++One and a half++

I think I have to start calling her one and a half now. The months days may be over. The baby days are quickly coming to an end it seems too.

At eighteen months, Claire is not afraid to tell us what she thinks. She is quick to shoot us this look along with a "no!" if she doesn't like what she has been told.

She has also learned how to ham it up for the camera.
Her vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. It seems she is adding words daily. Her favorites are mommy, daddy, baby, shoes, clothes, jacket, cracker, doggy, kitty, stroller, push, off, outside, color, go, cheese, cookie, booberry, treat and last but not at all least, JUICE!

She still loves to swing. We can never get her off the swings at the park. She is also really upset if there aren't open swings for her. She doesn't quite get the "take turns" idea yet.

If Claire had a happy place this would be it. Sitting in her favorite portable high chair, eating cake, wearing her hat and her jacket and drinking juice. Throw in her lovey and a necklace or two and she would have been in heaven.

This was probably a close second in the happy place race.

She's starting to do a lot more purposeful play. She likes puzzles and shape sorters and stacking blocks and coloring. She has also inherited the clearly genetic trait first demonstrated by her brother (which much be recessive as it's a mystery to Mark and me)of enjoying transporting small items and game pieces to all sorts of rooms through the house, especially our closet or the laundry room or the kitchen floor right in front of the fridge.

Another favorite pastime...self baptism. While we are glad she is feeling so religious and all, we'd like to remind Claire we already had that taken care of for her. If she finds a puddle, a fountain or any other body of water the hand goes in and onto the head the water goes. Don't believe me? Check her out in the background of the photo below. Cousins playing nicely at the rehearsal dinner and Claire dipping into the stagnant water in the bird bath. She sure smelled lovely after that.

For all her girly-girl tendencies she does have a little tomboy to her. She likes trucks and trains and buses and firetrucks (but not with nearly the zeal her brother did). She also is into bugs and critters. We have lots of slugs in our backyard (where are those raccoons when we need them?)and Claire loves to check them out.

This is her "where did it go?" move.

You are growing up fast kiddo. We love you!

++First Friend++

We recently got a visit from Wyatt's first friend Hudson. I don't exaggerate this one. Hudson's mom, Emily, and I became friends while working at CL and ironically were due five days apart. We shared the details of our pregnancies and lots of walks with our bellies around Lake Harriet. Did I mention our houses were three blocks apart? In a totally unfair twist of events, Hudson ended up being born three weeks before Wyatt. They spent lots of time together until we moved away :(

They played together (or laid together?) and swam together (looking back at these photos I marvel at how, um, sturdy Wyatt was)
They even made their first two annual visits to Santa together.
Notice how Wyatt is always on the right. Not sure how this happened. It's amazing how much the boys have grown up (although I don't really think Hudson has changed all that much) but they picked up like no time had passed.Some additional evidence that some things don't change...Wyatt and Hudson at Wyatt's first birthday:Wyatt and Hudson now:
They really did have fun.
I think I failed to mention that Hudson also has a younger brother, Griffin, who is two and a half weeks younger than Claire. It's almost like we planned it. Trust me, we didn't.

The party favor you get for coming to visit me is some photos of your kids. I was super pleased with how these turned out, especially since the kids had no interest in sitting still for photos whatsoever (except for Wyatt and Hudson who were told they would get a lollipop in exchange for cooperation...they were hamming it up all over the place--see above).

Thanks for your visit guys! See you in November!

++What did you do for your summer vacation?++

As told by Wyatt (hold on, this is a long one!)

For my summer vacation this year we sure were busy. First we flew to Detroit. The next day we drove through Ann Arbor and made a stop at Zingermans's and saw a really big football stadium. Then we drove to Grand Rapids where we ran into a very familiar bell hop.
I met my mom's cousins (there are six of them!) and they all have neat jobs like architects and car designers. Did I mention Larson and Cora were there too?

Then my mom and dad got all dressed up and left the four of us kids with a babysitter for the night (did I mention she earned her money?)

They went to Lauren's wedding (isn't she pretty?) Lauren is my mom's cousin's daughter. I think that makes her my second cousin? The next day we took a fast ferry across Lake Michigan to Milwaukee. It was fun. My parents liked it better than an airplane because my sister and I could run around.

When we got off the ferry my Grandma and Grandpa were waiting for us! They took us to a night in the Wisconsin Dells. Uncle Matt and Aunt Taylor were there too. I have one word for it: FUN! My mom would have taken more pictures but she and my dad were too busy going on the grown-up water slides.

Next we headed to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to spend some time with them. They had all sorts of stuff planned for us. It was almost as if they had been anxiously awaiting our arrival for months.

We went fishing...
I was a really good worm deliverer.

