Catching Up

Well we did end up buying the house back in May, and since then our lives have been a whirl of moving/house projects/a visit from the grandparents and much more. And since we're going to Santa Cruz on Thursday, I thought I should make a post before I get so behind that I just abandon the blog altogether.

Clara is a walking pro now.

She spends her days toddling around our house, loving on dollies and pushing them in strollers, and having many, many tea parties. 

She also has discovered books, and will walk up to me with a book in her hand, wait until I take it, then plop down in my lap and kick her feet impatiently until I start reading. 

Lucy seems to get bigger every day. Her baby face is slimming into a little girl face, which is one of the most bittersweet parts of life right now. I love the way she thinks through everything, and I love to hear her thoughts and ideas about the world. 

The other night I asked her to stop growing up, pretty please. She wrapped her little arms around my neck and whispered in my ear. "I'll always be your little girl. I'll always love you." Did that make me cry? Maybe a little. 

She is sweet and thoughtful and such a big help with her little sister. And one of her few faults is that she cannot do a genuine camera smile to save her life. 

Me: "Lucy, smile!" 

"Show me a pretty, princess face:"

"What do you love about summer most?" 

"Roasting MARSHMALLOWS!"

Lucy and Clara love their new house, especially the front and back yards. The previous owners did a great job of planting flowers that bloom consecutively: tulips and daisies, then lilacs, then irises, then wild roses and now peonies. 

I also found an herb garden in our side yard yesterday with mint, thyme and oregano. We are so grateful for our new home and the warm, summer days ahead of us. Many adventures are in store!

Clara's Birthday and Easter

Yikes I'm behind! Things have been busy over at the Cohen Casa. We're in the process of trying to buy a house (fingers crossed!), I took on a part time job for my alma mater helping update alumni information, and we're continuing to reconnect with friends and making new friends here in Moscow. Life is full and busy and blessed, and I'm so happy that winter is over!

On March 13th our little spunky Clara Beth turned 1. We had a small party for her with my parents, and we all wore party hats (I know I took a picture of that but I can't find it right now). Clara was thrilled when we sang her Happy Birthday, although she didn't eat that much of the cupcake.

She now stands up on her own and often takes one small step before falling over. She says "hi" all the time, and has recently added in "doggy" and "meow". Last week I noticed at the dinner table that when we say grace, Clara has started very purposefully folding her hands like the rest of us, and adds in an "MEN" at the end. All through church today she was saying amen as well. Very cute.

And of course, today is Easter. Here is our family photo, the girls are wearing these beautiful dresses that my mom sewed for them. Yesterday we did an Easter Egg hunt, and today we had friends over after church for an Easter feast, and right now I am eating my second slice of cake. I love holidays! 

The pastor of Trinity Church here in Moscow gave this wonderful homily on Good Friday about death, which is here. 

Happy Easter! He is risen!

Papa, Lucy and Clara

It's been over a month since I posted last, yikes! Time for some catch-up.

On February 13th my mom's dad: Kenneth Humphreys, whom we called Papa, went to glory. My sister posted these pictures of him on facebook which I love: one of him in the Airforce and the other holding his first great-grandson (David):

My parents and Joel and I and the kids all drove to Spokane for the funeral. Papa served during World War 2, Korea and Vietnam, and retired in Spokane, WA, so he received a military funeral complete with a gun salute, after which the soldiers folded the flag and handed it to my Gran. The service was beautiful and hard, and even though we cried that day it was still a wonderful celebration of his life and a looking-forward to the resurrection.

Since then we've just been watching the days fly by with two adorable, active girls. Joel is getting more and more settled at Digilent, and I am loving being plugged back into this community and my friends here. The girls have the most fun personalities, so I thought I'd share a video of each of them doing what they do best. 

Lucy loves having tea-parties in which she invites me over to her house (she stresses it's a grown-up party because we're both grown-ups), and then we just talk and eat pretend food. I secretly (or so I thought) taped one of them because I love the way Lucy talks during our parties. ALSO, in case you have trouble understanding her, if you click on the CC image on the video and select ON you will see the handy closed captions I transcribed. In order to do this I think you have to watch it on youtube's website. They don't always sync with the dialogue but I'm not a professional. 

