Random Bits of Cuteness!

"But Bear and Cali go in.....why can't I?"

Gotta love the hair in this one, it's getting soooo long!

"Darn it ball stay in there......."

Your guess is as good as mine.

"Watch out..here it comes....."

Verbal rants and stairs

Among Claire's many verbal rantings, we have the typical bababa, lalalala, dadadada, ladadabalama, and of course the occasional mamama(mostly when tired or hungry :-( Well this week she has added a new one: Dewey, dewey, dewey.........what it means-not a clue but she loves to say it. She will repeat it over and over again.

Along with the lovely new verbal babble came a day off with Daddy. Unfortunately Mommy's school system felt that the weather was JUST fine and we happened to be the only system in the state besides one MUCH further south that actually had school today. Let's hope that is not the case tomorrow. (We will ALL have our jammies on inside out and backwards tonight!

Anyway, during her stay home with Daddy came the acquisition of another new skill: stair climbing.
Brian watched her crawl to the bottom of the stairs where she remained for quite sometime playing with a toy. He looked back over to check her out only to find that she was missing. By the time he got to the stairs she was half way up and moving like she was being chased by fire! Guess it's time to stop the haphazard use of the baby gate and actually put it up.

Here is a video of the event! Sorry for the poor quality and lack of sound but the video was taken with a cell phone, quickest thing Daddy could grab to record the event.

Welcome Home Uncle David!

This past week Uncle David came home from studying abroad in Scotland! We are so excited to have him back. He was AMAZED to see how much Claire has changed in the past 4 months. Here are a few shots from his welcome home brunch at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Spending quality time together.

Uncle Steve and Claire discussing art.


Super baby with Aunt Ally!

Talking to Auntie J via Skype!
We missed having you here.

Conversing with Shadow about the events of the day.

What a smile :-)

Big Girl Shoes!!

Since Claire has really been cruising and walking(with hand held) like a pro, we decided it was time to get her some "big girl shoes" meant for this stage in her development. Thanks to Grams and Poppy, who were kind enough to foot(heehee) the bill, these are Claire's new shoes and a couple shots of her testing them out.

We tried to go outfit neutral(avoiding a great deal of pink) but unfortunately the color options were pink, pink on pink or brown and pink. Thankfully we found white with a "bit" of pink.

Walking to the beat of her own drum.

Trying to touch the figure skater on tv

Random Bits of Cuteness!

Hi there!

Giving Bear some love.

Could they be any cuter?

Table food ROCKS!

This is just priceless!

Claire's first SNOW!

Worthy of excitement since this is the first white stuff we have seen all season! We know it will not last but it is exciting nonetheless.
Here are a couple shots of Claire and I on the way to the Dr. today. Her appointment went GREAT. Her lungs are clear and she no longer needs nebulizer treatments.

Whoo Hoo!

Such a BIG girl!

While we were in the hospital, Claire became obsessed with drinking from my cup and straw. So we decided to get her a cup with straw of her own. Thank you Target for having such cute choices. They had frogs, chicks and cows. Claire chose the chick(sorry uncle Jim) and she LOVES drinking out of it.
She has also become quite fond of trying to feed herself. Here she is having leftover noodles and beef gravy(her new favorite) She does pretty well but usually resorts to her fingers before the end of the meal :-)

This was her first sip from her new cup!

She drank like a pro.

Can you see the concentration?

In this shot, she was actually using her spoon to attempt to get the noodles off her tray.

Fingers always seem to work better.

Grams and Poppy--Beef and Wine Sauce!

Yesterday Grams and Poppy came down for a visit. They were nice enough to bring Claire a bag full of cut-out cookies! Her favorite Christmas cookie, I swear she did get some before they were gone!

Claire also had her first taste of Beef and Wine Sauce for dinner. She LOVED it.

Poppy forgot to keep looking at the camera!

What is going on in that mind?

Noodles and sauce, fingers seemed to be working better than her spoon.

All smiles!

Could she be ANY cuter!

Random Bits of Cuteness!

I realize that there has been a severe lack of cuteness on Claire's page due to the events of the past couple weeks so I decided to correct that. These random bits are actually a series of shots that will just make you smile. Let me set the stage, After dinner one evening Claire was having the MOST difficult time deciding who she would rather play with, Monkey or Lizzie.

"Hi Lizzie, can I pull your hair?"

" Sweater Monkey, you are soooo cute."

"Ahhh, this is too hard!"

"Who do you think Mommy?"

"I guess I will just play with both of you."

Today's Dr. Appt.

Claire went to the Dr. today for a follow up to make sure her lungs sounded good and her blood oxygen was where it needed to be. Unfortunately, she did not get to see her favorite Dr but it actually worked out well because the Dr. we saw was the one I spoke to at 3am on Wednesday morning so he was familiar with her case.
So on to the update. Upon arrival Claire had no temperature, Dr. said her lungs sounded great AND her blood oxygen was 100!!!!! Needless to say we are VERY pleased.

