Busy summer

We've been really busy this summer and Claire is really growing and changing.  Here are some of her favorite things:
- Her stuffed bears
- Kate's Pretty Pony blanket which amazingly Kate has willingly agreed to let her sister use most of the time.
- Food (of any kind) and she will beg for a bite of anything you are eating.
- Shoes especially my high heels.
- Water and pouring it over her head.
- Micky Mouse clubhouse is her favorite show
- 70s music and a dance party
- she says "mama, dada, nana (for banana), baby, and ta da
- taking off her diaper which she finds hilarious
- Costco and Target (she doesn't get out much apparently)
- Following around her older sister

More summer fun...

Kate and Claire have been having a fun summer.  Over 4th of July weekend we stayed around home but went to the Troy pool, trampoline park, and farmer's market.  Sometimes I just take Kate, as Claire isn't really up for focusing on too much activity

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Having a fun summer

Kids are enjoying the summer so far.  They've been eating lots of fruit and playing outside.  It's 4th of July and yesterday we went to the Troy Aquatic Center .  Both of them love the water slide for little kids.  Claire really loved it but didn't really want to wait in line.  She is definitely fearless, she shot down the slide like a torpedo and we caught her at the bottom.  She wanted to do it again and again.

Kate loves kitties, real and stuffed.  This weekend we are cat sitting my friend Kyla's cat. Kate is really excited about it.  She doesn't want to leave after we feed her and play with her. She would love to have a pet but I don't think we will be getting any.  Jamisen is really allergic to pretty much everything and pets add a lot of extra work. 

Summer is here!

The kids are definitely excited to be outside and love to play in the water.  I love being able to feed them outside and then just hose them off.  Watermelon, push ups, whatever it doesn't matter if they make a mess.

Kate has been up to the cottage once for the day already.  She would like to be up there more but Claire is way to crazy to take up there this summer.  I don't want to be fishing a baby out of the lake.  Even though they have life jackets on, she has no fear and no common sense right now.  Kate loves it up there and she spent the whole day in the water even though it was pretty cold. 

Claire is changing so much now.  She doesn't say too much but has added ba, ba when she sees any animal to her vocabulary of mama, dada, and nanana.  She understands a lot of what we say but doesn't have much of a vocabulary yet. 

All about Claire

Claire loves to climb right now and she is almost 17 months old.  Claire's favorite things are: snacks (she will eat almost anything), ceiling fans, dogs, her big sister, and playing in the water.  She thinks she is hilarious and makes us laugh a lot.  She doesn't say too much yet except nana for banana.  She will shake her head yes or no when you ask her a question.  She loves to go outside and play.  She usually heads for her shoes as soon as she wakes up to try and get you to take her outside.

Yesterday Claire was knocking down some blocks Kate was playing with.  Kate was getting more upset with her and wouldn't share her blocks.  She started with "I don't like Claire" then we hear "I hate Claire."  So Kate ended up in time out.  I knew it was only a matter of time but so far they usually get along fairly well.

Both of them are growing so quickly and they are definitely looking forward to summer.

Claire is growing up

Claire is getting bigger and loves to climb everything.  She is doing her best to keep up with her big sister.  She doesn't say too much besides nana for banana .  She shakes her head yes or no when we ask her questions.  She loves to eat anything and had her first fugesicle this week as you can see it's a success.

Kate just had her 2nd week of soccer .  She really likes it so far.  It's just once a week for 45 min so they do different drills and then scrimmage.

Hamburger balls

Since Kate is 4, we are being more strict with dinnertime.  She is now old enough to eat what we eat and sit down without getting up a million times.  Tonight we grilled hamburgers and she threw a fit and wouldn't even try them.  So we told her not to ask for snacks until she ate her dinner.  We wrapped it up and put it in the fridge.  Several times she asked for snacks and each time we offered her the hamburger.  She cried and whined.  She had 3 timeouts as she screamed and protested eating the hamburger.  Finally it's 8:30 at night and she's hungry.  So Jamisen comes up with the bright idea to offer her "hamburger balls."  She gets really excited .  So he takes pieces of hamburgers and rolls them inside pieces of buns.  She starts eating them and then says "this is the best thing I've ever had."   This was a long day....

