Part IV- Christmas Day

Claire got a ton of great stuff from everyone, including this Bumbo chair from my aunt and uncle and a Jenny Jump-up from my mom and dad. She liked them a lot!

It snowed!

Claire's Christmas dress from my mom. So pretty!

Part III- Gastro-intestinal Fun with Daddy

This was the first "episode", but it gets better!...

That's right! In his mouth! I made him wait so I could get the camera before he cleaned up! HAHA! So funny! 

She has a knack for sharing her belly contents with Kevin. I think she spit up on him every day! Once he was just sitting there and she leaned over and nailed him.

Part II- Visiting

My mom picked us up at the airport in Arcata with a surprise-A new car seat for Claire! Before we learned how to recline it enough she found a comfy way to sleep leaning forward.

My sister Vanessa got to spend time with Claire for the first time. Her daughter Lucy was very nice to share her mommy.

The cousins got to spend a little nap time together, which ended right after this picture so Lucy could actually sleep!

Lucy wasn't too sure she could hold Claire without breaking her. Notice my mom's hands... it was an "on the count of 3 I let go and you take the picture" moment. 

Claire loves her Grandma!

Christmas Part I-The plane trip

We started our adventure to Crescent City to visit my family with a 5 am wake up--very early for all of us! Claire was awake to see her first sunrise in long term parking.

She woke up when we walked out to board the plane in the cold morning air. She looks a little confused!

She did so well on the plane! She didn't fuss once.

Asleep somewhere over Fresno

Spit Much?

Rain, Rain, Rain

Many of you know that I love the rain. But, sometimes when the rain decides to move in and stay awhile, there's a problem. We had water seeping into our living room faster than we could soak it up. Every absorbant material in our house was recruited for the task, including Claire's baby bathrobe! We piled up a dam of towels in front of the point where the water was leaking in. Then the fun started of rushing out into the rain to get the wet towels washed and dried (our w/d is out back in our garage with no direct access) before the levy broke and water made a mad dash for our TV. We never really succeeded in getting ahead of the invading water!

This is Kevin showing us his larboard side as he attempts to make the electronics safe. All the cords and power strips were sitting in a 1 inch puddle!

The next phase of defense was to attack the problem from it's assumed source.

This is Claire and I enjoying the brisk wet night while Kevin works. 

High spirits in spite of the zany adventure. You gotta love the rain, even if it doesn't always love you back!

Face Lift

Thought I'd change things up a bit. Keep everybody on their toes. (Mostly I'm trying to avoid laundry!)

Fun With Daddy

Kevin was so excited to get home and play with Claire. Can you guess what this resulted in?

That's right! Daddy fun time strikes again!

I was trying to get Claire to smile for the camera

This was Kevin assisting in the task. It was so hilarious that I couldn't take the picture right away cause we were both laughing so hard!

10 More Minutes Mom!

This is what Claire looked like when I was trying to wake her up this morning at 9:30. I walked in and turned on the light. Nothing. I started talking to her. Nothing. I pulled her covers off. Nothing. I started rubbing her back. Nothing. She was fast asleep! It took me rolling her over to rouse her, and then she still wasn't really awake till I changed her diaper. I felt so mean waking her up, but we had to be somewhere at 10! Maybe this will induce her to start going to bed before 10 pm!

What a Snoozer Monkey!

Claire truly is my daughter! She has taken to sleeping in till 10 am the past few days! And right now she's on hour 3 of her nap. I really am worried that she's spoiled me. When the next one comes and is normal, I'm going to be out of my mind about how "difficult" he/she is! Who knew you could get 9 hours of sleep at night and still be up before your 3 1/2 month old! (no complaining here!)

Tree!

On Saturday we all headed out to get a Christmas tree! It was a very fun adventure try to get a 7 ft tree tied to the roof of our Accord. 

This is us waiting while Kevin affixes the tree to the top of the car. 

He had a very unique method that ended up requiring me to hold the rope from the backseat while we drove home.

This is how Claire felt about the chilly weather

Hooray Captain Christmas

Claire and Aunt Mikkele got in on the decorating fun!

The obligatory pose in front of the tree wasn't working too well cause Claire wouldn't look at the camera. This is us trying to coach her :-)

Seems like just yesterday

Now that I've found a way to compress all my video so it's small enough to post here, I thought I'd include this. I took this on Aug 30th when Claire was 2 1/2 days old! She seems so different! 

The Vocal Stylings of Miss Claire Bringard

This morning Claire was making the funniest noises, and I was able to get video. She does this thing where she loves to make noise by inhaling. It's hilarious! And, of course, there's also lots of her other new favorite trick: Spitting (more cutely referred to as "Raspberries")

Walk

Today we walked to the mall to do some Christmas shopping. Claire was great! She stayed in her stroller for the entire 2 hour round-trip! This is a record! Ditching the infant carrier has been the best thing ever! (Although it is still her carseat, so she hasn't escaped it totally!) The funniest part of the whole adventure is when I looked down and saw her doing this:

It may be hard to see in this photo that I took with my phone, but she is actually sucking her thumb through the pacifier handle! I have no idea how she managed it, but it sure was funny! 

Party Time!

Last night we went to the Holiday party for Kevin's company. Claire was quite a hit. 

The past few days Claire has been very snuggley. It's fun!

She Sings

My favorite thing that Claire does now is sing. I'm not even being an exaggerating mom! When I start to sing, Claire looks at me and then starts cooing right along with me. If I stop, she stops. If I start talking instead of singing, she stops too and waits. The second I start to sign again, she does too! It's so adorable! She's been doing it occasionally for a few weeks, but recently she has been very consistent. I was going to take video this morning, but my camera battery was dead---of course!

