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18 Month Portraits

Time sure flies by!

Thanks Mom, for getting Claire to smile so well. You are the best assistant ever!

Claire Bear - 18 Months

Actually, today marks Claire's 19 month birthday, but in order to keep my timeline correct, we're going to take a look back at the past "six months". Claire has grown up a lot since she turned one last June. She has definitely entered the toddler stage and left baby far behind. A few days prior to writing this post on Claire's recent development, I began to make a list of what she has been doing lately. I had about 20 things on my list when I realized that almost everything started with the letter "b". It seems as though our little bear has been in love with all things "b". Here are her latest obsessions:

• her Baby doll - she got this for Christmas from her cousin and she will not let it out of her sight (day or night) and if she does, she'll soon realize it and say "baby" until you at least tell her where baby is so she knows she's safe. :) She also loves to push her baby around in the stroller she got for Christmas.




Photo taken October (16 Months). Claire was borrowing her friend's stroller for the day and thought it was so much fun pushing Khloe around (this was before she got her own stroller and baby). 

• Brushes - apparently any sort of brush will do; hair brush, toothbrush, Mama's makeup brush....she loves them all! Although she hates having her own hair brushed.
• Broccoli - she'll often eat an entire plateful (I hope that continues)

• Blankie - much like her baby doll, she has gotten extremely attached to this and must have it when going to sleep.
• Bowls - EVERYTHING she eats must be placed in a bowl. If you ask her if she wants a snack or something to eat, she'll run to the Tupperware cupboard and say "bow".
• Balloons - I'm sure every child loves balloons and Claire is no exception. She finds them everywhere! On apartment signs and car dealerships we drive by, her favorite library books....she can pick them out from a mile away. She LOVES her "bawoons".
• Books - Claire loves to read and go to the library (which we frequent 2-3 times a week). Currently, she prefers flap books, because she loves to play peekaboo. A few weeks ago she started throwing her books on the ground an I told her she had to be nice to them so now she places them very gently on the ground. Adorable!

October (16 months)

• Belly Button - I don't know why these are so interesting, but if she spots the slightest amount of stomach skin, she will try and pull your shirt up to find your belly button.
• Bike - the bike Claire got for her birthday last summer has been wonderful! She rides it everyday and usually has to put her blankie over the handles and she gets VERY frustrated when blankie doesn't cooperate and falls on the ground or gets stuck under the wheels.

• Barrettes / Bows - she used to be really good about leaving things in her hair, but lately she thinks it is hilarious to rip out the barrettes and bows she finds on her head.
• Bye - Claire waves ALL the time and in the past few weeks, "hi" has become one of her most frequently used words. She will say "hi" to anyone she sees, and not just once.
• Babbles - she babbles constantly. Her favorite sentence is "duh buh duh buh duh buh". I wish I knew what she is saying in her mind. She babbles with such sincerity like she is actually speaking to you. So cute!
• "Big Girl Hair" - that's what I call it when her hair is in one ponytail...just like a big girl. Her hair has grown so fast; it's already a couple of inches down her back.
• "Baa" - that is Claire's favorite animal noise to make. She also says, "cock a woo" (cock a doodle doo), "roar" (dinosaur), "ooh ooh" (monkey), and tons more. 

Claire looking at the animals at the zoo.
She loves to go to the zoo, the aquarium, and Wheeler Farm.

I think that about sums up the "b" words. Here are some other things I never want to forget:

• how much she loves dancing - if she hears music, she'll start swaying back and forth and as of last week, she likes to make anything she can put in her hands dance...especially baby.
• how interested she is in throwing things away - whether it's throwing things "way" as she says (into the garbage), or putting objects away...she is usually very keen in doing it herself.
• how every liquid is "wa wa" - I never give Claire juice because I figure she doesn't know what she's missing, so everything is water. Even Mama and Dada's drinks are called "water" (even if they clearly aren't) so that she'll think we all have the same thing.
• her pointing - if Claire points to something and says "sis" (which means 'what is this?') , she will not let up until you say what it is. She also says "saa" for 'what is that?').
• her dislike for sitting still in cars or strollers - if you aren't moving, you can bet you will hear "go" over and over until you actually start going.
• her love for flags - just like balloons and airplanes, she will find a flag anywhere. If she's pointing at something in the car and says "na", there is probably a flag in the distance.
• how she insists on wearing sunglasses in the car and how I always have to wear them with her
• her love of saying prayers - obviously she doesn't say anything, but before you even mention the word prayer, she somehow knows to fold her arms. She also loves it when Khloe joins in for family prayer and we fold her paws together.
• her growing vocabulary - "gain" (again), "no" (an obvious favorite), "caugh caugh" (cracker), "haugh" (hot - anything with a bright light or warm is hot), "huh oh" (uh oh), "hey", and much more.

