Happy Birthday to Me & Our Country!

Wow this is definitely the longest I’ve gone without updating the blog. I feel like I have to choose between playing on the computer, cleaning, or vegging in front of the TV and sadly for all of you I usually choose the TV. Levi and me love 24 so we started watching the series from the beginning. Each episode is about 45 minutes, there are 24 episodes in a season and 8 seasons, which is roughly 8,640 minutes of awesomeness. We are trying to watch them less often but they are so amazing and always leave you on a cliff hanger, it makes it really hard to stop.

Claire is still our busy little bee. She’s getting around soooo fast now! She loves just going. Her favorite destinations are the bathroom, her garbage of icky diapers and the dog’s food and water. She has had so many falls, bumps, bruises, and scratches already, I’m getting worried that CPS will be called on us! She loves all things girlie-shoes, necklaces, earrings, hair. I think that the hair pulling is the worst but I’ve also had a couple close calls with my earrings almost getting ripped out. I should just stop wearing them but I absolutely love earrings so I guess I’ll just take my chances. She is talking up a storm. She says “mama” and “dada”, we’re still not quite sure yet if she knows what they mean. Sometimes she’ll be looking at them when she says them and other times she’ll just be on an endless loop for no particular reason.

Claire’s eating habits have drastically improved. She loves all fruits so far but she’s not super excited about veggies or meat but I can usually get her to eat a pretty decent amount. Her favorites are probably, avocados (she’ll eat a half!), banana yogurt, bananas, baby puff cereal, bell peppers (soft cooked of course) and yams. It is really fun feeding her now because she will actually open her mouth for the spoon and with any finger type foods she’ll feed herself, which she loves.
I am now in Young Womens (translation from Mormon speak: I now get to work with the girls 12-17)! I am so excited! We’ve already had some super fun activities and we have an awesome group of girls. I look forward to a lot more fun to come.

It was my birthday the Sunday before last. I turned 24, gosh I’m old. It’s funny how birthdays aren’t quite as exciting now as they were when I was a kid. I looked forward to them all year and then for months I would plan a great big sleepover and they were always such a blast. But I had a good time this year. The Friday before we went to the Spirit Mountain buffet with Levi’s grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins and oh my goodness, I am salivating just thinking about it. They have any kind of food you can even imagine. Levi’s Grandma said that it’s the biggest in Oregon. There’s seafood, Mexican, sushi, Chinese, soups, salads, a great big yummy dessert bar and everything in between. Saturday we went to Katie’s (my sister-in-law Jaycine’s sister) wedding and had a blast. She was a beautiful bride and it was just such a wonderful day! And then Sunday my parents came down and spent the day with us. Levi made an awesome breakfast of Gingerbread waffles, they were killer! And then my Dad helped Levi finish our deck. That was the best birthday present, I’m so glad it’s finished! Levi and Claire gave me a patio swing to go on the new deck, he is so thoughtful.

We just had the world’s busiest weekend. Friday night we stayed the night at Dan & Lacey’s and then got up super early for the Hillsboro parade. Claire loved it. She was so interested in it and was watching all the floats and people passing by us. She got pretty sleepy and fell asleep sitting up in my lap. I laid her down in her stroller and she stayed asleep for probably 45 minutes. I couldn’t believe it, there were marching bands, screaming, trucks honking their horns. My mom and nephews were in the parade with my mom’s friend who works for Aloha Garbage and that was really fun seeing them. Afterwards we had a barbeque at Dan’s parent’s house and had a great time there as well.

Sunday was the annual Long Family Reunion and the name pretty well says it all. We got there at about 9 and left at nearly 6. But we had a great time! We got there early to help decorate and then Levi was in charge of the horseshoe tournament. He was so cute with it; he made certificates and painted horseshoes gold for the winners. And of course he made an excel program for the tournament and it would calculate the winner; I don’t think I’ve ever talked about the Bingo game he made for excel. It’s pretty sweet but that’ll have to be another time, I’m too tired. There was such good food, I seriously could not stop eating. Last year I was pregnant so I could eat a little more, this year I was nursing so I could eat a little more, crap what am I going to do next year!?!? I guess my choices are keep nursing an almost 2 year old or get pregnant, lol just kidding! I love Levi’s gigantic extended family, they are so fantastic. It’s like the Mormon version of the family on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Claire was in a pretty good mood most of the day but she was having a hard time taking her naps. I think she’s too worried she might miss something. We were so exhausted by the end of the day that we didn’t hang around for fireworks and we just sat around lazily the rest of the night at home. We figured Claire wouldn’t care much about fireworks this year anyway.

Enjoy some pics!

Rocking, Rolling. Crawling, Standing!?

Yes that's right Claire has been doing all sorts of crazy stunts these last couple of weeks. She can do a couple crawls in a row (lucky for us she hasn't really taken off yet) and then we were shocked Friday morning when she was standing up in her crib crying for us. Friday night was so hard to get her to go to sleep because she just wanted to keep practicing her new found skill. She'll pull herself up and then just get the biggest smiles on her face like "Look what I just did!" We're really trying to get our house baby-proofed because even without full-blown crawling she manages to roll, army crawl, scoot and lunge wherever she needs to go. She also can go very easily from crawling position to sitting and back again. It is just amazing watching her try so hard to make her body do what she wants it to. We knew from when she was in my belly that she would be a feisty one and she is definitely proving us right!

Claire is still not super interested in food but she is doing a little better. We give her either oatmeal or rice cereal and a fruit puree in the morning and then a veggie and meat puree for dinner.

