner.  Emily found some information online about a restaurant in Sonoma called Meritage Martini and Oyster Bar.  And it may have been the highlight of the trip.  Mom treated all of us to a fabulous lobster dinner.  The dinner came in courses and was just incredible.  But first, here's a shot of the town square of Sonoma.  This old city hall is surrounded by tons of shops that line all the streets of the square.

 Back to lobster...

 We had a nice bottle of wine...

 a salad to start...

 the main course was a whole lobster, mashed potatoes, and wonderful roasted veggies...

 there were shots somewhere in there...

and the meal concluded with our choice of gelato or sherbet.  Oh my, the sherbet was divine...lemon, pineapple, and strawberry!

 See how much Emily enjoyed her gelato?

 On Friday, we headed out early to tour some Sonoma wineries.  We started at Bella Vista, the oldest winery in the area.  I visited this place with some girlfriends a while ago and we had the most amazing wine tasting paired with food.  The winery was beautiful, but we didn't purchase any wine there.

 After Bella Vista, we went to our favorite winery of the trip!  It was actually right next door, and was called Bartholomew Park Winery.  The wine was TDF, and so was our host.  He gives the historical tours of the property and winery, so he was full of fun information.  Every single wine we tasted was out of this world.  Even the rosé!  My mom and Teenie are now wine club members!  This winery doesn't distribute, so don't look for their wines in stores!  You need to visit the vineyard to get some, and if you're in the area, visit the vineyard!!!

After Bartholomew Park, we went to their sister winery, Gundlach Bunschu.  The wine was fabulous there as well!  We picnicked outside at Gundlach Bunschu's picnic tables!

 After lunch, we hit the town for 30 minutes and did a little power shopping!  After that, we headed to Petaluma to visit my Mom's childhood friend, Ruth.

When we got to Petaluma, we decided to check in to our hotel, and then head to dinner.  We checked in to our hotel, and this is how we felt.

 The room was horrible!  It was itty-bitty.  It only had two DOUBLE beds.  It reeked of marijuana.  The air conditioner didn't work.  I could go on and on!  It was horrible.  We went to check out, and the woman at the front desk insisted on keeping $50 for cleaning since we'd been in the room and used the toilet!  We were appalled!  A nasty phone call, an e-mail, and a week later, my Mom got her $50 back!  Thank goodness!

After checking out of hell, we went to pick up Ruth without a place to stay.  We figured we'd find something on the road north after dinner!

We dined at the most incredible Italian restaurant in Petaluma called Volpi's, as per Ruth's recommendation!  Oh my...each dish was delectable!  Mouth-watering delicious!  (We really ate well on this trip!).  The back of Volpi's has a Speak Easy.  I had to take a pic!  It was tiny and charming!

My mom had such fun with Ruth!  It was so cute to watch them spend time together!  After bidding Ruth goodbye, we headed north.  My mom hoped to be able to go to a glass studio's second's sale the next morning in Arcata, California.  So we hoped we'd be able to drive to Eureka and stay there!  The road was dark, full of deer and curves, and there were people everywhere!  There was something called Reggae on the River in one of the small towns on our drive, and people swarmed the highway!  Not fun!  But we made it in one piece!

The next morning, we went to Fire and Light's glass sale and found a few treasures.  Then we began our trek home.  On the way, we stopped for lunch on the Oregon Coast.  We had delish clam chowder to share, and I ate the seafood and chips platter.  It was fried, but instead of just cod, it included scallops and shrimp as well.  Wow!  It was phenomenal!

 And during lunch, we got to watch the sea lions and seals swim all around the marina.  That was pretty fun!

The rest of that day was full of driving!  We made it to the Portland, Oregon area, and could not get a hotel to save our lives!!!  3/4 of us were on the phone for the better part of an hour calling every hotel in every town along I-5, and there was nothing!  Finally, we made it to Portland just in time to book a hotel for the night in Salem, the same town we'd driven through an hour before!  Lovely.  So we turned around and drove to Salem.  Thankfully, the hotel was glorious!  It was called The Grand, and the name was fitting.  The restaurant inside was fabulous, too!  So we slept in luxury on the last night of our trip!

I'm glad we did something special to celebrate Emily's birthday!  The wineries were so fun!  Thanks girls for the memories!

Visitors from Minnesota.

On the last weekend of July, my Grandma Waldon and the Heglands came to Lewiston for a visit!  They were set to spend the following week in Glacier National Park, and Lewiston was close enough to work for a meeting place!  So on Friday afternoon, we headed up to see everyone!  My three cousins were just fabulous with the little kids.  I was so glad to have them around.  And so were Ben, Clara, and Will!

Here is a cute pic of Evan and Will.

 Here are Teenie, my Mom, my Aunt Dawn, and Grandma Waldon.

 On Saturday, we all trekked up the hill to Palouse, Washington, for a music festival in their city park.  The weather was gorgeous!  It is amazing how much cooler Palouse is than Lewiston!  We could have relaxed under those big shade trees all day!

 From left to right - Will, Elias, Evan, Ben, and Grace.  Clara was asleep in her stroller!

 Here are Ben and Clara doing what they do best...roughhousing!

 Time for some hugs!

 Ben came to give Uncle Kurtis a hug, and Clara had to join in the fun!

 Then we took some four generations pictures.

 Here are my Uncle Ed and Aunt Dawn, Grace, Evan, and Elias, and Grandma Waldon.

 We spent Saturday night playing some games!

 Both mornings were spent relaxing under the canopy of Ed and Dawn's trailer!

 Here are all the kids!

 And here is Grandma Waldon with some of her Grandkids and GreatGrandkids.

 It was so nice to see everyone.  We all had such a fabulous weekend!  It went by too quickly!  Thanks again Grandma and Dawn and Ed and kids for trekking all the way to Idaho for a visit.  And thanks Steve and Teenie for allowing us all to take over your house!