One Year Old!

It's hard to believe that this little baby...

...is now this little toddler!

My sweet, darling little girl is no longer considered a "baby". 

That realization makes me so sad and yet at the same time I'm excited to see the little person that she is going to be! She has grown and learned so much in such a short amount of time. I am so in love with my growing baby and am so happy that she decided to join our family. 

This year has been one of the most challenging years for us as new parents, yet one of the most rewarding! I am so thankful that Heavenly Father entrusted us with such a happy little girl!

 Of course, just as usual, there are many new things about Claire since my last update...

At her doctor's appointment this month she weighed in at 21.4 pounds (56%)

 and is 30.75 inches tall (93%). 

She wears size 18 month to 2T clothes on account that she's so long! She also wears size four diapers.

We have officially weaned her off the bottle! I thought there was going to be a bit of a struggle but it was surprisingly easy. I have been slowly switching her over to lactate milk by mixing it with her formula. Once I switched her completely over to milk I just put it in a sippy cup and she drank it like it was a bottle! Yes! Success!!! I do not miss washing bottles at all! (Oh, and if anyone knows anyone who needs formula...I have 9 cans of Similac Sensitive that are left over from Claire. They are free so let me know if you want them!)

She is still really close to walking. She loves her new walker and is a pro at cruising along our furniture.

We just recently switched her into a big girl carseat. She LOVES it! It's one of those convertible carseats so it can sit forward or rear-facing. We tried to put it rear-facing but our backseat is too small for the carseat to fit like that, so forward facing it is! 

She has eight teeth! And I think she will be getting her eye teeth soon.

Some of her new favorite foods: any kind of meat (seriously our daughter is a carnivore!), peas (I have never seen anyone love peas as much as Claire), crackers, twizzlers, popsicles, loaded sweet potatoes, toast, oreos, and apple slices.

Her favorite movie is still Tangled. I have the entire movie memorized. Just sayin'.

She loves story time but hates being rocked to sleep now.

She is really good at picking up the smallest pieces of paper or food off the floor and eating it. I am constantly pulling things out of her mouth.

She points at stuff and will say "dat!" So far she doesn't say much other than "mama" and "da"(which used to be "dada") and then a whole bunch of gibberish.

When she eats she makes this "num num num" noise. So funny!

She is really good at feeding herself and loves to feed other people too. Although she still loves to tease you with it.

She knows the word nose. She can't do it on herself but loves doing it to her stuffed animals.

She is a stair climber! We were over at my moms house the other day and I turned my back for two minutes and she was gone. So I started calling her name and turned the corner only to find her at the top of the stairs smiling and clapping for herself! Smart baby! 

She has also learned how to climb up the little slide in our backyard too! She climbs to the top, turns around, slides down all by herself, and then does it all over again! 

She loves to play in water, whether it be in the bath, in her little pool, or even the toilet! Yuck! I forgot to close the bathroom door and found her scooping out water with her tea cup. That was a fun day.

One of her favorite things to do is open/close doors. But she gets really upset if she closes the door all the way and gets trapped in a bedroom.

Cabinets and drawers have also been found. Messes like this sandwich bag mishap are a common occurrence at our house.

She loves to wrestle with us on the bed. If you ever set her down on our bed she instantly starts squealing and rolling around as if to say, "Come get me! Let's play!"

If you try to play chase with her she will start to crawl towards you while giggling really hard. She hasn't quite gotten the concept that she's supposed to run away! :)

Her favorite toy is her stroller. She puts everything she loves in there. (blanket, paci, favorite toy of the day) If you press the little song button on it, she will come crawling as fast as she can!

She's just like me in the fact that when she laughs really hard she gets the hiccups! And it's really, really hard for her to get rid of them.

We just LOVE this little one year old girl!

Claire Marie- June 15, 2012

Claire Marie- June 15, 2011
(Where did the time go?!)

Claire Bear is ONE!!!

Our baby girl turned ONE on June 15th! 

I still can't believe I have a ONE year old already!

The Birthday Girl!!

We had a blast celebrating her birthday. I have been looking forward to her birthday for months! I love birthdays and birthday parties and I wanted her first birthday to be perfect. Joe said I was being ridicules because she would never remember her first birthday. That may be true but I wanted to remember her first birthday, so I went all out!

It was so fun being crafty for once. I'm the kind of person who would rather buy the craft already finished because I have absolutely no faith that I could actually make something cute. But I surprised myself with these decorations. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did a pretty darn good job!

Happy Birthday!

I made it double sided. I loved how festive the banner looked.

Close up.

I also made little minitare banners out of scraps and hung some tissue pom poms to finish the look.

The party theme was "Claire Bear". My mom had an old cake pan shaped like a bear that she had saved from Savannah's first birthday. I was so excited about making this cake for her. I had to bake it twice because the first one didn't have enough batter so it didn't have legs or a butt!

But the second time it turned out perfect! 

I was really nervous about icing the bear since I have NO experience what so ever with baking or using frosting. (again I never believe that I can actually do it) But it turned out pretty cute! The messed up bear ended up being a blessing. I was able to practice my icing skills on it and it ended up being Claire's cake to dig into! 

I decorated and cleaned the house the day before so on her actual birthday I was able to spend the day with my sweet Claire Bear. We made all her favorite food. She is a huge bacon fan, so for breakfast I made her pancakes and bacon and she loved it!

Joe's mom bought her birthday outfit and she looked absolutely adorable in it!

My sweet girl, waiting for everyone to arrive!

We had planned a small family party. So Savannah, Stan, and Sammy came along with my Mom and Adam. It was fun to have everyone together for the day! We made hamburgers, fries, and salads. Savannah brought lemon bars (which were AMAZING!) and the best watermelon I have had in a long time! 

Claire and Sammy got pretty bored waiting for dinner so we let them open Grandma's present.

She is a pro at opening presents! I didn't even have to help her get it started!

She loves her new dollhouse!

I got a screw driver out to put the batteries in and Sammy came right on over to help me.
 He is ALL boy!
He knew exactly what to do with that screw driver!

Once dinner was over it was time to open presents. She was super spoiled!

Stroller from Mom and Dad.

Blocks from Mom and Dad.

She got a farm from Grandma Meloney.
We were able to Skype her while Claire opened it.

Train from Aunt Kay and Uncle Rex.

She LOVES this stroller! As soon as it was put together she started strutting around the apartment with it. She stuffs all her toys and blanky into it now, it's quite funny! :)


(She also got a book from Aunt Sasa. Savannah wrote it and added pictures, it's called, "Crazy Hair Claire!" Super cute book! It hasn't come in the mail yet but when it does I'll post it on here.)


Claire discovered the cakes when she was playing and kept gabbering and pointing at them, so we decided it was cake time! 

 Singing Happy Birthday!

 She wouldn't blow out the candle, so Daddy helped her out a little. :)

 I thought she would dig right into it but she didn't seem to like the icing on her fingers.

Daddy pushed her hand into to help her get started and she tried to shake it off.

When she couldn't get it off she decided to have Daddy eat it instead.

She tried a little bit of it but didn't really like it.

She kind of got the hang of it but didn't really like the mess being on her hands. 

Poor bear didn't have a face when she was finished.

I think all in all she had a great birthday! She was happy and acted like she knew it was her day. It was fun to watch her play with her new toys and smile from all the attention. Definitely a fun day for all of us!

Uncle Stan helping them set up the train tracks.

 They were having so much fun!

Didn't occur to me that I might want a picture with her until it was almost bath time, 
but one picture is better than no picture, right?


Happy Birthday Claire Bear! 
We love you so much!