Giving Thanks, Getting Shots

I love Thanksgiving! Good food, family and giving thanks for it all. We had the wonderful opportunity to host Thanksgiving at our house this year. I was a little bit nervous as this was our first year doing it but the thought of staying home all day (we have gone to 3 different houses in one day in the past) was so very appealing.

We had Levi’s family over and his dad’s parents. Claire has not been at all interested in the Thanksgiving food, which is weird since she usually loves green beans, rolls and mashed potatoes. She has been much more interested in drinking cup after cup of milk; she’s definitely my child! We had all of the traditional food and it was all homemade (thank goodness our guests brought some dishes!), and all delish! Claire didn’t want any pumpkin pie instead she licked whip cream off both her grandparents’ pies.

The funniest part of the evening, by far, was when Claire’s babydoll keep pushing the pumpkin decorations off the table. After the babydoll spent some time in the corner, the baby then had to pick up the pumpkins and put them back. It was the cutest thing, we couldn’t even be mad that Claire had made her baby be naughty.

 

Onto today-Claire had her 2 year checkup. She is Amazon girl! She measured at 38.25 inches (99th percentile) and 29 lbs 4.5 ozs (79th percentile). I’ve heard you can double their height at age 2 and that’s approximately how tall they will be as adults. Yikes, that would put her at over 6 feet tall, like 6’4”! Levi and me are a little taller than average but not that much! Hopefully she goes through an ungrowth spurt for a couple years so the other kids can catch up. :) I noticed that BMI is now on her paperwork, her BMI is 14.09 (2nd percentile). Wow, I wish my BMI was 14! Actually not really, I like food too much. The Dr. said she is just perfect in everyway, but we already knew that. ;) She had to get a flu shot but she did great, didn’t even cry. I can’t believe the next appointment isn’t until 3 years old, a lot can happen in a year, I don’t know if we’re ready for this. Plus it’s nearly impossible to get a hold of anyone over the phone there.

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!