Clara and Nina still have somewhat of a tenuous relationship. It’s great for a while and then all of the sudden goes bad quickly (hitting, occasional biting, eye poking). But it’s getting better. The good, sweet times are definitely outweighing the bad. It is a constant prayer of ours that they will be great friends. My sisters truly are my best friends, and I pray that will be true for them as well!
Here are some highlights of our Fall 2014.
Picnic in the backyard
Cheering on Mississippi State. It was a great season! Although it did not end quite as we hoped, it sure was exciting!
We visited Schnepf Farms again this year with some friends. It was fun to see how much more Clara enjoyed it this time! We spent some time at the petting zoo, saw a dog show and pig races, and picked out pumpkins to take home and carve (a huge hit with Clara). Just to give you a picture of our very verbal toddler– on the way home from the farm, Clara said, “a donkey licked it” while holding her shoe. She then took her shoe off, smelled it, and said, “See, it smells like a donkey.” Nice, Clara.
Clara spent her first night in her new big kid bed when we got home from Schnepf Farms. We have the bunk beds that Jeff slept in for most of his childhood– really fun! She did well but was just a little concerned about the new bed and the dark. She went to sleep pretty quickly though and slept through the night!
Clara’s first time carving a pumpkin. She told us it was too slimy and let Jeff do most of it.
Clara was a cat for Halloween for the second year in a row. This costume was given to her by Nana and Pops last year to carry on the tradition because I loved my cat costume as a kid and wore it year after year. Too bad we don’t still have the original but her new one is super cute! We spent the night before Halloween with friends and decided to let Clara trick-or-treat to just a few of our neighbors and hand out candy on the actual night. At the first house, she was already a little iffy with the creepy decorations. By the time we made it to the second house, she was telling me that she did not want to knock on the door. As we made our way down the street, we ran into a little boy in a full Godzilla costume, and Clara lost it. I think this started her saying, “I’m scared of the alligator” and turned into an imaginary alligator that is sometimes in our house. She likes to pretend but then seems to actually get a little scared sometimes.
Some things that you might hear Clara say about the alligator:
– “I’m hiding my feet (blanket over them) so the alligator can’t get me.”
– “It’s not an alligator… it’s just a deer.”
– “Alligators are not nice.”
– “It’s just outside with Walcott” or “It’s far away at the zoo”
After the Godzilla incident, we came home and handed out candy until a dad dressed as a creepy clown ended the night for Clara.
Around the house…
One of Clara’s favorite things– spending the day in her pajamas. She is getting a lot better at entertaining herself. Here she told me that she was setting her people up for a parade.
Just a glimpse into the happenings around our house. These were taken in August and September and are just making it to the blog. Clara has a very active imagination, and it’s really fun to see her enjoying pretend play. She is a fan of making dinner and eating at her table in the playroom. Also pictured are “trips” to various places where the stroller, baby Navy (name given by Clara), and a purse are essentials.
So, I am incredibly behind again on blogging but here it goes anyway. We had Clara’s birthday party at the beginning of August. We had a great time with just a few friends over for swimming and food. Clara really seemed to enjoy her party, particularly when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her.
All of the kids…
We were so happy to have Nick, Betsy, and Silas join us for the party!! We both now have baby girls born only a few days apart!
Clara just turned two at the end of July. It is so hard to believe! Time has gone by quickly, and we have really enjoyed our time as a family of three (soon to be four)! I really want to remember this time.
Clara is a vibrant, busy, independent little girl. God has given her a strong personality. It can be hard to deal with sometimes as a two year old, but I know these traits will serve her well as she grows. She is kind and loving, always wanting to “hold mama.” She has been learning to be kind to friends as well and often says, “nice, kind friends. no hitting/pushing.” If we could only get her to implement these lessons all of the time!
Growing
Clara has always been on the small end and that continues. At her two month check up, she was just over 22 lbs and 33 in. We always get the same talk from her doctor that she is below the norm but nothing to be concerned about.
Eating + sleeping
Clara is a pretty good eater– at least with things that she likes. Right now, her favorite is “blueberries, ya-peas (strawberries), yogurt.” Since our Seattle trip, this combo also includes granola. She still refuses meat and fish. I was making spaghetti the other day, and she told me, “no like it” as I was cooking the ground beef. After we discussed what it was, it became, “no like ground beef.” Oh well. Other favorites are packs (applesauce, chia, kale-mango) and fig bars. She still enjoys smoothies which I pack with tons of spinach and green juice (either our own homemade version or a kale-ginger juice from Costco).
