I'm Only 4 Days Behind...

We went to the beach last weekend! This was Claire's first beach trip (or as us Oregonians put "first coast trip" :)). It was our friend Lacey's birthday and they borrowed a friend of theirs beach house for the weekend. Now this was no ordinary beach house; it was huge and gorgeous, 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and as Dan (Lacey's husband) put it "this is the nicest house I've ever been in." So we stayed 2 nights and had an absolute blast. We stayed up till who knows what time on Friday & Saturday night playing all sorts of fun board games with Dan & Lacey and Roman & Jen. Then on Saturday the rest of the crew joined us (their were 14 total including 2 wee ones). We went up to the Yaquina lighthouse and we actually got to walk all the way to the top, it was super cool. Then we walked down roughly a billion steps (or at least it seemed like that many with Claire strapped to me) and then down a slippery hill of rocks, to the tidepools. There was all sorts of little, gross-looking-but-still-pretty-cool-looking sea creatures all over the rocks. And then tragedy struck. I watched as if it were in slow motion. Levi and his little chicken ankles fell on a mossy rock, while our camera (not even a year old) clinked like a pinball against a couple rocks then into the water. Levi tried getting it to turn on but no such luck. Wew haven't yet decided what to do about that issue. So after that we went to lunch at good ole Mo's; mmm, that is some delicious clam chowder! We hung out for a little while and then everyone took off for the real beach (instead of the fake rocky one) but Claire had just gone down for a nap. Good food, good friends, and good laughs makes for one awesome weekend!

On Sunday we stoped by my Grandma Betty's house in Siletz. It was so great to see her, it had been too long! Claire was so cute and just hugging and loving on her. And Grandma was making her giggle up a storm. I was so glad she was in such a great mood after such a long weekend. We also got to see my uncle and cousins; it was fantastic! I wish I got to see that side of the family more often. We're just too spread out!

So the reason I am just now posting this is because Claire & myself have been super sick. Friday night I thought I was having bad allergies. The Saturday morning I was feeling a little icky but still thinking it was allergies. By Saturday night I knew it wasn't allergies, Levi got me some cold medicine. Levi stayed home Monday to take care of us. Just this last day or 2 I've been feeling better but I'm still pretty stuffed up. When I bend over my face feels like it's going to explode but hopefully I'll be completely over it soon. And poor Baby Claire; she had her first fever! It got up to 102, but somehow she was still in a pretty decent mood. And I secretly loved it because she was so snuggly, usually she's too busy to be snuggly. The fever was gone within about 24 hours, thank you prayers and tylenol!

After more than a week of Claire spitting out the rice cereal I decided to move onto something else. So I mashed up some yams for her last night. She didn't seem to love them but she wasn't spitting them everywhere like with the rice cereal so I'm taking that as a good sign. I made a pretty big batch and put the leftovers in an ice cube tray and froze them. And today I got her to eat one whole cube's worth of yams, so we are making progress!

As I was typing this Levi tried turning on the camera and it works! Wow we just got super lucky! He said "awesome now we can buy a new TV instead of having to buy a new camera" uhh yeah right. I love the last picture, it looks like Lacey and Claire are going to eat each other.

First Food

About a week ago we started giving Claire rice cereal. She spits almost all of it out everytime, she's dumped over the bowl all but like 2 times and sometimes she just starts crying/screaming, so we stop. Last night she ate about a teaspoon of the cereal, so that was promising. We'll keep you updated!

And below is a video of her in the Johnny Jumper. She really likes the independence of it. Sorry the video quality kinda stinks, I'm not sure what's up with that.

Crazy Days!

Last Saturday was super fun but super exhausting. We met my parents, Grandma & Granddad and Rayden, Kolten & Zenna at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. We had never been before and it was really neat. When we first got there the kids were playing on the fun little play structures and with the toys that are setup there. It always melts my hearts to get their little hugs & kisses. And they are all so adorable with Baby Claire, I can't wait till she is old enough to play with them. So after a little while of them playing around we were going to go check out the tulips. Kolten (4) face planted the dirt crying and saying that he didn't want to go look at flowers. My Mom scooped him up and off we went. And we got over there and the kids had a blast. They were running around pointing out the flowers that they liked. Poor Zenna (almost 2) was strapped into her stroller; those tulips never would have stood a chance against her. And I had Claire in our new little front pack carrier and she was just loving it. Her little arms and legs were going a million miles an hour. It probably feels amazing to her to feel the sun on her face and breathe fresh air after being cooped up inside for all but like 2 days of her life. We will definitely be making this a yearly tradition, Levi had great fun taking some beautiful photos. As we were walking back to the kid area, Kolten was trying super hard to hold both Claire's and my hand. And he was saying how he wanted Claire to go down the slide with him. I kept having to remind him that she is much too little. Then he said that I could go down with her, haha, that would be a sight to see. I don't know how many times we had to pry Rayden (7) away from the rubber ducky races. Kolten and Rayden went on one of those big bouncy toys and they were having a ball. And that's about the time Claire had a meltdown so we had to leave, but it was a super fun!

Then we went home and shortly after arriving, Levi's family showed up. We packed a quick, little lunch and jumped in the car and went on another covered bridges excursion. We saw 6 new ones down east of Eugene/Springfield. It is amazing how different each one is but yet they are all so similar. And one of the ones we came upon was on a beautiful lake that we had never even heard of before. It was Lake Dexter. There were some rowing boat races going on so we watched that for a minute, wow, they are fast! We're thinking about going camping out there this summer. After an exhausting day (Claire was pretty fussy in the car), we had dinner at a little Chinese restaurant in Springfield and oh my goodness was it ever delicious.

