A Photographer I Am Not

On Tuesday, I thought that I might take some pictures of Claire that I could frame. Well, I'm going to have to try again this weekend when Tim is with me and we can do it outside with better lighting. Here are my attempts:

A little this way, Mom

What is my Mother doin'?

Kickin' it

Here...This is my best side.

Yo! This is whack!

I've had enough!

Almost There

Claire, on Monday, got us so excited. She was so close to rolling over from her back to her front. Here are some pictures:

She got really squirmy in my lap and was burying her head so we thought she might want some tummy time.

Look at that head control!

Almost...

That was a lot of hard work.

Claire at 10 W eeks

I can not believe that my baby girl will be 11 weeks tomorrow! Three months have gone by so fast and she is growing and changing so fast!

Claire's week:

• Claire this past week had another day of frequency feedings which I did not expect since she had one the week before but she is growing a lot so she does need the extra nutrition.
  
• She continues to make new cooing noises which are a lot of fun. We try to mimic them back to her and she'll respond with another sound. It is a fun game. The past couple of weeks she has also been making noises that sound like early attempts at laughter. She smiles and laughs with so much exuberance that it just melts my heart every time.
• She has been able to successfully get her thumb in her mouth and keep it there.
  
• The past couple of weeks has also seen her rolling over on to her side. She'll bring her knees up and rock side to side.
  
• Yesterday, she sat in her Bumbo seat for the first time. She held her head up well and looked around the room as if she did it every day.
  
• She had her first bath in her tub. I think she enjoyed it, as well.

Her Mimi and Granddaddy came to visit this weekend and we had a great time. Claire got to watch her first Auburn football game and she also got to bake her first cake with Mimi. It was so much fun and it was hard to watch them leave on Sunday.

Here are pictures from this week:

Still loving bath time.

Thumbs are so yummy!

Watching football.

Holding Granddaddy's hand.

War eagle!


Baking a chocolate sour cream pound cake with Mimi! It was delicious!

Claire and Mimi at 10 weeks

Claire and Mimi at 1 week.

Saying good bye but see you real soon.

Claire in her Bumbo seat.
(I know the outfit is mismatched. She had just exploded out of her diaper and this was what was close by for the quick change.)

Claire at 9 Weeks

This post is a little bit late but we've been out of town. Claire at 9 weeks has been building on all the skills she has acquired: head control, hand-eye coordination, cooing, etc. She has become more successful at getting her hand to her mouth and is even able to just suck on her thumb but it only lasts for a quick second and then her arm moves on her again. She is definitely talking more. I can sit and have a delightful conversation with her. She has even started making new noises and it is quite adorable.

We took Claire on her first really big road trip this weekend and she handled it like a champ. We went and visited Tim's family and we celebrated the birthdays of Katherine, 9, Thomas, 2, Atticus and Isaiah, 1. Claire adjusted to the new environment and increased noise well. She got up earlier than usual while we were there so I was worried about what would happen after we got home but she went right back into her routine. We were quite busy while there but Claire didn't fuss about it at all. She just went along with it. We had a great time. It was really nice to see everyone.

Check out the slideshow below for more about our visit. To view captions, click on the slideshow and then click on slideshow in the upper left-hand corner. You can also check out Becky's and Carrie's blogs for more.

I Love A Bargain

There's a blog I've been frequenting recently that has started saving me a lot of money. It is called Fiddledeedee Mom. I used it a couple of weeks ago to plan my trip to Publix. I ended up getting 8 containers of yogurt for $.25 and a box of Kashi cereal for $1. It was so much fun! Recently, she mentioned that on Books-A-Million's website there is a bargain books section that is really fantastic so I went and took a look. I could not believe the bargains. For gifts for our niece and nephews, I mostly do books. Well, they had tons of children's books for $1.77 or $2.67 so I stocked up for Christmas. I bought nearly fifty books for less than $80 and got free shipping. So a word to my sisters-in-law, if you want to order some books for your kids, check with me first to see if I already got it. Oh, and I placed this order on Monday and part of my order is already on the way and should be delivered today. It already feels like Christmas!

9 Week Growth Spurt

I wasn't expecting another growth spurt until three months but she sure is in the midst of another one this week. I realized this yesterday when she started eating every two hours in the morning. The night before that she was eating nearly every hour starting at 3:00. I thought that was due to the fact that she was sleeping so much later and needed to tank up. It may be a combination of the two. Either way, she has all the signs: increased appetite, sleepiness, and some crankiness. I hope this is a short one because she is wearing me out. It zaps a lot of my energy to feed her so much. I think I've lost another pound this week.

In other news, I had to let go of my job yesterday. Tim and I have had some discussion recently regarding my going back to work and him working from home and we both realized that it just wouldn't work. Claire requires a lot more attention than he can give her while he is working.

I went to Samford yesterday to buy a used exersaucer for Claire and stopped in at the library for a visit. My boss was very understanding. In fact, she actually said before I did that I probably wouldn't be returning to work. She was so understanding. She has a daughter of her own and knows how much work babies are at this age and how much they need their mothers. I appreciated that.

Big Girl Move

So this week Claire has decided to change her routine now that I finally posted it. I'm not complaining, though. This is a big step. She slept in Monday morning until 6:30 and this morning until 7:30. I believe that she may have slept longer this morning because we had her in her pack n' play under the ceiling fan which she loves to stare at. We had her in the pack n' play to see how well she would handle it for upcoming trips. Apparently, it won't be a problem. As a result of her sleeping in, she now wants to nurse every hour from 5:00 until bed time. It took a while for me to figure out last night why she was so fussy. Well, she was trying to tank up so she could sleep in. Yesterday morning, she did not go back to sleep very well after eating at 6:30 but this morning she had no trouble and I think she may be getting ready to wake up in a minute.

Have a great week!