She has always been a great sleeper and still sleeps about 12 hours a night, from about 8pm -8am. This has been her go to for a while now. She just takes one afternoon nap, usually from about 2-4. We are still putting her in a sleep sack at night because she has yet to out grow it, it provides some additional warmth (although it’s getting pretty warm here already), and seems to keep her from contemplating the dreaded climbing out of her crib. She is down to just pajamas at nap time which has been interesting now that she can take them off on her own as well as her diaper. We have just had once incident so far, and it was not fun. Update, since it has taken me over a week to finish this post before actually posting it, we are now done with the sleep sack. This occurred mainly because she was asking not to wear it. So far, still no climbing out of the crib…
Wearing
Again, Clara has always been small. She consistently wears a size smaller than her current age, although she seems to slowly be catching up. She is wearing 18 month clothes now with some baggy 24 month clothes mixed in. She is starting to have an opinion about her wardrobe, “I like this shirt” or “wear pajamas forever.”
Doing
As I mentioned above, Clara is busy. She enjoys running around the house with Walcott, swimming, and venturing out to her favorite spots– the aquarium, zoo, splash pad, and children’s museum. Right now, it seems the children’s museum is top on her list. We bought her a puddle jumper at the beginning of the summer, so she just swims around the pool on her own now and readily jumps in to one of us while wearing it. While at home, she still likes to play with her activity table although it has become her “minkus (music) table” where she plays the piano. She is a fan of building towers with her blocks and playing with her new guitar and microphone that she got for her birthday. Before the new microphone, she was using our TV antenna while standing on the hearth and singing. All before the antenna finally broke… She likes to set up her “suitcase” (aka- box with a handle) with her microphone in front of it, sit down, and play her guitar and sing. I think some Seattle street performers were her inspiration. She frequently plays with her kitchen and sets her table with play food for dinner. She has started to really enjoy pretend play which is so fun to watch. Recently, she was pretending to take a bite of some plastic strawberries and looked at me and said, “I’m pretending.” She then pretended to pick one out of the bunch, put it in her mouth, then smiled and said, “pretty tasty.” She has also started having her little people “talk” to each other while she plays. She still really enjoys books and will sit and listen for as long as you will keep reading. Some of her favorites are “But No Elephants” and “Elephant Goes to School” (both from her daddy’s childhood collection) and “Pete the Cat” and “Iggy Peck, Architect.” One day while we were walking to a bus stop in Seattle, she started saying, “walking down street. brand new white shoes” which is a line from Pete the Cat. When you ask her if Pete cried, she says, “goodness no.” It’s pretty funny. She will sometimes read on her own too, “strawberries are red, ladybugs are red, little bird (instead of Big bird) is yellow….” I recently found her flipping through a book with Walcott next to her. He also had a book between his paws. She said, “I read this book and Walcott read this one.”
Saying
Clara’s vocabulary has exploded. She is talking in full sentences now and clearly gets her point across. We have always known she is very verbal. From early on, she would point to her pink chair in her room as she woke up and say, “Sit, talk.” In the last month, she has started adding in some really fun words like forever, maybe so, all the time, at some point, everyday, so much, actually, not really, cool, awesome. For example,
“I wanna wear Nana’s earrings so much”
“I wanna see hippos at some point”
“I want Mommy read this book, actually”
“I want green juice so much. All day”
“I poop in diaper every day” (in response to attempts to encourage using the potty)
“Walcott read this book forever”
Mom- “Do you have a stinky diaper?” Clara- “not really” (she did)
As you may have noticed, “I want” is a dominating phrase. Also, it is also really clear from her speech that she likes people. She can name almost all of our friends and family and talks about people regularly. After our trip to Albuquerque, she started telling me that “Matt lives Tucson” and “Ryan Yunuen live Mexico.” She requests to pray for specific people before bed, lately this has been “pray Brayton and Beau,” and randomly brings people up throughout the day. She can name pretty much all of the words in her 100 words book and knows so many animal names that we are blown away. She says things frequently that Jeff and I just can’t believe she knows. She learned the word “sledgehammer” the other day as Jeff was doing some work in the yard, but still says that the “nail gun” is her favorite.
She really enjoys singing, hence the microphones. She regularly sings Happy Birthday, Jesus Loves Me, the first line of How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (which is what we sing to her as we put her to bed), I’m a Little Teapot, and the ABC song. She has definite taste in music as well. Now in the car, she proclaims from the back seat, “I don’t like it this song. Different song” or “I like this one!” She discovered classical music in Seattle while listening to the radio and really seemed to like it as well as the many street performers we saw in the city.
