Playing Catch-up

Wow, it's been awhile! I'll have to briefly summarize the holidays to bring us up to the present and throw in a picture or two along the way. First of all, sorry for taking such a long hiatus. The holidays were busy, work is busy and we've been soaking up every minute of our weekend family time. So, that's it for my excuses. Now it's time to review the last 3 months!

At the park - 9 months old

November: Thanksgiving was wonderful. Andrew and I had a full week off (thank you, Gwinnett County!) and we had the family over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. Clare was 9 months old at this point and the morning of Thanksgiving I brought her into the den and put on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, thinking it could be a great tradition to start. Since she otherwise doesn't watch TV, she had NO interest in watching the parade...she preferred instead to play with items on the floor and slide around on her bottom in her pajamas! For dinner that afternoon my parents, Ned, Libby and her boyfriend, Kyle, and Kyle's family came over to eat. We had yummy appetizers, a delicious dinner and dessert topped off with s'mores cooked over our new outdoor fire pit (constructed thanks to Andrew and his dad!). It was lovely. We spent the rest of our break together as a family and Clare and I made 1 holiday shopping trip to Macy's for a couple of Black Friday deals. She was a champ in her stroller and didn't fuss once about waiting in line.

Hanging with Dad!

December: In December I spent a good deal of time home with my girl because she had her first real sickness. She had a cold previously, right after Halloween, but in December she caught some sort of virus that came with a head cold, fever and chest congestion. After a couple trips to the doctor's office during the week, a Friday night wheezing episode prompted a midnight call to the doctor and a morning visit to a satellite Children's Healthcare location (they are THE BEST). As it turns out she had bronchiolitis and was prescribed a nebulizer with albuterol. I grew up with asthma and came to know albuterol very well...it had been my hope that through exclusively breastfeeding I could get her beyond ever needing to take asthma medication. I'm hoping that this was just a one-time thing related to this virus and not any indication of what's to come in the future. We're about to hit our 1-year milestone of breastfeeding and I plan to continue for as long as I can.

10 months old

We also went to visit my grandmother on the first weekend of Winter break. My parents, Libby and Kyle, Ned, Andrew, Clare and I stayed in a beautiful mountain house a few miles from Granny's house and were able to spend a couple of days celebrating her birthday and an early Christmas. Clare and Granny were so funny together! Granny called her 'Miss Clare Whatley' each time she addressed her and the two were able to spend some quality time together. It was a lovely weekend.

4 generations of women

On Christmas Eve we went to Covington to visit Andrew's family. We went to church with his mom, dad, sister Erin and her husband Chris, and Clare's cousins, Hannah and Ian. We had a delicious dinner after mass at the Whatley's house and then delved into the kid's Christmas presents. It was Clare's first experience with presents and it was so funny to watch her excitement for the bows and wrapping paper exceed the actual gifts. We had a great night and she fell asleep within minutes of getting in the car to head home. At our home the next morning we did Santa gifts and stockings. Santa brought Clare a red wagon and she sat in it to open her presents from Marley and Andrew and I. We went to my parent's house for breakfast and stockings and then back to our house for her nap and to get ready for dinner. We had a huge Christmas dinner and finished the day with family game time and movies. It was the best Christmas yet.

Sitting in her wagon from Santa & opening her book from Marley

Wagon = success

January: We spent New Year's Eve with our neighborhood friends, Brendan and Meghan and their son, Drew. Mike and Katie also came with their son, Riley and brand new baby girl, Robbie. Since we all now have kids who go to bed early we celebrated New Year's Eve on European time and toasted with champagne at 6:00! Andrew and I were in bed by 9 and I'm not ashamed to admit it. The only problem is that baby Clare missed the memo that it's necessary to sleep past 6:00 am on New Year's Day. We'll have to work on that next year...

New Year's Day - Brendan & Drew, Mike & Robbie, Adam & Aron, Andrew & Clare

On New Year's Day we spent the day with our friends the Fines, the Edwards, the Garners, and the Noggles all over at Mike and Katie's house. Each year we try to do a tacky gift exchange and each year we have lots of laughs over great food. We have the best friends ever.

Still loving her walks...even when it's cold

Clare is doing well and growing like a weed. She now weights 18.5 pounds and is still eating almost anything we give her. She started 'army crawling' at 10 months, pulling up at 10 1/2 months and is now fluently cruising around all the furniture. We had to lower her crib mattress quickly! She is still saying 'Dada', 'bye bye' and occasionally 'mama' and has just recently started saying 'dog'! She loves to give kisses and is doing really well with her sign language. She can sign 'eat', 'more', 'drink', and 'all done'. We're now slowly starting to incorporate signs like 'thank you' and 'please'. It's so much fun to watch her communicate. She also loves to listen to music and dance. It's been such a treat to watch Andrew and Clare do their 'Daddy/daughter' dances around the house. He'll pick her up and spin her around and she smiles and giggles as they go. She has such a sweet disposition and we are just enjoying soaking up the time with her every chance we get. We've started to plan her 1st birthday and I cannot believe that it's almost been 1 year since she was born. The time really does fly.

11 months old and cruising!