Family Pictures

First Cake

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

With a first Birthday there are many expectations of how things should go and how they will go. Unfortunately those are rarely the same. We had been planning Claire's Birthday party for what seems like more than a year. Not sure how the math works out on that but anyway. We thought we were in trouble when our big girl decided she didn't need naps now that she is one. Visions of her crying and screaming the whole time were flashing in our minds. Luckily she cooperated and everything went better than we had hoped for. Many of Claire's playmates came to share in the fun. We swam and grilled hot dogs. All the while awaiting the crescendo of her tearing into her cake. That is when we found out what a dainty little girl we have. She took small bites and ate it just like she would her squash and spinach balls. I had to ask sheila to shove her hand int he cake that Amanda made to see if we could get some classic pictures but she just kept nibbling at the frosting. It will be a picture that will live with me forever and not for the reasons that I expected. Just when I think my little girl is going to do one thing, she puts me back in my roller coaster seat and tells me to hold on.

Overnight

One year ago everything changed. At this time last year we had no idea what kind of wild ride we were in line for. I know I have used many cliches in my blogs but I must use one more this morning. "They grow up overnight" has been used many times by experienced parents when talking to the newbies. We thought that was some metaphor to encourage us to take time with our baby. Come to find out this morning, that term is literal in Claire's Case. Just yesterday she could not walk but then this morning she showed us how one year old's do things. What a great start to a new year.

Hanging with my Daddy on Father's Day

Daddy had to go to work today at 11am but Claire made sure to get up plenty early to have lots of time to spend with him! Last night we went to a football game and Claire stayed awake until 10:30pm. Jeff and I thought we would have the morning to sleep in because surely Claire would sleep until at least 9am right? Wrong. Claire wanted to make Father's Day special by getting up at 7:30am. She made sure Daddy had his favorite donuts for breakfast and then surprised him with a gift. She wanted to be artistic so decided to put her hand prints on a small dish at the Pottery Wheel. Daddy seemed to really like his gift. After that, Claire got to spend some time with Daddy in the pool. With all of the excitement this morning, Claire has now decided it is a good time to get some sleep and has been napping for almost 2 hours! Mommy should probably be napping too but there is always things to get done.

Our busy bee

Just wanted to share a few more pictures of our little girl before she turns one year old! As you can see, we never have a dull moment! She keeps us going at all times!

Hanging out

Wanted to share a few fun pictures we have taken of Claire over the past couple of days. It is so hard to believe in just 5 more days, our baby will be one year old. This past year has brought so much joy and excitement into our lives and we cannot wait to see what the coming year will bring.

My trip to the zoo

Here I am all decked out and ready for the zoo...




We went to see the new dinosaur exhibit. I was not a very big fan and I sure am glad they are extinct!


Then Daddy took me to pet the goats. I was not too sure about this idea and decided to just watch.


I had a blast watching the elephant. Mommy let me stand on the ledge and I spent the entire time either waving at him or clapping.


On the way home, I decided to be a monkey and tried eating my toes!

Almost walking!

Claire has gone through a growth spurt this past week. She has been sleeping lots (at least for Daddy!) and was a bit irritable. I had to work 3 days in a row and it seems like she got taller in just those 3 days! She is very active and busy every minute she is awake (which is most of the day when Mommy is home!).

Today I took some video of Claire walking along the couch. It seems like just the other day she started to pull herself up using the couch, now she is cruising along it like she has been doing it forever. It is such a blast watching her develop more and more every day. I was not smart enough to realize I cannot rotate the video like I can rotate pictures so you get to watch it sideways! Sorry!

Good Times

The first part of the video is of Claire climbing the stairs on her own. We never worked with her on it for obvious reasons so she decided to just figure it out by herself. Needless to say I put a gate at the bottom of the stairs that day. The second part is of her going through the newspaper with us. She loves to tear into the paper and rip it apart. It can be some work to clean all the ink off her fingers but it is worth it for the entertainment aspect. The last part is a video that papa took when they were down here. Claire will get in her funny moods and just start giggling. I've caught her on tape a few times and I love to to watch it because it gives me a glimpse of what she will sound like when she can talk.

Hockey Talk

The morning started off innocently enough. Say good morning to the cat and dog, check. Make 31 laps around the living room, check. Toss every block as far as it will go, check. Pick up the new cell phone and pretend like Elmo just called, check. Open and close the bathroom door five times, check. After all the routine items were done I made the mistake of bringing up last night's hockey game. Claire was about ready to eat when I asked her if she thought Chicago was going to turn their game around. That was all it took for her to go into a major rant. Luckily I caught it on tape.

The Look

The past two weeks, Claire has been showing off for grandma and grandpa. She wanted to show them how she could walk behind her shopping cart. That quickly turned into running behind the cart but only on the tile floor. She showed them her skills in the water by kicking and floating even in the deep end. Just for fun she had Sheila throw her in the air and let me catch her. She is such a show off. After all that hard work, Claire now likes to cuddle up to the giant white bear that Barb and Jim got her. Some of the best pictures we have are of her sucking her thumb with her other hand wrapped around the bear. After a few painful days, she finally cut her two top teeth. She was very clingy and just wanted to be held. I'm glad her teeth came through but I did enjoy her neediness. My goal is to add some video that we took over the last two weeks. There is quite a bit to go through so it might take me a while. I'm lucky to have made it through the 499 pictures we took during the month of April. Thank goodness we invested in the terabyte hard drive. With all those pictures it is hard to imagine that we missed anything but we did. All five of us went out to eat at Santa Fe Flats for lunch and Claire was in a funny mood. She was sitting between Sheila and I and Sheila would tell her to "get daddy". She would then look over at me with a smirk and grab my leg. It was absolutely hilarious. During that same meal I got a taste of the puppy dog eyes. Claire was screaming because she wanted food so I would tell her "no screaming". She then looked up at me and the stare down began. Everyone else at the table was laughing uncontrollably but I stood my ground. She kept looking me in the eye with a look that said, "you can't be mad at me, I'm a baby". Sure enough, I broke down and Claire gloated in her established power. I need to start training so I can resist the "look".