8 month pictures

Clara is 8 months old now… as of 3/28. This post is a little delayed.  She continues to amaze us. She is into everything now and crawls faster than I can imagine.  I leave the room for a minute, and she has already moved on to another place.  She is pulling up on furniture and toys any chance she can get. Before we left the condo, she was crawling up the stairs with ease.  We are thankful we have no stairs in our new home!  Bath time is a favorite now.  Clara is no longer content to hang out in her seat but crawls around the bathtub splashing and pulls up on the faucet and sides of the tub.  She is noticing emotions and now laughs just because we are laughing– so much fun!  Her babbling has really increased, and she seems to now recognize words like milk, eat, and book. When playing peek-a-boo a few days ago, I was hiding behind Jeff and saying, “where’s mama?” and Clara clearly said “ma.”  Jeff said I could claim it as her first word if she does it again… come on Clara!  Nevertheless, she is growing and changing rapidly!

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Moving in… a slow process

Moving is a much slower process when you have a little one.  We closed on the house and then spent the next week in between the condo and our new home as we painted, frequented Home Depot, and slowly moved things into the house.  The POD was delivered on the Thursday before Easter.  Jeff and I moved a good bit of the smaller things in that night as I held Clara and used one arm to carry.  Let’s be honest, I am no longer much help.  A friend of ours from grad school who is now working for Intel as well came to help Jeff move some of the bigger items in on Friday.  Easter weekend was spent painting and making trips back and forth from the condo with the rest of our things.  We went to church on Easter morning and spent the afternoon at the house.  Our neighbors have been incredibly friendly and had invited us to join some of them in the park for a potluck lunch.  We made it just towards the end to introduce ourselves to some more of the neighbors. Monday night was our first night in the house.  We even managed to make a special dinner to commemorate– steaks, homemade mashed potatoes, and asparagus. We still have tons on the list of to-dos for the house but are just happy to be here now!

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Pictured below is the “LumiDome.” Jeff recently located the paperwork for this gorgeous light fixture, and we found that it has a very apt name.

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We painted Clara’s room a soft gray with an aqua closet and ceiling.  She seems to like it.

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So much space to crawl…

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Our attempt at a family photo on Easter.  Thanks to Jeff’s new tripod.

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Mary and Beau in Tempe

Mary and Beau were our first official visitors in our new home and came all the way from Maryland. Just for that reason, right guys? It was so good to see them-  as always! We only wish that they lived closer.  It feels so natural to just hang out on a Saturday.  Too bad we can’t do that more often!

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Love you friends! We look forward to seeing you again soon!!

Our New Home!

We are officially homeowners again and are thrilled about it! With our nomadic lifestyle of the last several months coming to a close, we are very thankful to have a place of our own. We closed on a home in Tempe, Arizona on Friday, March 22nd.  We originally put an offer on this house on January 13th.  It was a short sale with two banks involved, and we were a back up offer.  It didn’t look too good… but we really liked the house.  We continued to look but just kept coming back to this house on Magdalena Drive. It was an ideal location for us near the freeways, was an easy commute to work, had an awesome yard, and was right across the street from a park. Yes please! We definitely felt God was leading us to this home, and this was evident as the process went quicker than we ever could have imagined.

As we saw with our house on Prince Road, buying a home is never a dull process.  Although this time was less eventful, we did have to fill the pool, deal with some inspection issues, and scramble to have all appliances in for the appraisal. After a long week, we decided to celebrate on Friday night after everything was official. We started a tradition in Tucson of having Chinese takeout and wine on the floor of our new home for the first night.  We continued the tradition with this house but splurged a little with takeout from PF Chang’s (versus Panda Express) and opened a bottle of wine we have been saving from our trip to Napa Valley a while back.

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Clara enjoyed some sweet potatoes and butternut squash for the celebration

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And here are a few pictures of our new home…

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Seven Month Pictures

So… a lot has happened in the last month! Clara started crawling shortly after her 6 month birthday and is now all over the place.  She is even pulling up on toys and furniture.  She has two bottom teeth and has started eating solid food. We are even starting to hear more babbling. Whew… what a big kid she is.  She seems to love being around people and just out and about.  We are very close to the Phoenix zoo in this rental, so we take advantage of that regularly! We also frequent the park to get all of us out of the house, particularly Walcott as he traded his yard for a small patio.  Clara’s interest in books has greatly increased with Brown Bear and Goodnight Moon being favorites right now. She really is a joy!

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Someone was a little upset towards the end…

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Foodie

Clara is officially eating solid foods.  It has been fun introducing her to new things!  She has done well… not overly excited about it but seems to be enjoying it more and more. We started with oatmeal and now she is eating sweet potato, avocado, and banana.  I am attempting to make all of her food.  Thanks to friends for the inspiration!

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Tucson Visit

We were able to visit Tucson in February for the first time since we left at the end of November.  I cannot even begin to describe how good it was to see everyone! We are thankful that we are still so close so these visits are possible.  Matt and Dana were extremely kind to host us for the weekend.  Thank you friends!! Jeff had Monday off of work so we were able to have plenty of time to catch up with everyone.  We were even able to worship at Rincon on Sunday.  A main reason for the visit over this weekend was to coincide with Ben and Lis and their boys in Tucson as well as to catch Ryan and Yunuen in town. It was amazing to be back together with so many of our good friends all in one place! Jeff says with good friendships, when you get back together you pick up right where you left off.  This was definitely the case!  Only wish we had taken more pictures…

Here is Clara with her newest friend Tiago, Ben and Lis’s youngest.  We were thrilled to meet their youngest two that were born since their move to NM.

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Lunch with Nick, Betsy, and Silas at one of our favorites, Shish Kebab House.  It was fun to see Silas and Clara together again after a few months!

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Breakfast at our favorite breakfast place in Tucson, Robert’s.  Grilled cinnamon rolls!

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Six Month Pictures

Six months! Hard to believe.  Clara was almost crawling at this point- not for lack of trying!  These are my favorite month pictures so far.  These were taken in the short term rental that we are in right now in Scottsdale.  When it’s time to take pictures for the month, Jeff always thinks I go overboard on the amount of photos, and he is right.  But, this is the result!  Love our sweet Clara bug!

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Five Month Pictures

These were taken shortly after Christmas at Nana and Pops.  We so enjoyed our time in Mississippi! The best pictures we took this day were when Pops walked in and Clara just beamed.  She knows he is a special guy already!

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Pops!!

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Four Month Pictures

Clara turned four months old at the end of November.  With all of our moving, we were a little late taking the pictures.  These were taken shortly after we arrived in Mississippi.  Her hat was a gift from Jeff and me for Christmas.  We thought going to Mississippi and heading to D.C. in December warranted a winter hat.  We found this one on Etsy and were pretty pleased!

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