More Claire Updates...she just keeps on doing new stuff!

Since I'm obsessed with documenting every step of Claire's childhood, so that when she asks what she was 'like' I can refer her to the blog instead of telling her the exact same one-liner my mom always told me when I asked ("you liked to hide under blankets." All she's got on me. That's ALL.).

Anyway, at 11.5 months old, Claire is doing some really fun things:

1. We have been testing out utensils with her! The other night it was so cute. My mother-in-law, Lenore, was helping her eat by giving her a little fork. Claire tried to get some of the food from her tray with it, but is still not quite there, so Lenore would take the fork, put a little piece of food on it, and give it back to her. Then Claire would pass it back to her for a refill. Ha!

2. Claire is pretty much obsessed with "doggies." She now knows exactly what we mean when we say that word, and she promptly starts hyperventilating at the sound of it! Haha. She'll even stop crying when Jordan or I talk about the doggie and make little barking noises. Lenore and Dan have a dog named Tess and Claire has a love-hate relationship with her. She will get so excited at the sight of Tess, but then freak out when tess comes near. BUT, in a little while when she gets used to her, Claire will go after the "doggie" :)

3. Claire is ALMOST walking. The most steps she's taken is 6 at a time. It has been really exciting to see her walk! It's funny because she can totally do it, but it's all about the confidence, and she's not quite there yet. The most we've gotten her to walk has been by offering her an ornament or one of Tess' disgusting toys :) high in the air, and then she'll have a little more motivation to walk. *update...she's taking even MORE steps since I wrote this post...walking soon!!

4. So, Jordan is convinced that Claire says her own version of "tree." Every time he points to the tree and/or says "Christmas tree" to her, she says "ka." Apparently, this is her word for "tree."

5. Claire loves it when I let her bite my finger. She thinks it's really funny when I scream in pain. And her teeth are like little RAZORS!! I don't know why I endure this pain for her entertainment.

6. Um. So, this may be a little "graphic" but it was pretty funny so I'll try to tell it in the most ungraphic way possible. So, I am really nervous about weaning Claire from breastfeeding. She's WAY too attached to it. In fact, this morning, I'm laying on my bed as she crawls around trying to throw herself off of it, I'm sure... and I just barely nursed her. Guess it wasn't enough. She grabbed my shirt, pulled it up and buries her little face into my chest, latching on. It was like bobbing for apples. She'd do it, then come up for air, and then go down again. Until I got control of the situation. Weaning here we come...I'm scared.

7. Claire will look down at her belly or point to her belly when you ask her about her belly button :) She isn't pulling up her shirt or anything yet (probably because a lot of times she's got a onesie on...try that!)

8. When you tell her "clap your hands" she does it! It's really cute :) I'm working on the infamous "gimme 5" right now...

9. When ask her "Can Mama have a kiss?" and pucker up, she'll put put her lips up to yours. It's so adorable!! Jordan taught her that one ;)

10. One of Claire's favorite toys: bras. I think it's the texture of the bras and the wire? She'll put it in her mouth and crawl around with it like a little puppy. So funny. (and yes, I own a pink and yellow bra... it came in a two-pack at Costco...)

11. Claire sleeps like this, pretty much all the time. With her little bum in the air. I sometimes go in to "check on her" but it's really just to see how cute she sleeps, if I'm really being honest here!

(although I did find her like this during a nap the other day :)

12. Ok, I know I've already blogged my brains out about Claire and the tub, but I just can't help myself. Could you?? I mean, look at this face...

And she's even fine getting out...always happy to get wrapped up in her towel :) Look at those teeth!! (no WONDER she's been up in the night so much!)

We Are Freaks.

Yep. Freaks. In a matter of 2 days, we redecorated the living room. The thing is, we were already planning on putting up a couple of galleries with our new family pictures. And for the last three years, I've been dying to paint the fireplace wall a gray blue color, and Jordan has resisted (since the wall is 18 feet HIGH! I mean, who wouldn't, right?).

Then, the navy blue curtains I made a while back, have gotten bleached in the sun, so I'd been meaning to change them (with something LINED this time!), but there was a problem... Even the 108" curtains are too short. SO, we had to make a cornice. Custom. Jordan is a saint. He did it all (well, I helped on the easy parts :)

First, here is a picture of the progress. The only one I have. Seriously. Sorry. We used the Valspar one-coat paint from Lowe's (Jordan said he'll NEVER go back to any other--we used less than a gallon of paint on this wall and ONLY ONE COAT.)

My honey doing the painting! NOW. The reason we are FREAKS, is because we decided to do this last Wednesday. We needed it done by Saturday morning because I had a baby shower here on Saturday at noon. SO, Jordan did all the painting on Thursday and then on Friday, we had to do the curtains. (and that was AFTER 10pm because we had my family's Christmas party that night!) That took a LONG time. In fact, for the 3rd time in my life (first since college!) I pulled an all-nighter!!! AH! It was crazy. We were rushing to get this done!!

And then once we got it done, we had to clean up. YOu should have seen the mess!! Our AWESOME friends, Rachel and Jonathan came over on Saturday morning and helped us clean up. Jonathan steams ALL of the curtains. He was awesome! Rachel helped clean up the tools and vacuum and mop! They are the BEST!!!!

Ok, and now here is the outcome:

Like how the stockings are hung on the piano? Haha...that's another project...we couldn't put them on the actual stocking hooks because Claire can pull them down :)

Here are the galleries:

And the curtains:

I'm going to make some pillows out of the same fabric I used for the cornice (the thingie on the top of the curtains) but ran out of time! (and my sewing machine is acting up)

And here is the crowning jewel of the room. Haha--actually I'm showing this because I was really impressed with my taping job! Pretty good huh?? *the key is to use your nail to press down the tape on the edge you'll be painting over so NO paint gets through! Then you'll never have the bleeding paint issue!

