Out of Office Reply

Okay Guys and Gals, We are almost packed and ready for out 3+ weeks of travel (as everyone knows). Be sure to check our blog out when we return on September 12th (so, 15ish). I'll have lots of fun pics, including Clare and her yummy smash cake!

See you all soon!

Pbtttthhh!

Park II

Well, today didn't go as great as yesterday.

First, Clare has some fancy new shoes! Chris took Clare to Target last night (like you didn't know that was coming, Target). Her pink jelly shoes are getting a little too small. So, we need some sneakers for our walk. She, being a girl, sweet talked Chris into getting 2 pairs instead. I've been holding off on the Robeez (not my style) and the stride-rite (although I have a coupon) until after her birthday. Plus, I want to see how much fatter her foot is going to get. So, she had a minor adjustment to her new shoes.

Second, Clare discovered that there are THINGS! ON THE GROUND! THAT SHE CAN TASTE!
Mostly, gross things I would not taste like leaves. Which, I'm curious as to why they are already falling? There are sticks (Morris girls, those are also known as switches), acorns and ants. She likes to point with one finger to things for awhile before she is brave enough to taste it. So, Clare was easily distracted on our walk today by the nature on of the woods. I'm fairly certain it will only go down hill from here.

Next, Clare discovered that this pushing, up hill, is kinda hard work. And it's hot. And maybe she should take a union 15. In the stroller. So, after about 15 minutes (which I suppose is a lot to a kid her age) she decided it was time for me to push her walker and her to sit and eat leaves.

And do you love her sumo ponytail? She almost has enough for pig tails. I'm going to try it after bath tonight! I just felt so bad for her because her little head was all hot and sweaty.

P.S. The video was taken from my regular photo camera, so it's a little rough. While our park trips are cool, their not quite video camera worthy:)

Park

So, despite it being 91 degrees here (I'm sure Becky in Texas does not want to read about me complaining:), we went to the park today. Clare loves her push toy, so I wanted to let her get out and push it as far as she wanted. We couldn't go to our local park at the lake (goose poopies=gross) so we went to a nearby park with a huge path for jogging and biking. Clare pushed her toy forever! She was giggling the entire time, as if she was getting away with something. You can see her little face was all red and sweaty from the work out. We took a break on the swings, which are always a favorite.

Pictures!

Lots and Lots of pictures!

We had a fun week. Clare is working on using utensils.

That has worked out to be a giant FAIL!

For example, I put her yummy yogurt in a small bowl and gave her a spoon. She promptly threw the spoon on the floor and tried to drink the yogurt. She dumped the majority of it on her hands and then played in it. Delightful.

So, post lunch baths were a daily occurrence. She loves the bath, so that's fine. It's just gross carrying her upstairs, as far away from me as humanly possible.

She has 2 friends in her bath. Mr. Fish and Mrs. Duck (clearly their married, because Mr. Fish doesn't wear pants and lives with Mrs. Duck in the tub). Also, Mrs. Duck went to Miami for her MRS. Degree. That's how she became Mrs. Duck. She wears a sporty pink bikini top. I think it's a little racy, especially since she already landed Mr. Fish, but she hasn't been willing to discuss it yet. She also wears a visor. She is a gym teacher (sorta). Mostly she teaches Mr. Fish how to pick up after himself.

Anywhoo, I always pronounce things with the first letter of the word sounded out (phonetically).

Example: Mr. Fish is F, F, Fuh, Fuh, Fuh, ish. Fish.
Mrs. Duck is D, D, Duh, Duh, Duh, uck. Duck.

I've now realized I was teaching my daughter a curse word. Please take the first letter of fish and stick on uck. It won't go well if her 4th word is that one. Because I've made a real effort to clean up my language in front of the baby and Chris will never believe this is the way she learned that word. You know I can sell nearly anything, but I'm fairly certain Chris will not be buying that story.

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Dear Toys "R" Us

Apparently, the best toy E-V-E-R is an empty laundry basket.

Bows

Okay, Okay. Maybe Friday's post was a mild exaggeration.
Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't THE GREATEST DAY IN CLARE'S LIFE.
That was more likely to be the first day she had grapes. Or cotton candy. Or even Aunt Ginny's pea soup.

It was however, a very, very good day in MY life. I was very excited about the bow. It took about 32+ pictures to readjust the placement of said bow. Another 32+ pictures later, I realized that the only reason Chris and I can afford a roof over our heads is because they came out with digital cameras, rather than the old fashion method of developing the pics, no matter how many crappy, finger in front of the lens shots you have.

160 pictures later and I realized that I need to think about the fact this is just the yellow bow. We haven't even tried the 10 bows upstairs in her room. Soon-be-Momma Hays sent us the adorable outfit Clare is wearing in the pictures (you've all seen the Capri's...they fit her so well and have so many different colors she wears them at least once a week with different tops). The bow was a gift with the outfit and stays in her hair so well that I began to get a little nervous.
What if the other bows don't work? Well, a quick test run that evening (Clare loved that game) ensured that the majority of the bows will work. We can all sleep at night now=).

