Too Long

This might be the longest I’ve gone without updating! I will try to sum up over a month’s worth of events shortly. Right after the last post Clara officially began to pull up on everything. Within a week or so she started walking/cruising holding onto furniture, walls, etc. She is “talking” A LOT and can wave “hi” and “bye” (although she doesn’t know the words yet). She especially likes to wave at herself in the mirror, at her giant 5 foot giraffe and when we turn our backs! HAHA. We just love seeing her personality develop more and more and she never stops making us laugh. We have also started going to Book Babies at the library and she just loves it! They sing songs, read books, play, etc. We even made a trip to the children’s museum last week with my friend Tara and her kids. It was INCREDIBLE!

Jason got back from Canada safe, brought back some ice wine and is scheduled to have his surgery. It will be in a couple weeks, shortly after we get back from our Port Royal trip with my dad and Barbara. Can’t wait for our trip! However, I can wait to be Jason’s personal slave since he will be in a cast for 6 weeks. Fun for both of us!

I successfully didn’t die in my triathlon and was able to beat 30 people in my age group. I won’t tell you how many people beat me! ;) Although I didn’t place as high as I normally did in the past I still felt accomplished since I really didn’t “train.” It would make more sense to say I just “stayed in shape” in preparation for the race. Can’t wait to do another one!

Our seniors we’ve been with for 4 years graduated this weekend so it has been busy with graduation ceremonies and parties. We have decided we won’t be group leaders anymore and will possibly serve in a different area within the youth ministy or the church in general. We are so proud of our kids and all they have accomplished! We pray they will continue to seek Christ each day and grown in their relationship with Him!

We are all looking forward to this summer and Clara’s birthday! I’ve asked her to stop growing multiple times but she won’t listen. It will be bitter sweet...

My girls

Staying cool while mommy raced

Testing out the FREEZING water before the race

Visiting Cindy, Justin and their new baby Elijah

Possible future husband!?!?

Had so much fun with puppy Dewey over the weekend. Sadly, he passed away the day after we left. Poor little guy. He gave us a lot of fun memories in such a short time.

Just playing with the camera. She likes going outside.

This is old since I got behind on the blog updates! She is ten months now.

Likes to pretend being a puppy

Ahhhh!!!!!!! (Aunt Marie)

Dancing at Book Babies

My Beautiful Walrus Bulldog

Lord, can you please slow time down?

Almost 9 months! I’m so amazed how many changes happen so fast! In the past couple weeks Clara has learned to sit up from a laying or crawling position and has started pulling up on us and other things. It was so weird the first time I walked in her room and saw her sitting up in her crib. Jason had to lower the mattress since she’s trying to pull up on the sides of the crib. Don’t want baby going overboard! It seems she needs a little more muscle to completely pull all the way up, but I’m sure she’ll figure it out. It’s funny how one day they just figure things out on their own.

Clara now has 5 teeth with a 6th one about to bust through. I’m convinced she’s gonna have a full set of teeth by the time she’s 1 and will be eating steak. Haha. I have given her the nicknames “Walrus” and “Bulldog.” Walrus because her top two teeth are so far apart and Bulldog because she will grind her bottom and top teeth together giving herself an under bite. She gets told how beautiful she is all the time so I promise I’m not giving her self-image issues!We also discovered she has a little “beauty mark” on her left cheek (see picture below). She continues to be a master at picking things up. She will literally find the tiniest crumb in the carpet, pick it up with her fingers and just play with it!

We finally got our pictures back and we love them. I can’t wait to use this lady again. Possibly for Clara’s 1 year birthday and maybe again if we have another little baby one day! Speaking of pictures Jason and I got an awesome new camera as our anniversary gift to each other. I have been telling him since she was born that I wanted a really good camera since I take so many pictures (some of the pics below were taken with it). To see the professional pics:
1. Go here http://www.studiobloomphoto.com/index2.php
2. Click on “clients”
3. Password is red213

Jason found out he is going to Canada AGAIN! He will be leaving mid-may for several days. The only reason I like him going is so he can bring back some ice wine. Mmmmm. I’m getting really excited for my triathlon . It’s only 5 weeks away! I’ve been able to get to the gym more to swim and cycle but I don’t think the entire container of Hummus and pound of chocolate cake I ate this weekend is going to help me much. Ooops! But tomorrow’s another day, right?

The monthly pictures are getting harder to take (this picture is a few weeks old)

Beauty mark

Loves feeding herself

I don't know if it's the humidity or what but her hair has been super fuzzy lately. It's so cute.

Cutest thing ever. So she crawled under this thing and played for a few minutes. Crawled out of it, grabbed these two toys and immediately crawled back under holding them and started playing with them. She was totally playing house!

youth ministry picnic...

Take a guess of what she's looking at....it's one of her favorite things to watch :)

Yelling contest...

For those of you who say you've never seen Clara cranky. Here's a glimpse, it DOES happen...

Beach Baby

Wow so much to update on! Clara is 8 months now and the fact that she will be 1 year old in less than four months blows me away. I feel like Clara has changed so much over the past few weeks. She now crawls anywhere she wants (still on her belly), can eat finger foods all by herself (picks up food between thumb and finger), drinks from a sippy cup in a reclined position, is talking more, and has FOUR, count them, FOUR teeth! Yikes!

