Claire's 11th Month

Wow, time has flown! I can't believe Claire is 1 year old now! She is such a blessing in our lives. She is so sweet and very smart! at her 1 year check up I told the Dr all the things she could sign and say and he was shocked! She knew where her ear and nose and eyes were, and he said they don't even ask us if they can do that till they are 15 months old! Well, we have a genius I guess!

*Claire eats meat now, and she likes it a lot!

*Says "oh" and "yeah" all the time*Got 4 top teeth all at the same time*Can sign chex*Can sign water*Cruises around furniture well and can hold on with only one hand* Loves balls and stacking cups*Can grab/point to these when asked: hair brush, toothbrush, kitty, paper, donkey, Jesus (picture), passie, blankie, nose, ear, eyes, tummy, bottle*Only nursed till 11 1/2 months and is completely weaned!*Loves to play chase and squeals like crazy when we get her!

We love her TONS!!!  She is awesome and rocks my world every day. We have so much fun together! I love being a stay at home mom. What a blessing to not have to work and leave her with other people. 

I would miss out on so much!

Claire's 1st Birthday!

Claire, my mom and I flew to SLC on July 15th and Claire did a fantastic job! Especially since the flight was delayed 3 hours! Claire actually did fantastic the entire trip! I was really shocked. She slept well every night, even though she was feeling well and had a blow out pretty much every morning. It was kinda crazy. She had a good time and we all did! She even slept perfectly while we were camping in a RV for 2 nights and had to share he sleeping room! 

We had Claire's party the day after her birthday at my brother's house in Layton, UT. It was a fun, cute little party. My cousin Megan made the cutest cake EVER!

Not only was it cute, it was delicious!!! 

Since Claire is allergic to dairy, and we are keeping her wheat/gluten free and egg free I made her an awesome vanilla gluten free wacky cake. It was actually really yummy and I would totally eat it any day! So, if you need a dessert and you have no eggs, make it! I had zero time to decorate it because people started to show up early so, I just put little blob designs on it. :)

Claire loved it and loved the candle flame. She wanted to touch it. We tried to get her to blow it out, but she didn't know how so Dale did it for her. 

She started to eat all off the little yellow blobs of icing first. Pretty much, she loved it! She had never had anything pure sugar like that before. She kept eating the blobs only and wouldn't dig in, so I ended up cutting her a slice. She ate almost the whole slice. 

Here she's thinking: "Can I really eat this whole thing myself? I can just dig in?!?!?" :)

It started to get messy, so we threw the bib on.

See those big, beautiful blue eyes? She's thinking: "This is the yummiest thing I have ever eaten in my life!"

It was a lot of fun and I got to see a lot of old friends I haven't seen in YEARS! The kids had fun outside and in the play house eating burgers, chips, cheddarwursts, and frog eye salad.

Nathan was just busy eatin' some good food!

Keegan, Claire's 2nd cousin was there too, and they played with the decorations together

Then it was time to open presents!

Claire loved all of them!

Music cow that moos, pretty dress, stuffed owl made by Aunt April, 

swimming pool, clothes, Tigger toy and others...

This is Claire's silly, sniffy, bunny nose that she makes. We love it! :)

Then it was bed time! She had fun! 

It was a really great trip. Claire had fun the whole time. And she did really well on the flight home too!

What a great baby girl!

Yummy Food!

Recently I've been trying out new recipes and came up with a yummy mango avocado salsa that I changed up parts of the recipe and made my own. It is super yummy! Dale wanted it twice last week!

First up is Salsa with lemon garlic chicken and brown rice with black beans and cilantro

And then I was making Salmon and decided to make fish tacos and Dale wanted the salsa on it too!

It's been a tasty week so far! :)

10 Months with Adorable Claire!

Claire is so much fun these days! She brings much joy to our family and home. She has such a cute personality and loves to be funny!
*On the day she turned 10 months she decided it was the day she would start to crawl off her tummy. She still does the army crawl when she's got a toy in each hand and doesn't want to put them down to get where she wants to go and when she's trying to get somewhere fast!
*On the same day, she also decided to be interested in climbing the stairs, which we had only done maybe 2 times before. She went half way up before I realized where she was! Brave little soul.
*She loves to play by herself and talk to her toys. Her favorite is to empty all the baskets of toys so she can see them all and then pick some to play with.
*She learned how to wave hi, and bye, though her hand is always facing backwards. (Too cute!)
*She claps when we say "Yay" and when people clap on TV.
*She says "Woo Woo" in a really high pitch voice when we ask her what a doggy says. And when she hears any dog bark.
*She knows how to baby sign please, by patting her chest twice. Sometimes when she really really wants something she pats her chest with both hands!
*She knows how to baby sign more, by clapping her hands together. And when she really really wants something, she claps a lot!
*She also signs food, by rubbing her hand over her mouth and making the "buhbuhbuhbbblbu" sound when she does it.
*She can sign puppy, by patting her hip 2 times.
*Can sit down from a standing position, though at first it always took her a couple tries before she actually sat down. Little practice runs. She would always practice by our tub in the master bathroom... Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. :)
*Likes to sing with the music on her toys
*Gives open mouth kisses when asked for one, and sometimes she leans in with a big open mouth to get one all on her own! Love it!
*She cruises around in her new walker
*Absolutely loves fresh blueberries and raspberries. Still loves bananas, avocados and Chex cereal. We decided that Nana was her first word, because she could see and nana and call it by name. :) She's been doing that for a few months now though.
*We chase her and she laughs, or Dale makes her get me and she laughs. She loves to laugh the most when it's almost bedtime!
WE LOVE THIS BABY GIRL!

   

Crazy Mom!

So, Dale and I were over having dinner with my mom and dad and Dale's little brother Michael and Claire. We got Pizza Hut pizza and Buffalo Chicken Hot Wings! If you know my mom at all, you would know that she does NOT like hot food! I'm always tricking her into eating hot and sour stuff and she hates it! (sour skittles, sour anything, flaming hot cheetos etc...) So, I got these wings and they were supposed to be Medium hot. But when we got them home, I thought they were pretty darn hot, hot!! I could barely manage them, and I like hot food! (Not too too hot though) So, out of no where she says, " How much would you give me if I ate one??" We said, yeah right! You would die! But, Dale said he would give her $20 if she ate it and didn't drink anything right away afterwards. So... this is the video. :) :) :) HAHAHAHAHAHA

Photo shoot

I've been really wanting to get into photography lately. The only problem is that I don't have a good camera! I decided to do a cute photo shoot with Claire anyway. I got her this adorable outfit and had to use it for something! She had fun just playing, but then she got real tired of it at the end when I had to stop! :) It was time to eat. I still thought it was a cute shot so I put it in. I also got the free trial off Adobe Lightroom 3.3 and tried it out for photoshop. It is pretty good!

Claire's first Easter!

We went to Dale's brother's house in Thornton, CO for Easter Saturday this year. It was a lot of fun! I was worried how Claire would do on the drive, but we timed it just right to be during her naps. :) She slept for about 40 minutes each way and was happy the rest of the way! These are a couple pictures I took of Claire. :)