cheetah girls.

We realized one day that both Emily and Clara were wearing cheetah print.  Naturally, we took pictures.  Crazy girls!

 Love it!

mother/daughter brunch.

This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions!  Each year, I do a brunch with a few girls who I met in middle school and became very close with in college.  We get together with our moms, our sisters, our daughters and nieces and whoever can make it and do a brunch during the holidays.  Some years we do brunch at one of our houses, and other years we go out.  This year, we went to brunch/lunch at Kneaders.  We missed Teri terribly, but had a wonderful few hours catching up and being loud! 

It was great to be able to bring my daughter to brunch this year!

 Here's the crowd. 

 Jessica and Tabitha (Teri's niece)

 Julie and Kathy (Teri's mom and sister in law)

 The Kom women, Sarah, Katie, Rowan and Donna

 Us Waldon girls

 Us girls...sans Teri

 The moms - they're the best!

 Ok - one more of the three of us!

This tradition is something I look forward to all year long.  I love seeing these girls.  No matter how long it has been between visits, we always manage to jump in right where we left off!  Thanks girls for a great day!

soiree.

We had a little holiday party with some friends and family at our house on Dec. 30th.  There was too much food, and plenty to drink, so of course we had a great time!  Here are a few photos from the evening.

 Clara was so excited to get a kiss from her mother.  Geez!

Thanks everyone for coming.  Our holiday party is one of my favorite traditions.  I was so sad when we missed last year (but my preggo belly wasn't going to get anything done to prep for a party)!  Can't wait for next year!

Uncle Arlen.

Uncle Arlen came to town for the holidays, as he always does, and Clara got to spend lots of time getting to know him.  The night before Uncle Arlen left, I realized I hadn't gotten any pictures of just the two of them.  So we had a little photo shoot.

Clara was getting a little grumpy, but Uncle Arlen knew that the phone would cheer her right up.  I was able to snap some pretty great shots of the two of them, Clara with her Great, Great Uncle!

By the way, Clara will hold ANYTHING up to her her and lean to one side and babble a little somethin' which obviously means, "hello!".

Thanks Uncle Arlen for another great visit.  We always truly enjoy the time we can spend together!  We look forward to this summer when we can spend more time together!

10 months old.

Clara turned 10 months old on Dec. 22.  Yes, I'm late getting this post done, but the holidays were wildly busy! 

At 10 months, Clara weighed 21 pounds, 8 ounces (with her clothes on).  I was a bad mom and didn't measure her head or her length!  Oh well!  She got her second dose of the flu shot so...we won't get sick with the flu, right?  I'm knocking on wood as we speak!

Every month seems to get better and better.  Watching her development is incredible.  She is still napping well - 2-3 hours in the morning, and 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon.  She also sleeps through the night.  We know...we're so lucky!

Clara is able to stand independently for a crazy long time now.  She can crawl fast.  And she climbs up stairs like crazy (coming down is still difficult).  She waves hi and bye really well, and kisses on command.  Something new this month is that now when she crawls, she carries objects around with her.  Her favorite things to carry while crawling are her baby doll, blocks, and she loves to push her little people car around as she crawls!  Each day, she seems to make more and more sounds.  Lately, she's been making this sh/g combo sound that almost sounds lisp-ish.  It is precious! 

A new challenge we've faced this month is in the eating department.  Clara won't eat baby food and is driving her mother crazy will only eat things that she can feed herself independently.  I love this little quirk in Clara, and plan on fostering independence with her, but it would be so easy if she'd just eat a little baby food once in a while.  Now I actually have to plan and cook dinner!  Her new favorite foods are broccoli and cauliflower, and she is also loving grapes at the moment.  She has also liked chicken curry soup and picks out the green peppers first to eat.  The girl apparently likes a little kick! 

She still loves to read books.  She can sit for up to 10 or 15 minutes on my lap reading.  It amazes me!  She turns the pages emphatically and doesn't like when we spend too much time on one page.  She loves her Babyfaces books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, any book by Karen Katz (especially flip books), and Chicka Chicka ABC, among many others. 

Here she is in her new chair from Uncle Arlen.  She loves this little green chair.  She senses that it is her very own space, and will even get upset when her Daddy teases her and sticks his head in her chair.  She yanks him out immediately! 

 And that is her baby doll.  It was my first baby doll when I was little.

 A good teeth shot! She now has 7 teeth.  The top two in the middle have grown in quickly, so she's no longer our little vampire!

We just love our little Clara! 

Christmas day.

Christmas morn, we woke up bright and early and had a quick cup of joe before heading over to Jeff and Janet's house.

 I sadly didn't take any other pictures of Christmas morning.  But here are the details...we had breakfast and lots more coffee.  We opened gifts.  And we just relaxed.  It was wonderful!

Later, we headed home to clean up and bake a quick somethin' for dinner, and headed back to Jeff and Janet's for Christmas dinner.  Grandpa Jeff requested that Clara wear her Packers cheer leading outfit (sent by Aunt Patty in WI) since the Packers were playing that evening.  I tried to snap some good pics of the two of them in "gold" and green, but here are the best shots.  Pitiful, I know!

It was a wonderful Christmas Day with the Brooks family.  We were lucky to have Uncle Arlen in town for the holiday, and Jeff and Janet graciously invited my parents and Emily over for supper.  So lucky little Clara got to see all her grandparents and an uncle and Aunt for her first Christmas Day dinner.  She was one lucky girl!  It was a very memorable first Christmas for her...at least, we think it was a memorable day!   

Thanks family for another wonderful holiday!

Christmas eve.

This year, Christmas Eve was spent with the Waldon side of the family.  We hung out at my parents' house and had a couple families over for the festivities.  Christmas Eve isn't Christmas Eve without my Mom's clam chowder, and there was plenty of other holiday food.  After company left, we stayed up and opened gifts.  It was so relaxing just to hang out together.  We even stayed the night so we could wake up Christmas morning with the Waldons (a first for us!)  It was such a gift to just spend time with family.

 Clara, of course, wore her Christmas jammies.

 Does she look overwhelmed?  She didn't quite get psyched about gift opening this year.  I'm sure next year will be a different story!

Doesn't she look like she's a very proud owner of her new activity table and chairs set from Oma and Opa.  She also got a cuddly sheep pillow/blankie and a couple books from Auntie Em.  It was a perfect first Christmas Eve for sweet Clara.