Coloring Books

One of the things I try to have Claire do every day, or at least every other day if we are busy running around is getting the chance to color. This is her artwork from age 24 months. She filled up the pages randomly and really just put a lot of color on all the pages.
At some point, probably from having various adults coloring with her, she figured out to color the shapes. Her is progress from about a month later at 25 months.

Now, I'll admit, I threw some coloring books away already because 1.) they are cheap and 2.) there is no way I can ever store everything she makes...but jump now to this month and you see she is definitely coloring with more of a purpose. (2 years, 4 months)

Here she colored Happy, and even colored his name at the top of the page.

I just thought I'd share some pictures of her artwork with you guys! She is also starting to make "scribbles" on blank paper and then tell me what they are. I'll have to post some pictures of that sometime soon.

Birthday Cake Theft!

Claire stealing some frosting off of her birthday cake early, but at least she is willing to share:

New Computer = New Video Postings

So Josh got me hooked up with a new computer. Yay. Now I can view HD videos and the audio/visual actually sync! So I am going to be posting a bunch of videos that I have previously taken and haven't even watched myself. Sorry my filming sucks, with lots of movement and heads being chopped off, but I never really filmed before Claire! Here is one of her playing with her gifts from Tante Anja when she turned 2 in July:

Reading with Daddy

I just realized that I haven't posted any videos since my Dad's birthday at the beginning of August. But that doesn't mean I haven't been taking more videos! Here is a cute one of her reading with Daddy.She wanted to know where the mouse was on the pages where the mouse was gone...Josh told her the kitty ate it. So then she wanted to know where the cat was on the pages the cat was gone...yeah...he told her the dog ate it!

Good Ole Grub!

We recently meet Daddy for lunch while Matt and Brooke while visiting. We went to YATS on MASS AVE!
This is their funky ceiling:

They don't have menus, just a chalkboard with today's offerings.

Their food is pretty spicy, so we just got Claire plain white rice with butter, which she of course, loved!

Here are Matt and Josh ready to dig into the good old sloppity-gloppity grub!

Their food may look like vomit, but it's always really thick and hearty stews and chilis...and VERY CHEAP! You get a HUGE plate of food for like 5 bucks. They also have all the funky Cajun stuff like gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish, and shrimp.

Peanut Butter Playdough!

Today we enjoyed an early morning walk before the rain rolled in. Then we got some BBQ pork going in the crock pot and made some carrot-raisin muffins. They are fun to make...Claire loves the "Muffin Man" song! We also made cream cheese frosting to put on them. Claire loves to lick the beater! Then since it was raining, I decided to get crafty and continue my cooking streak today by trying out "Peanut Butter Playdough."
It was AWESOME! It actually tasted really good and doubled as a snack for both of us :) Hehe! It tastes like the peanut butter balls. Claire and I are huge peanut butter fans!

The recipe is this easy: 2 cups of powdered sugar, 1 cup of peanut butter, and 1/2 cup of honey. However, do not try to get all the honey that is stuck to the side of your honey bear off, by putting in the microwave for 1 minute, even on half power. It will melt your bears face into a very funny and sad looking proportion and probably leech all sorts of toxic plastic-y chemicals into the honey. Then you will just end up throwing away the honey that was originally stuck to the sides anyways. Be sure to double click on this bear picture for a full sized look:

Yes, it was absolutely glorious, fun to squish and play with, and I didn't have to tell Claire not to eat/lick/bite/chew or otherwise gum the playdough 42 times. I heard about edible playdough on JON AND CATE PLUS 8. I actually get lots of good ideas from her on what to do and what not to do...lol! I looked up a recipe online and there are a billion out there. Most of them call for flour or nonfat dry milk powder. I looked for one that I simply had all the ingredients for. I didn't want to go to the store in the rain today!

Go make some now to eat. Screw letting the kids play with the dough. This stuff is manna!

Recipe for a Good Night of Sleep

For a Good Night of Sleep:

Add your child to LOTS of fresh air and sunshine!


Bounce vigorously!!!

Add several gallons of water!

Then add some more water!!!

Add another child and play repeatedly!

Add lots of toys and fun things to mess with!

Mix in the occasional toy-snatching fight.

AND enjoy a good night of sleep! :)

This was Claire on Sunday with our neighbor Christopher. I enjoyed drinking super sweet tea and occasionally sticking my toes in the water! :)

FAIR TIME!

