Shy and Smiles

Here's Claire smiling and showing her shy side.

Baby's First Christmas!

What a blessing to have a baby in the house as we celebrate Christmas! There are sooo many great photos of our families together for the holidays here. Look at them when you have time...there are about 100!

Here they are in slideshow format (hover your mouse over it so the horizontal pictures are full sized and not cut off by the vertical column on the right):

Cherill Family Pic

Here's a photo of the Cherill side in front of the tree as we celebrate Christmas Eve a day early. I'll correct the red eye and lighting another time but wanted to post anyway!

I'm showing off my crazy eyebrow this morning!

- Claire

2 Month Doctor's Visit!

I bundled Claire up and took her to the doctor's office today for her checkup. Claire now weighs a healthy 12 pounds and 1 ounce and has grown an inch and a half since her last check up! Now I know why I had to start packing up all the footed sleepers, at 24 1/2 inches she's in the 97th percentile for height! She's a looooong baby.

Poor kiddo had to have 2 shots today so she obviously wasn't in the mood for a photo shoot. Here's a few silly ones from yesterday. Dan thinks we should find a miniature saddle for her. Our kitties are such good sports!

Vampire Baby!

Dan and I trekked to Panera last night for dinner. Claire was great,
until I was about to dig into my favorite salad (dried cherries, mixed lettuce, walnuts, gargonzola...yummy!). We tried nursing, we tried the leg jiggle, we brought out the trusty binky - but nothing worked.

Finally, thinking she had gas, I put the baby over my knee and rubbed her back (all while trying to shovel the salad into my mouth).

The back rubbing didn't work, but once she discovered my arm she happily gnawed away. I have three gorgeous "hickeys" to show off to the world now. At least I got to eat!

11:30?!

Part of me is embarrassed to post how late I slept today...but I just had to document this! Claire and I have been hunkering down in the blue room while Dan's back is healing. Last night I fell asleep downstairs (as did the baby) and finally made it up around 2 o'clock in the morning. When I made it to the master bedroom, I smelled vinegar. The idiot cats had knocked over an entire gallon of it. Of course this adds another half-hour to an already late bedtime. So Dan takes the baby and I clean all that up and finally get to bed at 2:30...and find that now I can't fall asleep. Claire of course had no problem...even after a 2 am diaper change!

To make the story short I finally fell asleep around 3 and woke up this morning at 11:30! I can't believe Claire let me sleep that long. She's usually wide awake at 8 and ready to play! But Claire just nursed and fell right back asleep every couple of hours. Wow, am I lucky, or what?

An old photo from the hospital of Claire sleeping. She looks so tiny!

"All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth"

It's early, but Claire is starting to show some pre-teething signs. She's been a real drool monster and is chomping away at anything that gets near her mouth. Instead of sucking on her pacifier, she's been gumming it like crazy. And, just this morning I had her on her ladybug spinner and she was munching on the poor things antennae! I was just saying recently how sad/exciting it was to pack away her 0-3 month clothing...but I am totally NOT ready for her to sprout fangs! Her bottom gums look a little bit white, so I guess that is just another sign pointing to the fact that our little baby is moving on up!

Shhh! Don't tell Nanny - she already thinks this baby should be eating solids because "she must be hungry, she only drinks." Once she knows Claire is sprouting teeth, Dan and I will never hear the end of it. :-)

Cooing for the Yellow Critter

See, I'm not crazy! Watch her feet and listen...whenever the yellow guy passes or comes into her line of vision she reacts.

I'm Talking to You, Anonymous!

Peek-A-Boo! Claire is modeling G-Ceil's knitting.

One of the most exciting things about maintaining this blog for me has been reading the comments. I hope everyone else is noticing them too! One day I hope to print this out for Claire in some kind of a scrapbook format and the comments will be an integral part of this record, whatever format it takes.

That said - all you folks commenting as anonymous are hearby ORDERED to use the "nickname" radio button when posting a comment. You can call yourself whatever you like (including you Grandma Poo) but in order for my little widget on the right to work correctly and look nice, choose nickname rather than anonymous.

Other changes to the blog include the festive new header! I think I might change that seasonally to keep things fresh.

