2 Months!!

Two Months!! 

Weight: 9.52 lbs (18%) 

Length: 22.36 in (51%)

Head: 15 in (35%)

Clara is 2 months old!! Where has the time gone!!

Mr. Fish is cracking her up! 

Serious girl! 

Here are a few things about our sweet little girl:

-The majority of the time she would rather be held when she is awake rather than being set down somewhere.  She does tolerate her bouncing chair as a substitute most of the time.  If she is laid on the floor on her back she only lasts about 5 minutes max unless Calin is laying down next to her then she will last longer.  She is getting better though the last two weeks and will lay on her back for longer stretches in the morning and early afternoon.

-She has a fussy time starting in the early evening and stretches until about 11 or 12.  She does not like to be put down hardly at all (although this too is getting better), she often seems uncomfortable and eats more often, she takes short little cat naps until finally settling down for the night around 11 or 12.   Robby and I take turns doing the "Clara Dance" (she likes to have you standing up and bouncing her around), changing her diaper, etc. until she'll finally go down for the night.

-Once she goes to sleep she sleeps for about 4-5 hours (this just started the last 2 weeks-before then she only went 2-3 hours).  She wakes up to eat then goes right back to sleep (she has done this since she was born) and will then sleep another 2-3 hours.  She wakes up around 6 or 7 to eat again.  Depending on the day she will sometimes wake up for an hour or so and then go back to sleep for a long morning nap or she will go back to sleep for another couple hours.  I am grateful for the long morning naps so I can get up and get Calin breakfast and often get myself ready for the day before she gets up to eat again around 9 or 10.   Last night she treated us to a 7 1/2 hour sleep!! Go Clara! Keep it up!

I love it when she makes this face! 

-She eats every 2-3 hours usually 3 hours in the morning and then gets closer to 2 as the day goes on.

-She occasionally needs a little extra formula after her 6 or 7pm feeding and most nights has some formula after her 9 or 10 feeding. (Rarely is it more than an ounce).

-Clara LOVES Calin and lights up whenever he is around or she can hear him.  If he making noise and she isn't eating she is looking to find out where he is.

-The last couple weeks she is smiling more and more.  I think she saves her best smiles for Dad.

-When she is awake and full and being held or propped up and happy she loves to "visit".  She has the cutest little coos and caws and we love to hear her "talk".

-She makes a lot of noise when she eats. She "mmmm" "mmm"'s her way through most feedings.

-She also makes a lot of noise when she sleeps.  Lots of little moans and "mmm"s and such similar to when she's eating.

I love all her faces, even her serious ones! 

-Clara also loves to be swaddled.  She is often calmed down if you wrap her up burrito tight in her blanket.  She has been sleeping longer (the jump to 4-5 hours since I have been using the velcro swaddles that she can't get out of).

-She poops like a pro! (This is significant for us after having Calin who did not poop as a baby and we had to use suppositories.)  We didn't know you could go through diapers this fast!! ;)

How can you resist that chubby cheek little smile!!?  Tongue sticking out and all! 

-If we call her anything besides Clara it is usually "Miss Clara".   Robby sometimes calls her "Clara Bell" and now I often hear him calling her "Miss Clara Bell".   He loves her as much as she loves him!

-Her face lights up when she hears us singing or music playing.

Working out those arms and doing some boxing! 

-Knows and recognizes Mom, Dad, and Calin's voices

-Now that she will lay on her back better we read stories more often with her.  She is really starting to like story time and gets and happy and kicks and wiggles while we read.

-Loves to be outside

-She is pretty good at putting her self to sleep for naps in the morning and early afternoon (before fussy time).  I can leave her on the floor or in her bouncer or sometimes in her bed (I think she likes the noise Calin and I make and doesn't like to be alone and quiet) and she will fuss a little bit until she falls asleep).

She has been making fists lately and really concentrating on them with her eyes.  It's pretty funny! 

-She loves to be naked or just in her diaper or onesie.  She just kicks and wiggles a ton and love to be "free"!

-Seems to really enjoy bath time and having the warm water poured over her.

-She's had a clogged tear duct since she was born.  Poor girl! We have to wipe and rub it a lot every day to keep it clean.   That's why her right eye looks red and puffy in some of these pictures. :(

We are so blessed to have this sweet girl in our life.  She and Calin are going to be quite the pair! Love these two!