Some of the big events that we’ve had in the past month are...

• Clara falling off our bed. Yes, I know, I deserve the “Mom of the Year” award. I felt sooooo HORRIBLE and definitely learned my lesson. She is one tough baby. One of my ongoing prayers is “Lord, please protect Clara from me!"
• FINALLY getting some pictures done. We did them with this awesome photographer an old friend recommended. We will get the rest of them this week! http://www.studiobloomphoto.com/blog/?p=730
• Jason and I celebrated 4 years on April Fool's Day!
• The Campbell/Crews family Galveston Vacation. We stayed in an awesome, HUGE, 6 room beach house with 18 people. It was very relaxing and Clara got to see the beach for the first time!
• My best friend Amber is pregnant and they found out it's a girl!!!! The weird thing is that I was born in July and my friend Amber was born 14 months later in September. Well....Clara was born in July and Amber's baby girl is due 14 months later in September! They will be undeniably best friends. ;)
• Jason went skiing with some of his senior guys in New Mexico and then traveled to Canada the next week for work.
• The past month my shop has been EXTREMELY busy with orders. It crazy how each month my sales continue to grow and grow! I have had orders to New Zealand, Australia and Singapore!
  

April is going to be a busy month with baby and wedding showers, Jason's sailing trip reunion, family visiting from Ohio and trying VERY hard to be consistent with "training" for my triathlon. Once May comes things will settle down! As one of Clara's highly annoying toys sings, "busy busy busy busy there's so much to do...."

"Aunt" Christy and Clara at the gardens in League City. I love this picture!

Melly babysitting Clara

Jason offering Clara up to the seagulls

First moments on the beach

The House


I've never seen Clara think someone was as funny as Uncle Eric. Even when he wasn't happy she still laughed at him!

Two Beauties

Ready for the sun

Nasty Jellyfish!!!

Clara's 1st Easter basket. We spoil our child.

A couple of my onesie creations..

Not So Sleeping Beauty

Clara has been a not so Sleeping Beauty this past week. For some reason she started waking up in the middle of the night and I'm pretty sure it's just because she wants to be held. Maybe she saw monsters??? She sleeps great during the day, but at like 1 AM she decides she needs to be held. Mommy is quite the sucker when she's exhausted in the middle of the night. But I stayed strong doing the "Baby Whisperer" method on Friday night and we survived (love that book by the way!) Jason is quite the advocate for letting babies "cry it out" I learned. HAHA. Friday brought back WONDERFUL memories of Clara's first week home when Jason and I would snip at each other during the late night hours of crying. ;) I also discovered she LOVES her lullaby CD that Gramma Mara and Grandpa Richard got her for Christmas! It's a personalized lullaby CD so Clara's name is substituted in the songs!!! Sounds creepy but it's incredibly sweet and she is totally soothed by it. Here's a link to it: http://www.christianbook.com/youre-an-angel-personalized-lullaby-music/pd/96155Y#CURR

Jason has ANOTHER appointment with the foot doctor tomorrow. He's thinking the next step is to maybe do a steroid injection. Mmmmmmmm, sounds fun. But what Jason REALLY wants is for them to just chop it off. He's so frustrated with it!!! We can't even go on family walks it hurts him that bad. :( Hopefully it will get healed somehow!

I officially signed up for the Capital of Texas triathlon in May! I have been getting the triathlon craving again and I really loved this race/course when we did it two years ago. I will be doing the sprint distance instead of the Olympic distance this year. A sprint distance is 750m swim (which is like 15 laps in a pool), 12.5 mile bike and 3.1 mile run. I also signed up to motivate myself to exercise more. Because breastfeeding is the BEST diet EVER I really haven't felt super motivated to work out consistently. Sadly, Jason probably will not be able to join me in this race because of his foot. Maybe he can take up cheer leading and be my number one fan cheering me on.....

Ready for the bath! We had twins on Thursday night because we babysat Madilyn! We called ourselves "master parents" because we had the babies fed, bathed and asleep by 8:15. Wait, did I mention we forgot to feed Madilyn? Maybe not such master parents. Ooops! ;)

Passed out on the way home from church

Saturday night we went to this cute little coffee place for dessert with our friends Lee and Robin. Clara got to experience her first latte.....

.....and first live jazz performance. She was very captivated by the trumpet player.

Lee jazzing with Clara

Cool kid. I think she looks like Jason here...

However, I finally got around to looking at my baby pictures. This is one of me around the same age (maybe a tiny bit older). Will I have a mini me??? :)

Helping daddy outside

Distracted on the changing table

I win.

My good friend Tara (we met in 4th grade) came and visited us with her two kids, Lucy and Tex! They are sooooo adorable and sweet.

Princess Lucy serving Clara tea

I call Tex a mini-Tara.

Date night

Prune monster

Sweet puppies

Hanging out at Kemah with Jason's family

1st taste of guacamole. She loved it. So far, I don't think there is anything she doesn't like. This kid likes to EAT.

Favorite uncle

First swinging experience at the park