Holiday Cards

I'm making Holiday Cards this year:

Click HERE to view examples.

{Thank you to all you "examples!"}

Email me if interested!

And if you're in the Bay Area--remember:

3 months

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Her stats:
23.5 inches (50th percentile)
12 lbs 3 oz (55th percentile)

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She and her cousin Reese love their Bumbos:


She loves swimming! Here she is her 3rd time:






After her shots on Friday :( She had 5 of them! Yuck. It was not fun, but she's a tough girl and did great.


New this month:

She loves her hands & fingers. They're always in her mouth. When you take them out, she's ferocious to get them back in. Man that girl is strong!

She's drooling like crazy. If you hold her above your head in the air, it's just a constant stream falling out of her mouth.

She smiles like crazy. It's the cutest thing.

She's cooing and gooing and YELLING. She just lays there and yells. She definitely got her daddy's voice!

She's practicing that hand/eye coordination all the time. She will swat at toys and then when she really focuses, she'll slowly (missing a few times) get her hands where she can grasp the toy. Then it goes straight to her mouth. She doesn't know yet how to get the actual toy in her mouth, her hand is usually in the way and that's what she sucks on.

We got her a Baby Einstein DVD and she loves it.

She hasn't been swaddled in 2 months. She just loves to sleep with her hands tucked behind her head. It's so cute to see those little elbows by her head. Her elbows are one of my favorite things about her little body.

Nights... well, we're working on those. I'm still getting up every 3 hours with her. She did really good for a month or so, only waking up around 2am and 6am, but now she's doing 12am, 3am, 6am. Not fun, but I'm working on keeping her up longer, especially from 5pm till bedtime.

She has lots of friends. The boys are already starting to line up for her.

Her shirt says it all:

Yesterday at church. She just looked too cute:

Lots of you have asked where her bow is from, they're my favorite. Paislee Lane makes them on Etsy.

Ben's mom taught me to crochet while we were in Tahoe and I am LOVING it! I am making flowers and beanies all over the place. Here's one I just finished:

Love this baby girl. She's growing so much and we are loving every new stage. 

Thanks for cleaning my poop, Mom

(viewer discretion is advised)

Hi Mom,

I'm sorry that my poop doesn't stay in my diapers. I'm not sure what we can do about this. We both didn't think they were too small (I mean, they say up to 14lbs and I'm only 12lbs), but maybe you shouldn't do them up so tight, or we should just try moving up a size. I know you don't want to do that though because it means I'm growing up.

I just hate to do this to you so much.

I know I'm in my really cute brand new onesie, but you're so good at getting my poop out of my clothes now so I won't worry about it.

You gotta admit Mom, that I look really cute in this picture. And I don't mind the baths you give me after my blowouts (I promise I don't do them on purpose just to get a bath like you might think).

Thanks for being patient with me, Mom. I'll try to keep it in next time. Thanks for cleaning up my poop.

Love,

Claire

Men's Cookoff

So last weekend was the "Men's Cookoff" in our ward. Each man had to make a dish: appetizer, salad, main, or dessert, and all the women in the ward vote for the best in each category.

Ben has literally cooked twice our whole marriage... both dishes (the same recipe) didn't turn out so well, ending with the massive amount of leftovers having to be thrown out a week later because they weren't touched again. I love you for trying Ben.

Needless to say, I was quite sceptical about this activity. And being the frugal man he is, I found this simple recipe for him to do from The Simple Dollar website:

Ham and Potato Casserole
4 red potatoes, sliced
2 red onions, finely chopped
1 1/2 pounds cubed ham
1 can condensed cream of celery soup, diluted according to can directions
2 tablespoons flour

(This one is very good with cheese on top just before you serve it.)

Combine all of this into a crock pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn it on low and walk away for eight hours. Add a quarter of a cup of water for every additional two hours you intend to cook it.

Looks easy enough right? Well, while Ben was slicing the ham (feeling hot and mighty in the kitchen), he decided to slice some of the ham fat really small and put it in to add flavor. I got upset and told him to remember that WOMEN will be judging, not men and that he should follow the recipe. He also wanted to put the giant ham bone in the crock pot for 8 hours, because it would again, "add flavor." Whatever. I just knew it would be a disaster. 

After 8 hours of cooking in the crock pot, Ben realized "I forgot to add the flour!" And threw some in there last minute. Great. This is going to be embarrassing.

We get there and there is such a huge turnout. TONS of food! They asked me to be in charge of tasting all the desserts... HOW LUCKY AM I? Best assignment I've ever had--"please go stuff your face with 30 different desserts and tell us which is best." OKAY!

There were so many amazing dishes, I was really impressed. The main meals Ben was up against were things like a BBQ pork sandwich,  Taco Soup, and tons of different beef dishes. At the end of the night, after everyone has eaten and the votes have been cast by the women, they start announcing the winners.

And guess who won the "Best MAIN DISH!"


That's right. I'm sorry Ben that I wasn't more supportive (I didn't even try it that night). Shame on me.
You are an amazing cook and I'm so proud of you.


P.S. The dish really is amazing, super easy, and super cheap. Go try it!

Her first swim

Thank goodness it's been so hot so late! It was 90 degrees today so we just had to go swimming. First though, a fun picture of her this morning:

Getting ready to swim with all her friends! (baby Reese, baby Adelle, baby Wyatt, and baby Owen joined her!)

My cousin's wife Tiff:

Claire loved the water! We were surprised by how well all the babies did given that the hot tub was cold! It was only about 80 degrees, but they loved the bubbles and all the babies their age! Claire just relaxed and enjoyed until she was all pruned up. Cutest little prunes I've ever seen.

The boys doing what they do best:

I set up our flipvideo since we were all busy and trimmed it down to a couple of minutes:

All cleaned up after her swim. If only she'd stay clean. She had a blowout on her evening walk with daddy and had to have her 3rd bath for the day.

Love this beautiful girl!

Oh and she rolled over yesterday! Check it out:

Lake Tahoe

After 8 weeks of family, fun, friends, Utah, no work, and no responsibilities, we are back in good old California. Back to real life. We were so blessed to have been able to spend that much time in Utah with all of our family. It was so much fun to have everyone get to know Claire and see all her firsts with us. We definitely want to make it back there soon. 

On our way home, we spent a few days in Lake Tahoe with some of Ben's mom's side of the family. {We missed you Aunt Peg!} Jon and Jaclyn flew in from D.C. for the weekend! It was so great to see them.

Some more pics from week:

Getting ready for family pictures:

Our 2010 {almost complete} family picture:
(taken in the hotel because of the dang RAIN!)

4 generations:

Ready to be done smiling:

At Taco Bell:

She also loved to snooze with Pa. They're great buddies.

The only stinky thing is that it rained EVERY single day we were there except for one afternoon. As soon as the blue sky came out we were out the door to see some sites. It is SOOO beautiful there!

Emerald Bay:

We went on some back roads to find the salmon and found this mamma bear and baby!


They were right next to our car:

It's Salmon Run season! And look at all those fish! Gosh there were hundreds!

Things we did without pictures: ate hundreds of peaches! Ben's grandparents grow them on 13 trees and they are the best peaches you've ever tasted. We each had a giant bowl with every meal. Delish. We played golf everyday (the card game),  which I am pretty dang good at. Lisa taught Jac and me how to crochet! I love it! I made 10 different flowers. I just love it and am hooked. Now I'm looking for a fun project!

Thanks everyone for a great vacation! It was so fun to have you all meet and love Claire. We'll be sure to keep you up to date on all her cute/funny/first moments.

And to end with, a hilarious video taken in Tahoe (the end is the best):