Claire's 9th Month

I can't believe it's time to blog again already! The past month went by so fast! Claire is doing great. It seems like she grew up a lot this month. Her understanding and response has really developed. She knows No and Stop (which we have to say all the time, she loves pulling the dog's hair and getting into the dog bowls) And she has become more independent. She loves exploring and being creative and playing by herself a lot more now. She says a lot of different combinations of sounds and really likes to babble all the time! I think she's gonna be a talker! She still doesn't have much hair, but it's starting to really fill in in the back and on get kinda long just on the crown of her head. She loves going for walks in her big 3 wheel stroller a friend gave us. She just thinks Paisley is the coolest thing since Pacifiers. :) She is still nursing and still loves to pull my hair, which still hurts! She loves when her Daddy comes home and has big smiles! Claire eats a ton of food! She loves avocados and can eat an entire one by herself in one sitting! She still loves chex and bananas as her other favorites! She learned how to be chased and crawl away about 2 moves and then she lays her head down on the floor and waits for us to come get her and laughs! She just started laughing a lot more. The acid reflux and hiccups don't get her every time she laughs anymore so she doesn't try not to laugh. She has been taking around a 40-80 minute morning nap and a 40-90 minute afternoon nap. Usually an hour each.Church is at 1:00pm and Claire can't make it through without her nap, so she and I are having to come home early to take a nap. If I stay too long, then she is too tired and won't take a nap and just be awake and fussy and grumpy so we are still trying to time it right. She learned to sit up on her knees to play with things and pull up on the couch and other places when she was almost 10 months. I hope she walks soon! Or at least before our family reunion in July. :) She has got quite the feisty personality and is a lot of fun to be around! Love this girlie tons!

Claire's 8th Month

Time is really flying by! I can't believe it! Claire is already 9 months old. We have been in our new rental house for 3 weeks now and LOVE IT! It is so much bigger, brighter, and cozy. We are about 6 minutes away from both sets of parents and see a lot more of them now. Claire has been busy, busy, busy! She is still NOT crawling yet, but she can get to where ever she wants to go. She hasn't gotten her tummy off the floor yet. These are some things she likes to do:

* Take baths in the big tub with all her toys
* Eating Rice Chex Cereal non-stop all day (if I let her, which I don't)
* Playing with her daddy
* Pulling Paisley's hair
* Cry fake cries to make mommy hold her a lot!
* Eat tons of food including avocado, banana, sweet potatoes, carrots, apples and blueberries, chex, rice krispies, and gnaw on carrot sticks.
* Drink juice! Which she only gets to help keep her regular. Prune juice mixed with a little apple juice and a lot of water!
* Dump her basket of toys over and go through them all and then act like she has nothing to play with
* Still loves nursing
* Likes to imitate us.
*She shakes her head and squishes her nose and says dadda, or baba or bop.
* Likes to go out anywhere to be out of the house and watch people!
* Likes to put food in her mouth herself. Sometimes if we do it, she will spit it out so she can put it back in

She is so much better at going to sleep now, and slept through the night almost her whole 8th month (since March 27th). She still loves her blankie her Great Grandma Warner made her. She is a happy little girl! She still loves her naps. She takes 2-3 naps a day. Each lasting anywhere from 20 minutes - 2 hours. Usually 40 min AM nap and 1 1/2 hour PM nap, sometimes another nap if she's growing a lot! We love her to pieces! I didn't get many pictures of her this past month, because we were busy packing, moving, and un-packing. She still has hardly any hair, but it is starting to grow in! :)

She crawled across the room just to play by Paisley

She still only has 2 teeth on the bottom. I finally got a shot of them!

Claire's Baby Blessing Sept 05, 2010

This is a little late, but we just got the pics from Papa Warner. Claire was blessed at church on Sept 05, 2010 by her daddy. Claire was about 6 1/2 weeks old. Both sets of Grandparents were there, Gretch and Elden, Dave and Janel and all of their kids, and Claire's Great Grandma Law-Swenson and Garn Swenson. Great Grandma and her sister Great, Great Aunt Wilma made her blessing dress. She made it for my Aunt's baby a while ago and ever since, I have been telling her she had to make me one, because I loved it so much! She has a lot of Grandkids, but I just happen to be her "favorite red-headed Granddaughter in Colorado". : )  (shhhh... don't tell anyone) I am very blessed to have such a wonderful family!
Here are some pictures of the day...

The cute new family

4 Generation Picture!

The Law Grandparents

The Warner Grandparents

The Dress!!

Dave and Janel with Lindsey and Matthew

Sweet Baby Girl!

Great Grandma Law Swenson

I made a cake!

This past Sunday was our last Sunday in our ward at church before we move. I am a leader/teacher to the Young Women at church (ages 12-18). I have been with them for just over a year now and I am going to miss them a lot! I decided on Saturday to make them a cake. I had no clue how I was going to decorate it, but once I dyed the icing blue, ocean scene was all I could think of. This is what I conjured up! It took me about 5 hours just to stack and frost the cakes and then decorate it. (Probably why I don't do it very often!) It was really fun though, and the girls liked it so much they didn't want to eat it! Well, for about 1 min, then they wanted to eat it because the icing smelled so good! :)

Before I did the sides

Claire, Claire and more Claire!

Claire has been very busy growing and learning new things! She is 8 1/2 months old now. She has been sitting up all by herself for a little while and is now doing the army crawl. She rolls all over the place and gets a very serious and determined look on her face when she wants to get something. She is movin' all over! She has been sleeping without being swaddled for at least a month now and she loves sleeping with her pink blankie her Great Grandma Warner made her and of course her passie. She is still taking 2-3 naps a day, though they aren't as long as they used to be. She has two teeth now, both on the bottom and she loves eating Chex cereal. She has a really fun personality and we love her tons! We have been really busy the last week packing up the house, we are moving up North in Colorado Springs to be closer to family. I'll update on that next time. Here are some pictures and a video...

 

Claire's first time in a shopping cart without her car seat! She had a lot of fun!

Claire reads through osmosis. :)

Claire loves when her Mima comes to visit her :) 

Video of Claire learning to crawl, she's almost there!

Claire got Paisley and they both loved it! Paisley is very gentle with Claire. But Claire is not so gentle with Paisley as you can see the choke hold. She likes to pull her fur like she likes to pull my hair!

The travelin' girlie!

She loves her some peas!

First Tooth!

Claire got her first tooth on Wed Feb 23, 2011! She had been pretty fussy and clingy the day before and I didn't really know why, then I found out! She was chewing on my finger and I felt it! I was really excited. She is so cute! Love her to death!! No picture yet though, it is so small you can't really even see it. :)

My First Bread!

I ventured to make my first loaves of bread. I found, what I thought to be, a good recipe for honey whole wheat bread on google and started baking! It went pretty well! It was easier than I thought, because my kitchen aid did all the kneading for me. :) I will totally do it again. It just takes about 2 1/2 - 3 hours from all the rising and then baking. Not too bad. They aren't the prettiest loaves ever, but I will get better!