Even though Claire frequents the time out corner many times a day and makes me want to tape her mouth shut sometimes when I've heard her say "Momma" a thousand times that morning, I couldn't love her more. Generally, she is such a good girl and all the stuff I mentioned above is only a small percentage of the adorable things she does. Every day she learns something knew and amazes me in some way. Whether its gaining a love for tucking in her baby, surprising me with the knowledge of a new letter, or even getting a new tooth, I love every milestone she reaches, big or small. She is my best friend and I will love her forever!
  

To see her transformation, click HERE



More Celebrating

We had so much fun with my family in town from Arizona and Nevada. They are a blast to hangout with and Claire loves all of the commotion that comes with having them here. This time, in particular, she enjoyed playing with the Lego trees that her cousin, Connor, had used to create a battle scene. Every time he is here, I am amazed at the things he builds with Lego's. What an imagination! Claire also has a lot of fun with her cousin, Brooklyn, who is just a few weeks younger than her. It is so cute to watch them interact with each other even though they aren't at the age of playing together. They love to watch one another and steal the other's toys and baby dolls. The last night they were in town, we had a hot tub party with all of the kids. I love being with family and I wish they all lived closer. We miss them already!

Moving onto Christmas evening with Erik's family. Unfortunately, Erik's sisters had various conflicts so we weren't able to spend time with them, but we did make a stop at his parent's house. Claire opened more presents and practiced hitting a golf ball with her Farfar's new golf club. I think she's going to be our little golfer whether she likes it or not. :)

Christmas day came to an end, but it wasn't really over at our house. The next morning we went to Erik's aunt and uncle's house for the annual Christmas Morning Brunch (even though it wasn't really Christmas morning). As always, the food was delicious! Claire's favorite parts of the morning were playing with her Farmor's oxygen tubes (she thinks it is so funny to pull it out of her nose) and chasing her cousin, Emma, to give her hugs. They are adorable with each other! Claire's eyes light up every time she gets to see "baby Emma".

Unfortunately, a house full of little kids isn't the ideal situation for Khloe. She was chased around for hours and would jump on any adult lap she could find. I thought it was hilarious when she even jumped on Farmor's lap for a moment of relief. Later, she finally got a break and had a good nap. Kids make her very anxious and she was glad to have some peace and quiet.



We all really enjoyed having our annual Christmas Morning Brunch the day after Christmas. It felt like Christmas all over again. Who wouldn't enjoy another day with more food and presents? Claire sure did!

(Picture on left: a beautiful print with the words from the Proclamation put into the shape of the Salt Lake Temple. Thank you Tom and Kari! I love it!)

The time finally arrived when our Christmas celebrations came to an end. What a whirlwind! In my mind it was a total success. Claire was very good about signing thank you and we all couldn't have been happier. A smile on her face is a smile on mine. Can't wait 'till next year!

It's About Time

Christmas is finally here....on our blog that is.

Since Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, the first thing we did was go to church. Once we came home, we put Claire back into her pajamas and opened a couple of presents. One of my favorites was a new garbage can from Erik. We've had our kitchen garbage can for eight years and every week I dreaded taking it out because it was so difficult getting the bag out of the can. It's funny how the things you want for Christmas change as you get older. I never would have imagined getting excited over a garbage can, but I was. Thanks Honey for such a thoughtful gift. Muah!

We hurried as fast as we could and headed over to my parent's house because everyone was waiting for us. Claire got to take part in the annual "sit on the stairs like you are waiting" picture. She looked like such a big girl, I couldn't believe it. Isn't she adorable?!

It soon became very chaotic. The kids ran into the living room and it was a mad house. Presents were tossed to one another, wrapping paper was flying through the air, and smiles were as big as can be. Claire was surprisingly content with opening a present and then playing with it for a while before moving onto the next one, but it all came to a screeching halt when she opened her new baby stroller. She LOVED it and wouldn't have cared if that's all she got. She was definitely a happy camper.

