Clara meets Santa.

I love Edward's Nursery in Boise.  Previously, I'd only been during spring and summer, but I get e-mails about their events throughout the year and thought this might be fun to attend.  They host a holiday open house and kids can take free pictures with Santa!  A local high school takes the photos.  It ended up being a great time.  We went with both sets of grandparents and met up with Mike and Kelly and Harley.  There was wine, coffee, and great snacks, and of course, the company was fantastic!  

Back to the main event.  I was so curious about how Clara would act around Santa.  It could have gone so many ways.  At first, she was a little uneasy.

 Then she just wanted to snuggle with his soft red and white coat.

 Then she had to get a second look at him!

Then she was a little uneasy again!

 I was cracking up at her roller coaster ride of emotions!

 When it was all over, she was back to her normal self. 

It was a big day!  The poinsettias were stunning, the wine tasty, the group of people was loads of fun, and baby Clara's first meeting with Santa was priceless!

cousin photo shoot in Christmas jammies - another photo shoot gone wrong.

We bought the babies Christmas jammies on black Friday (at approximately 2:30 am) and we wanted to get a great holiday shot of the two of them.  Once again, easier said than done...remember this? 

It started out great, except I forgot to take Clara's binkie out (she was on the verge and ready for bed!). 

 Both babies love giving this huge, old bear kisses!  Can you believe how long Clara's hair is getting?

 Oma is trying to wrangle the two of them...they're not so happy about it!

 Cutest pic of Ben...EVER!

 After lots of failed photos (I didn't include them, it would be painful for all of us!), Teenie had the genius idea to bring out a strand of Christmas lights!  We were hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the two babes would sit still for a half second and look at the camera!

 Another great shot of Ben!

 I'm afraid these were our best photos of the night!  They finally sat still in close proximity to one another and played with toys...fairly Christmassy, right?

 Here they are, the kissing cousins!

Maybe when they're a year older we'll get a good picture...oh wait, we'll have a third cousin to wrangle for a photo op (Ben's going to be a big brother)!  At least we have fun trying!

9 months old.

Clara turned 9 months old on the 22nd.  Her measurements were:

height - 29 inches (90th percentile)

weight - 19 lbs. 13 oz. (60th percentile)

head - 17.5 inches (75th percentile)

Developmentally, this was quite the month for Miss Clara.  She is crawling FAST and pulling herself up to standing with ease.  She can stand on her own for brief moments, but mostly stands holding on with one hand to something.  She knows what these words mean: more, all done (and she can sign this one), kisses (and does this on command), and no.  She probably knows more, these are just the first I can think of. 

She loves to feed herself.  She is getting a little tired of baby food.  She prefers something she can hold onto and put in her mouth on her own.  She's becoming quite independent!  She hated avocado for a while, but I've been cutting it into small chunks lately and she's back to loving it.  She loves the cold weather because of all the soups she's been able to eat!  I've been on a major soup kick lately.  She loved the Thanksgiving food - especially TURKEY!  Sometimes, she just hates eating from my spoon so much that she needs to hold her own spoon while you hold her spoon and feed her.  Sometimes during meals she can be quite a handful!

She can do a few great tricks.  She can click her tongue, and she can clap her hands, and as I mentioned before, she can kiss like crazy on command!

She has such a personality.  When she doesn't want something, she either shakes her head "no" emphatically, or she scrunches up her face and breathes really quickly through her "teeth".  Speaking of teeth, she's a vampire at 9 months!  She has her front two bottom teeth, and her two lateral incisors (the teeth NEXT to the front teeth).  Of course she does!

She loves soft stuffed animals.  Still loves her silly Dipstick dog, and she loves her soft bunny from Auntie Emily, her soft bunny/blankie from Cousin Ben, and her soft sheep from Uncle Arlen. 

Her favorite letter from her name is L.  You saw that a few posts back, but she still just loves that L. It's all chewed up compared to the other letters. 

She's wearing 12 month or 12-18 month clothes now, and she's wearing 18 month jammies.  She's just too tall for those 12 month winter jammies!

One bit of sad news from her Dr. appointment was that we need to go see a pediatric optometrist because her tear ducts are still closed.  They may need to be probed and opened up.  Her eyes are watery quite often and drip out the outside edge of her eyes.  We hope it is nothing to be too concerned with! 

She loves to read books and especially loves to shred magazines.  She's great at turning the pages for us when we read to her, and she can do this on command! 

We are just really enjoying watching Clara grow and learn.  She is a delight to be around and is so pleasant (unless she's cutting teeth!).  We love being parents to such an amazing little girl!

 I love this next picture!

lovely, little, lopsided L.

Clara has a favorite letter!  In her bath, she plays with foam letters and I always give her the letters in her name (there's only one "A" in the set, so she gets a 4 as her second A - not perfect, but we make it work!).  Anyway, every time we toss the letters of her name in the bath water, she searches for "L" and grabs it and chomps it.  I don't know if she loves it because it fits in her mouth just perfectly, or because it is easy to hold, but she loves it!  At this point, there are teeth marks all over the ends of "L", but I think that gives it more reason to love! 

This girl is getting more quirky by the day, but we love her!

a mauling.

Clara and Austin are great buddies.  Austin was born a few weeks after Clara and his Mom Angela and I went to middle and high school together.  We've had such fun getting the babies together when we can so they can play and we can chat! 

Last time they played, Clara couldn't stop kissing Austin.  I was hoping this time she'd be a little more chill about playing with Austin.

Apparently...

she's like a crazed 13 year old girl around Justin Bieber! 

