The Rest of the Amazing Trip to WA

On our way up to Lydia's house we stopped at a couple interesting places. The first was a set of bridges over a gorge.  The rail bridge was pretty impressive! I would hate to be the people building it... scary.


We showed Claire around and she was holding on tight!

Right after we crossed to Washington we got this sweet view of the way we came. I like views.

Next, we found 'a' Stonehenge. They tried to replicate what the original would have been like, but apparently they found something recently that makes this one not accurate.  I wouldn't have noticed.

Its fun seeing new things as a little family.

Claire wasn't too happy about the wind though.  Poor kid.

We got to Lydia's house late Saturday night. On Sunday, Mike and I hiked up to Saddle Rock.  It was a fund view

Lydia, Mel, and the kids hiked a bit up the train and met us on the way down.  Its fun to used the baby carrier.

Claire and her cousins had a great time together!

While we were there, we helped celebrate Amelia's birthday!  That was so much fun, and there were way too many princesses to count!

Erica had lots of tricks and apparently she wants to learn to fly, look:

The trip back home was great!

We huddled out in the cold to see Mt. Shasta.

I found the motel that we are staying at next time through! Its called the Caboose Motel and yes, each caboose is a room.

And finally, we were tuckered out by the end of it.

What a blast!  Thanks Lydia and Mike for letting use stay at your place and we hope to do it again!

To Aunt Lydia's House We Go!

We love road trips!

Its been a long time since we have been on a good road trip. We didn't want to go very far away when Melanie was pregnant and while Claire was brand new.  Just before Columbus day, we heard Peter's parents were going to Lydia's for Amelia's birthday. It was the perfect excuse for a road trip!

On the way there, Claire pretty much slept the whole time.  We drove from 4pm till about 11:30pm on Friday. We had dinner in Redding, CA at Round Table pizza.  They had the smallest little cubicles for eating!  Melanie had to go to the car to feed Claire because they both couldn't fit between the table and the bench.

I had to have the people put our pizza under a warmer while Mel was gone.  Oh, I forgot to say, I had to clean my own table because it was so busy.  Crazy meal.

We stayed the night in Klamath Falls, OR.  It was Claire's first hotel stay, and she loved it!

The next morning, it was very cold (we almost forgot that it gets cold in the fall).  We bundled Claire up real good for the car trip to Washington.

It was really foggy and the hills looked really need.

I love driving! Unless its in traffic.

We found all these train cars in the middle of the woods!  I like trains... trains are cool. It was part of this amazingly large scale railroad.

During the summer, they give train rides... I gotta go next year!

Melanie says I take too many pictures of things without people in them, but I didn't want to get in the river, so here it is:

We stopped for food at an Arby's and found this door, with this sign.

Well, the rest of our fun-filled trip to Washington will come in the next post...

What we've been up to

So, life has been kinda crazy here!
There's always something to be doing and definitely NOT enough time to do it!
So, just to log all the exciting things we've done in the past month:

• 16 hour road trip to Washington to visit Peter's sister and her family
• Ikea (you know it's an event!)
• Relief Society meetings and planning
• Doctor's office visits
• Halloween party
• Dinner with Friends
• Butterfly sightings at the beach
• Pictures at a studio
• Pumpkin Patch
• Trunk or Treating
• and various shopping trips to accumulate all of the supplies necessary for about a million projects that I only have time to work on at night! 

So when Claire goes to sleep my choices have been:

• Blog (obviously getting neglected)
• Clean
• Bake
• Eat/Make food
• Make costumes
• Carve Pumpkins
• Sleep
• RS Midweek Meeting Prep
• Laundry
• Family Hand Painting
• Create Christmas Advent Calendar
• Make Christmas count down blocks
• Make Butterfly/Flower mobile
• Organize/ Recreate Family Binder

Thankfully, some of these things have been getting done recently because Claire has actually been sleeping! (Last week was a nightmare!)

Right now my house is relatively clean, I've got bread baking in the bread machine, and I have time left to blog while Claire finishes napping. I am feeling so good!

When I get another minute, I (or Peter) will likely blog about some of those above listed events. Just gotta get around to fixing some photos--ahhh

The outfit Claire is wearing is from her Aunt Anna and Uncle Jeff. Jeff is in the navy--hence the outfit! She's really close to sitting up on her own, but still needs a little propping up. Dad did an amazing job of arrange those blankets! ; )

It's been a while

Just a quick update to let you know that we are all still alive.

