Claire 11 months old and other family updates

Claire is changing and learning so much that I need to write it down!

She can now:

*WALK!! Yes she is mobile and getting faster every day.
*When you say "How bigs' Claire?" she raises her hands above her head as we say "This big!"
*She gives kisses
*If you ask her where your nose is- she will point to it.
* She can give high fives
* When people say "yay" or she hears clapping she claps too!
*She says "Uh Oh" which is her official first word, but now she is associating it with things that really mean "uh oh" like tripping or loosing her balance while walking.
*She copies us when we sing (I have an awesome video that I'll post soon)
*She is signing "bottle" and "more"
* She can almost say bottle too....but only when she is really hungry and really tired...."baaaaoul"
*She is a master stair climber - before you can turn around once she is half way up and so happy about it.

Family Update:

We  have got the sickies around here. It started with Claire, moved its way to me, then John, then Cameron, then Katey Jane, and now Claire AGAIN and Grandpa. Its a bad one and it stays for a long time.

We just had our first baby calf of the season and it was a circus! Luckily dad came home early because he was sick and noticed a momma giving birth in the field! He came in and told us...Landon and I raced to get our clothes/boots on to go watch. As we got closer I noticed it wasn't a baby coming out...a baby was already trying to stand next to the momma. It was her uterus hanging out!! Lucily, I watch Dr. Pol on Animal Planet and I knew immediately it was a prolapsed uterus. I yelled to Dad...."Dad, its not a baby, its her uterus!", He said"What? How do you know?" and I replied, "It happens on Dr. Pol" (The incredible Dr. Pol is a tv show the kids and I like to watch about a veterinarian in Michigan) So we called the vet and sure enough he had to come and push it back inside her YOUCH! Luckily the mommy and baby are ok.

Thats it for now....here are some cute pictures and videos too.

Claire is just the happiest little thing - she is always bursting with joy!!

On a walk to shake off the winter blues

Cameron playing with baby sister

Jackson won an award for good behavior at school and he took the boys to see their first hockey game!! They loved it!

Here is our first baby calf of the season - no name yet.

Fun Things

Here are some things we've been enjoying/doing lately:

Claire....duh. She is repeating things back to us and its so fun to have a little parrot. She says: Mom, Dad, Grampa, Uh-Oh and she repeats sounds back (singing style). She is so fast at crawling and standing....walking isn't far away. She puts everything in her mouth and man is she fast. She sees you coming to stop her and she pops it in at lightening speed before you can get it. Then she tries to keep you out of her mouth - she even grabbed halsy's finger and bit him the other day to protest the removal of a foreign object from her chubby cheeks.

"The Greatest Showman" this musical came into theaters before Christmas and we're obsessed. Halsy and I went to see it and then we took the kids back to see it a couple days later. They really love it too. We have been listening to the soundtrack non-stop since then and we LOVE it.

Today is "not back to school day" for us and I'm going to take the kids to play and out to lunch. I just love homeschool - it gives me such freedom and a sense of control over the world that is constantly at war with itself. I hope we get to do it for a long time.

We let the kids stay up until midnight for the first time on New Years Eve and they all Made it (Claire included)!! Cameron was the only grump the next day due to lack of sleep - which I call a success. We spent the following day out to breakfast at Biscuits with Katelyn and David then taking Christmas down at the house.....which took 4.5 hours YIKES - it was my fault because IU suggested that we go through boxes and trash stuff we've not used in YEARS.....well that doubled our workload and wasn't very successful. I think we trashed maybe 15 items, there might be some hoarding tendencies in our DNA somewhere. Then we all took naps/rested before eating the crap out of some Frank's noodle House goodies. We put the kids to bed early and chilled out.

Christmas was a total blast! The kids all got something that they had been wanting and are enjoying their spoils. We went a little bigger this Christmas because we were never able to do it before....but I think we will go back down next year. The kids got a little overwhelmed toward the end and I like that. Halsy made me a beautiful quilt that I love and now rests on our bed. I got him a book of interesting facts and useless knowledge - he loved it. Landon got a Power Wheel, Cam got a BB gun, and KJ got a Fingerling.