Halloween

For Halloween Claire was r2d2. Very cute, very dorky costume! I was princess Leah, and Kevin was supposed to be Han Solo but we were too last minute on that one, so he ended up wearing an old pirate costume. We had a party at our place. It was a good time. I only took phone pictures, so they're not too good. Hopefully I'll get someone elses and post them here soon. For now, here's our little robot:







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The Misadventures of Claire Bringard

Driving:



Sliding:



Studying:



Breakdancing:



It's been a busy week :-)

More evidence of hair

Also, Claire is crazy!!

Happy Autumn!

It's been a long time since I did a proper post... so here we go! Claire talks all the time now! Most of the time it's intelligible only to her, but she does love to talk. New words she now has:

• bye bye (finally! after 6 months of constant "hi!" she now has a different conversation closer!)
• no (sad times!)
• book
• belly button
• elbow
• apart (although it sounds exactly like open, so who knows)
• nose (I may have already reported this one because she's been doing it for quite a while, but she LOVES to point out where your nose is. She's kind of obsessed.)
• pretty
• she goes "shhh" with her finger to her lips when she sees a baby, in addition to signing and saying baby.

I don't think that's all...I just can't remember any more new ones right now. She still stops traffic anytime we're in public. She really knows how to work a crowd...just like her father! Being expressive does have it's downsides, though. As in, she is very determined to exert her will. She can be very intense. Mellow is one thing she has never been! We're just lucky that most of the time she channels all her energy and expression into enthusiastic "hi!"s and not "no!"s. She has really been growing a lot lately! I'm hoping she'll hit the 20 pound mark (finally!) when I take her to the Dr. next so I can turn her car seat around. She gets bored staring backward all the time.

Yesterday we went out to apple orchard country and had a picnic with some friends. We went on a hay ride, which Claire enjoyed. Especially the part where she kept throwing the hay/dust into the wind and choking the other people in the wagon! Yikes! Too bad it was almost 90 degrees! Not exactly fall weather here in Southern California! I had planned to get some great shots of her in the pumpkin patch, but they were charging way too much to get in, so I tossed that idea! Here's a picture of her relaxing in a beach chair:

Saturday we took her to a shopping mall for her crowd fix, and we also took her into the pet shop. She went wild for the dogs!

Now this is what fall is supposed to look like! This was the first rain of the season a few weeks ago. I was so excited!

She DOES have hair!

Here she is enjoying the tricycle we got her. All smiles, as always!

Such a sweetie!

Ok, is she not the prettiest thing you have ever seen!!

Claire's the Main Attraction

Oh my goodness! Claire is just getting more and more awesome! haha! She is so social. Any time we go out in public it's "hi hi hi" to EVERYONE! If she's set free to walk around, she walks up to complete strangers and askes them to pick her up, and then she tries to give them all kisses! Seriously, my errands take 3X as long these days because literally everyone who walks past her stops and goes wild over her for, like, five minutes. And I am honestly not exaggerating. She is also starting to talk a lot more. Here's what she says now in addition to all the signs I have already catalogued:

• hi (of course)
• hola (no kidding, it's so cute!)
• mama
• dada
• up
• down
• open
• close
• ball
• bath
• whazat (what's that)
• all done
• uh oh
• help
• animal noises: monkey, elephant, chicken, bird, dog, cow, pig
• plus and endless string of nonsense that makes sense only to her

I have some video of her jabbering away, but I'm having trouble importing it right now... I'll consult IT (A.K.A Kevin) and try later. For now, here's some of the latest pictures:

These are a pair of size 2 shoes that STILL FIT, but I don't think they were designed for walking, let alone running! Because Claire is so small, it's hard to find shoes that can handle what she puts them through.

She loves to eat by herself... she probably gets about 70% of it in her stomach.

Doing some hard time

She was charming a family who was sitting behind us.

She is so happy most of the time! Such a fun kiddo.

I've been slacking!

So sorry for the lack of posts! The academic year has started and I've been working in the morning, baby-wrangling in the afternoon, and going to class at night. Also, my camera is still on the fritz. I have gotten tired of the routine I have to go through to get it to take a picture, so I've given up on it! Now I just use my phone, but unless it's full sunlight, the pictures aren't very great. But here's a few videos to make up for it! This is a hilarious face Claire made out of nowhere:

And this is her playing in the pool/sprinkler a few weeks ago. She was trying to drink the water as it shot up at her!