New Milestones

Our dear, sweet Claire is definitely growing. I can't believe that its already been 7 months since she was born. I remember bringing her home, and dealing with the sleepless nights and asking Sara when it would end. She said around 12 weeks, and I thought that sounded like FOREVER. And here we are, sleeping through the night like a pro, and becoming more and more MOBILE!

Yes, Claire started moving across the floor at 6 months, which turned into an army crawl, which is now a full-fledged-on-hands-and-knees crawl. A couple of nights ago Bob was on the floor and Claire crawled over and started to pull herself up on his legs. We moved her back to see if she would do it again, to which she did. Not bad. Kind of cool even. Well, now what we thought was just 'cute' is apparently going to be an 'issue'.

I put Claire to bed and went downstairs so Bob and I could finish watching 'The Next Great American Band' (don't laugh, its a cool show: Friday nights, 8pm, Fox) and we're startled to hear Claire crying. And not just crying, but the I-hurt-myself-really-bad-so-come-help-me crying. I literally run upstairs (which is actually pretty hard for me and I don't like to make that a habit) to find Claire holding onto the end of her crib in tears. I'm guessing that she bonked her head or face or mouth somehow while trying to pull herself up. Bob was only a few strides behind me, and we just look at our cute little munchkin and think 'well.. now what?' Realizing that the crib mattress will now have to be lowered (but there's no way Bob is tackling that job tonight) we try and figure out what to do. The easiest and quickest answer is to set up the pack and play. So for tonight, Claire is sleeping in there and if she tries to pull herself up and falls, at least it'll be a soft landing.

So now a new phase of motherhood is starting for me. The whole 'make sure your kid doesn't hurt themselves too bad since they're trying to learn how to balance themselves' phase. I used to think (in the not so distant past) that things would just be easier with Claire once she started moving. Hmmm. Guess I was totally wrong on that.


Oh yeah... my house still isn't finished.

It's Monday...

... and there are no photos to post. But the good news is that we ALMOST reached our goal. For the most part, all the big furniture pieces are moved. The floors are finished, and look pretty FANTABULOUS if you ask me, and now its just getting all the 'extras' put away or thrown away, or destroyed.

So hopefully we can still work on this stuff, but Bob is back at work and will be working this weekend. The positive, is that he should have next Monday and Tuesday off.. so worst case scenario is things get done early next week. We'll see what happens.

I'm taking Claire to get her 7 months photos done tomorrow. I can't believe she's already that old, and that another month has just flown by. Crazy. Christmas will be here before we know it.

Anyway, it's after 10pm and I really need to take a shower.

Taking a break...

Sorry, but there will be no pictures in this post, so some of you may want to pass on this one.

I'm just sitting at the computer, procrastinating. So I figure I'll be some what productive and update the ol' blog. Bob and I are in the middle of re-organizing the house. This is a project we've been talking about for months, but now we're finally getting the time to do it. Bob had a couple of extra days off of work so it's worked out nicely. Claire has been more than cooperative, so we've been able to get a bunch done. Well... at least it seems like a ton. But we still have a ton to do. I was explaining the process to Sara and I said that yesterday we were like.. 25% done. Today, we're like... 27%.

We decided to switch up the layout of quite a few rooms. The 'bonus room' is now our office/workspace, the old dinningroom/livingroom is now just a big livingroom, the familyroom/breakfast nook, is now a dinning room/sitting area, and the old office is now a play room for Claire. The only thing that looks partway done is the play room, and that's because - for the most part - it's empty. Currently we're working on finding a place for everything that was in the office. Which is actually a HUGE job considering you could barely walk into the room before all this started. Bob has been doing a ton of filing, and I'm finally organizing all my scrapbook paper. (but I still have all my ribbon, so I think I have my work cut out for me)

Our goal is to have this all done by Monday morning when the installer comes to take the CARPET OUT OF ALL THE BATHROOMS! I'll be so glad when we have NORMAL floors in there. We're skipping the tile option (too expensive) and we're doing lenolium. (not sure how to spell that) Its nice stuff, really hardy, 'tear proof' or something like that, but it's also a really good price. The next project will be getting the bathrooms either re-painted, or wallpapered, or something. But that's for another time... no rush on that.

Well, Miss Claire woke up and its now time for her to eat dinner, so I shall bring this post to a close. When everything gets finished and filed away, I'll post a few pictures. If it's not up by Monday, then you know we didn't reach our goal.

Claire in Corning

Well, the Lesiw's have arrived home after attending my cousin JD's wedding. The location of the big event was Corning, Ca. For those of you who are not familiar with the area, it is a major truck stop off of I-5. Also, word on the street is that it's the olive capital of... the world? Okay, so maybe I'm not too positive on that last part. The weather was FANTASTIC and it was a beautiful autumn day. JD and his bride, Terri, married in a small white church surrounded by family and friends. It was really fun to see family who traveled far (Uncle Matt, Aunt Pat, and cousins Ben & Lindsay w/adorable little Caleb, and Luke - who's representing NJ!) and meeting new people as well. I can't believe that it's already over. Another family wedding. Gotta love 'em!

Claire did pretty well on this trip too. She slept the whole way home, which was nice since she didn't get good naps in while we were gone. This trip also made me realize how much stuff you have to pack with an infant. Seriously, it took us two trips to unload the car to get into the hotel. But the nice thing, is that Claire is a pretty good traveller. Not that we plan on making this a habit, but if the need/want should arise that we need to hit the road again, at least we know we can bring the girl along too!

Halloween fun

So it's hard to believe that Claire's first Halloween has come and gone. I actually don't mind because I found that trick-or-treating with an infant really isn't that much fun. We didn't take the stroller so we had to carry her everywhere and honestly, after a little bit 14lbs starts to feel like 20. Fortunately I had friends who were willing to 'switch off' with me.

Wednesday morning we went to our moms group Halloween party. Since it was a potluck, I brought the only logical choice and stopped by the local KFC and picked up a bucket of chicken with all the fixin's. Believe it or not, it was a total 'hit'. Nothing says classy like KFC.

That night we went over to the Garate's house where Sara treated us with homemade stew! (My job was to drive by Raley's and pick up bread... are we seeing a pattern here?) Two other families joined the festivities and while the moms took the kids around the block, the menfolk stayed back and passed out candy. All in all it was a fun night and I really think Claire enjoyed herself. Even though she'll have no recollection of what we put her through, she'll always have pictures!

Oh yeah... Claire DOES have 2 costumes. I couldn't decide between the two... fortunately we had 2 events to go to. Hope you all enjoy!!!

Is this the cutest elephant you've ever seen?!?! This one is SO not going to the zoo!

See! She really DOES like it!

And to think that this wasn't even ALL of the babies there.

The motley crew that roamed the streets in search of tasty morsels.

This is one spider I'm NOT going to squash! Too cute, if I do say so myself!

It's a small stash, but a stash nonetheless. Mom is just stoked to eat free candy!