She couldn't stop grabbing him, kissing him, tackling him, etc.  I'm a little worried that she'll be one of those boy crazy little girls that gets put on the wall at recess for kissing boys in kindergarten.  Maybe I'm overreacting. 

In all actuality, I love this video!  When the girl gets wound up, she's SO entertaining!

the best toy ever.

You know how they say a child's favorite gift is usually the box it comes in...well, we've been lucky enough to receive LOTS of hand me down toys and books and other baby items from one of my mom's piano students.  One such toy was a Tupperware container full of blocks.  I was trilled...we hadn't bought any blocks for Clara yet, so it was perfect!  Turns out, well...see for yourself.

Yep...she likes the "box it came in" better!

pulling herself up!

We're really in trouble now!  Clara is able to pull herself up on furniture!  She loves to be standing and works hard to get upright whenever she can.  She can tear the toys out of this shelving system so fast now that she can pull herself up to reach the highest bins!  The girl is starting to be a little bit of a handful because of her mobility!  We can't leave her alone for one second!

This video is about two weeks old!  You should see her now!  Pulling herself up on furniture seems effortless now!  She acts like she's been doing it for months!  She's even cruising along furniture and holding on ONE HANDED and for brief moments, using NO HANDS AT ALL!  This eighth month of life has been HUGE for Clara in the developmental aspect.  The girl is amazing!

When she feel, she was a little sad...

 but ended up getting right back up again! 

Learning life lessons so early! I'm such a proud Mama!

starting to crawl.

This video was take a couple weeks ago when Clara was mostly rolling and spinning to get around.  She loved to lay on her side and put her other hand up on her head (as you can see in this video). 

In this second video you can hear her saying "Mom-mom-mom" and watch her spin around to reach toys!  You think this is amazing...just wait till you see her moves now, just two short weeks after these videos were shot!  The girl sure keeps us on our toes!

eating on her own.

Clara has some great fine motor skills!  She's gotten great at feeding herself in the last month.  She's amazingly accurate at getting finger food in her mouth and down the hatch.  We think she may even be a lefty - she always feeds herself with her left hand.  If something gets stuck in her left hand, she grabs it with her right hand and transfers it back to her left to eat it! 

She's loving being a more independent eater.  In fact, lately it seems like she doesn't care for baby food - she'd rather eat the food that we're eating.  Her favorite foods are lentil soup, spaghetti pie, and as of tonight...black bean soup! 

Here she is eating some puffs, happy as can be.  Don't mind the vacuum in the background...the little husband was doing a great job cleaning the floors!

kissing babies.

Clara loves other babies and toddlers!  Here she is reading her latest favorite books (Babyfaces) with Daddy.  The photos of the babies in these books drive her wild!  She loves grabbing babies in real life, but since our house is only a single baby household, she'll make do with a book of babies.  Here she is giving her babies kisses.  She started this on her very own, and now gives kisses on command if we ask her to.  It seems like every stage just gets better and better!

happy halloween.

We had a great Halloween.  We had both sets of grandparents over for lasagna and salad (thanks for cookin' Oma!) and Clara dressed as a little duckie!  The costume was a little hot for her to wear all night, but when she had it on, she looked fantastic!  Here she is with Daddy before the festivities.

We didn't snap the greatest photos, but we did have a wonderful evening.  Clara loved opening the door for the trick-or-treaters.  She giggled at all the little kids who came to visit.  And when her friend Macie came over (Macie is our neighbor who is 4 days older than Clara), Clara mauled her!  She's really learning that other little people are FUN!  It was a great first Halloween!

funny sister quote.

Let me set the scene...

The Waldon family is sitting around the table eating dinner.  We sisters are talking about going out to get some sushi sometime soon, and Teenie mentions she love some sushi but she can't have any because she's currently pregnant.  She goes on to say we can go get some sushi when...and Emily interrupts by saying, "Yeah, we can go get sushi with Teenie in 2000-NEVER because she's always pregnant!" 

That Emily is a card.

On that note, here are some funny oldie but goodie pics of sisters!

Outside Grandma and Grandpa Waldon's house in MN in the 80's.

 At Uncle Pete and Aunt Sandy's wedding in MN...again in the late 80's!  Real ladylike Elizabeth Ann!

 Missouri trip, 2005.

 Easter 2007.

 Easter 2008.

 Funniest pic of Em EVER!

babes in leaves: play-by-play of a photo shoot gone wrong.

Teenie and I dressed the babies alike and headed out to the neighbors yard full of golden leaves for a photo shoot that we thought would be wonderful productive perfect.  At least it was memorable!

This may be my fave of Ben.  He is super excited about something!

The wind was pretty nuts out there and soon leaves were sticking to Clara's perfectly feathered hair!  Poor girl!

Bangs!  Ben's bangs were our nemesis!

Really Clara, you're trying to ingest the leaves?  I had to go grab a slobbery leaf out of her mouth - all that was sticking out of her cute lips was the tip of the stem!  I'm glad I got to her when I did!

At this point, Teenie and I are YELLING the babies' names trying to get their attention and working hard to get them to look at us!  This is what we got!

So uninterested!

Ben really wanted to give his cousin a big PINCH!

Clear shot of Clara, Ben...well, bangs!

"No, no Ben, sit down.  Please?!  Sit on your pockets please!  Ben!  Hello!"

Princess Leah with leaves.

Almost cute - bad angle!

Who knows!

Clara, seriously, get the leaves out of your mouth!

Me - "This one might be cute!  Just get them both to look over here!"

Teenie - "Ben, Clara, look here!  Seriously, we should quit while we're ahead!"

In desperation, we both just begged, "Please?"

Ben, I'm with you, let's go inside!

Maybe another day!