Fantastic Birthday Celebration

 

 I LOVE the effect of these tissue paper pom pom flowers.  

Much better than the ordinary balloon and even better is the fact that I can use them over and over and over...okay you get the point!

 

No birthday party would be complete without the sweets!

 

Digging into her yummy cupcake...mmmmm!

 Claire definitely knew what to do with her birthday cake...and did she like it!!!!

 

As you can tell Claire had a very busy day...she looks a little tuckered out...Happy Birthday Sweet Pea!

Claire's One!!!

People have said this to me before we started a family "enjoy these moments as they go by so quickly".  And goodness...were they right.  Now I find myself saying this all.of.the.time!    I can recall taking this picture...by the way not even looking through the viewfinder of my DSLR...and when I reviewed it...I knew that I had captured such a beautiful moment between my two daughters.  The look of wonder in Laurens eyes is priceless. 

We have celebrated many surprises with Claire.  I think that the one that sticks out is how at a very young age she seemed like she was going to be the quiet one...but that quickly changed when she started making very loud pterodactyl noises to get our attention.  Now all she has to do is say those sweet little words of 'mamma or dadda' and we are there.  And she can definitely hold her own.  I think that she is going to be one tough little sweetie.

 

And those smiles. You melt us everytime you give us one.   There are so many different ones to choose from.  From the sweet innocent and shy ones to the bold and goofy old man grins.  What a little clown you are. 

 Your so petite.  Many people reference back to me when they see you.  So dainty.

 All of your nicknames include: wiggle worm, squirmy wormy, little peanut, and sweet pea.

 And now you are ONE!  Happy Birthday Claire:)

Here I come!

Claire has been practicing and mastering the art of crawling.  

Army crawling that is.  

Have you ever tried it?

Dragging your body on the ground and moving with most of the help coming from your arms and a bit from your legs.  

Try it...it is hard!!!

And she is quick at it.

Now add to the mix that she is pulling herself up on every.thing...we have a girl on the go!!!

She loves to pull herself up on drawers and suck on the pulls. 

mmmm 

I bet that feels good on her teeth!

So watch out everyone.  She is curious and fast!!!!

FINALLY!!!

Remember this post?

 Well the wait is over...we have teeth!

Claire is *loving* her teeth...mainly because she gets to have yummy puffs!

She also shows them off when she smiles:) which is pretty frequently for her:)

Now we hope that the other pearly whites come in with less pain and less drooling.

good morning

this is what a found this morning again.  

same as yesterday morning...

note: i know you are not suppose to wake a sleeping beauty 

but it was close to 9:00 in the AM.

ma ma!

 

yes that is indeed what she said!

claire's first word is mama! 

i know that she doesn't know what she is saying.

but still!

now all of you mamas out there know that many times a baby's first word is da da!  

not claire's.

she continues to put a smile on my face.

you go girl :)

Oh no!

Note: Wrote this late last night (wednesday)...blogger didn't want to upload video...size was too big i guess. 


I have already failed at my new resolution.  Last week has come and gone and this week...well it is almost the same!  I would totally buy time if I could...oh and could I get some coffee with that too!  Anyways, before I go to bed for the day I am going to give you a cute video of the girls.  That little Claire is a sneaky one.  She may look cute...but she does have alternative motives.  We adore and love her though...even Lauren does in this.  Enjoy!

First baby playdate!

While Lauren joined my sister Allison, her husband Carson, their daughter Brooklyn and my Mom and Dad and my youngest sister Andrea and her boyfriend Kevin at the circus, I got to babysit the newest addition to my side of our family.

Reegan is so easy to watch. She is just perfect. She eats and sleeps. I guess typical for her age. She also doesn't cry and she loves to snuggle!!!
Claire had the best time hanging out with her. I think so got that there was someone here to play with her. I think Reegan had a great time too!

A new chapter

This first month of having Claire at home has been filled with firsts for her.

First smiles :)
First baths.
First sister moments with Lauren.
There really hasn't had much to adjust to since Claire has just seem to fit into our family perfectly.
Her personality has already shown. She is a very easy.going.baby.
She goes with the flow and at most times is calm and content.
She enjoys attention and listens to every word when she is spoken to.
Right now she is such a little joy to be around.
I think it is safe to say that we are so lucky to have her here with us...part of our family.

baby o baby!!!

i didn't get much sleep last night. surprise surprise! we got up this morning and had to pretty much leave for the hospital to get a big fat needle poked in me! the sheer thought of what was going to happen was far worse then the actual procedure. i worked up a sweat and like my dr said...i wouldn't feel a thing. she was right. after the test i was hooked up to a monitor to see if everything was still great with the baby. we then had to play the waiting game for awhile. we got the green light to go forth with the delivery.
we had a long walk to the birth area of the hospital. i got settled into the room and was hooked up to a pitocin drip. this was about 12:00 in the afternoon. during this i was experiencing contractions but nothing that i couldn't handle. nothing really was happening and it was already 7:00 at night. my dr. came to see what was going on and we decided that the pitocin be stopped and i could rest for the night so that i could have the strength for the next day...when hopefully we would have another baby.
friday morning i started the petocin at 6:00. i continued to have strong and regular contractions but no progress. then at 12:00 my water was broken. this would hopefully get things moving in the right direction. i was experiencing very strong contractions so at about 3:00 i had an epidural. still though at 7:00 at night i was nearly 3cm. my goodness...how much more petocin could i handle? the dr. gave me a choice to either continue with the petocin or have another c-section. i was at the point that i could no longer think about having more petocin in me (my ankles were cankles at this point and swollen tight) and maybe i didn't have the right kind of body to deliver babies. who knows?
so at 7:20 pm Claire Elizabeth Johnson was born. this time around there was not as much pain and was a better experience for me. she was 6lbs. 4 oz. and 20" long. like her sister, claire had lots of hair too! my intuition was wrong! randy said "i told you so" as he had always thought that we were having another girl.
the one cool thing about having a c-section is that in about 20 minutes you are guarenteed a baby if everything goes well. we got to see lauren before we had claire. then while i was in the operating room...lauren was eating dinner. then after, when lauren came back, voila she had a sister. she was so proud of her little sister and i will never forget the look of adoration in her eyes when she saw claire for the first time! oh how proud i am to be the mom of two great little girls!

O my!

july

aug

sept

oct

nov

goodness how big can a preggo person be? well i feel like i have surpassed the size that i was when i was pregnant with lauren. my maternity clothing doesn't even cut it anymore. shirts do not cover where they are suppose to. that poses a problem if i am to go out at all! yikes! i am starting to get really uncomfortable too! muscles are stretching in places where they shouldn't and as my dr. has said...those pains will only get worse! not the best news. so in other words....i am ready to have this baby. we are shooting for having a vbac. i didn't have the best experience with lauren and delivering via c-section. there was pain during the procedure and the recovery was one that i would like to forget. the more people that i talk to the more i am convinced that i want to go forward and try to deliver the "normal" way! time will tell if this is possible.