I also had to give Claire her first hair trim the other day. She had these super long scraggly bangs and then a super long hair over one of her ears. So I dampened her hair, strapped her into her highchair and did my best. Her bangs are a little boxy now but at least they're better then they were. Next time I will have to try to taper it a little more. It is so hard to cut a moving target!

So to catch up; we had a blast Memorial day weekend. Levi had a 4 day weekend so Friday we just bummed around the house and I was able to run some errands without Claire which was nice because I was able to get so much more done but the whole time I felt like I was missing something. Saturday was a super busy but fun day! First we headed out to Vernonia for Levi's extended family get together. The weather was a little cruddy so we didn't do much but it was really nice to see everyone. Then Claire & me went to my parents house for a good friend's (my sister-in-law's sister but we call ourselves sister-in-law-laws) bridal shower. The weather was really nice from then on, thank goodness. After that Levi's Dad brought Levi back for Zenna's (our neice) 2nd birthday party. I really can't believe she's 2, where has the time gone!? My Mom made matching party dresses for Claire and Zenna, they are too adorable! I made her a pinata and it was so fun watching the kids go to town on it. Zenna especially loved hitting it with the tennis racket since the bat was a little too heavy for her. A couple times the pinata swung back and hit her and knocked her over, we couldn't help giggling. The burger picture is the burger that Colin ate; 2 patties, egg, cheese with a side of heart attack. Then after that we visited Levi's family because Janet had just had surgery. We are so glad that it went well and that she's feeling better now. Levi and Hayden were being really mean and trying to make Janet laugh, which hurt really bad. We ended up not getting home till midnight, it was the world's longest day.

That Sunday I wasn't feeling good so Levi took Claire to church all by himself, I was so proud. I guess all she wanted to do was blow raspberries on the pew in front of them. Then Monday some friends from church invited us over for a BBQ. It was so nice to be home a couple days and get to relax, that doesn't happen very often!

Then this last Saturday we went up to our friend's Dan & Lacey and Levi helped them with installing some sod. They seemed to have a blast while they were working. And Dan & Lacey made some amazing food for us! I volunteer Levi's services anytime for good food! ;) Just kidding honey.

Then yesterday my parents, Jay and the kids came down. They are such a hoot. Rayden is Mr. Competitive when it comes to anything, Kolten is a little clown and Zenna is a wonderful mother to her little baby doll that she takes everywhere with her. She was giving her a bath and tossing her up in the air just like her Daddy does. I don't think I've talked about it yet on here but my brother and SIL are moving to Colorado. Colin is actually already down there, he left last week. He was offered a really great job that he just couldn't pass up. Jay has to have baby #4 here so her and the kids won't be leaving till the beginning of August. We are so sad! Jay is Claire's only aunt and the kids are her only cousins and it'll probably be a while before Eric or Levi's brothers have any. They are hoping they will only be gone a couple years, I sure hope so too! I'm seriously considering kidnapping them and not letting them go!

Well I better go get something productive done while Claire is napping.

Mother's Day & a Blue Otter Pop

Well our little Claire-bear hit the 6 month mark last week. It is hard to believe how quickly time has gone by and how much our little bundle of joy has grown. I took her to her 6 month appt last Thursday. She was 27 inches long (89th percentile), 16 lbs 15 oz (69th percentile) and head circumference 43 cm (64th percentile). She has thinned out so much! I guess we can cancel her Weight Watchers membership ;). She had 3 shots and one oral vaccine. The doctor said all looked well and that she is just as healthy as can be.

I had an excellent first Mother's Day! Levi bought 2 beautiful black frames and filled them with pics that were black and white with just a splash of color on a couple; they turned out so good! Now I just need to decide where to hang them. We spent the late morning-early afternoon with Levi's fam. We went to Wortman Park (horrible name huh!?) in McMinnville for a picnic and it was beautiful. Janet loved her present from us which Claire then proceeded to suck on. The food was amazing; Subway sandwiches, grilled shrimp, oriental salad, 7-layer salad, potato salad, fruit salad and spice cake w/ bavarian cream frosting, yumm-o! I took Claire down a slide for the first time, she didn't really know what to think of that. We got to talk to Logan which was super nice; he's doing great! Then we spent the evening with my family. I love how sweet and gentle my nephews and niece are with Claire, it is the most adorable thing ever! More good food; seriously I wish our families were horrible cooks, it would make it so much easier to eat less! I played baseball with Rayden for a little while, he is so good and only 7. He's already a 3 sport athlete, wrestling, baseball and football. Hopefully he sticks with it and gets a bunch of scholarships. I got plants and flowers from both of our families which I am super excited to plant!

We've been continuing to try to feed Claire pureed foods but she is still not that interested. We've tried yams, chicken, bananas, applesauce, pears and rice cereal. We went and visited Ashley and her kids and daycare kids today and we ate Otter Pops. I let Claire try a little of my blue pop and oh my goodness she just started sucking on it like crazy! She sucked so much that the top of popsicle lost it's blue coloring. And then when I tried to snag a bite she screamed/cried! I'm still amazed that she was wearing a white onesie and didn't even get a speck of blue on it.

Oh and I have to apologize to everyone. We've been having asian people commenting on our profile in another language and it's a couple a week. I've just gotten sick of it so I'm now moderating the comments, which I hate but better than having some weirdo comments that I can't understand and have to delete constantly (not to mention my friend said they link to porn). So please, please, please still comment, it makes my day!