Close Quarters

Clara seems to have a penchant for getting into tight spots. As soon as she started crawling, we would find her here:



Then she discovered the kitchen cabinets.


Then there was the visit to Renee's house in Dallas.
Today I found Clara in here!




This little girl cracks me up!!

Summer's Winding Down

We have been lucky here the past week or so. The weather has been unseasonably warm with no humidity and sunny, blue skies. Clara has taken advantage of this and has been wanting to go outside a lot. It doesn't hurt that she has a new toy that has peaked her interest. Our kind and generous neighbors gave us a hand-me-down from their daughter, Maggie. Clara is the new owner of a Radio Flyer tricycle!

She quickly figured out how to climb up onto the seat and how to get me to push her around.



I think it will be a while before she can reach the pedals.

She also loves her swingset and usually once or five times a day we go out and swing and slide. Today, Dad put her in the tree to hang out.



Fall is coming!

15 Months

I was looking back at pictures from our visit to OKC and remembered some similar pictures of Clara taken around New Years. Looking back at those pictures made me laugh! I got a kick out of Clara's cheeks! I remember them being big at the time, but good lord - what was she storing in there? Giant marshmallows?!?

January 2008
Clara loved that walker in January and still loved it last week. This time she could climb into it without any help, although sometimes she ended up facing herself the wrong way (see below).

September 2008

Which brings me to the fact that our little girl is growing up and is now 15 months old. This past month we did a lot of traveling. Clara went on 12 airplane rides, visited 6 states, and saw every immediate family member of both Tom and my family, not to mention all of her great-grandparents. Wow!

Clara's vocabulary is increasing and the baby talk is in full gear. Her favorite toys include the rocking horse, her toy vacuum, and the swing set in the backyard. She is a sponge right now, learning new things all the time. She understands many things I say and can follow simple instructions easily and willingly. She is becoming more wary of strangers and prefers me to just about anyone. The separation anxiety is in full swing these days which makes a trip to the church nursery almost unbearable for both of us. When she doesn't get her way, she let's us know! Of course, we wouldn't trade her for the world and are so blessed to have Clara in our life. We love her so much and look forward to what the next month brings!

Eating, Riding, and Singing

Clara has shown interest in feeding herself and her coordination is improving, so I let her feed herself applesauce yesterday morning. She covered her face nicely and some ended up in her mouth.




When all else fails, just drink it!


While cleaning up breakfast, I hear Clara laughing in the family room. I come in to see this...



Clara and I went to a garage sale later on and found some great deals on toys. This is definitely a new favorite around here. Hopefully this will give Chelsea a reprieve for a while.


Last night I went out with a girlfriend to the Rascal Flatts/Taylor Swift concert. We had a blast hearing some big hits and singing along. Taylor Swift is only 18, writes her own songs, has a ton of energy and a great voice.
Her songs are youthful and light hearted. Love this girl!

Rascal Flatts was awesome. They put on a good show and sang most of their old and new hits. I like a lot of their songs. This is one of my favorites.


We had pretty good seats, but my pictures didn't turn out so great.

Trip to OKC

We are back home, again, with NO more trips in the near future! Yea! It's good to be home and return to a more normal schedule. Tom, Clara and I just got back from a trip to Oklahoma City which we coupled with another job interview in Fort Smith, Arkansas. We had a great time with Tom's family in OKC. We stayed at his parents house and both of his sisters and their families came over to visit. Clara and her cousin Paityn were born one month apart so it is so fun to see them growing together. They still engage in more parallel play rather than interactive play, but we caught a few pictures of them together




Clara LOVED playing in Paityn's walker.

Grandpa Trent and Clara played the guitar together.

Grandma Trent showing Clara her garden and smelling the sweet basil leaves.


We visited Tom's Grandma also. Clara had so much fun riding around on her walker.

Clara's looking older isn't she? Her hair is growing longer and getting thicker.

The interviews in Fort Smith went well and we were treated so kindly by the hospital staff. We had a very nice dinner over at the ER director's house and we (Clara included) got to take a four-wheeler ride through the forest, over some streams, and to a fast rolling river. It was a little nerve wracking with Clara not buckled and bouncing around on her Dad's lap, however, she seemed to enjoy the ride. I wish I had some pictures, but I didn't think about bringing the camera that night.
We are home again and life is getting back to normal. I will be blogging more often so check back with me soon!

Cutie Pie

A few cute pictures of Clara playing around yesterday.

Mommy's Helper

Clara has been doing a little work around the house. I guess she feels like it's time to pull her weight around this place :)

I think she's worked hard enough to earn some new pajamas - ones that actually fit.

Driving Miss Clara

I mentioned in a recent post about Clara's interest in driving. She lunges for the driver's seat when I go to put her in her carseat. I let her get behind the wheel today and she ate it up.

