Kay Hale Claflin

I mentioned a few months back that my Grandma Kay's health was not too great. We have known for a while that it would be her time to go soon.

Kay Hale Claflin

Claflin, Kay Hale (Nee Herrmann) Passed away peacefully into Eternal Life on Thursday, December 16, 2010, at the Congregational Home in Brookfield, WI. She was 77. Kay was a devout Latter-Day Saint and a staunch defender of the United States Constitution. She was preceded in death by her parents; Irving and Hazel Herrmann. She is survived by three sisters; Janice Letellier (Sun City West, AZ), Nancy Trettin (Elm Grove), Rita Wareham (Brookfield), three sons; Todd (Carlene) Salt Lake City, UT, Bruce (Christa) White Bear Lake, MN, Chuck Jr. (Beverly) Cypress, TX, nine grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. Viewing will be Tuesday, December 28, at 10AM, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Brookfield Ward, corner of Woelfel Rd. and Wisconsin Ave., Brookfield. The viewing will be followed by a service for Kay at 11AM. All who knew Kay are invited to attend. Interment immediately following at Wisconsin Memorial Park. A special thank you to the Congregational Home for all their loving care. In lieu of flowers, memorials to the Multiple Sclerosis Society or The Congregational Home would be appreciated.

I made the trip out to Milwaukee to Grandma's funeral along with my sisters and parents. It was really good to see family that I have not seen in years. The trip was obviously bitter-sweet. It made me feel really guitly for not making a bigger effort to keep in touch with my Grandma. She has been sick for so long and I definitely could have done a better job or making her a bigger part of my life. We stayed with her cute older (82 years old) sister Nancy. She was the sweetest and best host ever. She is 4 feet 8 inches and is adorable. She told us how she has to lie on her drivers license so she doesn't have to drive with a booster! Being with her totally reminded me of my Grandma and made me miss her. It was also very neat for me to see/learn more about my Grandma and how close she was with her four sisters. Having four sisters myself, it was hard for me not to fast forward 60 years... and see me and my sisters at one of our funerals. All of their husbands are gone, and they are still the closest of friends. I was honored to participate in the funeral and know that my Grandma would have loved to be there in person with us all.

Claflin cousins (sans Brian & Daniel).

Laura, Molly, Kate, Sarah

The family after the luncheon.

Sarah brought my newest adorable nephew Harrison. I miss him already.

The house my Grandma grew up in. "Grandma Hazel's." Even though they no longer own the house obviously, there is still and "H" on the other side of the chimney. It was a very charming house in a picture perfect neighborhood.

It was very fun to go exploring around Milwaukee/Wauwatosa/West Bend with my sisters.

We drove up to West Bend to see the house my dad grew up in. We checked out his high school, which happens to be two high schools sharing one building. Really weird. Anyway, we are such idiots and took all of these photos by West Bend East High School... and he actually went to West Bend West High School!

"The Ponderosa." Look at this little house he grew up in.

It was such a great little trip. Good to see my sisters/family. I wish we would have done it years ago when Grandma Kay could have been with us.

christmas 2010

With my parents in Georgia for the holidays, our Christmas was a little different but still great this year. We have had a pretty quiet Christmas Eve & Christmas Day. We went to lunch at Red Iguana (delish) with the Jones family and then headed home for the afternoon to nap, hangout, make cookies, watch movies, sing a few Christmas songs, open Christmas pajama's, and wrap presents. Our Christmas Eve dinner consisted of gourmet turkey cranberry sandwiches on fresh french bread and that is pretty much it!

This video cracks me up. I am sure most of you won't care to even watch it... but, this is our little Christmas morning. Well... part of it. Ruby was SO excited and is at such a fun age for the whole Santa thing. I was kind of out of the loop on half of these gifts. In my opinion... kids this age really only need 2 maybe 3 gifts and they are good to go. Adam on the other hand was a little overzealous and did 95% of the Ruby shopping this year. And now we have even more plastic (not my favorite) toys in our home. Oh well. She LOVED everything. He also got her two more Harry Potter movies! Um, those are kinda scary.. aren't they? I guess she doesn't think so, she loves them. Note the "Tom Riddle" part of the video! After another Christmas morning at Adam's parents... we headed back home and napped, vegged, played with new toys, and watched movies (I read Hunger Games) all afternoon & evening. I wasn't in the mood to cook... so Adam went on the hunt for an open restaurant and found that one of our favorites Joy Luck was open. Perfect. As I put Ruby to bed last night.... she said "I love you Mom. Merry Christmas."

Jones Family (except for Tom who is taking the picture)

Georgia, Olivia, Ruby

holiday parties...

