Constant Beginnings

i often tell claire she is my "best girl." yesterday morning we were getting ready for the day when claire leaned over to mya, gave her a kiss and said, "mya, you my best girl." melt my heart!!

after much deliberation, we've decided to sell our house. chris will be leaving for korea in april and this house is much to much for me to maintain by myself with two little ones in tow. given the current state of the housing market, we were prepared to have it listed for a year or so before an offer came in. we listed it last thursday and much to our shock, received an offer on monday. we countered back a couple of times, but quickly reached an agreement--full price minus a small bit of closing costs. we are thrilled that this weight will be lifted from our shoulders, but the feelings are definitely mixed. i have never worked so hard on something in my life. this house looks completely different than when we purchased it. i am very very proud of our home. it is our first home and the one where we have welcomed both of our children. it is the home where we said good bye to harvest and welcomed sophie. so many firsts have taken place under this roof. it is hard to say good bye. ob...

mya and i took a little trip to montana for a wedding planning weekend with my sisters and niece. it was fun. although we almost didn't make our flight out of boston due to my miscalculations, we had a great flight. mya did well and we arrived on time. lisa and olivia came a bit later on friday afternoon. we immediately went shopping. mya made friends with everyone. she loved all the attention she received. since i can't post wedding dress photos, i'll post pictures of mya and her aunties and cousin. she made fast friends with olivia. i suggested olivia come and live with us for the summer, but she wasn't sure her daddy would agree to that idea. the offer is still open, olivia. i'd love to have you. we found a wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, prospective flower girl dresses and a junior bridesmaid dress. it was a success. we also got to check out jess and nate's new house. it is beautiful. we are so glad that we could share this experience with them all. s...

we went hunting for pumpkins last weekend, but all we could find were some little ones. little ones that were perfect for claire. we picked out two of them and decided that we would paint them. claire had a blast and it was a perfect opportunity to work on teaching her about colors. she did great. we have a budding artist.

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antiques are a plenty in my parents home. i grew up going to my mom's favorite antique guy, daryl and making occasional stops at "the wagon wheel." their presence in our home taught me to value and appreciate those gifts of the past. my mom and dad have given each of their children many pieces as we moved away and found places of our own. my mom and i spent many summer hours stripping, sanding, staining and varnishing each piece. she taught me well, and now i am pleased to say that i am quite good at refinishing furniture. it is a messy and tedious job, but well worth the work. each piece i hope one day my kids will appreciate and call their own. when i moved out east, i was given an antique high chair. claire used it, although i hadn't had the opportunity to refinish it. when they came this summer, they brought a second antique high chair for mya. with our impending move, i knew time was of the essence. i had to get them refinished, so i worked...

Our sweet little babe is 5 months today. Life with her keeps getting better and better. She is so precious. Mya is captivated by everything around her. She is constantly looking around, grasping for toys, faces, hair and anything else she can get her little hands on. She giggles with a deep little giggle at Claire. The best time is bathtime. Claire will splash around and laugh, which gets Mya giggling. She definitely has a love and admiration for her big sister. I think Mya is cutting her first tooth. She has been drooling constantly for awhile now, but she has begun tugging at her ears periodically and chewing on anything she can fit in her mouth. Her sleep patterns have also taken a turn the last few nights. She is awake every two hours or so, tossing and turning. Sweet little Mya prefers to sleep on her side. I put her on her back, only to find her turned onto her side. This happens in bed as well as when she is playing. I am certain it won't be long until she rolls from back...

i've been tinkering (love that word--tinkering) with the blog. i've got this itch for all things requiring creativity...decorating, creating, designing. not that i am any good at any of it, but i like it. lately, it has been designing blogs. i've found some new backgrounds, uploaded some new fonts, created my very own signature and designed a header. i am loving it. i still have to do a little something special with the posting fonts, but that will come. the problem with this great infatuation with learning blog design (HTML) is that it requires time to tinker (ha. twice in one post!) however, in between rushing claire to the bathroom to pee and dealing with two sick and fussy kids, i have also become a bit under the weather myself and hence have no time to tinker. it is quite the house. let. me. tell. you. mya and i are taking a little trip next weekend. just the two of us. so it is crucial that she or we get well. sleep is in order. the problem with this idea is that we...

I love Halloween. Mostly I love choosing costumes and torturing my children in a humane way. I must say that two kids are even better than one. Now I can coordinate. I had this great idea to dress all of us up for Halloween this year, but I couldn't bring myself to follow through with the adult costumes. Anyway, I was going to keep this a secret, but once again, I hate surprises, so here we go. I am sharing with the world our two most adorable babies....our monkey and banana.

Fall is in full swing here. The leaves are changing and are near peak. One of our favorite things about fall is the cool crispness in the air and of course, playing in the leaves. Last year, Claire loved to walk through the piles of leaves, listening to the crunching beneath her feet. What a difference one year makes. Claire is now a pile jumper. She had a great time jumping into the piles and throwing the leaves into the autumn air.

Our house has been full of changes. Some good. Some not so good. Since our routine was totally thrown to the wayside this past weekend, Claire has also thrown all she knows in regards to listening to the wayside. Although it our perception was probably a bit worse than it actually was, her behavior was a bit challenging. I feel we had a good taste of the terrible twos. Terrible it was. It was a tough go. She was sleeping in our bed and wouldn't lay down. But because we had no real room for consequences since we had no alternative arrangements, we fought it out and she eventually complied. It was tough. Things are looking brighter since we've adjusted back into normalcy. Mya is changing too. She is getting to be such a big girl. She began putting her own paci in her mouth and holding her own bottle. It is so cute and makes life a bit easier. Of course, I hate to see her get bigger as I wish to keep her a bitty baby for as long as I can, it is pretty great seeing this growth. ...

amidst the chaos that is our life, we had some pics taken on saturday. although the ones involving all of us, weren't the greatest, the ones of claire are simply adorable. it will be tough choosing just a few. you can have a look at www.heidihope.blogspot.com

our friends, mark and april and their adorable kiddos came to visit for an extended weekend. we had a great time showing them some of the new england fall.

we watched america's funniest home videos last week. claire learned a little something... um. yeah. i think you can guess how the clip went. pretty much the same  as seen here minus the laughter. thank goodness it was washable marker.