11 months!!

Claire turned 11 months yesterday!!!

She is one busy girl these days....

The girl CAN'T sit still!!

And one day when she asks why I don't have as many pictures of her... I can show her why.

She LOVES baby dolls and LOVES to give baby kisses and hugs!!

She's trying hard to walk. The most steps she's taken is probably 11. And just today she's started standing up from a sitting position and taking off. And by off I mean taking about 6 steps. She looks up to her brothers and can usually be found close to them!! Today they were playing some game called Giant Baby! Can you guess who the giant baby was?
She also loves her daddy. She'll push me away so she can go to Daddy.
Makes me sad, but it's sweet.
She loves to be outside. Whenever we head outside she nearly jumps out of my arms to get down.
I can't believe next month she'll be a year! :(

pumpkin patch

On Friday we went to a pumpkin patch with Blake's class. It was quite an event. You can check it out at www.valaspumpkinpatch.com. In Texas our pumpkin patch was a bunch of pumpkins on the lawn at church. It made for cute pictures tho! This pumpkin patch was CRAZY! It's on 152 acres and 55 of that is pumpkins! There was so much to do, but we didn't do it all and hope to go back!!

We did ride the train.

And we rode the tractor.

We fed some animals.
And some animal tried to attack Claire.
Claire kept squealing/screaming (not sure what it was, but she was very excited) at the animals. I think this was her favorite part.

I enjoyed the pig and duck races. :)

Blake had fun, but he sure missed Andrew.
Anything we did he would ask if we could come back with Andrew. We have some friends coming in this weekend and we hope to take them.

under the weather

Some of us have been a little under the weather lately.

(and somehow I felt like this pic was appropriate for this post! it's from a month ago. we got nothing from those clouds, but they sure did look wicked!!)

Andrew's school called me on Wednesday saying he wasn't feeling well. He came home and complained about his tummy most of the day, but nothing ever happened to him....thankfully! I sent him to school the next day, but I sent him in an hour late just to make sure he could eat breakfast okay and nothing was going to happen. He really wanted to go to school and I hated to keep him home if it was nothing. I was a little worried something might happen that afternoon, but nothing ever did....to him!

About 6 PM Thursday Blake started getting sick. Thankfully he was outside looking for something or it would have been all over me because we were JUST sitting reading books!!! Then about 3:30 AM I started getting sick. WHY is it that I ALWAYS get it the worst? I mean, I would rather it be me than the kids, but then it just makes me look like I'm a baby! :) Thankfully Matt was home all day on Friday and he totally picked up my slack! I can't tell you the last time I was sick and Matt was home to help the whole time! I really needed him tho because I couldn't even get out of bed without getting sick!

And poor Claire has been sick with an ear infection. She's almost done with her meds so I'll be taking her back in this week to make sure the meds worked. I think the meds are messing up her tummy...but I won't go into those gross details. :)

barbie

The other day I walked into the living room and this is what I found....

Claire playing with the Barbie that Matt used when he proposed to me.

I thought it was quite funny. Barbie got shoved in the bottom drawer of the coffee table before we moved and Claire found her! I'm pretty sure she's plotting to cut her hair...isn't that what every girl does to Barbie?? I know I did! :)

She's not as innocent as she looks, people!!

So, I guess she'll be getting Barbies for her first birthday!! just kidding!!!

bath and jammies

When Claire was taking her bath yesterday I had to pull out the camera because she reminded me of Blake. I KNOW I blogged about it, but can't find the pic to prove it. Anyway, Blake went through a phase of sucking on the washcloth when he would take a bath and now Claire has started doing it. I promise the girl can drink from a cup. Don't know what it is with the nasty bath water that she likes!!

Andrew saw me taking a pic of Claire and wanted in on the action. Little did he know that Blake was behind him. This just made me laugh.

It's been as low as 48 the last couple of nights and we've pulled our the footed jammies. So, I had to take some pics of the kiddos...

and Claire was being a spaz when I was trying to take her pic!
Tonight is warmer, but the boys insisted on wear their footed jammies. Not sure why Andrew likes them so much. He's really getting too big for them.

10 months

Miss Claire is a big 10 months old today!!

These days she....