Ready, Set, Roll!

We finally worked out our technical difficulties (stupid computers) and managed to get this video of Claire rolling over posted.  Hooray!

I'm still not entirely convinced she is doing it on purpose because she always seems to look so surprised every time she does it.  But Rechelle says she is, and she's the closest thing we have to an expert in our house, so I take her word for it.

Not a newborn anymore!

Claire has started to change a lot recently. Here's a few new things that I have noticed her start to do:

1. blow spit bubbles... and generally just spit. I wipe her face all day long!

2. she enjoys shrieking while on her changing table. It's like she just discovered a whole new octave to add to her repertoire. It's not an unhappy shriek, but instead a very very happy one.

3. she takes the pacifier without the endless game of fuss, pacifier in, quiet, spit pacifier out, fuss, etc. Or the even more annoying game of fuss, pacifier in, scream and struggle to get rid of it until realizing it is nice and soothing, and then suck on it till almost asleep, and then realize she's almost asleep, spit pacifier out, and repeat.

4. when she is put down to sleep, instead of crying,  she goes to sleep. I used to have to go in at least twice after I put her down to give her the pacifier because she had spit it out and started crying. Now, she handles it all on her own, either by keeping the pacifier in, or by sucking her thumb.

5. a not so fun one: she has been exceeding the containment capabilities of her diapers more often. This has lead to quite a few costume changes throughout the day for both her and me! I used to think I was lucky cause I heard everyone complaining about blowouts getting everywhere and we had never had that problem unless she was wearing paper diapers. Until recently, she had never exploded out of cloth diapers. But my grace period is over. Even the most carefully fastened cloth diaper cannot withstand the quantity and velocity she subjects it to. It's always the worst when 5:00 rolls around and she hasn't pooped at all yet. I know that when it comes, it's going to be epic! 

6. she tries to grab at things. It's funny to watch her concentrating so hard to reach out and grab a blanket or toy. Once she has whatever it is in her hands, she tries to bring it to her mouth and suck on it. Her success rate is probably about 40%.

I feel like there are more, but I can't think of them right now. She is so much fun these days! So interactive. She talks to you, and smiles all the time. It's always fun when strangers come up to see her in the store, and she smiles really huge at them, and they get so excited and impressed!  It's funny because she is always in the best mood when she first wakes up. I come get her in her crib and she is just laying there smiling! So cute! She loves to sleep, just like me!

We returned unharmed from the foggy middle of the state! A breakdown of our trip:

9 hours to get from Santa Ana to Lemoore!

1 extreme diaper blowout on the road

30 minutes of screaming at the very end

5 days of very nice visiting in which Claire was a better baby than she is at home

5 hours to get back home

1 more blowout changed on the Del Taco bathroom floor due to the absence of a changing station

3 hours of intermittent screaming with breaks to sleep and recover her energy in between

Claire got to experience cold and fog for the first time. I actually had to go out the day we were leaving to buy her a jacket... an August baby in Southern California has no need for such things! Aside from the long and messy car rides, the trip was a total success. I was worried that the traveling might upset her sleeping. What was I thinking! This kid can and will get her full night's sleep no matter where she is. She slept in the pack and play with no trouble, and even went down to sleep way better than she does at home!

The Beach in November

We went out to the beach on Saturday to take some photos. I figured we should have photographic proof that we do, in fact, live near the ocean even if we never go there! My plan was for a lovely sunset shot. But my plans were twarted by November. The beach in November is so hazy, everything just looks grey. And it was chilly! So we hoped out, snapped a few shots, and ran back for the car! The photos turned out pretty nice!

Now that's a cute little girl!

Thankfulness

Last night was our Life Group Thanksgiving dinner. Claire did extremely well all night. She got passed around and got to spend some quality time with everyone. And she even participated in the send-off prayer for Ellen and Meghan by adding her own words (more like chirps!)

She was dressed for the party. We ended up exchanging the pants for some tights because they kept falling off.

Then, this morning it was time for another Dr. apt. She is 11 lbs, 4 oz (with her diaper on). The Dr. said she is doing very well. She got 2 shots. She did great for the first part of the day. But around noon she started fussing. She hadn't had a nap at all yet. I finally got her to go to sleep like this:

It didn't last long though! Poor thing, she must have felt really bad. By 2:00 she was screaming terribly.The swing nap only lasted 20 minutes. I have never seen her so upset! She was actually gaging she was screaming so hard. She finally fell asleep with me hugging her very tightly and pressing my face against her cheek while I breathed very deeply and slowly. That was at 3:00. It's 6:00 now and she's still asleep. Her next apt is scheduled for Dec. 23... the day before we get on a plane to fly to my parents house. I'm thinking that needs to be rescheduled!

Tie-Dyed Adventures

In addition to the endless rolling over I made her do yesterday in order to get a decent picture, we had a fun day of new things. She enjoyed lounging in the lazy boy for a little while.

And then she met a new friend. Actually, she was completely oblivious to the dog, but it made for a cute picture... although I feel like it's a color overload! Too many shades of pink/red/orange!

Rollie Pollie

Finally I was able to mostly catch Claire in the act. Since my camera is on the fritz, I can't take video, but I did get a decent progression in still shots.

It's official!

Claire is definitely rolling over! All day long she rolls from her stomach to her back. And she can almost go from her back to her stomach. What a big girl she is becoming--way too quickly! 

Tummy Time

I was trying to find a way to make tummy time more interesting

So, I flipped the bouncer down, and it worked!

Such a happy baby!