I'm trying again to include a video. This was taken with the webcam on my iMac so the quality is not the greatest but Claire wanted to show off her head control and conversation skills. Hopefully it won't stall like all the others.

At Long Last - Updates!

Poor Aunt Ann...dying for baby updates. If you missed her comment here it is:

"Alas, here I sit expecting another cute picture of Claire (of course they are all cute). It has been 4 long days and nights since my last baby fix. Santa's helper must be very busy. Love you guys!!!"

A.Ann


If you hadn't heard, Dan threw his back out on Saturday so I've been a bit slow to update the blog. Today (thanks to a potent cocktail of drugs) Dan is a bit more mobile although still not back to normal. Dan and Claire have been enjoying their time together in bed - well Dan not so much - although whenever he gets that toothless grin he can't help but smile. Here are the two of them hanging out.

Last week, I started to notice that Claire was tracking objects. She's really into her mobile now so we've set it up by her co-sleeper. Note to self - thank husband for ingenious rigging with dining room chair because the co-sleeper doesn't have slats like a crib! Claire seems to have found a particular friend in the yellow "rooster" guy that swirls over her head. I'm not sure what these characters are supposed to be but they all have eyeballs and lacking mouths, at least they can't frown at her like that baby in the mirror. I'm posting a picture of them so you can form your own opinion.

And if you're in the mood for a laugh at our expense, check out this album. I've entitled it "holy crap!" for a reason, so if you're easily offended by what our darling can produce skip this one. You've been warned! That said, I'm sure Aunt Laurie will find this especially amusing.

Claire's favorite (she squeals the loudest as he passes by):

The other two "critters" in her mobile gang

What's with the hats Ma?

Here's a pic of Claire in yet ANOTHER of her hats. No clever pose for this one...apparently she's not that fond of the antlers.

I had to start packing away some of Claire's 0-3 month clothes today. She's so long she can't fit into most of them anymore. Imagine if we had to replace our wardrobe every two months!

Giggles and Grins!

Be prepared to laugh...loudly!

Dancing Family

We've been working on these moves a looong time - hope you're impressed!

Goofy Girl!

"Ok baby, now look surprised."

"Good girl."

Santa Baby - part deux!

Hilltop's photos of Claire's first visit with Santa arrived in my email today. Isn't he a great looking Santa? He grew his beard out for seven months...that is commitment! Don't get any ideas Dan, you better keep yours trimmed until it turns white!

So Torn...

Over the past few days I've been taking pictures of Claire for our Christmas card...now I have too many cute ones and don't know which one to choose. All the hats are so sweet too. Perhaps I'll send out multiple cards and flood your mailboxes with photos of the baby!

I don't know what I would do if I didn't have a digital camera! She's so fun to photograph, what a smiley baby! And here's a picture of Jack trying to interrupt our photo shoot. He is quite interested with the pom-poms on all her hats...I think I better hide them all!

Dan & Gina's Favorite

For you to print at work Daddy :-)

Claire and I had a little photo shoot in living room window today. It was hard to pick just a couple to post...I'll have to edit and get a few more up for ya'll to see! Cute photos, right?

Here's one of her looking at the camera:



I can't wait until she can sit up...it's hard to hold her with one hand and the camera with the other. Especially when your camera is an SLR and needs to be focused!

At Aunt Ann's request here is a link to the full size images:
Claire's December Album

I'll try to continue to update that Picasa site for those who want to print high-resolution photos. You can also click on the photos on the blog entry and it should enlarge them to full size. I don't know about the print quality of those, has anyone tried printing from the blog itself before?

Santa Baby!

Today Hilltop was holding a photo session with Santa to support Project Self-Sufficiency in Sparta, NJ. We dressed Claire up in one of her festive Christmas outfits (there are multiple ones) and headed out for a snapshot.

She didn't cry...but like Skylar (just ask Bob & Ceil) she was so excited she pooped herself. Here's a photo of the damage. Heehee! It was quite bad, I needed to take her to the computer lab, strip her naked and wash her back with wipes. One more "poop-tastrophe" and I'm changing diaper brands!

Aunt Laurie came by today, here she is hanging out with her little niece.

"I Crack Myself Up"

A few pics of Claire cracking herself up in her swing.
Link to full size images