• can stand up from a sitting position


• can stand longer by herself


• fusses at me when it's time to get out of the bathtub


• loves baby goldfish


• LOVES to be right where her brothers are


• loves attention from her daddy


• loves going on walks and being outside


• doesn't want to be held...would rather be doing her own thing


• loves to play pat-a-cake


• loves to bounce


• is finally taking a liking to finger foods


• only has two teeth, but her top ones are about to breaking through


• LOVES to look through books

I finally found a doctor here and just got Claire in 2 days ago for her 9 month appointment. She was in the 65% for weight and height! She definitely is growing up too fast!!

Omaha Zoo

Labor Day Matt was off so we decided we'd go to the zoo. For our housewarming gift our realtor got us a membership and we've been dying to check it out!

I was definitely overwhelmed! The place is huge and since we went on Labor Day, it was pretty busy. Andrew is off a day this week and we'll probably go back since we didn't even see a fourth of what the zoo had to offer.

If you know Andrew at all you know he LOVES fish. He was definitely enjoying the aquarium.

The coolest part was the tunnel.

You had all kinds of fish swimming around you. The boys loved the sharks the best!!

And the cute sea turtle.

We also saw some cute penguins.

Andrew wanted to know why these guys were in time out! :)

MY favorite was the polar bear!!
Then we went to the desert. It was pretty neat, but long. The boys were ready to get out of there. And Claire did go with us. Not sure what she is doing....
We saw a lot of other animals, but I won't bore you with those pics. I did ride a sky lift looking thing with the boys and was a nervous wreck. You're supposed to enjoy it and look at all the animals in the zoo. I was more worried that Blake was going to fall out!!!

So, that's all from Omaha!!

big day!!

Today was Blake's big day!!

He started preschool...or pre-stool as he calls it! He has been DYING to go to school ever since Andrew started last year. I remember dropping Andrew off last year and I had to leave with Blake crying. Everyone thought he was just going to miss his big brother, but he just wanted to go to school! :)Anyway, he's been so excited about going to school and counting down the days!! When it came time to leave this morning, he was a little nervous. He had a blast tho and can't stop talking about his friends and his teachers.

I can't wait to see how he'll grow and change this year.

omaha or bust!

Well, we've made it to Omaha!!

Here's all our stuff...except you can't really see it because Matt's truck is in the way. We are VERY thankful Matt's truck was able to go on the truck. Our packers were AWESOME! They were SO good with the kids and did a great job packing! We didn't have one thing broken!

Before we left I took a picture of each kid in their room. :(

Kinda makes me miss my house looking at these pics.

Moving is such a pain! I'm SO ready for my house to have everything in order!! I'm almost there tho.

The next day we headed up to Kansas to see the Sears'. They were kind enough to host us for a night. The kids all did really well playing together.

So, now we are here and just getting settled in. I didn't realize how much stuff we had until we moved! I'm really enjoying our new house. I don't have everything in order and maybe once I do I'll post pics...or maybe I'll post pics little by little. We'll see.

Anyway, we no more than got here and Andrew started Kindergarten!! He was SO excited!! I wish I could say I was sad, but nothing has really hit me yet...him starting school or us moving!

His teacher seems really nice and I'm really hoping he has a great year. It was funny because while we were at school a lady asked Andrew if he was excited to start Kindergarten and he said, "yes, ma'am." She immediately turned to me and asked if we were from the South. :)

Blake will start PreK this week. He's SO excited! He's been DYING to go to school since last year. He just thinks he's such a big boy. It will be good for him, I hope!

Claire turned 9 months when we got up here. I can't believe she'll be one before we know it! This year has gone by too fast with this move that I don't feel like we've really been able to enjoy the baby phase. Her latest trick (aside from pulling up on EVERYTHING) is giving kisses!! So cute!!

I think everyone is really doing well adjusting to the move. The poor kids (well, Blake and Claire) have been couped up in the house since we've been here. Today I got the basement storage in order so we are ALMOST set! Won't be long and our lives will be crazy busy with play dates and such...but for now, I'm enjoying getting settled in and not knowing many people. :)

We bought the boys this Gator when we got here. They had wanted one in Houston because our neighbor had one. Here...they actually have room to drive it around!!

Well, there's your update!!