I’m only 24 days late… Happy Birthday Claire!

I’m not sure where November has gone, by it’s just about over, yikes! We had a small party for Claire the beginning of this month. It is so hard to believe that she’s 2. She was a bit of a crab the day of her birthday (why do they not take naps the days they need them the most!?) but got over it as soon as she started opening her presents. What wonderful family and friends we’ve surrounded our daughter with, thank you to all those that came and celebrated with us and made her day special. To the right-Claire pushing her “walk”

She is such an amazing little girl. She is very independent and intelligent. She loves counting to 13 (but usually skips 6, 11 and 12), she loves having books read to her, running, spinning in circles, she’s constantly asking “what’s that?” and “what are you doing?” She doesn’t want to have anything to do with baby stuff (bibs, high chairs, etc), except for diapers but she’s super interested in potty training so hopefully that’ll happen soon. She loves everyone and is constantly saying “Hi!” and waving. She has recently started trying to sing songs like “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and the I love you song one of her bears sings, it is pretty much the most adorable thing we’ve ever seen. Although she can make us want to pull our hair out a lot of the time, we love her so much and are so glad she’s a part of our little family.

Our group is growing!

 

 

 

 

 

My mom made this adorable playhouse out of felt.

I’ll have to take some better pics of it.

 

 

 

The Elmo pinata was really hungry, hahaha, silly girl.

 

 

 

Dan having to show these girls how to finish Elmo off.

 

        

No Tricks, Just Treats

Our first time trick or treating as a family was a huge success! Claire dressed up as a fairy and after hitting all 3 houses on our street, we headed up to Keizer.The first couple houses she bawled. The people weren’t dressed up so she wasn’t scared, we think she was worried we were going to leave her there. Silly girl! But she got over that real quick as soon as she figured out you just have to be as cute as possible, say something that vaguely sounds like “Trick or Treat” and you get a handful of candy.

Randomly she would just say, “Hurry, hurry” and start running. After a couple blocks Claire would reach her arms up and say, “hold you, hold you”. She’s not quite getting the whole me-you thing all the time. She’s been super clingy to me lately so I had to carry her a good chunk of the time;  Levi ended up with my purse, hehehe.

At one point a very nice lady gave her 2 giant handfuls of candy and while walking away Claire dropped it and candy flew in every direction. Claire kept screaming , “Candy, candy!” while we hurriedly cleaned it up. The lady brought her another handful, there’s nothing like getting more candy to help you get over a traumatic event. She was not too excited that we wouldn’t let her have all the candy she wanted.

I loved Halloween as a kid but it was even more fun taking Claire and watching the excitement and joy on her face. I’m kind of sad we have to wait another year to do this again.

As far as our lives go lately… we’re busy as usual. Levi has been going to school one night a week, one full weekday and the last 2 Saturdays. He also got on as a reserve officer (the police equivalent of a volunteer firefighter) in a nearby town and is loving it. He starts reserve academy this week and that’ll be 2 nights a week. So basically we don’t see much of each other.

Claire has been going to daycare one day a week and she is loving it and doing very well. She gets a little upset when Levi drops her off but she gets over it pretty quickly and is just a happy camper when I pick her up. She can now turn the lights on and off although she mostly just like turning them off regardless of my begging to leave them on. She is just a really funny kid; not a day goes by that we don’t laugh at something she does or says. She loves to dance and boy, can she boogey! I so desperately wish we could steal just a tiny fraction of her energy so we could keep up with her.

I’m still working away and really liking my job. It’s been super busy as we are one person short but I would so much rather be busy than have to find things to do to stay busy. I’ve also been getting allergy shots for the last 2 months. With the hope that in 2-5 years I will be allergy-free. At this point I can’t even comprehend that but I am so excited to find out! I have to go in at least one a week but I’ve been trying to get in there twice/week just so I can get it done with sooner. I haven’t had much in the way of reactions yet, just some swelling, itching and then later a knot at the injection site. It will take me another 4 or 5 months to know if this is helping. I can’t even put into words how thrilled I am at the thought of not taking allergy meds almost every day.

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!

Zany Zoo Day

A couple Saturdays ago we decided it was time to take Claire to the zoo for the first time. We were almost there and realized we’d forgotten our camera. So we stopped at Albertson’s to grab something for lunch and sure enough they had disposable cameras. Archaic, right!? But we couldn’t miss getting this first on film, even if it sucked. The camera cost $8, after finding out that Target and Costco no longer develop old school film, we got these pics put onto a CD by Walgreens for $8.48. That was the worst $16 we have ever spent. Note to self: make sure we ALWAYS have the camera. As you are looking at the pics try to not focus on the absolutely horrible quality of the photo, instead pay attention to the adorable subjects.

It was a beautiful, bright sunny day (and as the day wore on, way too hot). 

Claire wasn’t sure what to think at first, for the most part she was just observing and taking it all in. But every single exhibit we would walk up to she would gasp and exclaim, “Wa-wa”. Yes, you read correctly, we drove 50 miles, paid $21 and Claire was most excited about the different forms of water in the exhibits. Claire look at this leopard, “wa-wa”. Claire look at these toucans, “wa-wa”. Claire look at the alligator, “wa-wa”. After a little while she seemed to get a little more into the animals. It was so fun showing her all these animals that she had only seen in her books and maybe on PBS.

 

She was quite interested in the petting zoo. She would brush the goats, then put a little dirt on them and then brush it off. She probably would have done that all day had we let her. I’m sure the goats would have revolted before too long. It was pretty hot by then though so they probably didn’t care much. Claire of course threw a fit when it was time for us to move on, ahhh terrible two’s.

 

Claire had her first elephant ear she loved it. I think she ate more of it then either of us did.

We bravely decided to let Claire out of her stroller for a bit, oh boy did she run like a mad woman. She ate it a couple times, but she would pick herself right back up without so much as a thought of a tear.

 

And about an hour later, she was done. That of course only lasted maybe 45 minutes.

Dan , Lacey & Baby Keira met us there for a little bit. What a sweet little baby that girl is! We ate some ice cream and walked (well Dan & Lacey walked, we took turns chasing after our monkey), it was so nice to catch up with our friends. We should have gotten our picture taken all together but we just didn’t even think about.

 

And lastly this was probably Claire’s favorite part of the whole entire zoo…. the waterfall! For those of you that haven’t been in several years, you should go, all the  renovations look absolutely amazing!

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time! I’m sure it will become more fun and magical the older she gets. I love revealing the world to her and watching her face light up and the her little wheels start turning. She’s so smart and fun right now. If it weren’t for the horrendous tantrums, I would want her to stay this age forever.