Ok You Claire Blog Addicts :-)

                         

We've been working on a little something here so you have to cut us some slack! SOMEONE is learning to use the potty and it's a bit time consuming, but we've gone almost a week without a dirty diaper. And by dirty I mean poo...sorry no way around that one! Claire signs "potty" even when she's farting and runs over to sit on the john. Other than an accident when Dan was on "duty" <hehe> she's been doing great.

Let's hope for a diaper free baby come summer! Oh, these photos? Yes, I will be using them as her high school yearbook ad. It will be full page and absolutely fantastic.

Mealtime Musings

We installed the suet feeders next to the dining room window this year so Claire and I could enjoy the birds during meals. I'm not sure what Claire likes better, having Gecko so close or watching the squirrel navigate the slippery pole to steal some food.

Writing this reminded me of a similar entry last year - how funny! I guess I need some new material ideas!

http://rcherill.blogspot.com/2008/01/these-are-few-of-her-favorite-things.html

Holy "Mol-E"

                      

Well, vole to be precise. Cut me some slack here :-)

Dan's little garage buddy took a header into the salt bucket and lucky for him (or her) Dan heard the frantic scratching as the vole tried to escape.

Before setting the little guy free, Dan dropped the squirmy critter off at the back door for a little show and tell time with Claire. She was totally mesmerized and kept signing "more, more, more!" 

Gecko looked pretty intrigued too, I'll bet he was planning his next meal. The voles stick to the garage so unless he gets out, Gecko shouldn't see another one of these anytime soon!

Hooray for living in the country and all the wildlife we get to see!

Copy Cat!

Claire liked the clothes cousin Amy passed along to us so much that she unpacked them all herself! Gecko (our brown tabby) was so excited about all the new smells that he had to make himself a new bed right on the dining room floor. Of course Claire had to join in, who doesn't love an impromptu snuggle with their favorite kitty? The two of them rolled around in the clothes for about 20 minutes together, it was so hysterical! Claire is obsessed with the snow boots, the pink ones trimmed in fur are her favorite and she's stomping around in them as I write this.

Speaking of fur, have I mentioned what a patient, sweet cat Gecko is? He tolerates all of Claire's well intentioned tail pulling and eye poking with grace you wouldn't believe. Ray on the other hand, just seems to keep his distance until Claire falls asleep. Then he's happy to come up and sniff at her before curling himself up next to our little furnace baby.

Oh Happy Day!

The holidays were great, it was so nice to have Dan home for a week but I am so thankful to be back to our regular routine!

The library is running all kinds of new storytime activities with crafts that start later in the day so I won't to drag a groggy kid (read: myself) to an early morning class. Gymboree starts back up, the roller rink...woohoo! Things to keep Claire busy and OFF my dining room chairs!

I can't wait to see what this "Story Stop" class is like today. The library advertised that it was for kids 12 months and up, but after Claire's crayola tadoodles mustache incident, I'm a little leery about Claire's "crafting" ability. We'll just have to wait and see. And besides, it's not MY wall she'll be drawing on! Mwah hahaha!

Happy New Year!

One of my many resolutions is to post more to Claire's blog. I've been slacking a bit according to the aunties!

        

So here's a photo from the Christmas card session, I wound up going with the hooded sweater as you can see here. But I didn't want this photo to get lost - I just love the sun shining on her hair and the catch-lights in her eyes!

Have a happy and healthy 2009 from all of us :-)

PS - I hope YOUR resolution has something to do with commenting more on the blog, especially <ahem!> Grandma Caca who finally has a new laptop!

Fun in the snow

Much to the dismay of her parents, Claire has figured out how to climb the dining room chairs. This means that NOTHING is out of reach anymore. Not the folded laundry, not the camera...not your drinks...not the poor cat trying to nap on the table runner...

Of course now that Claire has figured out how to get up on the "big girl" chairs, that's all she wants to do. Poor kid. Poor resourceful kid - the second we turn our backs, she's on a chair or pushing a chair close to whatever has caught her eye (namely the ornaments on our tree).

As a peace offering for saying "no" all day long today, I took her out for a walk in the snow. It was freeeezing, so we only walked down to the end of the driveway before turning back to play in the front yard. Claire tasted the snow, tried to pull her mittens off and generally seemed to enjoy herself. This is quite an improvement over the last snow adventure where she cried - I think she hated the deep snow because she couldn't walk in it.

So tomorrow is sure to be another adventure. If anyone has tips on entertaining a VERY active toddler when the weather is too cold and she wants to climb everything - I'm all ears!

Our Christmas Dinner Adventure!

Ingredients for a Christmas adventure:

• a smoking oven from that toy your toddler hid in its depths
• a stomach bug that said toddler shared with Grandma Caca who now cannot leave the couch
• a grocery store that closed earlier than expected leading husband to announce:

"Honey, let's play Food Network challenge!"

Oh my gosh.

So...we have no where to cook the giant 24 lb. turkey, two of the four burners in the stove are acting wacky and the root vegetables, all the appetizer ingredients and drink mixes are missing. The only side dish I ha d pre-made were mashed potatoes and lasagna.

Dan was resourceful and grabbed a bunch of acorn squash, mozzarella. tomatoes and pre-made seafood dip. He did this while the store employees followed him around ushering him along. Thank goodness he made it INTO the store, they were turning people away at the door since they wanted to get home to their own families. And in case you were wondering, a store clerk had told Dan they closed at seven earlier in the day, well that clerk was off by an hour.

I have to say that dinner turned out great, even if it wasn't what we planned! We had a bunch of apples and pears so we stuffed the acorn squash with fruit and raisins (and drizzled 'em with a healthy dollop of butter, sugar and bourbon). The mashed potatoes reheated well on our wonky burners and I baked the lasagna and sweet potatoes in our microwave/convection oven. GrandBob and GrandCeil arrived with mini-quiches and brussel sprouts which rounded out the meal. I had a nice stash of frozen peas with mushrooms in the freezer so we served those rather than the garlicky string beans. We did the turkey on the grill (having enough propane to cook it all 3.5 hours was our own little Christmas miracle). All I can say is the creation of this meal was quite the culinary adventure.

Of course the best part of our celebration was gathering the family together! I hope you enjoy all the Christmas photos in the slide-show below. It was so nice to have everyone together, especially the little cousins! There are plenty more photos from Aunt Laurie and McManda's cameras. Hopefully those will be added shortly!

Happy Christmas!

Photos to share later, Claire is loving all her new goodies!

Where are you Santa?