Zebra is IN!

I love this cute outfit from Grandma Cooper! And I love Claire's happy, smiling face! And she loves her wagon!


Have a happy day!

11 Months

I love my sweet Claire! She makes me laugh, she makes me smile, and she makes me work! I'm so, so glad she's in our family, and I can't believe she's been with us for 11 months already!

She weighs 21 pounds (61st percentile) and is 29.75 inches long (84th percentile). This week, as I have looked at Claire, I've had a few of those moments when I've thought, wow, she looks bigger today than she did yesterday.


Claire loves to play a game, and she always initiates it by herself. It goes a little something like this. I'm in the living room doing something. Claire is in the living room playing. Suddenly, she crawls to the doorway of my room and pauses for a moment while she looks back at me with a big smile on her face. She wants me to chase after her! If I meet the glimmer of hope in her eye with a speck of acknowledgment in mine, the race is on! I chase her into my room and often into my bathroom, and then I take her back into the living room, where the entire game is likely to happen again within 5 minutes!

Claire loves to point. She loves walking with her walker. She is still quite wobbly while taking a few steps on her own, but she is so proud of herself when she does it. She has increased her babbling to include more than one consonant at a time. Instead of saying "ba ba ba ba," she says something that sounds more like Porky Pig before his, "That's all, folks!" She likes to look at books by herself, and she loves it when I read them to her.


Claire has been sleeping through the night for a little over a month now. (I LOVE that!) It just took me NOT going into her room for 2 nights before she stopped expecting me to come in.

When I ask her where her nose is, she points to her nose - or at least gets close. Also, there's a book we read that mentions a nose, and she has just begun pointing to her nose when we get to that page. But she also points to her nose sometimes when I ask her something else. I love watching her learn things!

Claire also had fever for the first time last night. Thankfully, Tylenol is helping her feel better. But even with a fever, she is a happy little girl! (You can see that even when her eyes are closed in these pictures!) She is so wonderful! We love her so much, and I'm so grateful for her!!!

A Bump and a Bruise

I'm sure this will be the first of many, but here's the first big bump & bruise for Claire. She managed to pull a bar stool down on top of herself. We were at a friend's house, and, despite a warning from my friend that the bar stools were unstable, I wasn't paying attention. (Way to go, Mom!)

Day 1:


Day 2:

Day 3:


I've been wanting to get her portraits taken, but she had a small bruise on her chin, and I was waiting for that to go away. I guess now I'll just wait and get pictures of her when she's a year old.

More Walking

Claire loves to walk with her walker. She'll walk across the living room and then look at me with the hope that I'll turn the walker around so she can walk across the room again. She is also getting more brave about walking by herself. You'll see a little of both in this video.



The other day, Claire took 12 little steps in a row all by herself! And she wasn't even walking towards anyone! She just wanted to walk. She gets so proud of herself when she walks. She smiles really big and looks so happy!

Fun with Dad

Over the weekend Claire had a blast with Dad!


And I know Jordan had a blast with Claire, too!

Outlet Mall!

Claire needed some clothes, I wanted to get out of the house, and we all wanted to spend some family time together, so we went to the outlet mall yesterday! Look what we got!

I'm afraid I might have gone a little bit overboard, but Claire did need more clothes. And at least I started in the clearance section!

We also went into Harry & David's - just for the fun of it. We tasted some yummy samples, and then I spotted this! I like having tins like this to put cookies in, especially at Christmas time, since that's when I often have so many of them. And the best part about it? It was only 76 cents!

Slow Week

It's been a slow week around here - with runny noses and studying galore. We've all been sick in one way or another, and we're all still overcoming this traveling and transforming cold. Thankfully, Claire has acted completely normal, (minus the runny nose, of course!) I'm glad she didn't feel crummy like Jordan and I did.

