++One++

Our littlest one is one. I could list about fifteen cliches here and they would all be true. It does seem just like yesterday that we were in the hospital with our new little bundle and she is growing up too fast.
I was reflecting on the past year to Mark and one of the things that struck me the most was this. When Claire was born (and even before) we loved her. We loved her because she was our baby and part of our family. But now we still love her for that reason but even more, we love her because she is Claire. It has been so fun to watch her grow into her own little person with a big personality.
She's walking now and that has firmly cemented the belief that she can do ANYTHING her brother can. She walked the day before her birthday. Wyatt walked the day after. They must come out programmed with some sort of deadline.
She has eight teeth. Is full of smiles. Loves to joke. Hates it when she doesn't get her way. Has decided that sometimes she NEEDS to wear her hat at breakfast, or her jacket inside all day or her shoes all the time. She loves to play outside. We're still working on figuring out how that works. At least now that she's on her feet 75% of the time she stays a little cleaner and drier.
She makes a break for the stairs the instant she sees the gate open. She'll unroll a roll of toilet paper faster than you can say toilet paper. You can often find her pushing her "pusher" around with her lovey draped over the handles, Wyatt's dirty socks in her hands and a cup hanging out of her mouth. She likes to try to make her brother laugh. She comes up behind him and touches his back or pretends to give him something and yanks it away. If she encounters any type of vessel she will NEED to try to sit in it or on it. Her favorite these days is a rubbermaid under bed box, closely followed by the "mom nest" (the spot inside my legs while seated cross-legged). Her vocabulary now includes, duck, ball, dog, cracker and shoes. I think she grew up tenfold over the past month. Happy Birthday little girl!

++Ten on Tuesday++

1. Someone in our house is walking. Watch out world because here she comes!
2. This remodel thing is just too stressful for me. Too many decisions all at once. Knobs, lights, fans, flooring and paint colors...that is for sure going to drive me batty. As I've mentioned before I tend to over think even the smallest decisions, imagine what happens with this kind of stuff.
3. On that note our living room is now a new color that was supposed to be a beige/gray color but looks mighty green now that it's up. It's not a bad color, I'm just second guessing how it looks with everything we own. Wonderful.
4. Wyatt talks the ear off of our contractor and every sub-contractor who comes in our house. Our contractor is "Don" or "My buddy Don" if you ask Wyatt about him.
5. I caught Wyatt telling Claire that something was "not acceptable" today. Hmm...wonder where he got that?
6. In Wyatt's eyes Claire is frequently doing things that are "not acceptable". She is super into him and what he is doing. I feel bad for her because she just wants to play too, but I feel bad for him because he just wants to be left alone.
7. As a result of above behavior, Wyatt slammed Claire's finger in a drawer last night. Mark was out of town (go figure) and there was blood. We've avoided traumatic injuries to date so I wasn't ready for this. I always thought I would rally when I needed to. I didn't. It didn't end up being bad. Thank goodness.
8. Wyatt has Mater underwear (from Cars). There is a big Mater on his bum. I encouraged him to "shake his Mater" to get him excited about wearing underwear way back when. He still does it. He was talking about shaking his Mater tonight when he looked down at his Toy Story pull-up and asked "who's this?" to the cowboy on the front. I just couldn't tell him the guy's name was woody. I could see where it was going.
9. We've been enjoying the Olympics but what Einstein thought it would be a good idea to tape delay everything that's happening a few hours from here, and then broadcast it from 8-11:30? Needless to say we are never awake to see the finish of the night's big event. Clearly that Einstein doesn't have little kids.
10. We've got a lot riding on "when this remodel is done." We plan to have more free time, a cleaner house, a social life, and the list goes on and on. We'll see. One can always hope!

++A trip to the Zoo++

I put Zoo in caps because I didn't just mean any zoo. I meant the San Diego Zoo. It was cool. Just as we had hoped. The crew was ready to tackle it--we weren't sure what to expect but they rallied and we stayed all day.

I put my zoom lens on and took photos all day. I did all my shots in manual. Some worked out better than others. We waited in line to see the baby panda. So cute.

Wyatt's highlight: riding on the top of the double decker bus.

Wyatt's favorite animal: the giraffe. Funny because we had them in Memphis and have them here in Seattle.

We got a super-cute hand print turned into animal souvenir. Good thing I took this photo and wasn't there to wash Claire's hand right away because the brown paint is all over that dress and it didn't come off. But I got the photo so it's all good (or I keep telling myself that).

We learned we have a daredevil on our hands. Claire leaned out of the tram and waved and pointed the entire time. No fear.

The weather was great, the crowds were small. What a great way to spend a Monday!

++We didn't fall off the face of the earth...++

...we went on vacation!
More from sunny San Diego soon.