Final Recap - Trip to Arkansas

This is my last recap of our trip before I start blogging about the present. I'm going to keep these four days as short and sweet as possible:) After returning from Portland, we spent one night at home and then left the next day on another airplane trip to northwest Arkansas.

Being in his last year of residency, Tom is in the process of figuring out (in his words) where to get a real job :) We are interested in northwest Ark. due to its proximity to family, good schools, major university, and outdoor opportunities. There are also a ton of restaurants, good shopping and an abundance of nice homes.

Tom had a couple of interviews and dinners set up so we asked my grandparents to come over and stay with us. They live about two hours away and were more than happy to help us with Clara since we didn't want to bring her to dinner with us. Remember how Clara got sick at the end of our Portland trip? Well, Tom and I were hit soon after. We got to Arkansas Monday afternoon. We had a dinner that night and I started to feel kind of uncomfortable there...by 10:00 that night I was seeing my dinner all over again and it wasn't pretty. By 4:00 in the morning, Tom was in pretty bad shape too.

Unfortunately for Tom, he had interviews all day. Somehow he mustered the strength and composure to get showered and dressed up in suit and tie. In between interviews he was hitting the bathroom pretty hard. I really felt so bad for him. By the end of tuesday he was wiped out.

During this time, my grandparents were so, so helpful with Clara. They kept her happy by playing and walking together and also made several trips to restaurants and wal-mart to get her food. To make matters a little worse, hurricane Gustav decided to hang out over the entire state of Arkansas spewing its wrath. We were stuck in overcast skies and heavy rain our whole trip.

By Wednesday evening, my grandma was also sick with the same bug. Tom and I knew exactly how she felt and we hated it for her. Tom had another dinner that night, but this time I stayed home due to everyone's illnesses.

Overall the trip was a success - Tom attended his interviews, they went well and he could potentially work at either place. Things didn't go exactly as planned, but we did get to look around the area a little and we liked a lot of what we saw. Also, my grandfather must have a stellar immune system. He never caught the bug like the rest of us.

Here are a couple pictures of me when I wasn't feeling too hot...

Day 6: Drive to Portland, Fly to Chicago

There wasn't a lot of excitement this day, mostly housekeeping and airport stuff.

We did some laundry at a laundramat, packed up all our stuff, and drove North to Portland.

However, a couple frustrating events took place this day...

1) We drove around for 30 minutes looking for a gas station and couldn't find one. Not a one. Of course when we returned the rental car (half full) the friendly rental car guy said there was a place two minutes from there. We were cutting our flight close and couldn't take the time to go find it. 6.99 a gallon. Ugh.

2) We had so much stuff...I think we checked 5 bags and had 5 or 6 carryons. Traveling with a baby adds considerable amounts of stuff. It was a hassle lugging this crud through the airport.

3) Clara's off and on crying for 3 hours of the flight. She finally crashed the last hour of the flight. The other passengers shot looks at us...they were about as unhappy as Clara. Luckily - we didn't see any big alligator tears from them. The flight was not very full and by the end of it, most passengers had moved towards the back of the plane. We were sitting up front.

4) Waiting for the hotel van to pick us up from the airport took a looooonnnnng time. Then, when it finally came, the driver crammed in about 10 too many passengers. Poor Clara - she is beyond tired at this point. It's 10:30 pm.

Needless to say, we were all ready to go to sleep when we finally got checked in around 11:00 pm.

The next day we got up and took a bus ride home. Clara came down with a stomach bug (which Tom and I would later get) and through up all over both of us. We felt so bad for her - she was miserable, exhausted, and looked terrible. She ended up falling asleep for the majority of the bus ride.

On a more positive note, Tom and I both felt this was a great trip!! We were very pleased with how it all worked out and were happy to see a different part of the country. It was fun traveling together and taking Clara on her first family vacation. She really is a good traveler. and Tom and I learned she is much more flexible with her sleeping that we originally thought. Thank goodness! It's fun to expose Clara to things we love - hiking, the outdoors, seeing new things, and in doing this, we hope she comes to love these things also.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and reading about our adventures.

Day 5: Redwood Forest

We started off the day with a short drive south to visit a redwood tree that you can actually drive through. Somehow, the tree sustained some damage during a storm back in the 70's, and a hole was carved out of the tree. The tree is still alive.




Later on we went to the Stout redwood grove. There was a short hike along a paved path with massive redwoods everywhere. These giants are so imposing and as the wind picks up a little you can hear them creaking and bending. Clara enjoyed walking around on her own and saying hi to the other visitors.







These last two pictures are of the roots of an overturned tree. I'm not sure what possessed me to want to climb up and into the roots, but Tom snapped a picture so I thought I would share it :)


After the Redwood Forest, we drove to Eugene, OR and spent the night. Eugene is the home of the University of Oregon. We stayed close to campus and ate at one of the local pizza joints for dinner.