She's happy to still be alive

But that's about it.

I'm still living one day at a time with this little baby.

I only have a few requirements for each day:
Make my bed
Get dressed
Feed/Change and care for Claire
Eat lunch
Do dishes
Get mail

The things that don't pertain to my ability to LIVE make each day feel a little better. Getting the mail makes me go outside; getting dressed makes me feel like I can go outside; and making the bed just makes my room feel clean. Dishes, well, if they don't get done each day, it's just that much harder to do the next day.

All these things together make each day feel like I got something accomplished, even if it's small.

Also, because I'm just trying to keep this little girl healthy and happy, I haven't been very diligent in taking pictures recently. Oops... Sorry!

This is what I anticipate your reaction to be

Can you see those little bubbles? She loves making bubbles with her spit just like that.

So last Monday Claire had her 2 month (really it was 2.5 month) Doctor's appointment where she got 2 shots and an oral vaccine. Her sleep schedule was SO messed up last week. She would not stay asleep once I put her in her crib. I got next to nothing done around the house.

SO her new measurements as of last week are:
13lbs 8 oz. (95 percentile)
23.5 in. long (75 percentile)
39.9cm head circumference (75 percentile)

So, she's a big girl. She just grows and grows. There's nothing I can do to stop her! I try to eat well, and then her body does something with that to make her big and strong!

Poor Peter isn't dealing well with me being so tired at night when he gets home and things generally not getting done unless he's around to help.

But today, blessed day! She has taken 3 naps! 2 one-hour and 1 two-hour naps! Hallelujah!

This week we are going to get Halloween pictures taken. She's so cute. Hopefully she'll remember that on Wednesday for the camera!
And there's a small chance that I will post again the following week for her 3 month birthday thing... (that's awkward--it's not really her Birth Day, but I am celebrating and commemorating the day of her birth, what do you call that?)
It's so weird that she's already been here for 3 months!

Now onto making dinner! I love it when she naps!

2 Months Old!

Yesterday Claire turned 2 months old.

She seems to do something new almost every day, good or bad!

She just started putting things in her mouth a couple days ago

And she's already starting to give me 'tude ; ) Not a teenager, but she definitely knows what she wants!

• Her hands are pretty much open now. No more constantly clenching them closed.
• Though originally unintentional, I think her swats at toys on her play gym are becoming purposeful so she can  see them sway and jingle.
• She's really just starting to remember her toys and really enjoy them. Before she would look away after only a minute or two. She also likes books a lot more now. She's become a lot more interested in everything.
• She has also started smiling at me and talking to me a lot! If she isn't grumpy, I can almost always get a smile out of her

• As evidenced HERE, she's rolled over from front to back, but she isn't consistent at all. She's only done it twice since then.
• She's started making bubbles with her spit. Not really blowing bubbles, but rather just spitting and smacking which results in lots of little bubbles covering her lips.
• She sleeps from 7p/8p to 3a/4a every night. So 7 or 8 hours every night. And then she'll go back to sleep until about 7am.
• I still swaddle her every night, but you can't tuck her arms in the swaddle! She does not like that at all.
• Although days can be rough and her sleeping schedule changes all the time (some days she takes 2 three-hour naps and other days she takes several 10-15 minute naps--those are bad days!), her night time routine is pretty consistent--hurray!
• Her nicknames are pretty much the same: Claire-bear, Claire berry, Little One, Big Girl, Little Girl (conflicting, I know), Cutie-patootie, sweetheart, and girly-pearly. 
• the Little and Big names are all dependent upon what I'm doing with her. She's "big" when I pick her up or she's doing tummy time. Any other time she's little.

According to my own measurements with my own tape measure and scale Claire is now:

• 24 inches long (That's TWO FEET!)
• 12.6 lbs (that's 12 point 6)
• 40cm head circumference

She is certainly getting bigger!
I'm not so sure that the weight is quite right, she was wearing clothes and diaper. And it's just our combined weight minus my own weight. But she's probably 12 pounds--holy cow!

She wears size 0-3 months and 3 months clothes and is still squeezing into Pampers size 1. I say Pampers because I find that they stretch more than Huggies or Luvs. 

So it pretty much took me all day to write this. Today was a several short naps sort of day.

So I'm going to call it quits and hope I haven't forgotten anything. 

One day soon I'll blog again!