She loves him so much! He can usually put a smile on her face! 

He loves her so much!  Loves to give her hugs and kisses! 

LOVE these two cuties!! 

Easter Weekend

Saturday of Easter weekend was a fun filled busy day.  That morning Robby and Calin went to a car show in Hurricane to look at old cool cars.   They of course had a great time looking at old cool cars!

When they got home we loaded up with a picnic lunch to go to the park to roll Easter eggs with Robby's family.  This is a tradition that they have done every year with their colored eggs.  They find a sand hill to roll the eggs down.  They used to make jumps and tunnels and such.  However, due to road changes and housing developments we haven't found a good hill the few years I have done it with them.  To me it's just rolling eggs down a hill until they are completely demolished.  This is very sad to me because then how do you have eggs salad sandwiches and deviled eggs?? I guess they always made lots and saved some for that.  

While Calin and Robby rolled eggs with everyone,  I sat up in the shade feeding Clara.  This was our afternoon view.  

Happy and full! 

Deep in thought. 

After our picnic lunch and rolling eggs we went home to let Calin have a nap and to get ready for a night of hot wheels racing.  

Story time with Dad while Calin was napping.  

We had Robby's family over for pizza and Robby set up his new track and we had a good night of racing! 

So many cars!! I think Calin and Cash will be good car playing buds!

We still have no furniture in our basement so everyone was on the floor or in the few folding chairs we had down there. 

Gracie visiting with Clara

Calin waiting to race his cars.  

Sunday morning we had our own very small egg hunt inside for Calin.  Some of the eggs had candy but the rest had pretzels and teddy grahams (he loves these two "nacks" together).  He was so excited and was hilarious to watch getting so excited about finding the eggs.   He was also thrilled with the cars and books that the easter bunny brought him in his basket.  

Ever since easter he refers to the easter bunny as "that bunny rabbit".  He mostly says this when he talks about where we got the cars that he and Robby both got in their Easter baskets.  

  

We enjoyed a nice day at church.  Robby gave a talk since the talks somehow didn't get called and so the bishopric had to take over.  He spoke on the atonement.  Everyone said his talk was really good.  I only heard parts of it due to my distraction watching Clara and Calin.  After church I raced home with the kids to cook some potatoes and get Clara fed.  Then we went to Robby's parents for dinner with his family.  We also had another egg hunt outside with the cousins.   We did manage to snap some pictures of Robby and Calin just before dinner but Clara was asleep.  We wanted to get some more later of the whole family but forgot until after everyone was already out of clothes and into pajamas.  We did get a couple of just Clara in her Easter dress.  

Calin and Dad 

This boy is getting so grown up!  Love that smile! 

Her facial expressions! Love this girl! 

Robby had school off on Monday and we were going to go to red cliffs to do a little picnic lunch and a little hike.  Robby's parents came with us. However, it was super busy and parking was not available so we would have had to wait to go into the area for a parking space to open up.  We just decided to drive off another road and find our own little spot.  It ended up being a great afternoon! 

 

After eating our lunch and avoiding lots of ants everyone hiked up this little mountain while I finished feeding Clara. 

We made it! 

We then ventured across the road to hike down to a stream.  However, the hike down was really rough and I was nervous to do it with Clara in the baby bjorn so I stayed up with Robby's mom. 

Calin had a blast throwing rocks in the stream. 

 

It was a great weekend full of lots of fun and also a great time for us to reflect on our Savior and all that we have to be thankful for because of Him. We are so blessed to have two beautiful children and to be able to be with them forever.  

Calin

I have wanted to do a post about Calin for a long time.  He has been growing and changing so much since his 18 month appointment and he daily amazes and surprises us with the things he says and does.  He has learned so many things and shows us daily how smart of a little boy he is.

-In January at only 19 months old he showed us that he could count to 10!

-He had shown on and off that he knew his colors, but starting in December he was getting pretty sure of each color and labeling them correctly.  By January/February he had his colors down pretty good!