Lynsie, Kate, Molly, Camilla, Erika

Mortensen's

"This makes me feel old" - Adam (as we were taking these pictures)

•Little Owen, Little Mortensen, Little Jones, & Little Whitchurch•

Ruby is my little photographer. It is so cute to see her lift my big camera to her face. I don't know why but this photo just makes me smile. It is not really the image that makes me smile... it is the memory of watching her take this photo and crack up as she was looking at it on the screen.

Another fun little get together.

Chelsea Timothy, Camilla Owen, Erika Reber, Me, Aimee Wetzel, Melissa Fox, Caitlin Soffe, Caitlin Creer

watch out, winter olympics 2026

Ruby's comin' atcha! We headed up to Snowbird this afternoon to prepare for our Olympic debut. Things are lookin' good for this future star. She proclaimed her love for skiing while we were on the chair lift. And, also told me that "these funny boots are heavy." I am beat from our little outting. Taking a toddler skiing might be the best workout ever!

christmas came early.

Since my parents are skipping town and headed to Georgia to spend Christmas with my sister Sarah and her family, we had our Christmas with them early this year. It was a little different having less than half of our family there, but it was still fun. Instead of our usual soup and bread bowls... we randomly decided on gyoza, chinese chicken salad, and this really good shrimp that my mom made. We went with a little asian theme... in honor of my little brother Daniel who will be spending this Christmas and next in Korea. Miss you Dan. That fire was not the same without you.

Preparing the shrimp

And the gyoza... mmmmm.

Brian, Me, and Laura

My mom made me take about a thousand pictures of her and my dad... neither of them could make a straight/normal face at the same time... it was priceless.

zoo lights

We hit "Zoo Lights" the other night with most of the Jones crew. I was pretty impressed. We had driven through the lights at Thanksgiving Point the night before and these lights were WAY better... not to mention the fun of watching the animals too. The tigers we SO active... walking around and growling! It was actually a bit frightening. I thought they might jump right through their net. Poor things. Anyways, "Zoo Lights" were great. We will definitely make it a tradition.

Checking out "Santa's Reindeer."

Stephen, Sydney, Georgia, Olivia, & Ruby

She was SO excited to be riding "Aslan!" Narnia is one of her favorite movies these days. We pretend and play "Narnia" all the time. I am usually "Susan" and Ruby is always "Lucy." We have snowball fights and talk about eating "Turkish Delight." Her little imagination and memory amazes me.

ruby's dance recital

Kind of weird to think that we went to our child's' first performance/event/recital this morning. I can't believe that Ruby is old enough to be be having something like this... but she is, and is was really cute. She has been loving Ms. Julie's dance classes all fall and today was the Christmas Recital. She is a little younger than most everyone in her class but has found some cute little friends and really enjoys it. We forgot her little christmas tutu (dang it)... and I botched the recording of her first tap dance number (kind of heartbroken about it), but here is her ballet number. She is the one with the red leotard and white tights... the one who stops to pick her nose half-way through:) I was so glad that she was paired with her cute little friend Roxie.

❄ happy holidays ❄

"SANTA!! ... I KNOW HIM!"

WE had "Breakfast with Santa" this morning! According to their conversation.... Ruby wants "presents." That is pretty easy. I think we can handle that;) Oh, and she also mentioned that she wants "everything in the magazine." Not sure we can handle that! She was also very concerned about where his reindeer were.

Love this little gal.

festival of trees

One of our favorite holiday traditions is going to the Festival of Trees. We visited the festival with some friends this morning. I wish we would have taken a photo of our little group, but the truth is, we were all over the place! I love perusing the aisle, looking at all of the trees, but there is much, much more there to look at. Ruby had a good time at the little "kids zone," where she got her face painted, crafted, and stood in the middle of a big bubble!

Here is Winston & Ruby making Reindeer.... Ruby & Molly in awe over some life size Santa mannequin. Below, Ruby and little Molly LOVED the BarbieLand "Tree," as well as the Toy Story themed tree.

o' christmas tree

'Twas a fun festive night at our house. I have been SO excited to go to a tree farm and pick out our tree. We have been really busy with Thanksgiving and friends/family in town and it was nice to just relax at home with our little family. I made some amazing (I do say so myself) beef stew, and we decorated the tree while jamming to the traditional Ray Conniff Christmas tunes. Enjoyed hot wassail & scones and watched a little "Arry Potta" (the last part is not festive, but was Ruby's choice!)

Not fully decorated/tweaked... but here is what we came up with before we ran out of steam. Not sure what to do about that gimp bough on the bottom though!?