We FINALLY have a tooth!

We have great news to share...Claire has finally gotten her first tooth! It came through two days ago. We were sure from about 5 months on that Claire was teething, but guess we were way off on that one! Claire has been sticking her tongue out a lot these past few days and we think it is because she is rubbing it on her bottom teeth. Her second tooth poked through today so we now have two teeth! The silly things we get excited about as parents.

Claire has found a new favorite food...blackberries. As you can tell from the pictures, she digs right in. Papa Larry will be happy to have someone to share blackberries with when him and Nanny Rachel come to visit in a few weeks! They make quite the mess but it sure is fun watching Claire eat them. She is getting much better at picking up food off her highchair tray. She is really liking the finger foods and being able to feed herself. I guess our little girl is growing up!

10 months and active!

Today our baby is 10 months old. She has been such a blessing and a joy to have in our lives. We hope that you are having as much fun watching her grow and learn as we are having. Words cannot begin to express how much I love being a mother. Each and every day is a blast and we are excited for all of the days to come.

Claire has now figured out how to get from standing back to sitting. When she first began to pull up on things, she would be stuck and cry since she did not know how to get back to the floor. Now she is a pro at going from sitting to standing and back to sitting again. It amazes me how fast she can get from one place to another and into things that she should not be in! She is starting to learn the word "no"! She especially likes to get into Presley's water dish which can lead to quite a mess.

Some of her new foods are beets and blackberries. She likes them both which I guess shouldn't surprise me since there really isn't any food that she hasn't liked! She is a good eater and we are thankful for that.

Here are a few recent pictures of our little girl having fun!

NHL Playoffs

As promised, I took a few pictures of Claire during the first week of hockey playoffs. We talked about our picks for the Stanley Cup and not surprisingly, Claire and I disagree. She said "I'm going with Washington because the Great 8 is too good". I argued the point that Chicago is well rounded and fairly young which should help them in the long post season. She then responded by saying, "DA DA DA DA". I guess we just agreed to disagree.

This past week has been full of our baby girl chasing Presley around the living room. I find it interesting how patient Presley is with her. The dog could be chewing on one of her bones and Claire will crawl-walk up to her and start reaching for the bone. Presley doesn't growl or even move away. She kind of just looks up to see if she will be losing her bone to the newest member of the family.

I have decided to start a new countdown for Claire. I am calling it "Tooth Watch 2010". Sheila and I have been saying to each other for months now that Claire's teeth must be coming in. We didn't just come up with that on our own. We read many books that gave time lines and symptoms. Claire has fit all of them. She has been drooling since she was five months old. She chews on just about anything she can find. The last thing was when her temp that ran up to 101 last week. We were certain that her teeth were the culprit. Now every time I talk to Sheila and she says Claire is being fussy, I jokingly say it must be her teeth. We will be sure to keep you updated on "Tooth Watch 2010".

a busy week

It has been a busy week for our little girl. She has been trying out many new things. First of all, we have been working on getting her to feed herself. As you can see from the picture, not much makes it into her mouth, but she is having fun learning!

She has been spending lots of time with Daddy working on her reading skills. We are happy if we can keep her interested long enough to get through the book!

Next Claire has been working with Mommy on learning how to walk.

After working on walking for a while, Claire has decided crawling is much easier, at least for now!

Yesterday was our first day dealing with a sick baby. Claire woke up during the night with a fever of 101.6 and runny nose. We are pretty sure it is her teeth finally coming in, although nothing has popped yet. Her fever got as high as 103.0 and she was very blah. She did not even try to play with her toys. She spent 45 minutes watching Finding Nemo with mommy and was not even trying to get down. Claire was definitely not herself, but today she is almost back to normal. Which reminds me, I better go before she gets into something she should not!

Possibly my new favorite

I just wanted to add a couple new pictures before Claire wakes up from her nap. I might possibly have a new favorite picture of my baby girl!

Testing out the pool

These past few weeks have been such a blast with Claire. She is learning and exploring new things every single day. We think she has mastered crawling now so we have to watch her closely because before we know it, she is gone! Yesterday I worked on getting her to feed herself. I think I am going to need a floor cover under her highchair...it gets to be very messy! She wasn't too sure about it at first, but did take a few spoonfuls on her own after some encouragement. She has been feeding herself finger foods off her tray now. Her favorites right now are the gerber puffs, kiwi, and cooked apple.

Yesterday we decided to let her test out the pool. The water is still a little chilly but she didn't seem to mind. We first sat her on the edge and let her kick in the water. She did this for a few minutes and then kept trying to get into the water. Jeff let her get in and walk around some. As you can see, she got in pretty far and ended up getting her pants pretty wet. I think we are going to have a barefoot water baby on our hands this summer!

Happy Easter

Throughout Claire's life she will experience many fun and exciting things. Unfortunately, her first Easter was not one of them. We both had to work so there was no large dinner to eat. Claire is too young to go looking for a hidden Easter basket. Luckily Sheila created a faux setting to make it look like Easter a few days before. She was able to take some good pictures that with enough time, we will fondly remember as Claire's first Easter experience.

It is my turn to spend the day with Claire and we are making the most of it. She started the morning off by chasing me around the kitchen. It was not much of a chase since she crawls for a bit then gets distracted by shiny cabinet knobs. After that she followed me into the laundry room to put on a magnetic door stop. It was my best effort to save Presley's tail from the dangers of the wind. Claire held the drill for me while I opened the packaging. She is such good help. After all that work she decided she needed to eat and then take a nap. That pretty much brings you up to speed on our day.