Claire is 3!

Today Claire turned 3! For her special day Cole took her out to breakfast, then we had photo shoot, then we had a birthday lunch, then we said "bye-bye" to her pacifiers! She has loved them since she was a little baby and I've only been letting her have them to sleep, but we figured the time had come for her to give them up completely :). It was a sad day for Claire-bear. But she was cheerful about it. We tied them to balloons and released them into the sky... only to have them fly straight into the trees. Oops. (They blew out later, so who knows where they are now.) She also had a princess party on Sunday, but I'll share pics of that later. It was a lot of chaotic fun! 

We love our little Claire. She is sweet and sunny and such a joy to be around in this stage of life. She is soaking everything up like a sponge and is so very eager to please us. In fact, when she saw her birthday decorations on Sunday, she said "Oh mommy! Thank you, thank you! I'm so proud of you for putting up my decorations!" What a girl! We love you, Claire Ann Nickell :)

What's going on?

Well let's see here...

- We are homeless. Yay, we sold our house!!!

- We are jobless. Cole has finished up at NCPC and has a couple of weeks before he starts at The Vine.

- Cole and I have been married 5 years! (1/5/13 was our anniversary)

- We spent last weekend looking at 3 bazillion houses... not really, but it felt like it. We may have found THE ONE though!

- At least one person in our house has been sick for the last 3 weeks.

- Cole started packing today and got rid of lots of junk!

- Our kids are growing up wayyyyy too fast!

Chat more later! Claire has a "Princess Party" for her 3rd birthday on Sunday, so you can bet you'll be inundated with cute pics of little girls :)

Happenings...

Here are some happenings from the past week or two...

We had a youth group Christmas party at our house and Cole made everyone squish together for a picture so that he could "look back and remember all y'alls smiling faces" ;) 

Jooj came home from college and we had fun goofing off, working out, shopping, getting her ears double-pierced, etc. She left yesterday and I miss her already! 

 We had Christmas in Asheville and of course we had to take a cousin picture of Caroline & Claire showing off the dresses mom made! 

 Christmas day was as blurry as this picture! Seriously. Craziness with five kids running around! Claire, Caroline and Bruton all got dress-ups and loved running around together! 

Claire's gift to me was puking all over my lap and mom & dad's office floor Christmas night. Then she got a cold and cough to go along with it. Yay. Not!  

 Clay-man was pretty bewildered by a the fuss and threw me for quite a loop by deciding that he wasn't going to nap anymore. I'm still trying to convince him that I'm the mom and I'll decide when he's old enough to quit naps (I'm don't think he's listening though... he's hollering at me from his crib as I type). 

My little brother James decided to gross us out with his molestache ;-) 

 The kids all used uncle Sammy as their playground on the one day it was nice enough to go outside. 

We came back to Aiken for second Christmas and finally got a family picture! 

 Claire got a cookie-making set from Dee & Pops and proceeded to serve all of us :) 

Then New Years came and I ushered it in with a bladder infection. Gross, I know :) Was that too much information? I guess I just want you all to share in my pain. It is horrible! I finally got some drugs today and feel much better. 

Also, we're house hunting and that is so much fun! Best shopping I've ever experienced! We're going to Atlanta (actually it's Cumming GA where we'll be living and working, but I say Atlanta cause it's easier) next week to look at places, both to rent and to buy. Woo hoo!

That's it!