Gotcha!

Not the most glamorous of snowballs, but it's one Claire can call her own. You've been hit!

Merry Christmas!

I sure hope your family had a wonderful Christmas, we celebrated with a big family gathering, lots of delicious food and much laughter. Watching Claire just enthralled by all the magic of Christmas was the best gift of all.

And snow?! Well we certainly got that. Our first storm of the season, and what a storm it was. Our family left late on Christmas day rather then risk getting caught in the blizzard. We were sorry to see everyone head out early but I won't lie and say that spending boxing day in PJs sipping eggnog and eating random leftovers wasn't fun.

I'll be so sad to take down our tree and decorations this year. Claire was so excited to help out. If there was a surface that could be covered in ornaments or greenery she was all over it! We spent evenings leading up to Christmas cutting snowflakes out of coffee filters, making evergreen wreaths and garlands and generating huge messes of glue and glitter for our paper punch ornaments. By the way - shatterproof ornaments are a fantastic invention, Claire helped me string them up everywhere! I'll have to post a tour of all our decorations but if you look carefully in the background of these photos you'll catch a glimpse of our handiwork.

I have a feeling that tossing the tree this year might be a bit of problem considering Claire is STILL decorating it. To make letting go easier, I'm thinking of having her string it with some popcorn and cranberries for our bird friends. We can watch them feast and enjoy the tree just a little longer without having pine needles underfoot in our living room for another month. Let's hope this works, otherwise there are going to be lots of tears or a tree up in February over here! I'm not sure which is worse!

If I'm not blogging before the New Year, let me take the time to wish you and yours a healthy and happy one!

Happy Solstice!

I'm lying in bed watching a full lunar eclipse through my skylight on today's winter solstice. It occurred to me that this is the type of thing I can't wait to share with Claire! My viewing platform of pillows and blankets is so much more snug then where I started out in the yard, I can't tell you how fantastic this is!

There is an 8 year age gap between my youngest sister Amanda and I and I vividly remember waking her up at odd times of the night to watch eclipses and meteor showers (the latter were always a bit disappointing on suburban Long Island). The Hale-Bopp comet was probably the best astronomy sight we've shared.

While I won't wake Claire intentionally tonight, if she stirs I'll be sure to show her what our magical universe is up to. This is a kid who is always aware of the phases of the moon so I'm sure a full lunar eclipse on this crisp, clear night would be a thing of awe for her.

Making Magic

All kinds of hysterical things seem to fly out of Claire's mouth, I suppose it's one of the joys of being around a three year old. Recently, all three of us were snuggled up in bed watching a movie and Claire said, "ooooh I'm making magic." Dan and I turned towards her as she rubbed her eyes, enjoying the fireworks inside her eyelids and just smiled.