Well, I haven't posted in awhile! I've been at my parents for a week! On Friday, we went to the Porter County Fair. It was sooo nice compared to the little tiny local fair in this town. It was also about 10 times bigger! They had several more animal barns, which were a lot cleaner, too! (Cleaner as far as fairs go!) We spent at least an hour just walking around looking at the horses, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, various birds, and baby animals. I think Claire's favorite part was seeing all the baby animals. They had kittens and baby chicks and and and...but her favorite were the baby piglets nursing from their mommy. Everyone was taking pictures. If only everyone thought a nursing mommy was so cute! :) Check out the video where she recalls her favorite animal from the fair:

Going Shopping!

Claire loves to go shopping with me! She also loves to "pretend" to go shopping. She is really getting into the imaginative play. She will load up her cart with a baby in the seat, her purse, and usually her sippy, then pretend to "buy" stuff. She will also say "I check out now" which totally cracks me up. Check out this video:

More party pictures!

We have a 2-year-old! Where did the time go!

Playing with some of her friends at her party!

Blowing out her candle with a little help from me!

Opening presents! This year she did a good job ripping and tearing off paper!

She got the idea that there was something inside of the bags or paper!

A new watermelon hat that she got for her birthday! :)
Claire and I with Catrece (10 months younger) and Christy

Stephanie and Pierce (3 months older) and Claire and I

Terrific Twos!!

I can't believe that I have a two-year-old already! WOW! She is getting so tall, too! She is very tall like Mommy!
This is one of my new favorite pictures of her. She is going to be so tall like mommy! At her 2 year check, Dr. W said they have a formula for determining how tall a child will be. She is projected to be 5'11. YAY! That is a good inch shorter than me. See, I don't fit in the "Talls" like at JCPenneys. I don't even fit in their "Ultra-Talls" which go to 5'11. I have to go to TALL GIRL where they make their clothes with a 36 inch inseam. I'm superfreaky like that. Hopefully Claire will stop at 5'11. Because really, that's quite tall enough.

Last night we went bike-riding. Holly was running since she runs her mini-marathon next weekend. Claire enjoyed saying "Go Holly!" And "Holly running!" She also wanted to get out and run with Holly. She kept saying, "I stuck! I stuck!" So I got off my bike to see what was stuck. I thought her foot was twisted goofy or her arm was wrapped around the seatbelt strange. So I asked her what was stuck. She said, "I stuck IN BABYSEAT!" Haha...yeah...the buckles work! :) So I would get off the bike to push it up a hill...hills are hard with an extra 29 lbs on the back of the bike...and Claire would get mad. She would say "Mommy back on seat! Go! Mommy back on! Now!" We did well over an hour. Holly mapquested the course when we got home, and I did about 6 miles. That's the longest I've ridden with Claire on the baby bike seat.

This morning Holly and I hit up Tall Girl at the Castleton Mall. We actually refer to it as "The Tall Girl Mall" because really, 99.9% of the time, that is the only store we go into! :) Haha! Holly got some great clothes for going back to to school teaching in the fall. I scored some cute new jammies and socks...you know, my official stay-at-home-mom wardrobe. Man, I do not miss teaching at all. I don't have time. I love being at home so much! Josh's goal is to be a "stay at home dad" one day. We can both sit around and watch movies all day. :) Sounds like a great plan to me. Claire had fun at Tall Girls too. She enjoyed smearing fingerprints all over the mirrors and hiding in the clothes.

Then Holly and I hit up the Cheesecake factory. Claire was getting a little cranky by this point, but I ordered her some chocolate milk, which she loves. Haha. I got the Bang Bang Chicken and Shrimp which is a (HUGE!) spicy Thai dish with coconut and veggies and yummy curry sauce. I need to start making some curry dishes at home...I love curry! I took home my leftovers and when I put it on my regular plates I use at home for dinner it was another really huge plateful of food.

So then Holly headed out. It's kind of ironic that I just visited Holly and then she just came her for the past 4 days. It's just the way it worked out!

Claire crashed hard on the way home from Castleton and got a good nap in. I just pull into the garage, roll down all the windows, and do something in the kitchen until she wakes up. It's nice and dark and warm. But she will usually freak out when she wakes up because it is REALLY dark in there. If I move her I risk waking her up, and it is so not worth it. Then she gets no more nap in.

