Cute pics by Heather

All I have to say is, it's AWESOME to have Heather home!!! Thanks again for the cute pictures! LOVE THEM!

More of Heather's awesome pictures

This is Claire's Christmas dress. My goal was to get a family picture with all of us dressed up, but Michael was away on the Sunday before Christmas, and then we never got around to doing it. I was thrilled though that Heather got this one for me. She looked so cute in her dress!



These are some adorable pictures that Heather took too. Thanks again Heath!!

11 Months Old

I can't even believe we're one month away from Clarie turning 1. This is the faster year of my life by far. I tried to get some cute pictures of her today, but she wasn't into smiling much. I still got a few in her darling baby jailbird outfit. I love this outfit! She's so cute in it! Anyway, here's the update for 11 months.

-She's saying a few more words now. "Ba-ba", "daddy", "hi", "bye", but nothing even close to "mama". It's so not fair. She also jabbers all the time like she's really talking to you. She uses different sounds, and different inflections in her voice to really get her point across.
-She's taken 7 steps...that's her record.
-She's stopped eating baby food, and is now super hard to feed. She doesn't seem to like a ton of things so it can be tricky. If she likes it, she says "mmmmm", and if she doesn't like it, or is donw with it, she spits it right back out. Some of the things she does like are nutrigrain bars, pancakes, egg yolks, rice krispies, peas and green beans (not the baby food kind...the real deal) and if there are peas and carrots together, she will pick out the peas and leave the carrots.
-She is dancing more and more, and it's so cute to see her shake her little body.
-She melts our hearts every day, and we can't even believe we're so lucky to have her.

I know this post is sort of boring, but I wanted to remember all of these things, so you get to know them too!!

I'm getting old...

It's true...I'm getting old. I just had my birthday and I can't even believe I'm as old as I am. I still feel like I'm 19. But, I'm NOT. Oh well. I tried my hardest to drag the celebrating out as long as possible. I went out to lunch twice, out to dinner once, had a family cake party, and a family dinner, went shoe shopping with Michael and shopping with my mom. It was awesome and so much fun. I'm now just sad I have to wait a whole year to do it all again.

Banff

So I really dropped the ball on documenting our fabulously fun trip to Banff. Again, Heather took a few for more, but I don't have them. So, I'll just post this one to remember that we actually went, and because it's so cute. We were walking all over the hotel looking for somewhere to eat, and Claire just pooped out. It was so cute. She NEVER does that anymore, and Kandice was lucky enough to be the temporary bed.

New Years Eve

So for New Years Eve we went to Blaine and Linda Palmer's for a crab feast. It was pretty much my first time eating crab, and I have to admit...I liked it. It was fun to get together with the whole Palmer clan for a while. We ended the evening at Kevin and Cyndi's with just our fam...minus Kandice and Brett who still get to go out for the evening. I did document all that were there, but for fear of what they will do to me if I post their pictures without their approval, I have just posted these! Hahaha...love you guys!

Just because I LOVE the outfit!

10 months old

Like always, here's Claire on her 10 months birthday. I figured I should put them up since next week is her 11 month birthday. I can't even believe how fast it's going. It makes me super sad to see her getting so big. Here are some highlights of what she's doing though. Between then and now she's...
Clapping when you say "Yay"

Saying "hi" and "daddy" on demand, or if you walk into a room to get her.

Starting to take steps. The record is 3 so far.

Getting into everything and if you call her name when she's doing something she shouldn't (like putting fake moss from the silk plant in her mouth) she turns and yells at you.

She's sleeping horribly at night. Boo.

She's decided she's done with baby food and will take 1 bite and then shake her head no if you try to offer her more. But, she loves anything we eat!

She's started dancing to music and it's totally adorable!

I know there's more but I have to save something for the 11 month update!




This was a fit because we wouldn't let her get the camera. She's gotten an attitude!!

Melchin Christmas

After we finished at the Palmer's, we headed to my parents house to have Christmas with those of us who were in still in the country. We had a great time seeing everyone. I tried to get some pictures to document, and they are all pretty true to what everyone was doing most of the day.
Matt with his new guitar!
Scott documenting with their new video camera...which is so sweet by the way!
The cute Wolff girls being so cute!
Mom opening her gifts. This has always been the BEST part of Christmas for me!
Dad opening his speakers.
Claire playing with the remote control cars.
Erin working on the puzzle...
Grandma and Grandpa opening their gifts.
And, I HAD to post this one. This is what Erin was REALLY doing. Trying to fix Grace's gift and not too happy about it!

Baby's first Christmas

Christmas morning was so fun for us! Since we could see downstairs and all of the goodies that Santa had brought from upstairs, we gathered all of the children on the railing to torture them until everyone was ready to head downstairs. Claire was the last one up, but she was excited to be sitting with the kids. It was so adorable!

I just loved Nixon's face in this one so much that I had to post it too! He's just so excited!
And...so is Claire...but she has no idea why she's excited!
Her first baby doll from Santa. She loved it!
The first gift she got to open. She had some helpers to assist in unwrapping it.
Just to prove I was there!
Standing on the rest of the presents.

Christmas Eve

Since it was the Palmer Christmas this year, we spent most of our night at their house. We did start off the night at my parents for our annual 12 Days of Christmas feast, but we had to leave the festivities early to get to the Palmers. It was such a fun night, and I'm so mad at myself for not taking a ton more pictures. Heather was kind enough to at least get one of our family in front of the Christmas tree, but I haven't gotten it from her yet. These 2 were from the nativity that was put on downstairs. Michael was the narrator, and since Claire's not reverent yet, she was just a spectator with me. We have high hopes for her roll next year though. We had yummy food and great show, and we slept over in Kandice's room so we could be there bright and early Christmas morning.

Claire after the show.
Congratulating Dad on his good narrating!

First visit to Santa

We were so excited to take Claire to see Santa for the first time. We got her all dressed up in the cutest coat from Nana, and took her to the mall. Well these pictures are before seeing him, and when she actually got to his lap, it was a different story. We didn't buy the pictures they took because she was totally crying. I should have bought them looking back though because that's how she reacted the first time and I wish I had documented it. We did get it all on video, but no pictures. She looked cute though. We'll try again next year!!

First Snow Day

After our first big snowfall, we decided to take Claire out in her snow suit for her first taste of the snow. She was pretty tired so there wasn't a ton of smiles to capture, but she didn't seem to mind being laid in the snow. She looked so cute in her suit!!

Getting ready to go out.

Baby snow angel. So cute!