Claire at the Fair

I know, I know. It's been 8 months since our last blog post. That's a lot of ground (and pictures to cover). Claire turned 1 year old back in January. She's been saying "Airplane!" since she was 14 months and has quite a vocabulary now. There's so much catching up to do, I'll keep it simple.

January: Claire turned 1. She got a toy pony and several other gifts. One look at the pony and she instantly knew what to do. She jumped on it right away and rocked for several minutes. She loves squeezing its ears to make it sing.

February: Claire's first day in the snow. Unfortunately, it was very windy, so we didn't get to play for too long.

March: Claire's vocabulary takes off exponentially. Her favorite thing to do is point out airplanes in the sky.

April: April is a blur. It was a very busy month for all of us.

May: Claire enjoyed taking long walks with Mommy and Daddy and playing at the playgrounds on slides, swings and see-saws.

June: We traveled to Texas for cousin Patrick's wedding. Claire had a great time playing on the slip and slide with all her cousins and friends and swimming in Aunt Shelly and Uncle Rick's pool. Claire and Berklie visited a pet farm park in Richardson and got to see real Longhorn cattle!

July: Claire learned to climb into her high-chair all by herself and fasten the buckles. Hopefully, she won't learn how to unfasten it for awhile. Claire now knows all the letters in the alphabet, but not the correct order and now plays the piano one key at a time (but in no particular order). She loves playing in the water garden at Reston Town Center.

August: Finally catching up on the blog. We went to the Montgomery County Fair on the 15th. Claire saw baby ducks, goats, bunnies, sheep, cows and some brand new baby calves that were only 3 and 24 hours old! There were baby pig, goat and duck races. She even road a real pony for the first time!

My How She's Grown!

I know it's been a very long time since we blogged, but in that time Claire has grown like a weed! Check out her 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 month pictures. She started clapping in early August and still loves to play patty cakes with Grandma. By mid-late August she started getting her first teeth and first bath in the big tub! She finally started getting some hair by late August and loved to pull on it. She also was walking behind her push car which we thought would lead to independent walking, but we had to wait a little longer for that one. In September Claire started to wave and point at objects. She also has become a real book worm and loves to "read" books and turn the pages. In October she took her first steps and by the end of the month she was truly walking. Since then she hasn't slowed down for a minute. She loves to climb the stairs and run around the house. In early November she had ear surgery to put in tubes and she was a real trooper. Since then her ears have been great and her balance and speech really improved dramatically. By the time the holidays rolled around she's saying all kinds of words "Dada" "Mama" "Doggie" "more" and we even think she says "Brown Bear" and Papa swears he heard a "Thank you". Most of it is just repeating our words but she is curious about everything and loves to chat! (I think she got that from her mommy and Grandma!) Unfortunately her bad genetics have lead to some pretty bad hair days, but we are hoping the longer it gets the more tame it will be. She's got 4 top teeth and 3 bottom now and has quite the appetite to go with her new chompers. She weighs around 22 lbs and is now wearing 12-18month clothes. I still look at them in the closet and can't believe my little baby is so big now. Her big 1st birthday is only 9 days away!

11 months

10 months

9 months

8 months

7 months