Singing, Crying, Smiling, and Laughing

We have a new computer with different software, so I can't figure out how cut the videos.  

Here's Claire singing (watch to :30)

He doesn't cry much, so that's probably why I think it's so cute.

Wait for it.........(:49), NOW he can smile.

We have a tummy time cheerleader.

Claire on the Phone

We love Ketsy!  :)

Remembering June

In June we celebrated my birthday.  Here's a picture of my dance friends helping me grow older (Amy, Kara, pregnant Christine, Sarah, Tascha, and pregnant me - we're missing Karen from the group).  After a few years of getting together, we finally realized all of us have Spring birthdays and we should just do one big birthday celebration for our Ladies Lunch.  Duh.  We'll get on that for next year.

Birthday cake with my family.  Look at all those candles!

Quality Time cuddling with Mama.

Claire being cute in this video.  Looking back I'm always surprised at how little she talks on camera or just how much younger her voice sounds, compared to where she's at a few months later when I'm adding posts to the blog.  Of course, she talks a lot more when she knows she's not being filmed.
Video translation: baba means pacifier.

I helped with a huge yard sale fundraiser and I walked in an American Cancer Society Relay for Life.  I think as a team we raised $6000.  Pretty amazing.  I made luminarias for both my mother and her mother and they lined the stadium track, lit up through the night.  My time slot was 5AM in honor of my mom's final hour of her life here on earth.  The caption on my mom's luminaria says: In Memory of Carla Blake Paul.  Beloved mother of 6.  We miss you.  We love you.  We wish you were here.  It's a BOY.  :)  Love, Richard, William, Robert, John, Kathryn, & Eileen.  

Doesn't Claire look like an angel?  She's my angel.

Also, I found out my friend, Eva, was taking a course to become a doula, and since I've thought of working in that field myself (and had several friends encourage me saying they could picture me as a doula), I decided what the heck, and joined her.  Rich's mom, Laura, came to town to watch Claire and the two of them had a wonderful time together.  I went to 4 days of classes and crammed a ton of information into my head.  By the end of the class, I wondered if my timing is off for working as a doula.  I'm not sure how I'd handle being on-call and feeling tied down so much - after you commit to a client, you need to be able to show up to their house within an hour of their phone call for the 5 weeks around their due date.  Kind of hard when I take long walks around the neighborhood, or we decide to go out of town at the last minute, or just bundling my errands so I get everything done in one trip - grocery shopping alone takes me longer than an hour.  That and how would I handle on-call childcare?  It would be one thing if I had lots of family living near me.  But, seeing as I don't, having toddlers and babies at home seems almost impossible.  It takes me long enough to get out the door when I feel like I planned my day well.  So, it was an inspiring course to take, but I may just need to put it on the back burner for now.  :(

Let's Talk About Our Day

I love this picture!!

One of Claire's favorite things to do is to sit with Daddy on the steps after work to talk about her day.  She likes it so much that it's often the first question she asks in the morning, even though we tell her we haven't done anything yet.  She likes to talk about her day right before bed too.  Shortly after she started talking about her day, she started saying to either Rich or I, "Let's talk about YOUR day."  I am amazed that she knows we do different things and have different experiences in our days.

Aren't I a lucky mama?

More things we did in May:
For Rich & my 10th Anniversary, we feasted on a breakfast of pancakes with lemon curd.  Yum.  I spent my time taking Claire to the park, walking a friend's dogs, getting together with my Ladies Lunch group, singing in my church's Stake Conference Choir, going to my Gluten Intolerance Group, meeting up with my recently formed Money group (we're Dave Ramsey fans encouraging each other to save $ and budget), shopping garage sales, going to my friend Tascha's dance performance, taking Claire to the doctor for her 2 year-old visit, as well as to the dentist for the first time, taking Claire to a little friend's birthday party, and getting short visits from both of Rich's sets of parents.  Here is Rich's grandma, Carol, his dad, Bill and Bill's dog, Tequila.