Of course, we didn't forget about little Khloe. She sniffed her way through the dog food, bones, and treats and found her favorite present of all: three baby tennis balls. Khloe was in doggy heaven and Claire was even very excited for her. What a supportive sister.

The madness slowly died down and we had a very relaxing day with the family. I played 'Guesstures' with my niece, Lindsay, Claire read books with her Morfar, and Erik danced with my niece, Ashlyn, to her new video game. Well....he danced long enough for me to hurry and take a picture. Now we have proof. :)

I noticed there was one common factor that everyone possessed while opening or playing with their presents: you must stick out your tongue. I knew Erik did this while concentrating, but I had no idea it spread to his daughter and my nieces. Hilarious! I guess we really are all related.

As usual, Christmas day was wonderful! We were so blessed to spend it with family and were definitely spoiled rotten.Thank you to everyone who gave us a gift this year. We hope you appreciated ours as well, and we can't wait to all be together soon.

I am so grateful for the gifts I received and most importantly, to have my very own happy family. Erik, Claire, and Khloe mean the world to me! Love you all. 

Almost There I Promise

I know....I know. I've done three posts leading up to Christmas and I still haven't even gotten there yet. I promise the next post will be Christmas day.

First, I have to do a short back story on the photo below so you'll understand what happened to Claire's right eyebrow. The night before Christmas Eve, Claire was pushing her bike around the living room when it tipped over, she fell on top of it, and got a huge gash on her eyebrow. This was her first big owie. Sadly, I don't know which thought came to my mind first: is she okay or great, now all of her Christmas pictures are going to be ruined. :) Isn't that terrible of me?! We cleaned up the blood and decided to put a band aid on it and go to bed. I still am second guessing our decision and think that we maybe should have gotten stitches, but it's too late now. Thankfully, the pictures weren't actually ruined. The next night was the family nativity and our little sheep was just as cute as can be. Claire walked around the room dancing to the hymns with her hand on her chin and when baby Jesus entered the scene, she ran over to unswaddle him so she could hold the doll.



Claire, and the rest of her nieces and nephews, did a wonderful job in the nativity. I was definitely a proud Mommy. Afterwards, everyone gathered around my Dad as we all looked up on the Internet where Santa was at the moment. If I remember correctly, Santa was flying over Peru. The kids got so excited and thought he was just a few minutes away and wanted to get into bed, but first they had to open up their Christmas Eve gift. To our amazement, Claire was very excited about opening her present. Her cousin, Connor, showed her what to do with the paper and she loved every second of it. When she finally opened up her first gift and saw the pajamas with a dog on them, she almost couldn't contain herself. She was so happy! This was going to be a fun Christmas.

Santa & Claire's Sledding Highlights

Christmas Eve morning my entire family was together at last! First on our agenda was Santa pictures at Fashion Place Mall. I already blogged about Claire's picture: you can view that post here. I was actually really happy that she was crying so hard. It definitely made for a good photo. The group photo (Claire and all of her cousins), on the other hand, turned out to be not so good. The people couldn't even hold the camera straight. Annoying!

After Santa, naps, and lunch, we headed up to The Spruces for sledding. We were hoping to go to Mt. Dell Golf Course because we've heard the sledding is awesome, but they didn't have any snow. The snow where we were was very icy and hard, but at least they had snow. This marked Claire's first time in her new snow suit and being thrust down a giant hill. But first things first....family pictures to document the event. (I've learned that it is best to do "portraits" first so that they are out of the way, I am usually freshly made up, and heaven forbid we actually forget to take them.) :)

 

Moments later, Claire was having the time of her life. Sometimes she was full of smiles, others a little surprised, and a couple of times she was outright scared. To our amazement, she never cried from going down the slide. Yay for Claire!

The photo below is my favorite one of the afternoon. Her facial expression is hilarious! The funniest thing about it is that she wasn't even going down the hill. Erik was pulling her across the snow and she started to fall backwards in the sled. I guess it was quite scary.

We spent a couple of hours going down the icy hill and had tons of fun. My oldest nieces were enjoying every minute of it and my nephew, a total adrenaline junky, couldn't have fit in any more rides down the hill if he tried. Even when I was sure he got hurt, he got up with a smile on his face and went at it again. I hope Claire grows up to have that much audacity.

Doing activities like this is usually quite an ordeal, but in the end, I am always glad we make the effort to do them. Dressing in tons of layers, packing all of Claire's stuff, driving to our destination, and putting myself on 'photo duty' so we have great pictures to document the day, is never the most pleasant thing in the world. However, doing a fun activity with my family and having the memories and photo evidence to prove it makes it all worthwhile.

