playdate.

Some of the girls from work invited Clara and I to a playdate yesterday.  When we got there, the house was FULL of small children.  I had a blast watching some of the kiddies with Clara.  She had a lot of fun too.  Clara decided it would be fun to scream at the small children who just wanted to cuddle with her!  She wasn't really crying, just yelling a lot!  I guess not every new development is sweet and precious!

Here are some pics of cute children with Clara, and I'll include a couple videos of her screaming as well!  Hilarious!

These two little girls have VERY similar names and they both have Feb. b-days!  Claire Ann and Clara Ann!

 Here is Clara sitting up, looking pretty pleasant...just you wait!

 Action shot!  Here she is SCREAMING!  These poor girls!  The younger one said to me at one point, "She's really loud!" 

 She was a little grumpy for a good portion of the day, but she looks like she was a sweet angel in this photo!

 The binkie sure is a life saver!

And now for some screaming!

booyah!

When we found out we were expecting last summer, we knew we had to buy a new house.  We were living in our 2 bed/2 bath townhouse at the time (which we're now renting out) and knew there wasn't room for a baby there!  We found the house of our dreams in Meridian and got it for a pretty great deal!  The new house had EVERYTHING we were looking for, except that it faced east.  What this means when you live in Idaho is that the afternoons and evenings are miserably hot in your backyard. 

Our backyard is great!  You remember these garden boxes that we built a while back.  There is plenty of room for the dogs to play and one day for Clara to run around.  There was even an awesome, huge stamped concrete patio back there.  The problem was that it would have been just too hot for us!

Well, thanks to one of Kurtis' friends who is a builder, we solved that problem by building a patio cover!  It turned out great!  It's almost done!  We're having a painting party this weekend, so after that, it will be totally finished.  But I just have to share the pics with you now!

Day 1 - holes drilled in patio and metal brackets placed in concrete.

 Day 2 - posts up and framing begins.

 Day 3 - framing completed.

 Day 4 - roofers come lay tar paper and shingles.  You can't see this part from beneath...obviously!

Day 5 - siders come and put siding up and caulk everything.

Doesn't it look awesome!  The only thing left to do is to paint the siding, stain the exposed wood to match the stain on our front porch, and our builder buddy is going to come this week to case the posts with rough cut ceder to finish it off!  We are going to love spending time out here this summer!  Come on over to help us break it in with a beer or a gin and tonic!

old random baby pics.

I think these were from Teenie's trip home in May!  They were such cute pics but they got lost on the "other" camera.  We always have a camera out and ready at home for when Clara does cute stuff, and this camera is kept in the diaper bag.  Every once in a while, it gets its chance to shine!

Teenie determined a while ago that when my dad gets around his grandbabies, he acts like a 3-year-old girl.  It's true!  Here he is with Clara!

 Watch out!!!  It's a bird...it's a plane...

 it's Super Ben!

 Yeah...that cape is detachable!  Pretty bad-@#$!

 In Ben's baby book, Teenie writes that his favorite food is books!  He is always trying to much on them! 

 Seriously presh!

 Baby?

 Here is little miss asleep at Grandma Brooks' house!

sick babe.

Poor Clara!  She came down with her first cold at 3 and 1/2 months!  She started having symptoms on Saturday, and then Tuesday night had the worst night of her life - seriously.  She's been sleeping through the night since she was 2 months old, so for her to be up all night and crying inconsolably, I knew something was up!  I took her to the Dr. Wednesday thinking it may have turned into an ear infection or something, but her ears look fine!  I guess it is just a nasty cold!  We got some saline drops and used those along with the aspirator, and last night gave her a little infant ibuprofen.  She slept like a champ, thankfully!

Here she is in her crib, sleeping to try to cure her cold!

 We tilted the mattress to try to help ease her congestion.  The first night, we tilted it without making the blanket into a horseshoe shape under her booty and I found her with her head on the down side of the crib.  Oops!  Parents really do learn their lessons by making mistakes!

 Yesterday evening, I was dreading the night ahead thinking it was going to be a repeat of the night before, so Kurtis suggested trying a little skin to skin time.  In our childbirth class, the instructor told us that if a newborn's body temp is low, the mother's body temp will increase to regulate her baby's temp.  Same thing if the baby has a fever, the mom's body temp will drop to bring the baby's temp down, which is why skin to skin time with young infants is so important!  Mom's are magic!  Anyway, we don't know if the same thing works for older babies, but we thought it was worth a try.  So here is poor Clara, snotting all over my chest.  But hey - the night was sooo much better. She slept from 11:00 pm till 9:15 - and I had to WAKE her up so she could eat!  Her body is definitely demanding rest!

Here's hoping that she is now on the up and up!  Now I better go wake her again so she can eat!  The girl is asleep 23 hours a day when she's sick!

surprise visit.

Uncle Brian came home a day earlier from Moscow than we planned and surprised us with a visit!  Clara has been sick (more on that to come) and Brian had her content for a few minutes, which she desperately needed.  She was enthralled with his scruff and kept reaching up to touch his face!  Presh! 

reality.

I think this last video really shows how chaotic our house can be with a small babe and two big dogs!  Here's how things go...Kurtis tries to entertain Clara, I try to capture it on film, (these roles can be switched by the way), Mac barks in the background, Gwen lays underfoot and totally in the way on the floor begging for attention.  Welcome to our little world!

videos.

Kurtis was making Clara crack up the other day by singing some inapproprate lyrics from a Steve Earle song!  I had to post the videos anyway, cause she was just laughing like crazy.    Enjoy hearing the baby's giggles.  I know you'll find yourself giggling along with her!