Claire Turns Two

In May we celebrated Claire's 2nd birthday.  Rich got off of work a little early, so we headed to Target to buy Claire some toys.  Due to several delays in my day, including cleaning house for my in-laws to spend the night, planning a Relief Society meeting lesson on decluttering your house, teaching at the RS meeting that night, Rich going to band practice that night, etc.....we didn't exactly have a typical 2 year-old's birthday party.  Instead, I came home from my meeting to bake the cake and we fed Claire her birthday cake at 10:30 PM.  Ugh.  (I may know a few tricks on decluttering, but I clearly know nothing about time management.)  Claire is so adaptable that she enjoyed her late birthday party and my in-laws arrived to our house just as we were about to clean her up.

Singing Happy Birthday.  :)

   

I have a 2-year-old

Two, but still sweet.  

(I tried probably a dozen times to splice these 2 videos together and it never worked.  Grrr.)

Dinner Table Talk

What Claire likes to talk about at the dinner table.

Getting into it

I couldn't have left her alone for that long.....

Will she be a dancer? 22 mo.

Around the house in February

I started February out really active, walking all around the neighborhood with friends, getting lots of good exercise.

Then, we all got sick. Claire is still a pleasant girl when she's sick. She just has a few more short-lived breakdowns than usual. Even when she's teething, it takes me a few days to figure out why she is out of sorts. She gets very needy and sleep is the first thing to go, which is the fastest way to frustrate me. Then, after a few days when I've figured out, "oh, she's teething", I feel terrible that I wasn't more understanding and patient with her. I'm always learning and she must be very forgiving!

Here's a video for the grandparents.

Cuteness

Patty Cake Flexibility. 20 mos. old.

Running and Jumping

Claire in Action

I love that tights can transform Claire into a bunny rabbit. 20 mo. old.

Speaking of animals, Dad & Karen sent these pictures from their church mission in Hong Kong. It's so neat that they get to travel and have different experiences in addition to their work of overseeing the mental health of the LDS missionaries in much of Asia.

Claire loves monkeys and actually calls my Dad, "Monkey Grandpa" thanks to this picture.

Claire in Action

Crawling on Mama. 13 mo.

Tickle time. 13.5 mo.

Claire in Action

Baby babble. 15.5 mo.

Mirror play. 15.5 mo.

Bonking her head. 16 mo.

Routines

A fun part of the day is getting some fresh air and picking Daddy up at the bus stop. 15.5 months.

A perfect summer picnic

This is our Dancer's Lunch, enjoying the sunny day with a picnic. On the menu? Spinach salad with an assortment of toppings, crackers with fancy cheese, juice, and fresh blueberries. Take me back!!!

Christine, Tascha, Kara, & Karen. Missing are Amy & Sarah. Thanks to Tascha for making our picnic so stylish with the tablecloth and the designer melamine plates.

Tascha is inspired by the gardens.

I found a great spot to capture some close-up cuteness.

Fun at Richard & Maria's house

Look at that tummy!

Vegging with the cousins.

Claire was so cute playing in Maria's pots. We had to take pictures before we helped her out.

We went out to get Thai food and had the yummiest mango sticky rice dessert. The BEST. If you weren't there, you missed out on the pre-dinner entertainment!

1st Birthday Cake

I didn't want Claire to eat a normal sugary cake (*no sugar until 2), so I made a layered Lemon Cake with plain yogurt as the frosting and covered it with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries. At least the yogurt and berries would be healthy. It looks huge in the pictures, but it was really small, served on a teacup saucer. Claire was fading fast by the time she was ready to eat the cake, and we forgot to put a candle on it. But, I think she liked tasting something new.

Here's a funny moment caught on video. This doesn't show us singing Happy Birthday to her, her trying to eat the plate, and her looking over the side of the highchair at the huge chunks of cake that had fallen to the floor. It was all cute.

*No sugar until 2, well, she's had mango lassi, mango sticky rice, a tiny bit of syrup, some of Rich's sugary Oh's cereal, and I think I remember a bite of cookie dough because she was really begging.

Cutesy time

She's 11 1/2 months old here.

Fun making noises

Picnic with Mommy

I spent the morning doing the usual routine and I'd planned on meeting my friends for a picnic at the lake. But, by the time I got EVERYTHING packed to walk out the door I would have been an hour late. Since is was going to be a long night I flaked out on driving all the way there. I was bummed about not being outside on such a perfect day, so I decided to take Claire on our own picnic.

This is her first time swinging. I've put her in the swing since then, but this first time was apparently the only time she enjoyed it.

Claire playing at a cafe