columns

front door and newly placed columns

half wall and columns in the master, making the sitting room...on the other side of the half walls are book shelves

boy's shower

back of house

kitchen granite finally picked out

love notes

I love getting love notes. From Allen, from the kids, they are all good. Claire seems to have a special love in writing notes. It is one of her favorite things to do, especially now as her writing skills are really taking off. I get 2-3 notes from her a day. When she started writing, some of her first words she knew were mom and love. Soon she learned dad and her notes to me would include her love for her dad too. Now she can spell Carter and Jared and so sometimes they are included. The other day she asked how to spell family-I guess she got tired of writing every ones name.

Well, yesterday at church, Claire had torn a piece of paper into little pieces and wrote a note to each of her family members telling them she loved them. She passed them all down the aisle. She gave her cute smile as we each read ours and looked at her and whispered thank you. About a minute later Claire handed me a blank piece of paper and asked me to write down what I loved about her and then asked me to please pass it to the next family member and then the next and have them do the same thing. And then, she said sweetly, please pass it back to me so I can read it. We all did as we were told.

One of my new year's resolutions is going to be to write Claire more love notes.

a telling story

During Christmas break Claire said she was going to tell me 4 stories: Eloise, Little ponies, Princess, and Strawberry shortcake. She proceeded to retell these stories as she had seen them on tv, until she got to Strawberry shortcake, which is the one movie she doesn't own and hasn't seen. She leaned in and whispered that she didn't know this story so she was going to make one up. This is the story she told (as best I can remember): Once there was a mom and dad who had a cat and a dog. But they wanted a baby. So they went around the town to houses to see if there was anyone who couldn't take care of their baby so they could take the baby and take care of it for them. They looked and looked and finally found someone who couldn't take care of their baby, so the mom and dad said they would take care of the baby and they got the baby and went home. And they were happy now because they had a cat and a dog and a baby. When Claire finished this story I asked her if that baby was adopted and she smiled and said yes. She is amazing.

Christmas in Nashville

We headed to Nashville for our Langford side Christmas.

we got to enjoy good food and good company at the Messerlys

we got to experience ICE

we won't mention what it took to get there
(we knoxvillians are not use to big city traffic)

Christmas 2009, part 2

Claire had a pretty good Christmas herself:

the gift she wanted the most..

came from her brother...

I'm not sure who was happier


she got to be Mary in the annual nativity pageant...

and when asked who she wanted for the donkey she excitedly said Daddy

Christmas 2009, part 1

Jared announced that this was "the best Christmas ever", Carter agreed, here's why:

airsoft guns for the whole family (and a few friends)

don't worry, we don't let Claire really play, just pose for pictures

the gift to all three...

another dream come true-massaging and heat

the long awaited i-pod touches

now there is alot of this around the house