This is Claire's new face when she sees me get the camera out. She half smiles/half squints while the camera is focusing, and then she blinks when it flashes. I guess we just need Dad here so he can make her smile! :-)

Jordan had two tests this week. (Well, the second one is tomorrow morning, which is why he's still at school studying right now!) So we haven't seen much of him this week. But at least I was able to get one good picture of Claire - even with her eyes open! Yay!


I'm planning on having a good weekend with my family! I hope you are, too!

Spreading the Love!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Claire wanted to wear two outfits today, since two family members gave her Valentine's outfits! So I took some pictures in this first outfit, and then she spit up all over it!


So she got to change clothes! And she was so excited to get a card from Grandmom and Granddad.

- So happy, in fact, that she kissed her card a few times!

We're spreading the love around here! Happy Valentine's Day to you!

The Day She Walked!

Claire took her first steps today!!!

Soon after lunch, Claire took 2 or 3 steps towards me a number of times before she fell each time. And each time, she fell forwards, so I caught her. (We have hard floors, you know!) She was laughing and having lots of fun, and then she had even more fun just falling towards me (without taking any steps) because she knew I would catch her.


Later on in the evening, she actually took 4 or 5 steps towards me. - I can just feel that everything is about to change! I have a pretty good routine going with Claire, but soon it's going to be different because she'll be on the move like never before!



And this picture is here just because it's cute! You can see her little tooth! It's still the only one coming in at this point.

Walkers

Ryan has a fun walker. Isn't he handsome?!!! (And I LOVE his hair!!!)


Ryan was so nice to let his cousin, Claire, play in it for a little bit. Thank you, Ryan!

Claire has a walker, too. She likes using it to walk. (I took this video about 2 and a half weeks ago).


Claire has begun letting go of things she's holding onto when she's standing up. And, actually, today she's already let go about the same number of times as she has the past 2 or 3 days combined! I have a feeling it won't be too long before she IS a walker! (Yikes!)

Cookie Decorating!

Yesterday some friends came over for a cookie decorating party! We had lots of fun! (And lots of sugar, too!)

I got up early and made 4 batches of cookie dough. (I didn't know how much I would need!) Kelly came over in the morning to help me make the cookies and get everything set up. We decided to stop making cookies after 3 batches of dough because we had PLENTY of cookies at that point. I couldn't have gotten everything ready without Kelly's help. Thanks, Kelly!


We had lots and lots and lots and LOTS of cookies, and we had different colors of icing. Some icing had a hint of lemon flavor, and some had a hint of strawberry flavor. We also had lots of toppings for the cookies: many different kinds/colors of sprinkles, Valentine M&M's, and mini-gummy bears! (The gummy bears were definitely a hit with the kiddos!)


And then the fun began! Ledys came with Sophia ...

and Olivia. Claire liked playing with Olivia for a bit.

Amy came with Emily.

Vicki and Kelly decorated lots of cookies!

Nora demonstrated her creativity by making a double-decker cookie (with icing, sprinkles, more icing, and more sprinkles) and by piling on lots of toppings!

Nate had fun playing most of the time. He was the big boy at the party! And Sophia liked wearing Claire's petti-skirt!

Nate said "cheese!!!"

We had a lot of fun, and we decorated lots and lots and lots of cookies! These are all the ones left - AFTER everyone else had taken theirs home!

Claire with...

I remembered to get out the camera and take some pictures of Claire with some of her relatives yesterday. So we have....

Claire with Grandma,


Claire with Grandpa,

Claire with Dad, (she gave him a big kiss!)

Claire with me,
Claire with Uncle Stephen,

and Claire with Aunt Rebecca. Hmmmmm, what did you do to her, Aunt Rebecca?!! :-)

Just Playing

We're in Houston for the weekend, and Claire is having fun playing with some new toys. She likes to put toys in and out of containers these days.


She is also having fun playing with (or should I say next to) her cousin, Ryan.

Oh, sweet - they're playing together!

Nope, they're just chewing on things next to each other!

I like these pictures of Ryan!



Grandpa with two of his grandkids!