9 Months

Claire had her 9 month check-up this week. And yes, she's still a giant weighing in at 23.5 lbs (after three days of a nasty stomach bug) and measuring 30 inches in length.



The ledge of the fireplace is her new favorite place to play. I love those thighs. :)



Last weekend Evan's Uncle Mike and Aunt Lisa flew in for the Iowa/Wisconsin game. Claire, as always, loved the attention.

Watching Daddy

Weddings

The last few weeks have been crazy busy but so much fun! We started the month with a trip to Rapid City, South Dakota for a wedding while Claire stayed home with my parents. Here you can see Nana letting Claire do whatever she wants.







That was supposed to be our opportunity to catch up on sleep. Instead we reverted back to our pre-Claire days of staying up way too late!!! But it was so fun catching up with Evan's friends. (Photo props to Cassie.)



The next weekend we ventured to Denver for another wedding and drug Claire along with us. She was such a great traveler and thoroughly enjoyed all of the attention on the plane.



My sister's family met us there.





I probably enjoyed the weekend a little more than Evan since he was on full-time Claire duty while I got to do fun bridesmaid stuff. :) (Photo props to Molly.)



Jason and Whitney are visiting us this weekend so we had to take them where we take all our visitors-to the apple orchard. There also happens to be a pumpkin patch there so Claire picked out her very first pumpkin-whichever pumpkin Evan could find first. :)

8 Months

Claire had her 8 month photo shoot with the adorable quilt made by Evan's Grandma Jo and Aunt Phyllis.






Kim and Kyle were here for the Iowa game. Pretty sure Claire looks more like Kim's daughter than mine.



To address questions regarding Claire's nap nanny...

September

Claire has become mobile seemingly overnight. She crawls all over and pulls herself up on everything. I'm not ready for this!




Here's Claire with her BFF Alleta. They've been playing together the last few Tuesday afternoons. SO fun to watch them interact!

Seven Months

Claire got to spend a week with Grandma Beimers and loved every minute of it. Here they are at the apple orchard.

Summer update

So much has been going on these past few weeks that I don't even know where to begin...it all started with one of us getting antsy to buy a new house-I'll let you guess who that was. :) Our new home backs up to a field which is fantastic for privacy and the view but also means lots of bugs-so many that they attract creatures like this little guy who greeted us one of our first nights here. I had never before seen frogs who could climb windows and screens. Gross!



But we are loving it. Claire especially enjoys staring out the windows at the trees and watching the neighbor kids race by.

A few weekends ago we made the trip to Milwaukee to visit some friends. The guys golfed and spent a day at the PGA golf tournament while the girls took care of the kids. Funny how that works. :) But we had a fantastic time! These photos will give you an idea of the size of our monster child.