Loving
Clara is into shoes right now and loves to find any around the house, put them on, and attempt to walk around. She likes to “get ready” with Mommy and put on chapstick or use her makeup brush. This was not something I encouraged, but I guess it’s just what happens when a little girl follows her mom around all the time. Another new favorite thing is getting her own cart at Trader Joes. She is a big fan of TJs. She tells us, “I like cookies at Trader Joes” that she often gets instead of the sample and will also readily discuss “samples” and “stickers.” Clara enjoys sitting on the kitchen counter while I make smoothies, wash dishes, or really do anything in the kitchen. She also likes to collect her book bag, other bags, sunglasses, and sometimes her suitcase and tell me, “see you later, have fun and come back soon.” She then walks a few steps, turns around and says, “I’m back.” She usually tells me that she went to Tucson, Mexico, or sometimes the grocery store.
Ok, so I realize that it is now March, and we are way behind on our blogging efforts. I hope to do a few catch up posts and then get back to current happenings. Here are a few December highlights excluding our time in Mississippi which should be in an upcoming post.
Avocado is a favorite.
Clara started a new thing this month where she decided that she just wanted to stay in the bed in the morning. She already hangs out in there quite a while before I go get her and seems to enjoy herself. I almost feel like she isn’t fully awake if I don’t give her at least a half hour. This was different though, I would go to get her after a usual amount of time, and she would be uninterested in getting out of the bed. She was just fine with reading books in her crib though. On this particular day, she was in bed until noon. Wow… this didn’t last long though, and we were quickly back to our normal routine. Although, I am definitely not complaining about her more typical hanging out in bed habits.
Jeff received Zoolights tickets from work so we planned to make a fun family night of it. Unfortunately, our tickets were for the same day that Walcott escaped our yard (as mentioned in a previous post). Thankfully, we found him with a nice couple via Craigslist but Jeff had to drop Clara and I at the zoo, pick up Walcott and take him home, and then join us at the zoo. Not exactly the family night we had in mind, but we still enjoyed it. Clara wasn’t too thrilled with the carousel but the talking giraffe was a highlight. We had just bought her some cold weather gear and were able to try it out before heading to Mississippi in a few weeks.
Clara is showing off her early Christmas present from Nana and Pops– a wheely bug mouse. It has been a huge hit.
Jeff had a random day off in the middle of the week today so we took advantage of our extra time and went to the Children’s Museum. Clara is just now about the age where she really enjoys all of the exhibits at the museum. We all really had fun!
These first pictures are of Jeff and Clara in the huge climbing structure at the museum. Clara was pretty bold and didn’t show much fear. She must get that from Jeff. I only wish I had a picture of all three of us going down the narrow chutes at the end where you went down one hole to a lower level and then crawled to the next hole to keep descending (unsure if this thing has a name) with a parade of kids behind us. As we were in it, we overheard one of the museum workers saying that this was the first time they had seen adults in this section. Nice.
Jeff and Clara making a pizza.
Clara is a fan of tents lately so she liked this part of the museum. She now brings us a blanket at home and says tent so we will put it over our heads and hang out underneath.
Also, check out Clara painting in the art center’s castle. Pretty cool…
After a short nap, we went to dinner at a nearby Mexican place. We had been in a phase with Clara where going out to dinner just wasn’t too enjoyable. It seems that is getting better though. She had fun at this place and enjoyed having her own meal of a quesadilla, rice, and beans. Too bad a lot of it ended up in her hair.
Since Clara was born, Walcott has appeared on the blog much less frequently. We recently had a scare with Walcott getting out of our yard. He was out most of the day by the time we realized he wasn’t just lounging in one of the far corners of the yard. Thanks to some nice people and Craigslist, we had him back within a few hours from when we found him missing. We were relieved to have him back and really love having Walcott as part of the family. I have been intending to post a little about Walcott and Clara as a duo, but this scenario further spurred this post. They are pretty funny together. Clara loves to try and sit in Walcott’s “lap” but he usually isn’t a big fan of this. They can be found hiding under tables or chairs together or reading books on Walcott’s bed.
In October, we went with some friends to Schnepf Farms. We were surprised to see how much of an event it was. There were pig races, a dog stunt show, a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo, and a lot more. It was a fun time!
We went over to some friends’ house for Halloween and just enjoyed some time hanging out. The kids were super cute in their costumes. Clara wore a cat costume that was given to her by Nana and Pops. As a child, I was a cat every Halloween for several years so my parents thought it was only fitting that Clara dress like a cat as well.
