200th post.

We're celebrating the 200th post here at the Brooks Blag! To make it a special event. I thought I'd post the greatest picture of Clara we've taken in a while! Enjoy... And here's to more than 200 more!

14 months old...and Easter afternoon.

Clara was 14 months old on April 22.  She has begun talking so much.  She observes everyone and everything around her.  She wanders around and repeats, "dis" over and over to ask what something is called.  Now when we name objects for her, she tries to repeat us.  It is exciting to watch her vocabulary grow. 

She is drinking vitamin D milk from a bottle now.  Her favorite foods are peas, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, o's (Cheerios), and any variation of bread.  She has become such a great eater in these last two months, thankfully. 

She has had a little bit of trouble sleeping all the way through the night.  During months 12 and 13, she was making a habit of waking in the night and crying.  When we entered her room to rock her or give her the bobby, it made things worse.  As soon as we'd pick her up, she'd point to our room and get excited and then would be wide awake!  There were many nights where she'd wake up twice and have to cry herself to sleep, which would sometimes take up to an hour.  We tried other ways to get her to sleep, but giving her any type of attention in the night only worsened the sleep problems.  So at a year, our child learned to cry it out.  It was awful, but nights are back to their restful ways around here (knock on wood). 

Clara knows many parts of her body.  We practice in the bath.  She can point to her toes, her knees, her belly, her belly button, our eyes, our nose, her ears, her hair, her mouth (she just makes fishy noises when we ask her where her mouth is), and she can wiggle her fingers. 

She can say many animal sounds.  Some new ones are

bee - zzzzz

sheep - baa

lion - roar

She says moon and hush (from her fave book of the moment, Goodnight Moon).

She says ball, down, I love you, boobs (don't ask), and nods her head yes and no (and means it!).

She can go up and down the stairs on her own. 

I know there are many other developments, but I'm forgetting them at the moment. 

These pictures were taken Easter afternoon.  We spent the afternoon with the Waldons (sans Kaufmans ):  It was a glorious day.  The weather was perfect and we spent a lot of time outside.  As you can tell, she's quite the toddler.  It's cliche to say, but what happened to our little baby?

In this last photo, she's pitching a fit, which she does more often than we'd like.  I'll say she's just advanced and reaching the terrible twos a little early, but I know that's not the case.  I'm really hoping we don't have a dramatic one on our hands.  This pic is just thrown in there so you can see how nicely Kurtis and Clara matched on Easter.  Sadly, we didn't get a shot of all three of us dressed up.  But at the same time, I was wearing purple, so I'd have stuck out like a sore thumb!

Easter morning.

We spent Easter morning with the Brooks side of the family.  The day started with bubbles.  Everyone enjoyed the bubbles!

 Then Daddy "hid" eggs in the grass.  Hiding eggs for a one-year-old consists of laying them in the grass so you can see 75% of the egg.  We thought she might be interested.  She went and picked up one blue egg, and later traded it in for a yellow egg, and that was it! 

 Then we wandered around the backyard.  This is just what Clara loves to do.  Walk back and forth, and around and around...as long as she's outside.  Lucky for us, the Easter weather was gorgeous!

 Gotta love white anklets and mary janes in the spring!

 Clara opened a little gift from her Grandma and Grandpa (Pop) Brooks.  Clara called him Pop by herself the other day, so from now on, he'll be Pop!

 Then she read some books with Grandma.

 And made some silly animal sounds for us!

 This pic was taken when Clara was overdue for a nap.  You should see the pictures taken before we gave her the bobby!  Whoa!  When the girl is ready for sleep...she's ready for sleep!

Breakfast was delicious, and the company was so great!  The morning with family was perfect!

dancing at the Stampede game.

We attended an Idaho Stampede game with my dad, and Clara loved the music! She danced and clapped and had a ball! See for yourself!

Playing outside in the springtime.

You need to throw on a hat and jacket this time of year to play outside, but Clara insists we go outside for a bit everyday.  She just stands by the back door and bangs on the glass till we put her coat on.  When we slide the door open, she squeals with delight!

To say she's a happy girl outside in an understatement.  She is constantly moving.  She walks all the way across the yard and back again, over and over.  She walks to the new planter ring that Kurtis built around one of our trees and sits on the edge of it, but only for a second.  Then she's up and moving again!

 She sometimes likes to swing on her new turkey swing from Opa and Oma.

 She usually just likes to push it back and forth.

 See what I mean?  She just keeps wandering!  She's always surrounded by her puppies.

 Here she's got her little finger out saying "no, no".  We've had to go over this a lot lately.  She has a bad habit of grabbing potting soil and eating it.  So we've been saying, "no, no" about the soil many times each day.  She knows it is off limits, but doesn't always obey.  Usually she'll say, "no, no" and then grabs a handful of soil and puts it in her mouth.

We're glad she's an outdoorsy little thing.  I think she fits into our family just fine!

Clara visits the farm.

Kurtis' Mom, Janet, works with a woman who lives on a small farm.  She owns chickens and one rooster, three sheep, five new lambs, and four cows.  She also owns a little dog.  We went for a visit on a bleak, rainy day at the end of March.  Clara LOVED it!

Here she is spotting the sheep for the first time.

 She even got to pet the little girl lamb, Begonia.  Love it!  Begonia is the daughter of Buttercup, and sister to Iris and a few other lambs named after flowers.  She wasn't scared at all.  She reached right out and felt the soft lamby wool.

 She's been hesitant at home to say, "Baa" when prompted.  All it took was the real thing to get her saying, "BAAAA" over and over again.  Here she is in action.  First she's baa-ing, and then she also learned how to say "Cock-a-doodle-doo".  She's loved the page in The Very Busy Spider with the rooster on it for a long time, but hasn't ever said cock-a-doodle-doo till now!  I guess it is true... it takes real-life experiences to motivate us to learn at times! 

She couldn't stop cock-a-doodle-dooing after our visit.  She continued to say it the whole way home, and even once we got home she continued sounding like a little rooster for a long time.

 After we spent a lot of time with those cute lambs, we headed out into the pasture to visit the big sheep and cows.  She didn't want any help!  Our little Miss Independent wanted to go all by herself...uneven ground, piles of poop, and all!

 Here she is resisting a helping hand!

 She helped feed Buttercup some poppyseed muffin. 

 That uneven ground will git 'ya little girl!  Let your parents help you, PLEASE!

 "No way!" she says.  Off she went, on her own.  A little girl in a BIG pasture!

 Then we got to meet Mayzie.  She was a sweet black cow who wasn't too sure about the little creature (aka Clara) that came to pay a visit. 

 Of course, our little dog-lover had to spend some time giving loves to Katie the dog.  She even made the low purring/growling sound that Katie makes when she gets petted.

Thanks Trish for opening up your fences to us, and thanks Janet for arranging Clara's first visit to a farm.  We hope to be back soon to check on all our new animal friends!