And here is one of Clara nurturing a baby doll. Lucy never cared much for dolls, to this day she still way prefers being a mommy to her stuffed animals than to dolls. But Clara shows no partiality. She will hug and kiss anything that will lay still long enough for her to grab it. I found this cradle at goodwill and Clara has immediately adopted the new roll of mother to this doll, putting it to bed SO gently:

Clara Photo Shoot

I haven't taken as many pictures of Clara as I did of Lucy, so on Sunday I pulled out my Nikon and snapped some of her in her cute church dress. Both of our children have lovely bright blue eyes, and when the lighting is just right I can't resist capturing those baby blues. Plus, Clara makes some hilarious faces, and with the Nikon's speed I'm able to capture them better than when I use my phone.

I'd like to title this one: "Caught in the Act"

We can't believe she'll be 1 next month!

Winter Wonder

I'll be perfectly honest: I didn't miss the snow while we lived in Eugene. I was quite happy with the fact that I could wear a sweater and no coat in January and be warm enough. But we're back in the frozen North, and so I'm attempting to revive my love of the white stuff. 

Lucy, on the other hand, bolts out of her room in the morning and runs to the window to check the status of the snow outside, and gauge whether there's enough to build a snowman. So I've been doing my motherly duty of spending a good half an hour getting her and her sister bundled up to play outside for 5 minutes. Just kidding. But it really does seem like it takes an incredible amount of time and energy to wrangle children into snow clothing. But look at this face, it makes it all worth it:

And this face:

Okay those are actually tears of rage on Clara's cheeks. I dressed her in a snowsuit which, while quite warm, is not designed for mobility. She was none too pleased to be plopped on the ground and told to have fun. I got this face for about a minute:

And then a few minutes longer when she realized I was quite serious about her exploring this new world:

And then the shrieking began, and I had to hustle her back inside and spend 20 minutes removing the offending clothing. But once she could crawl again, she was quite happy inside.

We watched her sister make snow patties and sing to herself:

There is something about white snow and overcast skies that makes for lovely photographs, particularly of these cute girls' bright blue eyes:

It may be cold out there, but the three year old doesn't mind. Pretty soon that snow-excitement starts to wear off on you, too.

Dinnertime Conversations

It is becoming increasingly apparent to us that we have two very talkative children. It used to be just Lucy who chatted our ears off during dinner, but now Clara is stepping up to the plate and making her voice heard. She only has one volume level, though, and I'll give you a hint, it's not quiet:

Last night at dinner Lucy surprised us by singing The Lord's Army perfectly, complete with hand motions. 

It just doesn't get any cuter than these two!

And a Happy New Year!

I didn't get around to sending out Christmas cards this year, so this is my internet version, and as a bonus you get even more pictures than you would in a Christmas card. Everybody wins!

First off, here is the picture I WOULD have used had I sent cards out. Trust me, this was the best we were going to get with the children. It's a good thing they're cute even when they're not smiling (or fake smiling).

We have been so blessed this past year. Our second daughter, Clara, was born in March, Joel accepted a job and we moved back to Moscow in July/August, and our house in Eugene sold quickly after we moved. It has been wonderful to be back in Moscow near my parents and so many of our friends.

We have yet to get tired of these sunsets over the Palouse:

Lucy celebrated her third birthday in October, and sometimes Joel and I look at each other in amazement and wonder where the time went. We still remember clearly the days of carrying Lucy into church in her bucket car-seat, and now she is this beautiful, spunky, intelligent, dress-up-dress wearing three year old.

I wish I had written down more of the hilarious things she's told us. One of my favorites is every time we drive past a cemetery, Lucy launches into the same speech, which goes roughly like this: "This is where we put our bodies when they die. We just take them off and put them in the ground. Not everything lasts forever. But they won't stay there! Someday Jesus will come again and fight Satan one last time and defeat him, and then our bodies and our spirits will join back up together, but this time they'll be perfect! And there'll be no more tears, and no more sin in our hearts, just Jesus! That'll be nice." I love getting to hang out with her all day!

It's also so amazing to us that Clara went from this: 

To this, in the space of 10 months:

She has the most hilarious personality, her favorite voice level is screaming (in happiness or sadness, it doesn't matter). She loves to get in on the fun things that Lucy and Joel do, like basket rides (the only picture I had of Lucy in the basket turned out blurry, but she begs Joel to do this with her almost every day).  

And Lucy and Clara are starting to play together more too, which is so much fun for me to watch. Lucy is a great older sister, she tries hard to protect Clara (sometimes to Clara's hurt, but we won't go into that), and she loves telling Clara about all the fun things they will do together when Clara gets a little bigger.

Of course, not all of our days are sunshine and roses:

But even the hard ones are filled with grace and growth, and we're entering 2014 feeling overwhelmed with God's blessings and excited for what the new year brings! Happy New Year friends!