Videos

Kate is actually being nice to her sister....



Right when Claire first starting walking pretty well...

More pictures

Claire's first pigtails when her hair was still wet out of the bath.  She doesn't look to enthusiastic.

 Kate in the laundry basket in one of her favorite nightgowns that she got for Christmas--Rapunzel.

 Girl's day out.  Kate and I got a pedicure together went shopping for hair accessories.  Then to Starbucks for hot chocolate and cake pop.  Last stop was Michael's to buy some Easter decorations.  Fun day!

 Easter decorations!!  Getting ready for everyone to come over for Easter Brunch.

 Claire trying out all her sister's headbands.

 Very cold day at the "Dinosaur Park" as Kate calls it.  Grandma and I took her while Claire was napping with Bucka.   We didn't stay long, it was freezing and windy.

Catching up

I've been pretty horrible at updating the blog, I can't believe it's been February since I posted last.  We've been pretty busy.  Kate and Claire are both pretty active and they don't go to bed until a little later and usually I'm just too worn out to post. Claire loves to bang on the keyboard so I can't do much with her around.

So I will be posting some older pictures and videos to try to catch up the blog on what has been going on.

Claire starting walking around 13 months and has been trying to keep up with her big sister.  She loves climbing on everything. She doesn't talk much except for mama, dadda, and banana.  Banana is her favorite word which sounds mostly like nananananana.  We thought she was just babbling but she says it when she sees a banana or when she wants one.

 Kate has been talking about going to a carousel non stop so we took some money out her bank and went.  She loved it, I was pretty nauseous.

 Kate got a gift card from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Chuck for her birthday so we went to Toys R Us.  She picked out a new bike helmet, some finger paints, and some fairy coloring pages.

 Kate still loves to bake .  She thought we should make the cookies shown on the sugar .

It's been a while since I've posted

Wow, we've been busy and I have started taking a lot of pictures with my iphone and just finally figured out how to down load them.  After Claire's birthday we headed down to Key West for a family vacation. Traveling with kids is always interesting.  Kate does pretty well since she can color, play games, or just people watch.  Claire is a little harder to entertain but she did well on the plane.

Claire had so much fun playing in the sand and swimming in the pool.  She had ice cream pretty much every day.  She wore her sunglasses to brunch so she looked like a movie star.  The picture below is her movie star look as she told me"this is what a movie star does."

It was a good vacation but we were glad to get home where Claire could crawl freely.  Kate really missed swimming when we got home but she is in swim class once a week.

Now it's almost Kate's birthday and she is almost 4!

Claire is 1!

I can't believe Claire is already turning 1.  This year has gone by so fast.  She had a great birthday party this weekend with the family.  She had her very own cake although she wasn't very interested.  I gave her some the next day and she still didn't really eat it.  She doesn't walk yet but she's very fast at crawling.  She loves to follow Kate around.   Kate was pretty excited for Claire's birthday too.

Claire is saying ma, ma, ma and ba ,ba, ba. She is pretty happy all the time.  She doesn't really like baby food anymore, she wants to eat whatever we are eating.

Both Claire and Kate started swim class this weekend.  Kate was very excited but she was kind of upset when it was over since the class is only 30 min.  Claire did pretty well in the baby class, she was kicking her feet and paddling.

Claire knows lots of tricks

Claire has learned some tricks and I was able to get them on video.  I've been asking her "how big is Claire?" and then holding up her arms and saying "so big." So now when I ask her she holds up her arms.  She also holds up her toes when I ask her "Where's your toes?".  She has started saying ma ma but I don't think she's saying it to me.

I can't believe that she's going to be 1 in less than 2 weeks.  She hasn't tried to walk at all yet but she loves climbing stairs and can pull herself up and walk along furniture.

More Christmas photos

After Christmas Kate was really excited to play with all her new toys.  We played with her princess play doh that Aunt Gail got her.  She also played dress up with the clothes that Aunt Debbie got her and even let Claire wear the crown (for the picture only.)

Kate was extremely excited that it snowed and couldn't wait to go out and play in the snow.  She would have stayed outside all day but we were able to bribe her to come inside with hot chocolate and whip cream.