The Latest Shots of Stella

She's growing so dang fast that I tried to grab a few shots of the baby dog today (she's about four months now). She was more interested in showing off her latest skill -- high-fiving -- and so there weren't many shots to be snapped.







Maybe I'll get one of the kids to video the high-five thing so that I can post it here. It's pretty darn funny to watch a bulldog high-five...

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

The past month had me running every which way, working hard to keep all of the balls in the air and prepare for a festive and memorable Christmas at the same time. Suffice it to say, it was an exhausting stretch.

In an effort to close the books on 2011 and look ahead to the new year, I've spent a good part of today sorting through my personal photo files and trying to get them into a manageable state. All of this work has basically underscored how much more there is for me to do, but with Christmas behind me and a good night's sleep under my belt, that doesn't seem as frustrating as it might've just last week.

Here are a few random family snapshots to serve as placeholders until I get back to posting more interesting fare. These are from Thanksgiving weekend, I think, when we opted for a night of movies and foam curlers (for the girl).







Noah fell asleep like this...



And here are a couple of shots from the morning of Miss F's first ever basketball game. She was pumped. :)

Fall Foliage

At this time of year, people tend to tout the beauty of the East Coast, the Northwest, and other parts of the country that get that gorgeous fall foliage. They tend to look down on California a bit... I mean, we have our fantastic year-round weather, and for that we sacrifice fall color. Right?

Wrong.

At least when you're talking about the Central Coast. Because our surrounding vineyards afford us a good stretch of magnificent color in the fall. And wouldn't you know, Thanksgiving weekend turned out to be one of our postcard weather weekends. So we got the benefit of the famous California weather and the colorful backdrop people usually associate with colder climates. Lucky us.

This great family got to take advantage of it all, and they got some pretty special images to boot. Unrelated side note: I predict that these kids are going to grow up to be absolute stunners in the looks department.

Because It Makes Me Laugh

every.time.I.look.at.it.

Our Thanksgiving

Here are some snapshots from our mellow, fun, delicious Thanksgiving. Not documented: Brian and me after running the 8-mile Turkey Trot (thank goodness), our post-run Bloody Marys with good friends (bummer).

Hope everyone had a good turkey day. :)

Fresh Air

It has been awhile since I've shared work on the blog, so I'm posting a few from a recent maternity session.

This mama is a lovely, mellow woman who already has one lovely, mellow daughter. I'm betting that the new little guy is going to be one chill dude.













I think that this family is in for some very special and happy holidays this year!

My Boys & Their Dogs

Our new addition has fit into the family quite seemlessly. Crunch tosses me the occasional look as if to say, "Did you not realize that I am very old and want only to snooze peacefully in a corner without being pounced on by THIS THING?" Other than that, though, it has been pretty smooth sailing. She sleeps through the night and gets up when we do. She's even down to about one potty accident a day. Good stuff.

My boys have actually surprised me with their attentiveness to both dogs since bringing the puppy into the fold. Noah, in particular, is very careful about giving both dogs equal attention. Tonight he spent a long time on the floor with a hand on each resting dog, talking to them and telling them that they were good and sweet. He finally turned to me and very sincerely said that he thinks he might like Crunch just a little bit better. He clearly doesn't want to risk making the old guy to feel like yesterday's news.

Here are a few snaps of my lovely boys and their dogs.









Crunch has taken over the bed we bought for Stella, which she enjoyed for the first few days we had her. Not a big deal, since she will probably grow out of it before too long. It's funny, though... She doesn't want to be on his old bed (which is just a few feet away), but rather nestled up to the side of him. I love how her front leg is even hooked over the side. :)



Here are a few other quick snaps of the new girl:

More Dogs

I was feeling bad about not including Crunch in the last post, and I managed to grab a reasonable shot while he sat and watched his new baby sister scamper around the room. Here's the old man himself:



And on the topic of dogs, here's Foxy's latest crafty creation (I swear, this girl generates projects at the rate of several an hour). Obviously, she was inspired by the theme of the weekend.



:)

Meet Stella

Call us crazy (and people have), but the Clausen family decided that it was time to add a new puppy to our family. You know, because we're always sitting around, twiddling our thumbs and wondering how in the world to spend our time. ;) After research and debate we settled on a bulldog, and then after more research... and more research... we found a breeder that we felt was a good match.

Since the breeder was in Riverside County, though, we had to ask a lot of questions and make our final decision as a leap of faith. We didn't actually meet Stella until she was delivered to us by my parents -- aka the puppy storks -- yesterday afternoon.

Good thing we like her.

A LOT.







I did try to take some photos of Crunch, too, but he was all wound up and wouldn't sit still for anything. Try telling that dog he's about 84 in people years. The dude thinks he's still a puppy most of the time...

Halloween 2011

As I mentioned in the previous post, Foxy opted for pretty when it came to Halloween this year (as anyone who knows her might imagine). The boys, however, went with silly.

Here is my goofy crew before they headed out to eat a quick dinner with friends and then trick or treat. :)















Fun stuff!

Happiness is...

... being a Watermelon Fairy for Halloween, even if no one you know is quite sure what one is.

It doesn't matter. The costume clearly makes you think you're the prettiest, cleverest thing on the planet.

If only they made these in grown-up sizes.



I'll post a few pics of the boys tomorrow. What their costumes lack in pretty, they make up for in funny. :)

Bake Sale

About a week ago, my kids got all excited about raising money for their school's walk-a-thon. Since I'm not a huge fan of going door-to-door (or picking up the phone) and just asking for money, I supported their idea to have a bake sale and put the profits into their walk-a-thon envelopes.

We baked, baked, baked for a couple of days, and then they executed their two-pronged plan. First, E walked the halls of his dad's office with a cart filled with goodies (thankfully the A/V department there had the perfect cart). When the other two got home from soccer practice, they joined a couple of their buddies and had a neighborhood stand. In all, they collected almost $200 for their school. Good work by them!

We Did It!!

I achieved a big goal on Sunday -- one I never, ever thought I'd achieve. I'd watched Brian run the City to Sea half-marathon in previous years, but I never would've guessed that I'd be motivated to try it myself... let alone have the fortitude to actually FINISH IT.

But having missed the SLO triathlon this summer (we were in England) and after opting out of the Pacific Grove triathlon (not feeling the kelp swim this year), I agreed to train and run this race with my good buddy Summer. Together we ran, ran/walked, and drank a lot of after-run coffees... And suddenly it was race day.

We got up early on Sunday morning and headed downtown with Brian and another friend who was doing the race. I snapped a few quick camera phone pics before tucking my phone in my water belt, and before I knew it we were off.

Brian never planned to run with us -- he's way too fast -- but Summer and I hoped that we'd be able to hang together and encourage each other throughout the event. We'd never run that far together, and in fact I'd never run more than 8 miles ever. Fortunately, we were able to stick with each other throughout the race. Thank goodness, because I don't think I'd have had such a good time if I hadn't had her by my side. :)

Here's a little collage of iPhone pics, plus a few that Summer's husband snapped at the finish line (including that one of Brian chasing me in!).



Just noticed that the map of the course is dated 2010... I guess it must have been reused and recycled. I swear that we did this race two days ago. Just ask my weary legs!

The Little Chef

I couldn't close out the family photos from this past week without adding these snaps of my little chef...

On Wednesday, I picked her up after kindergarten and we spent a little time roasting butternut squash for dinner (I tried a soup recipe I'd found online and it was pretty darn good!). I cut and scooped, and she brushed a little bit of melted butter onto the big pieces of squash before they went into the oven.

Together, we were a cooking power team!