Holding my own bottle

We have been working with Claire on getting her to hold her bottle. Today she has really taken to it and only needed help a few times to tip it up. Mommy is very proud of her little girl! Claire is such a joy to us. Lately she has been interested in giving kisses. She will grab my face or hair on both sides and pull me toward her. She comes at me full force with a wide open mouth and plants one right on my lips! It is so funny to watch her do this and she likes to do it over and over. It does get a bit messy and wet, but we have fun with it.

Claire is also learning to wave hello and goodbye. She will wave often when she sees people in mirrors and when we are leaving a room. It is so much fun knowing that she is starting to realize actions that go along with words.

I have a feeling Claire has her Daddy wrapped around her little finger...and by the looks of the picture of the two of them, she knows it too!

Sleep Tight

Anytime you go to a photographer, they try desperately to make children smile for that perfect shot. They will shake rattles, make funny face and cause noises to come out of their mouths that just don't seem possible. I love the great pictures we got when we had Claire's pictures done by a professional. What I love even more are the pictures we have taken when Claire is not being prodded to smile. A sleeping baby is pure, unaltered and very memorable. Some of the best times of the day are when Claire is sleeping and yet making funny faces to represent the dreams she is having. I wanted to post a collection of sleeping pictures simply because they are some of my favorites.

As some of you might know, we lost another member of the family this last week. My grandmother, Gloria, passed away. Luckily Claire was able to meet her great-grandmother before she passed. Even though she will never know her great-grandma, she will always have this picture to look back on and the stories that her dad will tell her.

Who needs toys when you have the Sunday paper?

Had to share a few fun photos with y'all. After spending time helping Mommy with the laundry, Claire decided to tear into the Sunday paper. The paper kept her occupied for way longer than most of her toys do!

Wake up Daddy!

Hmm...daddy is trying to sleep...

Poking him in the eye might wake him up...

If not the eye poking, a hand in the mouth should do it for sure...


"I did it! Time to play Daddy!"

Sippy Cups Are for Babies

Yesterday we learned another valuable lesson in parenting. I know that is slowly becoming the theme of our blog but hey, we are new to this. Preparing for a child leaves parents reading all kinds of material from books to journals to blogs. The preparation is in hopes of being ready for what is to come. Of course we know now that all the preparation in the world will not leave you fully prepared. Claire made us aware of that by choosing to change the path she was on and go a new route. The experts give time lines of when a child should do this or that. We read those time lines and began to question if we were doing enough to help Claire in her designated progression. She isn't crawling like she should, and she needs to work on her sleep pattern. All those time lines are merely suggestions and should not be taken too seriously. Claire decided out of the blue yesterday that it was time for her to feed herself. She was tired of waiting for mom and dad to get the correct amount of food on the spoon. It was time to just go for it. Afterwards we decided to let her have an attempt at a toddler cup that has a straw. Even though it for children 10 months and up she went after it full force. After a few red faces and coughing spells, she got the hang of it. We learned that we need to follow her lead as to how she will progress. She will let us know when she is ready for something new. There have been no books written about how to raise Claire Nadine that we know of. Although some of you slower readers might feel like our blog is a book. J/K

Just say "No"... to broccoli

Well, as you can tell from the title of this entry, the broccoli didn't work so well for us. Claire ate it fine, except for a few funny faces. However, we were up most of the night with a tummy ache. Not fun. Thankfully at about 3am she was finally able to fall back to sleep and is still sleeping now. We hope the tummy ache has passed. Lesson learned for us...we will wait a while before we do broccoli again!

We have started to give Claire pieces of fruit in the mesh container she has in one of the pictures. She loves it and does a great job of eating from it.

Her new thing has been pulling off her socks and putting her toes into her mouth. I finally got it on camera so hope you enjoy!

Brrr...it is cold in Texas!

We know our family and friends in Minnesota will have no sympathy for us, but we have to complain a bit. It has been record setting cold down here for a few days now. We have gotten as low as 15 degrees! I know that must sound like a heat wave with the temps y'all in MN are living with right now. We had to take a picture of the ice hanging off the waterfall of our pool. We hope this is the only time ever that we will be able to say we had ice on our pool.

Claire is such an amazing blessing to us. We are having so much fun with her. She still insists on rolling to get everywhere, even though we are trying to get her to crawl. She has gotten to be very fast at rolling. I can set her down, run into the bedroom to grab something, and by the time I get back to her, she is already on the other side of the living room. I guess the days of letting her sit and play while I fold clothes in the other room are over!

As you can see from the pictures, Claire is a very good eater! She has taken pretty well to every food we have given her so far. She has even begun to take green beans easily. Today we are going to try broccoli...we will fill you in on how that goes in the next blog entry. We have introduced the sippy cup to Claire and she is getting the hang of using it pretty well. She is able to hold it and get the cup to her mouth and suck. She is slowly grasping the concept of having to tip it some to get the water out. Sometimes the water comes too fast and she gets a little surprise, but no choking episodes yet! We have also let her suck from a straw. This is more of a challenge and she tends to get too much too fast. It is so fun watching her growing interest in the things that we are doing and using.

Claire sleeps pretty well through the night. We are so lucky to have such a happy, easy baby. She goes to bed around 8 or 9pm and usually only gets up once between 3 and 4am to eat, then goes back to sleep until 7:30 or 8am. I have no complaints with that schedule!

Yesterday we went to our friends birthday party. The twin girls we hang out with, Marley and Ava, turned 1 year old. We had lots of fun watching them dig into their little cakes! Claire and I try to get together with the girls once a week. It is getting to be so much fun because they are starting to play more together now. I have a feeling soon Claire will start getting frustrated because the girls can walk around and she is not able to yet. It is so neat to watch them grow up together and we hope they will all remain friends forever.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Nanny and Papa the beginning of February. We miss them so much and are so excited to spend time with them. It is hard being so far away and knowing they are missing so much of Claire's life. At least they can do Skype now from home so we can see them as often as we are all home. We hope you enjoy the pictures.

Looking Back

The road of life takes many twists and turns. Sometimes you feel like you are going back the way you came and sometimes you feel like you have completely changed paths. Nine years ago I would have never imagined myself living in Houston with a wife and a newborn baby. Now I cannot imagine my life any other way. My path has made many changes but looking back, I would not have changed any of them. The good and the bad all happen for a reason and they are all things that help steer your path where it needs to go.

Being a parent is a funny thing. When you are first discussing the idea, there is an ideal in your head of exactly how things will go. You can picture yourself as a parent and you will not make any of the mistakes you see other parents making. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones with the screaming kid that wants candy from the checkout at Target. One day it will all smack you in the face when you are turning bright red with embarrassment because your child desperately needs a new Bratz doll. You suddenly realize that you are "that" parent and all the young couples in the store are looking at you with the same thoughts in their head that you had just a few years back. It is the course of parenting, it is the path that is moving one way or another.

Six months into this adventure, I feel that Sheila and I are doing pretty good as a parenting team. We have a solid routine with Claire and we take time to discuss our strategies with each new challenge that we face. For example we have decided as a team to allow Claire to cry for 5 minutes in the night before we go cuddle her. It is our way of deciphering between her truly needing us and just testing our resolve. Because Claire is so little yet, the challenges have been few and far between. It has been good practice for us for when the challenges come at us in rapid succession. Hold on tight and stick together, that is all we can do.

Happy girl!