We went on a nice walk today! I love this cool summer weather. It was sooo sunny too. I then enjoyed watering my tomatoes and peppers. Today I picked my first jalapeno and 2 tomatoes. I'm excited that they are doing well. I also watered all the new flowers. Holly helped me all day on Friday to weed and mulch around our house to get it in shape for Claire's party on Saturday. I paid her. :) Nobody would want to tackle the mess we had going on here for free! Haha! We got 20 bags of mulch from Home Depot as well as some hanging baskets and wave petunias that she planted in the ground. I got one purple balloon flower and a potted arrangement that has sea grass in it. I like that sea grass looks different, so we'll see how it does.

Claire had a blast at her birthday yesterday and totally got into it. I have an overload of pictures and videos that I need to get around to posting....but you know how that goes.

Claire-Bear's Songs!

Claire has started singing around the house. She will ask me to turn on her CD that has popular toddler tunes on it like the Barney theme song and Elmo's song. If you don't know Elmo's song, check it out here:




Claire keeps singing the line "Elmo's song, La La La La" OVER AND OVER. Then she will stick in whatever toy and sing "Baby doll's song, La La La La"--but tonight was the cutest because she said "Claire-Bear Song! La La La La."

Among other songs she likes to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Lil' Star" over and over as well as "Jesus loves ME!" She almost always screams the ME. Those would be the only lines from the songs she sings as well. :)

She is also discovering a sense of humor. While in VA Beach she started calling Holly a poo-poo head. Lovely. Then when we came home she kept saying it and started saying poop and pee behind anything because she thinks it's funny. Oh, and on the plane I took the book "Once Upon A Potty" with...bad idea. She was yelling POOP! PEE MISS POTTY! on the page where the poop and pee are on the floor next to the potty. It's her favorite page. Well, actually her favorite page is the one where the little child is bent over and you can see the anus. She likes to point at it and say "BUTTHOLE MAKE POOP!" This is not such a good book to take on a plane. She kept yelling BUTTHOLE. If I ignored it, she got louder. If I shushed her, it got louder. She was such a little stinker. It's a very good book for potty training though, and would advise buying it or checking it out at the library.

She has her puzzle with the alphabet. She kept saying ABC's PEE! I thought she was just saying random letters until she started saying ABC'S POOP. I guess she is discovering what is "funny"--hmm...what do I do? Ignore? Act normal?

Her other funny thing is she will say "UNCLE" in front of everything. Like tonight she was overtired when I laid down with her to go to sleep. She kept saying "Night night Uncle Pillow"; "Night night Uncle My bed" ; "Night night Uncle mommy's shirt" ; "Night night Uncle Jammie pocket!" and of course after each one she would giggle like it was the funniest thing she had ever thought of. I don't know where she picked that Uncle funny-ness from.

VA BEACH & TURNING 2

We just went to VA Beach to visit my sister Holly and her hubbie Mark. Plus I wanted to see their cute place all decorated! Just Claire and I flew out there for about a week. Check out the pictures on Facebook I posted while we were out there. I am not re-uploading them because I'm lazy. :) So if you're not my friend on Facebook, then friend me! We had a blast! Claire did super-great on both flights to and from and at the airports (layovers both ways!)!

Since we've been back we have been to her 2 year-old well-check. She was 29 lbs. (It was actually bouncing from 27-29 and then the nurse said...well I saw 29!) That is about the 70th percentile. She is 36 inches tall. That's 3 feet! That's as tall as a yardstick! And for the height she is about the 95th percentile. I don't remember her head measurements, but it was fine. She's back to growing on her own curve well. We don't have to return until she is THREE! WOW! We also went to the Health Department and got her lead check to see if she has any lead poisoning (a standard test). Last time at 12 months, her level was 1 which is the lowest it can be. 10 indicates lead poisoning. So unless she has been chewing on some wacky toy with lead in it she should be fine. Results take a few weeks.

This morning we went to her last Mother Goose Story time. It was a little bit sad when they sang the good-bye song. The next session that starts up she will be with the Toddler Group! It was fun to see her doing all the motions to the "Wheels on the Bus" and "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" every week. I am excited about her being the "littlest" kid in the next age group again, because that's fun too! :) And of course after story time we play at the library. She loves the block table and the little wooden play house. It has real cloth curtains that she likes to play peek-a-boo with.

Well I can't believe that she's two! And I can't believe that I'm still nursing a 2 year old! Those first several weeks I didn't think I'd last another minute!