-He loves singing songs and has a fantastic memory.  It usually only takes singing the song with him a couple of times and he has it down.  One Sunday I asked him what songs he sang in nursery.  As usual he didn't answer but then as he was busy playing he started singing "I love grandma, yes sire..." I was impressed that he had remembered this song and part of how it went since in nursery would have been the first time he ever heard that song.   He has quite a repertoire of songs and can sing most of the lyrics on his own.  Very impressive

Calin singing "Latter Day Prophets".  He can sing it all on his own and much better than this, but this was what I was able to capture on video. 

This is part two.  I couldn't send the whole video from my phone so I had to break it up. 

Other favorite songs that Calin likes to sing:
       -America the Beautiful
       -Star Spangled Banner (he has been known to sing this over and over very loudly and sometimes all day long and occasionally at inappropriate times such as during Summer's Dad's speech at her wedding)
       -Amazing Grace (whenever I tell him to sing a song to Clara he usually picks this one)
       -Take Me Out to the Ball Game (he sang the whole song on his own tonight at bedtime)
       -Blue Suede Shoes (or as he says "blue white shoes")
       -Hound Dog
       -Teddy Bear (by Elvis)
       -In the Leafy Treetops
       -Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam
       -Give Said the Little Stream
       -I Hope They Call Me on a Mission
       -Latter Day Prophets (this was probably one of the first songs I heard him sing all the way through with all the words!)
       -Wise Man and the Foolish Man (loves to sing this in his high chair and do all the motions)
       -Down in Jungle Town
       -Down by the Banks
       -Zipedee Doo Da
       -Book of Mormon Stories
       -Nephi's Courage
I have probably forgotten a lot of them, but this list gives a pretty good idea of his lengthy number of songs he can sing.

-Just recently Calin started going down for his naps on his own (I know, it should have been a long time ago, but we take what we can get).  I am finally able to put him in his crib, close the door, and leave him in there to go to sleep.

-While face timing one night I told my parents I got Calin new c-r-a-y-o-n-s (spelling it out so he wouldn't know what I was talking about)  He then went to kitchen saying "mom got calin e-i-o's".  He knew that I had gotten him something and was smart enough to know I was spelling and then tried to do his own spelling with his own mix of letters.  He really amazes us sometimes!

-His understanding of the world and the way he views how things work is often very hilarious.  He had a little plastic water bottle from when we had gone hiking.  He played with the empty bottle for a few days until I hadn't seen him playing with it anymore and I threw it away.  He found the lid for it a few days later and asked for "that little cup".   I then had to tell him it was in the garbage.  He said "go get it" and went to go look in the garbage but I told him no it went in the big garbage and then into the garbage truck and then to the dump.  So then he said "mom and Calin go in car go at the dump get cup put lid on cup".  I then had to explain about the dump and why we couldn't do that.

-Calin often thinks things can be fixed very easily (particularly with tape or glue) when they get broken.

-He also thinks that when he needs/wants something we don't have then we need to go to the store to get it.  I was telling him one day about why Clara couldn't eat one of his crackers and told him she didn't have any teeth.  He then said "Mom and Calin go at store get Clara some teeth then Clara have cracker".  He kills me!

-He loves to know or have a plan about what is going to happen that day or for a certain event.  He will then go over it several times with you.  He is very thorough and will repeat each detail of what is happening.  Most days I will tell him each of the things that will happen before Dad gets home (he looks forward to Dad coming home every day).  Throughout the day he will go over the plan and is even able to modify it based on what has already happened and takes that out of the "plan".  He will also do this for little things like when someone is leaving he will find out where they are going or what they are doing and then repeats it to them several times.  Our neighbor Alisha came by to drop something off and was on her way home to "put Dylan to bed".  Calin proceeded to tell us and Alisha several time that "Alisha go home put Dylan to bed".

-He loves his little sister and showers her with hugs and kisses.  He is so good to sing to her whenever she is sad "Clara sad sing her a song.  Sing oh beautiful for spacious skies.  she likes that song".  (That's his song of choice whenever she is sad).  He repeats everything we say about him and Clara.  "That's your big brother Calin" (he says it like that to her)  "She loves you",  "She likes that big brother Calin" "She's looking at you".

-He still says "you" for himself.  I still think it's pretty cute even though we work on trying to straighten the you me confusion out.


I'm sure there's many more things I could say about Calin but it's taken me so long to get this post done he is now almost two.  I will try to get more into that post about our awesome little boy!