Uncle Matt caught a fish and Claire gave it a kiss. Ewww!
Grandma spent her time tracking down creatures for me to see.
Did I mention my mom was on this trip too? Here's proof. She said she could have stayed all day at the fishing hole taking pictures.
Another day we went crayfishing. For those of you who don't know what a crayfish looks like, grandpa can show you (they have pinchers and like to eat old hot dogs).

I got super excited every time we caught one.My sister just wanted to show them her belly button (sometimes we just don't understand her, but she sure is cute, isn't she?)I also got to do fun things like mow the lawn with grandpa's new lawnmower. He tried to help me steer but I would push his hands away.

My Dad's Uncle Paul brought over this neat tractor. Jadyn and I got to try it out. Jadyn is also my second cousin...I think.

And finally, we got to spend a lot of time with my Busha. I like to tell everyone that Busha is very old. She is almost 102 to be exact. I think that's a lot more than me. We like her more than Claire would lead you to believe in this picture. She was just busy doing something else and didn't want to sit still (big surprise).

Then we went home. I'm really good on airplanes but my sister is a handful. The lady next to my mom on the plane commented about Claire: "I had a son that needed attention all the time like that. It turned out he had ADHD and we had to keep him medicated." I'm not so sure my mom appreciated her input. She also didn't appreciate that Claire and I were on central time for the next week.

We sure did have fun though!

++Lens Love++

When I got my first SLR camera my main goal was just to be able to shoot fast and capture my busy baby on the move. From there I wanted to be able to shoot those photos with the subject sharp and the background blurry. Two cameras, four lenses, two useless community ed classes and an invaluable online course...and thousands upon thousand practice shots later...I think I'm finally there. The only problem is that along the way I learned just enough to be dangerous and realize how much more I want to master. Good thing my kids are still young!

For my anniversary this year I got a new lens that makes taking shots like this a whole lot easier. Oh--and for the record, along the way I learned that the blurry background is called bokeh.
Love the bokeh. Love my lens. Love my boy.

And I love this guy too. Happy eighth anniversary(a little late)!

++I did it!++

I ran a 5k! Not necessarily quickly. But I ran the whole thing. Mark was kind enough to suppress his competitive nature and run with me. I can't say I love running yet. I just don't hate it as much as I used to.

Please note that there was quite a bit of internal debate going on over whether my pride over my accomplishment would outweigh the pride lost in posting this lovely photo of myself. The former clearly won. No heckling please.

++Cora is Two!++

It has been such a treat to live close enough to watch this little one grow up. She celebrated her first birthday shortly after we moved here last year. And as lucky as she was to get a birth date of 8-8-08, she has been less lucky to have two cool and rainy August days for her parties (only in Seattle). We carried on like nothing was wrong (only in Seattle).
Isn't she just the cutest?

Happy Birthday!

++Bittersweet++

I had the most wonderful weekend with two old, dear friends. Tiffany and I knew each other in college (we joke that we kind of had a "love at first sight" kind of friendship) and Sara met us a few years later in the advertising world. These girls know me. They were there for my engagement, my wedding, my first house, my first baby. These kind of friendships don't happen overnight. Their visit was bittersweet because it was so much fun...but it made me realize more than ever how much I miss them (and my other girls too!!!)

Onto the fun:
We ferried and shopped and ate as many meals as possible outside near water. The first night we stayed at this idyllic looking castle. Sadly, so did an entire wedding party. Emphasis on party. The lucky ladies were able to experience a relaxing evening of drunken fights, pot smoking, bad cologne to cover up the pot smell, more fights and yelling, ahh...pure bliss. We can laugh about it now. I did notice some bags under my eyes in the pictures though. You can chalk that up to about four hours of sleep.
Day two brought us to Whidbey Island. The girls and I decided that we want to move here if only to allow us to eat at the Knead and Feed on a regular basis.

They were rolling out these yummy Cinnamon rolls at that wooden counter you see in the window. So cute.

We did stuff other than eat. You just wouldn't know it from the pictures. For the record, those were one scoop cones with two "half" scoops. Honest.

On Whidbey island we stayed in a private cottage. This was the view. I told you, we are moving there.

The entire group of girls from home has become obsessed with the Twilight series. They thought I needed to join in on the fun and brought me the box set. I can't quite say I've been bitten yet. I spent the whole book wondering what was wrong with me. I have three more to go...maybe I'll figure it out before then.

Like I said, we're moving there. Our kids and husbands can come for visits.

Our trip consisted of three ferry rides. A super fun little adventure for the Midwesterners (myself included). They'll probably kill me for this one, I just love it.

We've decided to make it an annual event. Check back next year to see where the ladies head next.