Thank you for all your phone calls, emails and comments! We really appreciate every one's support.

Update

Claire in her hospital crib:

All smiles!

Well a lot has happened since I last wrote. Claire had to be hospitalized early Wednesday morning. She was having a lot of trouble sleeping Tuesday evening and woke up several times. The last time she got up her breathing and coughing sounded VERY bad. We called the pedi office and explained the situation and we told to head to the ER. Upon arriving we found out that Claire was having to work VERY hard to breath and her blood/oxygen levels were in the eighties. Ideally, they should be between 95-100. We were admitted, Claire was on oxygen for about 24 hours with breathing treatments every two hours for the same amount of time. She would do great when she was awake but even with constant oxygen her levels would fall into the eighties again as she slept.

Finally, yesterday(Thursday) she was taken off oxygen but continued to have her blood oxygen monitored. Her breathing treatments were moved from two hours to three hours, finally to every four hours. As the day went on her lungs sounded better and better so thankfully we were released. I do not know if Claire(or her parents) could handle another night. She was getting so bored with such limited space and no floor or walking access.

Last night we came home, we still have treatments every four hours until we see our pedi this morning and see what he thinks. But Claire was thrilled to sleep in her own bed last night without people poking and prodding at her all night. She slept for a whopping 9.5 hours, she even slept through her nighttime treatments. That was the most that she has slept at night since this whole illness started.

Throughout the whole ordeal Claire was an angel. With the exception of her nasty cough and runny nose, you would never know that she was as sick as she was. All of the hospital staff loved her and she was all smiles whenever she was being tended to.

I will update later to let everyone know how Claire is doing!!

RSV

I must apologize for the lack of updates lately but Claire's world has been rocked with illness. First, last Thursday, I(Mommy) came down with a "run of the mill virus" according to my Dr. Thankfully not the flu or strep throat(my two biggest worries) but a fever and a pretty awful sore throat. Then Claire developed a nasty cold.......or so we thought. Her cough was getting worse and worse and our nights were getting longer and longer. Today, since the was a distinct rattling in her chest, we took her to see her favorite Dr and he diagnosed her with RSV. Which is just Dr talk for a pretty nasty chest infection. The treatment? Lots of exposure to her humidifier. Then Daddy had a bout with a tummy bug! Fun, Fun, FUN!!
Hopefully things will start to get better soon. I seem to be one the mend, which is somewhat hard when you still have to work in a cesspool of germs(kids ROCK!) and Daddy is doing well but also works in a cesspool. From what the Dr said we should be about 1/2 way through this RSV thingy and she will be as good as new as well.

WE GOT IT!

Here is our little lady walking with one hand!

Walking with one hand!

We have been trying to get this on video but of course when she is doing it, the camera is either no where to be found OR when it comes out all she wants to do is crawl. But anyway, Claire has been walking around while only holding one of our hands. This morning she took 5 steps pretty steadily with holding one hand. Of course she had a destination in mind so her determination to get there was HIGH! She loves her furry friends and Calianne was just within reach. Until Claire got close that is, then she was up the stairs in a shot.
Keep an eye out for a video, hopefully we will have one soon.

Gymboree

Today Claire got the chance to experience a Gymboree Play and Learn class(a free trial)! It was awesome. She had the opportunity to meet and play with several little girls(which for her is a change since all of the babies she knows are boys). Claire had fun cruising across a bridge while chasing after balls, climbing up and sliding down slides, playing with bubbles, sitting on and underneath a moving parachute as well as singing songs. Whoo, no wonder she was pretty tuckered out and headed for a nap soon upon our return. Claire(and Mommy) loved it and hopefully we will get a chance to go back soon.

Here she is sporting the track suit she wore to class today.

Happy New Year!

We hope everyone enjoyed their new years celebration! We had a quiet evening at home complete with good food for Mommy and Daddy as well as playing lots of games with Claire. The new year came in with a bang for us, literally. Our neighbor up the street likes to mark occasions like New Years and 4th of July with fireworks and the firing of his canon. We were hoping that Claire's sound machine was loud enough last night to drowned out the noise but we were wrong. So we spent about a half an hour trying to get our sweet angel back to sleep. We spent some time discussing what our "Big" event will be this year. 2006 we were married, 2007 we got pregnant, 2008 we had Claire! But we did realize that this whole year will be filled with first and "big" developmental events. Claire will turn 1, she will walk for the first time, say her first words, etc. So we will get to enjoy several "Big" events this year!


Today will be a quiet day as well, until the Rose bowl starts that is!

Go PSU!!!!!