Claire: 10 months

Where is time going?!  This girl's life is flashing before my eyes.  I feel like we just had her and here it is, almost one whole year later.  Crazy.  Here is a little bit about our ten month old (as of August 3rd):

• SO mobile!  She is standing up, walking along everything, crawling over everything, into everything.  She's busy!  She often stands for a second or two all on her own before she falls back down on her bum.
• Starting to get some serious separation anxiety.  Hates when mom is not holding her and other people are around.  Often dislikes if mom is not holding her just in general.  It's a phase.
• Still sleeping through the night like a champ!  She adjusted fairly well to the time change on our recent trip out west, and when we got home, she finally started sleeping in until like 7:30 or 8 for a few mornings.  But then it went back to waking up in the early 6am hour.  Darn.
• If we stopped giving Claire bottles and only fed her table food, I think she would be a happy camper (as would I), which is great since this phase is right around the corner!  She doesn't do that great at drinking bottles anymore, but is definitely a champion eater! She will eat anything I put on the tray in front of her and all of it.  She is not starving these days, that's for sure!  And it's nice because she is now busy eating when Lucy is too, so I get a chance to eat as well.  Win!
• She's in that little phase where she loves other babies!  It's so cute to see her get so excited about them.
• Click her tongue all the time.  She makes that noise a majority of the day.  It's so cute.
• This girl likes to crawl and climb over everything.  She especially likes to find something on the other side of where I am (if I am laying on the ground) and climb right over me, which means she gets up as high as possible and then kind of falls head first with her feet in the air, continuing on to whatever she is wanting to get to.   

That about sums up Claire right now!  We love this happy, cute little baby girl in our lives!

July 2014

These cute girls love playing in their cribs with each other.  It's so fun to hear them giggle with each other.

 Toddler going on teenager!  Check out that attitude! ;)

 It was either too cool or stormy of a day to go to the pool, so Lucy asked me to put out their little pool... not with water, just to sit and play in which was awesome because it kept Claire in as well.

Claire discovered the pans underneath the stove and had a hay day!

 Lucy was playing with Claire and then gave her a big hug and said "Mommy! Take picture!" haha.

 Lucy loved painting.  We needed something new to switch things up one day and this did the trick!

 We've been cracking down on the morning chores and cleaning lately and I must say, it's been great!  We've had the longest streak ever of keeping everything clean and not feeling like I have a huge mess to pick up.  One way we make it fun is by turning Lucy into the "vacuum fairy" which somewhat resembles Cinderella finishing her chores so she can go to the ball. :)  Hey- whatever works to keep this girl excited about chores! I'm sure it won't always be this way!

 One morning while I had to pack us all up for a trip, I made homemade popcorn in our big popper with her and then let her watch Cinderella on the couch while eating it.  Big hit!

And that wraps up our July!

Cedar Point

Ryan's work has a day at Cedar Point every summer so we got to go for free!  I love when we go to these places with Ryan's work because we get treated really well.  We got wristbands that got us unlimited free drinks all day, a little drawstring backpack with sunscreen, hand sanitizer, gum, a bunch of Mars candy, and some other useful stuff in it, and then they had a big dinner for everyone under the pavilion right on the lake.  Even though we couldn't go on any of the big rides since we had Lucy with us, she had SO much fun that it was still totally worth it!  Lucy wanted to go on every ride again and again but her favorite was the "up/down/up/down ride," which is the one that takes you to the top and then drops you a couple of times (the kid version though).

 Lucy is usually scared of these kinds of characters but she must be over that now because she ran right up to Snoopy and the other characters and gave them big hugs and high fives.  It was cute to see how excited she was!

Here she is riding a real roller coaster and obviously SO excited for it.

 This is her favorite "up/down" ride. 

Ryan's 34th Birthday

Ryan celebrated his 34th birthday this year on July 9th.  We sent him off to work after a big breakfast of waffles with syrup, strawberries, and whipped cream.  He got home from work in the Cincinnati area that day and we had steak, and twice baked potatoes.  Then we opened presents and had cake and cupcakes.  Ryan's birthday tradition is a marzipan cake, but we haven't had one since moving here since I haven't found a place in Columbus that sells it (and I've called probably every bakery).  But I gave it one more shot this year and a place that I had previously called started making them!  So he finally got his marzipan cake!

Fourth of July 2014

On the Fourth of July, we went to the Hilliard parade again, which we are fans of.  Not too small, not too big.  We met up there with a bunch of our neighbors and a new family from our ward that needed something to do.  Later on that evening, we had a super delicious BBQ with neighbors in our backyard with good food and of course a little cornhole and sparklers, after which Lucy and I joined some of them for fireworks while Ryan stayed home with Claire since she would not have made it through them happily.  It was a good day!

 Lucy was so funny... we saw/heard the police cars that led the parade from far away and it took what felt like 95 years for them to finally get to us, so she kept running part way into the street and doing a little side lunge to see out.  She as excited!

 Lucy had SO much fun in the back of the Hain's truck with Mason.  They brought cushions and lot's of blankets and made it super cozy and fun!

 Me, Lucy, Bobbi, and Mason.

Sunrise

Claire has been having a nice, long streak of waking up somewhere in the 5am hour.  6 or 6:15, if we are really lucky.  One morning I peeked out my bedroom window when she got up and saw this pretty sunrise!  I'm glad I took a picture because this is the beautiful view I have been able to wake up to almost all summer.  The only good thing about waking up that early.  And I would definitely prefer to just look at this picture instead of experience the real deal. :)

June 2014

These girlies love swinging at the park.  We go to the park and Lucy literally makes me push her in the swing for at least an hour.  Claire was pretty content as well.

 When Grandma Nae visits, she leaves treats in Lucy's shoes.  This time, she put them in Lucy's rain boots thinking it would be a while before she found it, but randomly Lucy put them on the next day.  This was her happy/surprised face. :)

 The Madsen's have a fancy dancy blow-up slide/pool thing and invited us over one afternoon when they set it up.  Lucy loved it when the water was not spraying out from the top of the slide.

 Our neighbor invited us to go to Oh-Yo frozen yogurt place to pass the time on a long afternoon when both of our husbands were gone.  Lucy and Mason usually have a good time together.  Lucy was too busy eating a few sour gummy worms to smile normally for the picture.

Ryan said he was tired and so Lucy ran and grabbed pillows and blankets for them to snuggle up with. So thoughtful of her!

 Claire up and started moving and climbing all over everything.  Here she is making her move from the couch to the end table.

 Lucy loves to pack everything and pretend she's going somewhere.  After a while though, this little game turned into carrying around every toy we have just to keep it away from Claire.  She is not a very good sharer right now!  We're working on it...

 Literally every time we go to the zoo, she runs over to this big Gorilla statue and says "take picture!"

 We went to the zoo with our new friends and Lucy and Hudson loved climbing on the fake dinosaur.

Playing with her princesses... she was so proud of fitting them all on this car.

 Claire was a disaster one day after dinner, so we took her straight to the sink to wash off.  She loved it and Lucy loved helping.

 Lucy loves when we use the trunk of that blue elephant stuffed animal to rub her back and belly, so she grabbed the yellow stuffed animal for us to rub Claire with while we did her as well.