In other, non bow related news...
Clare has another tooth coming in. She was less than thrilled. It's an eye tooth or the one next to it. She is less reasonable when she is teething about me jamming my finger in her mouth to check in out, so it's hard to determine the tooth's exact placement (and ultimately not that important in life).

She is also "walking" more. I use quotes because she still crawls if she needs to be somewhere quickly. She can walk. She just chooses not to. So, despite having numerous text books claiming the various stages of motor development (and essentially a bachelors degree in the topic) I can't quite make the call as to whether she is a "walker" per se. Really, she is at like Stage 2 of 4 (or 5 depending on whose motor development scale you are using) in walking. However, strangers who ask how old she is and if she's walking yet don't really care about that breakdown with clinical assessments as to the fine details. So, I just use quotes. Even in person.

In one of the pictures above you can see a visual representation of my biggest fear in life. Currently we have "baby jail" which is the plastic gated system we use to corral Clare in the living room with toys in a safe place so I can "clean" (clean=talk on the phone and occasionally empty the dishwasher:). Clare started climbing baby jail. If she learns how to break out....I break out in a cold sweat just typing those words. I drink now. I'm not sure what I will have to do at that point. I was kinda bankin' on baby jail holding her until she was...5? Or even 16?

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I'll be traveling home soon, so I can't wait to see most (all) of you!

Ohhh, and Happy Belated Birthday Wyatt:)

THE GREATEST DAY IN CLARE'S LIFE...

HAS ARRIVED!

Since the second I saw my beautiful daughter on the ultrasound (she was about 5.5 weeks old:) I dreamed of this day.

Walking?

No.

SHE CAN WEAR HAIR BOWS!

Pictures to follow by Monday.

Technology

So, we all know that one day, our 9 year old will teach us all of the applications on our phone/computer/navigator/microwave oven we carry in our pockets, right?

I know that when I worked in retail, I had a ton of "kids" (16-21 year old girls) who worked for me. When I would get a new phone or need to know how to do something on mine, they would kindly teach me, while ridiculing the dorky "mom" phone I carried. Teaching a 16 year old how to work a POS (register) was typically pretty easy. Teaching a 40+ year old Mom made me want to kill myself. However, teaching a 16 year old how to count change was equally excruciating (apparently, according to my kids, the teachers no longer do the lesson in kindergarten with the paper coins to teach how to make change). It was a generation gap.

When my parents first purchased a computer for our home, it was, to put it nicely, humorous. Good times. My parents are known to hang onto to things well past their prime. When I was in high school, we purchased my parents an answering machine/phone combo unit. It was to replace the rotary phone in the kitchen that my sister and I were mortified by. Now please understand, this phone was not a "faux" rotary with buttons in the center of each circle on the dial. No, you had to physically turn the wheel for each number. Have you ever at 12, tried to win a radio call in phone contest on one of those? 'Cause I have. My parents refused to switch the phones out, based on the principle the other one worked fine. My sister, always the doer of the duo, took an opportunity one day when she was in high school, to disassemble the phone into many pieces, beyond recognition, thus ensuring a normal phone would replace it. We even had call waiting on that phone. You had to hit the handle that the phone rested in to switch over. Once my parents finally moved and used a "new" phone, they would constantly tell me they were going to "flash" over (as in they hit the "flash" button to click over). I would roll my eyes at how un-hip they were to technology. When we first got cell phones, their was no greater game than calling the house phone from the cell phone on your lap to watch my Mom go answer the house phone. It always made us pee our pants. My Dad had the same cell phone for nearly 10 years. The cell phone company finally replaced it for FREE because it was going to no longer continue to work.

These types of stories could continue on all day. Honestly, I never get sick of telling them. So, I've always known that when Clare was 8 and begging me for a cell phone, one that would likely cost more than my first car, she would know more about phones then me. Chris, a little more techie, was likely to escape that fate a little longer.

On Sunday morning, Chris had to go do theater lighting and be up at 9. So, Clare and I went upstairs to join him in bed to wake him up. Above our bed, mounted is a remote for ceiling fan/light combo that has been up on our ceiling since I was pregnant. We mounted the holder for the remote and use it like a switch so we don't have the "you were the last one in, why didn't you turn off the light" speech, or the "you lost the remote, AGAIN?" fight. Clare thinks it may be the best toy in the house. She is always racing for it and pulling it down and pressing all of the buttons. She looks immediately to the fan, because she knows that it somehow controls the fan/lights. She also showed us on Sunday the light has a dimmer. She would hold the button down to make the light get low and then make it bright again. We were stunned. Our 10 month old just showed us up. My 10 month old just taught me to use my light remote. Fantastic.

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