Claire at 11 Months

It's that time again to give a nice little update on our little monkey.

1. She loves going up...and now DOWN the stairs! Didn't know she could go down until the other day. I saw her doing it and thought to myself: "um...never seen that before. Is our child a genius? We never taught her that! Then...I talked to Jordan. "I've been teaching her that for a couple of weeks now!" he said." Whatever. I will teach him to be teaching her things behind my back!! JK. :)

2. Claire LOVES treats. Chocolate, candy, cookies, etc. AND as you can tell from a previous post, her Mama gives them to her ALL THE TIME! She should be shot for such poor mothering, but...well, I guess people don't want her dead. Anyway, In this picture below, Claire has an ENTIRELY WRAPPED Hershey's Kiss in her mouth (can't blame her, it's the white chocolate-oreo one! BEST ones, besides the white chocolate peppermint!) and is greedily grabbing as many kisses as she could get into her miniature hands! Classic smile. LOVE it.

3. Claire says "mama" all the time. I'm still not sure if she knows that I AM Mama, or maybe she thinks the "milk supply" is Mama. Nevertheless, she knows that word is associated with me! I am LUCKY btw. She does NOT say Dada yet!! I'm trying to teach her, you know, to be nice and all... (sorry Honey)

But look how she loves her Daddy :) awww...

5. Claire has been walking for some time now. ASSISTED. That's the key word :) But at least now, we can walk with her holding just ONE of her hands. She grabs on for dear life, to be sure, but it's progress!! She also stands on her own now too! And she loves pushing her little cart-thingie around... (disregard my dumb commentary...)

6. Claire can do the motion for "bye bye." It's sooooooooooooo cute. She simply opens and closes her little hand (only the right hand btw.). We used to have to do the motion with our hands first and then she'd imitate, but now she does it when we say the words! So cute! Jordan says she's started "nodding" her head. I don't know about that....

7. She's a little ham. Think I've mentioned that. But she now throws TANTRUMS. I used to be able to take things away from her and it was no big deal. NOW she arches her back, cries, etc. etc. It's fun.

8. Claire has now officially shifted to a one nap schedule. Yes, the wonderful days of 2 naps are over. The best part was Mommy going back to bed when Claire did 2 hours after she woke up. Now, she goes down at 11 and sleeps til 2pm.

9. Claire has a mouth FULL of teeth. Seriously. Every time I think a "teething period" is over, out pops a new one! We've gone through 3 BOTTLES of Motrin. I feel like a drug pusher! Seriously! I don't know why people make this HUGE FUSS about sleep schedules because seriously, they get disrupted every other week by teething, so why bother?

Claire Eating. I have a lot of these pictures...

Mothers beware. You may be DISGUSTED at how many unhealthy things I allow my child to eat. Seriously.

Claire enjoyed the whipped cream at Kneaders. We LOVE their million-calorie french toast breakfast. It's pretty much to die for--all you can eat for $5 too. I should do an Ode to Kneaders. (Like the hair? Well, the rule with Kneaders is that at breakfast time, you really can't go in anything but pajamas and bedhead)

But don't worry. Later that day, she had some veggies. Daddy gave them to her. She might just be sucking the butter from them though...

One morning I thought she might like to try chocolate cake for breakfast. She had a nice little bath after this experience. But not to worry. She had her fruit after this--freeze dried strawberries and bananas. Didn't seem to like the bananas, but LOVED the strawberries. I think she had another bath at that point?

A new In-N-Out Burger opened near our house. Claire thoroughly enjoyed Daddy's vanilla shake! We were at Best Buy in this picture (more on THAT to come!! Merry Christmas to me...Merry Christmas to me...)

But don't worry, here she is eating a very healthy asparagus spear. She was sucking on it like a straw. Jordan said that I might have overcooked it. Oh well. She LOVED it! Crazy!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Seriously. Where does the time go? It's Christmas time again, and it feels like I was JUST pregnant.

The excitement and simultaneous dread of putting up the Christmas decorations came to the Taylor house this past week... Claire did NOT experience dread, and was very interested in the tree!

This year I got a couple of new ornaments :) Tai Pan, day after Christmas sale, of course! And no, I'm not usually an after-Thanksgiving day shopper, but Claire was already up at the CRACK of dawn and I had nothing better to do. Plus Tai Pan always gives a free item if you get there before 8am, and this year they were red and green peppermint votives, instead of a cheesy snowman candy jar like last year. (I apologize to those who like snowman candy jars...)

AND, I was triumphant in using...wait for it...wait for it.... the POWER DRILL!!! Yes. I used the drill. I used to call it a screw driver, but my husband informed me that the "power tool" kind is called a "power drill." (Yes, now you know where I'm coming from in the tool expertise spectrum.)

Well, I, ALL BY MYSELF put up this little beauty:

I drilled holes in the doorway corners, then screwed in the drywall screws, and zip-tied the garland to the screws. Let's be honest, Jordan told me this is how I should put it up, but when he was telling me this, we had planned for HIM to do it. But, he went to work, and I decided I need to be more self-sufficient! And there I was, drill in hand!!

*some people have marathons under their belts...I have a garland hanging*

The "I'm Gonna Get You" Game

Claire likes this game.

The Pacifier.

This is the only way Claire has ever "taken a pacifier."

Off the floor or from any baby nearby, and NEVER the correct way...