Update at the Terry house

 I find myself composing blog posts in my head during the day, but there's always something more important that sitting down to type it out.  Now that  I have a spare minute the words won't come!  Oh well, something is better than nothing right?

My kids are at such wonderful ages right now!  Stop rolling your eyes,  I know it's redundant as I've said this many times, but it really is such an experience to witness these little ones grow and be a part of teaching them.  I never thought of myself as someone who wanted a really big family, but now that I have had children and I see what a blessing they are to me and to each other, I understand wanting a big bunch. 

Claire:

Claire's vocabulary grows everyday, I love her little voice and her spunky personality!  She is very independence and certain of what she wants.  She doesn't hesitate to put us all in our place, including the dog :).  She is full of hugs and kisses, and always must give a kiss AND a hug.  Loves her big brother.  Loves her stuffed animals, and must give them tastes of all her food. Neither of my children have ever been very attached to a specific object; no binkis bottles special stuffies etc.  I always thought it was kind of cute when a child had that special item that made everything all better.  This week Claire has attached strongly to this big huge Clifford dog someone gave Josh as a gift.  He comes everywhere with us and must be present at bedtime.  Not so cute in reality.  Wish she would have chosen something smaller :).
Love this little crooked grin she gives me when I ask her to smile though:

Josh:
I love his creative mind and his over the top ideas.

He's always wanting to build something.  Not out of blocks but with wood and nails.  He is quite ambitious, yesterday he wanted to build a sleigh, the day before a tow truck.  I explained that we don't have the right tools to build those types of things, and that real builders start out small, but he was undeterred.  He spends many hours hammering away at scrap wood.  I offered him an old, broken wal-mart bookshelf I was going to toss out.  He was over the moon with excitement to see all that wood just waiting for his nails.  Any ideas of how I could help him build something real would be greatly appreciated.  I worry he is going to get discouraged when none of his projects turn out.  I showed him some kids kits at Lowe's.  They have a birdhouse, toy car (with an engine), monster truck etc.  He said they would be good to send to his cousin Gavin.

I also told him you need to have some plans, maybe we could find some online... 

  Here's his plan for a tow truck:       

Josh is also my little entrepreneur.  He is constantly coming up with business ideas.  He has plans to transform out house into a sandwich shop, theater  circus show, etc.  He is not pretending, these are serious plans.  He is constantly wanting me to go with him to ask the neighbors for their business, I'm always trying to steer him towards more realistic ventures.  His uncle Ty had a good idea to sell suckers.  We made some and took them door to door.  It was a good experience that pushed us both out of our comfort zone a bit. He also picked pomegranets from his grandpas tree in Logandale and sold them via an online yard sale site.   I think the sandwich shop was my favorite.  He decided that I would be the cook, Justin would be security (he's a police officer), Claire would wash the tables, and he would be the waiter.  Here is his menu:  the tally marks represent how much each sandwich would cost for a baby, child or adult.   

I have a number of holiday craft ideas filling up my pinterest boards, but Josh had a better plan.  He  found this rock and thought it looked like a Christmas tree.  We spent the afternoon transforming rocks into Christmas decorations.   

 

He has really started to catch on to the letters and their sounds.  He has started recognizing the sounds in words he hears, and notices letters wherever we go.  It is so exciting to watch it "click" in is brain!  I think he will be reading soon.

We went through a phase of Josh not liking Claire and being very vocal about it.  I am happy to say that it seems to have been just that, a phase.  They play together all the time and would be quite lost without one another.  Josh told me the other day that he really wouldn't want an older sister because, "they would always change, and wouldn't play what you wanted them to.  Claire gets happy about all my ideas."  I'm starting to realize that most things I worry about with my kids really are just phases.  Not to be ignored, but also not to panic over.

not sure who was having more fun this day:

My parents came for a visit last month.  It was so good to have them here!  We kept ourselves busy during our 10 days together.  We spent some time relaxing at our house, had an early Thanksgiving in Cedar with Kaysea and Ty, drove to Roy, Ut for my cousin's wedding, and visited with lots of family along the way.  It was a busy time, but so rejuvenating.  We don't get to see them enough, and having them here was a big boost to my happiness levels.  I didn't take hardly any pictures, but here is one of my dad and Josh launching the rocket they built together: