Little Celebrations

January gave us plenty of moments to celebrate:

Ben & Clara raised over $250 for the Hands of Grace Clean Water Project. We still have our buckets and the kids continue to save dimes and quarters, along with hitting up people for donations. Big thank you's to everyone who contributed to this special advent project.

We had a sunset (actually, sunset/twilight/dark) picnic at the Mission. Clara loved trying out her new picnic basket from Christmas and Ben always looks forward to another round of launching stomp rockets. 

Mark enjoyed a Santa Barbara birthday with his favorite people, his favorite view, his favorite cake and twirl with his little girl.

January is the anniversary of Clara undergoing surgery with Leah (in her mama’s belly) that we remember every year as, “Clara’s Special Day.” Rusty’s Pizza, another cake and a glow stick dance party (best $4 ever spent at Dollar Tree) was the perfect family night to celebrate our strong, sweet girl, how happy we are that she belongs to us, to say a prayer from thankful hearts and to shake, shake, shake our booties.

We had a simple tea party. Simple because of all Leah’s magic mommy craft closet goodies are in storage. At first, Clara said, “What kind of tea party is this? This isn’t a tea party!” But after a couple of rounds of pink lemonade, feeding Wally, Little Chewy and Baby Sister some brownie bites and watching the sunset sky over the ocean she declared it, “The best tea party ever!”

Ben’s original Lego creation, he wanted us to take a picture to send to the Lego company, “because they are totally going to want to see this!”