Yesterday I had to have a cavity filled. It was actually super quick and painless but still not very fun. I miss the days when my mom would pay us for not having cavities. Now not only do I not get paid if I don't have a cavity, I actually have to pay for it! Big bummer especially because my teeth suck and 90% of the time I have a cavity. But I suppose that's what I get for having straight teeth and not needing braces. Fergie (aka Levi's Dad) watched Claire while I was there and I came home to a screaming, crying, red-eyed little baby. She cried most of the time I was gone and couldn't stop looking around for me. It took me a while to get her calmed down. I'm glad she loves me but I wish she would be ok when I leave her.

Well I have a horribly messy kitchen calling my name. We had the missionaries over for dinner (fajitas, beans and Spanish rice, yum!) and Fergie as well. So there are roughly a billion dishes and not having a dishwasher = me doing them all day. Have a fantastic day!

Herbal Remedy

So again it's been a while since I posted. But I've been incredibly busy. I finally found a legitimate work-from-home job! I just go online and find email addresses and websites of contractors and put them on a spreadsheet. It's working out really great because I can do it any time. So if by a miracle I get Claire to take a decent nap, I can work on it then. If not, I can just do it once we put Claire to bed.

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. Friday night we went to the Fergus side of the family's annual Easter Potluck out in Dayton. It's always so nice to see them since we don't get to see them that often. Saturday we had lunch at my parents house (homemade pizza, yummy) and I arranged an Easter egg hunt for my nephews and niece. I'm not sure who had more fun, me putting it together and hiding the eggs or the kids going and looking for them. It'll be super fun next year when baby Claire can join in. Saturday evening we had a easter/birthday get-together with Levi's Mom's family. We always have a great time with them too. The food was to die for, we ate way too much as usual. Claire got some wonderful presents from her grandparents and we got her an Easter dress which I just realized we haven't put her in yet, oops. Sunday was General Conference, which for those of you that don't know is when we get to listen to the counsel of the leaders of our church on TV. It happens twice a year and it was pretty cool that this year it just happened to fall on Easter. It was our first (hopefully annual) ConferenceBowl with some friends. That was super fun and good food!

What do you guys think of the new blog design? My friend Lacey suggested that we get a new design and after going through a dozen of them that wouldn't work (maybe someone knows why it keeps cutting the sides off? Levi said it might be because we don't have a widescreen monitor) I finally found one that didn't get too cut off.

So we've been borrowing an exersaucer from a friend and Claire really likes it so last week we decided to buy her one from Craiglist. It's really neat, it has a bar that has some hangy-down type toys and I thought I was getting a good deal at $40 (originally over $100, I know ridiculous right!?). Well after looking it over I told the nice lady I'd take it. The minute I got it in the car Levi said it smelled like smoke, which I hadn't noticed because of an always-stuffed-up nose, but no big deal I was going to clean it up anyway. After getting it home I started scrubbing it down and noticed that in every little nook and cranny there was caked-in dirt, grime, whatever you want to call it. So I now have a toothbrush out cleaning each individual toy very meticulously. Then I get to a toy that has ribbon and notice tiny dark spots all over it. I tried to convince myself that it was just dirt but Levi confirmed my fears... MOLD!!! All the plush toys and the toys with any ribbon on them (6 total) are affected. I had to take apart all these gizmos and gadgets (I think it lights up when certain ones are pulled) to get the toys out. So as we speak they are soaking in a vinegar bath and after that they will be going into the washing machine on hot with extra stain remover followed by the dryer (we'll see if my Google search on how to clean mold out of fabrics/stuffed animals worked). So about now I'm wishing I would have just bought Claire a new ghetto-off-brand-not-quite-as-cool one from Walmart that sells for $40-$50. I'm not even sure after cleaning all this that I'll even want to risk putting her in it. But if they don't come clean I'll just buy new toys and try to get them into the mechanism. And I'll probably end up spending way more, ahh irritating!

So on to less stressful projects. We decided to start an herb garden. I've been cooking super delicious meals lately (Rosemary Roasted Pork Tenderloin, South of the Border Meatloaf, Asian Pork & Noodle Skillet, Amazing Lasagna, just to name a few) and I've been spending so much on herbs. The only fresh Rosemary I could find was labeled organic and for this tiny little box it was like $4! So we went to the Wilco Farmstore today and bought 6 terracotta pots & saucers, potting soil and seeds for Rosemary, Basil, Oregano, Cilantro, Chives and Parsley all for $16, thank you Levi's discount. And we got them all planted, I'm so excited. I'm just hoping I don't kill them like the love fern Levi gave me when we were dating, the easter lily we got free with our Christmas tree the first year we were married or the supposedly un-killable cactus we bought a couple years ago. Good thing I've had much better luck keeping a husband, dog and baby alive!

Claire's favorite things to do:
Almost getting her knees underneath her
Grabbing anything within reach
Suck on/play with her toes
Squealing/screeching so ear-piercingly loud we're considering investing in aviator ear muffs
Almost sitting on her own, she's hasn't quite got the balancing thing yet
Loves to stand with us holding her up
Laughs hysterically at Roxcy, raspberries being blown on her tummy or us talking in silly voices
Playing in her exersaucer or tummy time mat
Looking at everything, she doesn't miss a thing
Rolling all over the place