Claire: 4 months

(She actually turned 4 months about 1.5 weeks ago, back on the 3rd, but I'm  a little behind).

Oh man, we love our little Claire bear!  She is just so darn cute and smiley and generally happy to be around.  We had a week during this last month where she was sick and I think teething and her reflux was out of control and she was a fussy mess.  But, we got it all worked out and she's back to her happy, normal self!

Height: 90th %
Weight: 50th %

• Best three words to describe her right now: twelve straight hours.  She's done it a few times and it's amazing.  Even though she was only waking up once, it still interrupts sleep.  I just read my "4 months" post from Lucy and it was talking about how we never slept and she couldn't sleep and how sleep deprived we all were.  I remember how depressing that was with no end in sight.  But I also really needed Claire to be a good sleeper or I don't know how I would survive taking care of Lucy too this time around!
• She's smiling like crazy!  I love that when I call out Claire's name from somewhere else in the room, she gets a big huge smile immediately and looks around until she finds me.
• The bottom two teeth are starting to push up.  They're puffy, she's drooling a ton, and constantly has a few fingers she's chomping on.
• Lifts up her head a lot.  Today she was almost doing mini pushups and lifting most of her body off the floor.
• Claire's feet touch the end of her little bathtub and she kicks back and forth to each foot, pushing against the end over and over.  It's like her own little game.  Or talent show.  Or something.
• She "talks" like crazy, especially if you talk with her.
• Claire got really sick.  She had a terrible cough that was scary to listen to, and she also had an ear infection.  Poor girlie.  (She still slept good, for the most part!)
• Grabs toys and is totally entertained by them, especially her rattles and o-ball and plays with them for minutes at a time.
• Started hanging out in the little fisher price bouncer/jumper thing, although she is far from touching the floor.  But I think she likes the new scenery and the fact that she can be up and not lying down. 
• She lays on her back on the floor and watches basketball with Ryan.  She really will sit and watch sports on the tv for a long time, sometimes she will even fall asleep there.  Not that we leave her on the floor for hours at a time.
• Claire is super ticklish! She especially laughs every time you tickle her ribs and belly.
• She rolled over one time, totally on accident, and I saw it all thanks to our video camera.  

Oh, and her cheeks are still super chubby and perfect.

 So close but not quite.

Can't you just tell that sweetness radiates from this cute girl?  It does.  And I need to get more on top of this headband thing because she's deprived of them these days.

Oh, hello, mini-Ryan (at least I think so).

 This girl sleeps on her belly, so when I looked up and she was on her back, I was shocked!

 There have many many times lately where she just falls asleep on the floor, on our bed, wherever she is laying.  Babies seriously do this?! Amazing.

 Oh, hello Claire!  I think Lucy may have gotten ahold of my phone and snapped away- like she always does.

And some videos.  I love both of these.  And apparently she wears this outfit a lot because it's in every video.

Phoenix, AZ

On our way home from Utah, we had a layover in Phoenix.  Unfortunately this was the day of the first huge snowstorm that blasted the midwest and our flight got delayed, which would get us in at about 4:30am the next morning instead of the original 9pm that night.  So after a lot of talking to southwest employees, we finally just got our flight switched to leave on Sunday morning.  Since it was only Thursday, we got to make a whole little trip out of it!  It was such nice weather and got to the mid 70's and was sunny, so it really felt like another whole trip in and of itself!  Thankfully Kevin and Amy let us crash in on such late notice and were so nice to help us get all accommodated with pack and plays and everything we needed.  Thanks, Kevin and Amy!

We had to bring home an extra suitcase just for gifts alone, so between Ryan and I, we had to move two kids, a stroller, and 4 suitcases.  It was crazy, so we had to pull Lucy around like this.

 Enjoying being outside in short sleeves and sun!  Ryan played basketball with all of the kids in the backyard.

Suz needed a little help making a basket, so Ryan gave her a boost.

 Fresh fruit trees! We had several grapefruit off their tree and they were so good!

 We walked to a nearby park one afternoon and fed the ducks and then went over to a playground where Lucy had a blast.  We need winter gone asap.

 An Saturday afternoon we went to Midwestern University to check out where Kevin goes to school.  It was a really pretty campus (even though I didn't get great pictures of it) and it's fun to be able to actually picture their area more now when we talk to them.

 After Midwestern we swung by the new Phoenix temple being built.

 Our last stop of the day was to get Rita's frozen custard.  Yum!

 When we got back to the Martin's, we sat and played in the backyard.  Ryan played dodge ball with the kids with this set of vests and balls that they had.

 Lucy got hit with two balls and came running over to me.  I thought this picture was funny. ha!

 Amyah and Lucy colored on rocks with chalk.

And that about sums it up!  We left early Sunday morning and got back to Ohio with no delays.  It was so fun!

This happened.

Long story short: we all learned a dance called "the Wobble" and then a few of us on a random morning all found ourselves in the pantry stuffing our bums with rags to get a ghetto booty and then performing on the kitchen floor stage for everyone else.  And that's that.  But just to repeat, our bums are stuffed with rags.  Lots of them.  We didn't just gain a lot of weight in our rears.

Here's a blurry version because my phone won't let me upload it in HD right now.

 Lucy has asked to watch the wobble (a.k.a. "ah-boo, ah-boo") approximately one thousand times and any time she hears music she starts to do her version of the wobble, which is basically circling her arms and turning in circles.

The rest of Christmas break

And because I am too lazy to make a million posts about different things that happened, and we are already over a month past Christmas, here is a smorgasbord of pictures from the rest of our trip to Utah over Christmas break.  And in no particular, very random order.

Lucy and Lynnlee spent quite a bit of time in the shoe department of Nordstrom Rack.  They both love shoes and sat there trying on all different pairs.  Of course the favorite were the hello kitty crocs... two things that Rachael and I both hate.

 We of course couldn't make a trip out there without going to Cafe Rio, and so we met up with my parents at the one in Draper and had a fun time at dinner.  

 Lucy tried to stuff this mint in my dad's mouth the whole time while saying "eat too! eat too!" ha.

 My mom pretending to feed Claire her coke.

 Lucy and Lynnlee attacking Craig in the playroom.  This probably happened several times.

 Bath time!

 We took family pictures with my side of the family at the public library downtown.  I still have to get those pictures from my sister.  After that, we wandered over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  Lucy never misses the opportunity to pound an open piano.

 We took a picture on this couch in this same spot the day we were married 4.5 years ago.  And now look at our little family!

My girls with grammy and papa.

 Just one of the rents.

Ryan's parents have the most beautiful backyard.

 We went to Scheels the same day we went to Nordstrom Rack.  Lucy and Lynnlee rode around in this together for a majority of the time.  They both loved each other's rain boots so much they switched and wore the other ones the rest of our trip.  Silly girls.

 We had a ping pong tournament called the Wobble Baby tournament because of another incident in which we learned a dance called "the Wobble" and then a few of us performed it.  

 Ryan won and had the beat Craig, the reining champ, twice, so naturally a picture had to be taken to prove it.

 After going to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building with my parents we went to eat the the Nauvoo Cafe on Temple Square.  It was good!

 We have a picture of my dad with Lucy just like this in the same spot and with both that picture and this one, my girls are wearing bibs.  Should have taken it off, but oh well.  Still cute.

 Lucy insisted on riding like this around Costco.

 Craig got new running shoes for Christmas but they might not have any tread left with how much Lucy walked around the house in them.

The newest members of the bunch.  Claire (2.5 months and Klein almost 2 weeks)

 The girls faces are all so funny in this picture.  They loved setting out the can of tuna for the cat.