An Uxpected Break

Before my entire family had made it into town for Christmas, Claire and I, along with my sister's family and my parents, went ice skating at the Cottonwood Heights Rec Center. It was a free "Skate with Santa" afternoon and was a total blast.

I was a little nervous to skate while holding Claire (Erik was off working), but I figured as long as I went very slow, everything would be fine. Well, the challenge for the afternoon was not skating, but getting Claire to let me to hold her. She was literally attached to my Mom's hip and would not let go. I am so glad she loves her, but come on! She's supposed to love me more. :)

Since I couldn't get Claire to warm up to me (so weird), I went off to skate with my nieces and nephew and Claire watched from the sideline. Every year it is more and more fun to do things with them and this year was no different. We skated around trying to do tricks and took a billion pictures to try and capture the perfect ones (so like my family). I love how they bring out the little kid in me and make me want to act silly even when I look stupid. Sometimes it's nice to put being a Mom on the back burner and act like a kid again. I have to admit that I am a little excited to embarrass Claire when she's older. Doesn't every parent enjoy that?

About an hour into skating, Claire finally let me hold her. She missed her nap that afternoon and was very particular with which activities would keep her happy and which ones would bring on a temper tantrum. Standing on the ice with Mommy, fine. A very slow stroll about three feet down the ice, fine. 

Putting her down to get a standing picture with Mommy, I don't think so. That was not on Claire's agenda for the day. So what exactly did Claire prefer to do that afternoon? Climb on the railing with her Mormor/Morfar and watch from afar. I welcomed the short break and forgave her for this one instance, but it better not become a habit. :) 

Let the Mayhem Begin

Thanksgiving through  New Year's is my absolute favorite time of year even though it's filled with a million things to do. It always puts me in such a joyful mood and I like to find every possible way to celebrate the Christmas season. We checked the first activity off of my "To Do" list by ice skating with Erik's parent's at South Jordan City Plaza. It was tons of fun, and free, which made it even better. Although we were freezing, Claire thoroughly enjoyed going around the rink with her Daddy and could not stop smiling.

 
A couple weekends later, we marked going to the lights at Temple Square off of our list. This has seemed to become a tradition in our house and I enjoy it every year. Claire loved seeing all of the lights and kept signing "hot", because she thinks lights are hot and I haven't told her differently. It's managed to keep her little fingers away from our Christmas tree entirely. She did throw a little temper tantrum after she was put back in her stroller and we were given a few "crusty looks" from on-lookers walking by. They probably weren't as bad as the looks I gave them when I noticed their child had no coat, gloves, or hat on. It had to have been 20 degrees outside for heavens sake! Although Claire enjoyed the lights everywhere, she was more enamored by the big water fountain she saw as we were leaving. Claire loves water and said "wa wa" a hundred times after setting her eyes on the fountain ahead. It was a fun family outing that we all enjoyed.

The week before Christmas I was pleasantly surprised when I happened to come upon the most PERFECT ornament for Claire this year. This is a tradition my parent's started where we would pick an ornament that represents something we did or liked that past year, which began from birth and went through to age 18. Claire is obsessed with my parent's vintage Little People playhouse/ferris wheel set that is probably from 1975. She plays with it every time she goes to their house and I could not believe it when I came across an ornament of the exact house. What a score!

That same week, Claire also got to enjoy a Christmas themed "Gotta Move" class at the Whitmore Library. Claire and I go to various libraries every week and she has really enjoyed listening to the stories and dancing with the kids around her. She was pleasantly surprised to receive a candy cane from the teacher at the end of class and even tried to steal a few more when she wasn't looking. :)

Before things got too hectic, we enjoyed a lovely dinner with Erik's siblings and grandparents. It was a wonderful opportunity to exchange gifts and converse with one another before the mayhem really began. It also eliminated another house we would have to drive to on Christmas Day. Claire's great-grandparents gave her their gift (money) and she promptly responded with the sign for "thank you". Not to our surprise did it only take her a second to look at the gift, throw it on the ground, and run to the table full of toys nearby. Although it means nothing to her now, I know the day will quickly arrive when all she wants are dollar bills, checks, and gift cards.

With Christmas day closing in on us, Claire had no idea all of the excitement that lied ahead.