Dan

I am always posting about Claire, so I decided I should write something about Dan!  Lately Dan has really gotten into being an entrepreneur on the side, his most recent idea is a math game called Arithmedice!  It's a great game to teach math and would make a good teacher gift too.  You can see it on Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Arithmedice-Math-Dice-Game/dp/B00INA8ZBA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393650538&sr=8-1&keywords=arithmedice

I'm not posting this in hopes that you will buy it, I just think it's great Dan got an idea and made it happen.  Yay for Dan!

12 months

I've been meaning to write this post all month!  Claire is now 1 year old!  I also failed to take 12 month pictures of her, so I am just using her birthday photos.  Here is our sweet little 1 year old:

12 month facts:

• At 12 months Claire was 19 lbs and 28 inches.  
• Claire understands a lot more of what we say... she knows what I'm talking about when I ask her if she wants milk, wants to get dressed, go outside, wear a bow, eat, give a hug, or if she wants her pacifier. 
• She is learning more body parts and will point to her hair, eyes, nose, face, and head.  
• Sometimes when I blow on her food she will blow on it too.  
• She loves to open and close the cupboards and tries to pull things out.  
• She has started to stand by herself for a few seconds without holding on to anything.  
• Claire knows how to sign "more". 
• She added a few new words to her vocabulary including "nana" for banana and "papa" for grandpa. 
• Claire loves giving Dan and me big cheesy grins and we love it!
• Claire gets so excited when she pushes her walker around the house...  in fact, she likes pushing lots of things so she can walk including her play table, kid chairs, her stroller, and the laundry basket.
• She is very busy and is usually always moving, especially when I'm trying to change her diaper or her clothes.  
• Sometimes when we are done praying it sounds like Claire says "amen" too.  
• Claire likes to laugh when we laugh.  
• Claire climbed all of our stairs (which is a lot!) all by herself. 
• She loves climbing on our treadmill even though she knows she's not supposed to.  
• Claire has these 2 toy phones and she always throws them down the stairs.  Every single day!  
• She loves books with flaps she can lift.  
• Claire says "bye bye" a lot and sometimes "hi".
• When she is done eating she throws her food on the floor.  
• She loved all of the attention she got at her birthday party.  
• Claire ate her whole cupcake at her birthday and was so excited about it!  

We love Claire so much!  This year went by so fast.  She is such a fun, sweet little girl.  We love her cute personality and are amazed at the things she learns.  We are so happy she is in our family!  

1

Happy Birthday to our sweet, beautiful baby Claire!  We love you soooo much!  You have brought so much joy into our family this past year.  Your name means "light" and you truly are a light in our family.  We feel so blessed to be your parents.  Hope you've had a very fun 1st birthday!!!

Love,
Mom & Dad :)

Almost 1!

For Christmas I got a DSLR camera, something I have wanted for a while now.  I really haven't had a chance to use it, but today I finally decided to read the manual (as well as lots of online tutorials) and set up a little birthday photo shoot with Claire.  I purchased a new lens for my camera after talking to a few photographer friends and I attempted to take some photos of sweet Claire.  I'm no professional, but these pictures are definitely an upgrade from my usual iphone photos.

Here's a sneak peak at what I got:

i love this cute little face!

Can you believe she'll be 1 in 10 days???  Time flies!  In fact, today was her due date.  More birthday pics to be posted on her actual birthday :).