The McNair's 2025 Year in Review
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| Family portrait drawn by Poppie-Fae |
The house is coming along slowly. We snuggle into our nice, cozy bedroom every night. The kitchen and bathroom now have drains and should have plumbing and cabinets by the end of the year. We accidentally cut through a gas pipe under the floor, thinking it was a water pipe. Thankfully the gas was off, so no one died—but now Randy has to figure out how to thread and cap rusty pipe. Just part of the joys of renovating a house with no plans and no one alive who built it left to talk to.
The news of Lara being with child was accompanied with lots of excitement but also significantly slowed our home efforts. Compared to our first pregnancy with Poppie, this one came with significantly more complications, nothing too serious just enough to make for a bumpy road. With Lara’s health becoming the priority, many projects were delayed while she worked on the most important project. With all the uncertainty, you can imagine how thrilled we were to welcome a healthy, plump baby girl on the morn of November 9th!
Link to our Pregnancy Announcement
Clara Marigold McNair, named in honor of Great Great Grandma Clara Ann Savage, made her debut weighing a whopping 9 lb 3 oz and measuring 21 inches long! Surprising everyone who kept telling Lara she barely showed! Poppie really, really wanted us to name the baby Chunky Cheeks or Pumpkin, but I think the name Clara is growing on her. We are so grateful for our amazing midwife, who reassured us every step of the way and patiently responded to all the constant text messages. We thoroughly enjoyed the birth center experience—though it was located about 50 minutes from our house. If we’d arrived any later, Clara would have been born in the car! We got there at 8:03 a.m., and Clara was delivered at 8:15. I guess you should be wary of driving a Crown Victoria if you don’t want the baby’s head to crown on the way!
Clara is beautiful as can be—fat and sassy—and seems to have a cheery disposition so far: she’s seems to always be hoping for the breast. She’s a little grunter; we call her “the Chiva.” Not really—but Lara wonders if she was a goat in a past life. Poppies is such a helpful, patient and loving big sister!
The pregnancy wasn’t the only reason for our slow progress. We had many magical visits to Utah filled with family and friends. Lara turned 33 years old! According to Hobbits, she has finally entered adulthood. She also got to witness a couple of her good friends’ beautiful weddings—and finally meet her best friend, Danny Elfman. Danny and Lara have been best friends her whole life; he just didn’t know it or meet her yet.
ABCs, baking, gardening, building, science experiments, counting, subtraction, addition, and more, oh my!! Poppie relishes knowledge. Homeschooling seems to be successful so far. She attends a once-a-week home school co-op, and the rest of the time she learns and explores at home with us. Poppie earned a 1st place ribbon at the Tri-State Fair for her wild pickled Nopal cactus we foraged ourselves! She is constantly writing notes, cards, and letters to deliver to her loved ones. If you want a five-year-old pen pal, just send us some mail—she’ll eagerly write back!
Poppie lost her first tooth! She misses it regrets giving it to the Tooth Fairy (suspected to be George Washington because of the face he leaves behind...)
One fateful Sunday, while Lara and Randy were taking their after-church naps, Poppie decided to become her own hairdresser. Lara attempted to trim and even out Poppie’s handiwork, resulting in Poppie rocking the bangs this year. She now vows never to cut her hair again, with the goal of someday reaching Rapunzel-length locks.
Our internet-free home makes for limited screen time and big messes as we explore our creativity—though we do enjoy the occasional DVD or VHS. Poppie has become partial to ’80s classics like He-Man, She-Ra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Care Bears He-Man and Prince Adam were even kind enough to pay us a visit on Halloween!
On the way to Poppie’s dance recital, our truck wouldn’t start, so we traveled by motorhome. We drove around town by ancient relic motorhome for some time until one of the tires exploded. Finding the right vintage tire replacement has proven difficult so instead we purchased a rickety old Crown Victoria for $600, figuring it was cheaper than a rental car while we searched for something better. Surprisingly, the Crown Victoria is still with us several months later. We count our blessings daily every time she starts and take us to our destination.
Randy was offered a million dollars to perform at the alternate Super Bowl halftime show but decided he prefers cleaning storage units, wrestling his daughters on the trampoline, and changing poopy diapers more than hanging out with Hollywood legends. Fingers crossed the other performers can still pull off a great show without him.
In all seriousness, he did finish illustrating a new book this year—no joke—and is excited about the Kickstarter we’re working on. You may get an email with more details soon.
The local newspaper has featured us a few times, so we’re basically famous now: once for our puppet show, once for attending a local festival, and once for hosting our very own festival! Last March, Randy purchased 100 kites and invited the neighborhood to come take advantage of the wind. Come join us this March for the Second Annual Tulia Kite Spectacular.
We now have three wild cats. All three adopted us, sneaking under thresholds or through holes in the walls during renovations. The big fluffy one is our buddy; we’re still trying to convince the smaller ones to love us and not just use us for food. Their names are Black Sloppy Joe, Trap Jaw (named because he bit Randy’s hand the first night he snuck in—though Poppie is campaigning to rename him Snow), and Little Brother (who we recently discovered might actually be a girl, awkward!) We have to be careful which ornaments we hang on the Christmas tree this year, with cats climbing and hiding in the branches.
Not just cats: Frogs, salamanders, and the occasional baby snake are all part of life when living in a Swiss Cheese Chalet. This morning, the family was awakened by a large creature crawling over the sheetrock through the rafters above the bedroom. Perhaps another kitten. If not, we’re going to need a bigger mousetrap.
Only a few family members were brave enough to visit us in the Wild West! Lara’s sisters-in-law, Annie, came in August, and then her parents came in November. It was such a treat to show them the little gems around town we’ve discovered. The love and support we feel is humbling. Grandma and Grandpa McAllister are superheroes—Grandpa helped install the drains, and Grandma snuggled baby Clara while entertaining our Energizer Bunny, Poppie. Thanks to them we enjoyed two weeks full of daily naps, warm baths, good food, snacks, and sneaking out to the living room to watch Stranger Things while others slept in a nice Airbnb—a postpartum mama’s dream. Poppie tried her darndest to capture the grandparents permanently, she cried and cried when they left.
Our adventures may not be polished, but they are sure unforgettable.
A big thank you to all family and friends who have made sure we had everything we needed and more with cherries on top during this new chapter with Clara Marigold.
Happy Holidays, and of course a very Merry Christmas! We love you all.
Love, The McNairs
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