You know you’re a SAHM when…

Colleen | March 29, 2008 | Claire, Family | 54 words and 1,082 views | 1 comment

You know you’re a stay at home mom when-
you argue with the check out lady at Target to accept your diaper coupon even though she tells you it’s expired, and you realize you don’t really know what month (or year) it is.

Thank you. Thank you very much.
(Stop laughing at me, Matt!!)

Claire’s first Easter 3/23/08

Colleen | March 26, 2008 | Claire, Family | 1241 words and 1,621 views | 1 comment

We woke up Easter morning, and got Claire dressed in her pretty pink and white dress. We headed to Village Inn to meet Jenn, Jeff, Ashley and my mom for breakfast since Jeff and Ashley were headed back to Kansas after we ate. Claire ate french toast sticks and bananas and impressed everyone with her cute bunny ears. We said bye to Jeff and Ashley and went to church, where Claire played in the nursery and we went to service. We did however give her some time to watch the bigger kids play downstairs in the gym, they were doing a puppet show for Easter and she seemed real interested in the puppets. After service, we headed home to let Claire take a nap. But before she laid down we staged an Easter Egg hunt for her. I filled plastic eggs with Cheerios and dollar bills and put them around the living room (the backyard was soggy) and we helped Claire find them. She happily ate the cheerios (only after shaking the eggs) and we deposited the money in her bank. Then it was naptime… After she rested, Matt, Sooner, Claire and I headed to the park in our neighborhood to throw the frisbee for Sooner and let Claire crawl around in the grass. We also took Meg, Claire’s favorite baby. Claire was having a great time watching Sooner play catch, and other walkers go by. We finished off a great day, with a swing on the swings, and Claire seemed to love it. Not a very traditional Easter as far as ham dinners and Easter baskets filled with candy, but it was a great day filled with family, worship and fun. Hopefully that’s our tradition for our family…
After breakfast, we snapped a quick pic before Jeff had to get on the road…Claire and Grandma Susan at churchJenn and Grandma Susan with the Easter Bunny…The Essers on Easter!Mama and Claire… what a happy girl!Here Claire is showing us her new walking skills. She can stand up by herself but she won’t take any steps unless you are holding her hand.I would say Sooner was having a great day… Her toy is called a flying squirrel.Big girl Claire and Baby Meg in the grass at the park.This would seriously be the cutest picture in the whole entire world… if only there wasn’t a drip of snot running from her nose. I think I need to learn photoshop.Claire pulled over her stroller and was having a blast spinning the wheels and figuring out what all the little straps did.“Hey what’s going on?” Sooner and Daddy were running all around, and Claire had to check it out!Watching Dad and SoonerClaire’s new thing is that she likes to squat down to get a better view of something, or maybe to rest her legs. And then she can push herself up to standing again. She gets a good leg workout going up and down and up and down…This girl is going to love rollercoasters… she loves to swing HIGH in the swings!Daddy was making her laugh….Meg loves to swing too

Going to the zoo 3/21/08

Colleen | March 26, 2008 | Claire, Family | 1152 words and 977 views | no comments

Several of our friends have family passes to the zoo, and until we had Claire we never really considered the zoo to be so fun! But with a little kid who sees everything for the first time… I have to admit it was a blast. I thought Claire would just chill in her stroller and maybe get fussy (we skipped naptime that day). Claire was standing up, pointing, ooohing and ahhhing, clapping at the animals, and looking all around! It’s like we brought her to look at the animals, and the rest of us just went to see her reaction to everything. Jeff, Jennifer and Ashely (Jeff’s girlfriend) joined Claire and I and I know that we will be going back again soon. Claire especially liked the tigers, the fish at the aquarium, the giraffe (they had babies too) and the sea lions since they were making a lot of noise. We didn’t get to see all the animals, but we will go back, especially to visit the petting zoo and to ride the carousel.
Ok, this is not from the zoo. It’s from our hike on Thursday at South Valley Park near Ken Caryl. We joined a new group- The Colorado Mountain Mamas and enjoyed our first hike (2 miles) with the other moms and babies. Claire did very well in her pack.The real polar bears were being boring, but Claire seemed to enjoy the statue of Klondike and Sno. Aunt Jenn helped her pose.Super Baby close up…Aunt Jenn let Claire sit on her shoulders so she could have the best view of the Sea Lion show. We saw “Lucy” jump high and clap and when the show was over, Claire clapped too!At the aquarium, Claire was very interested in the fish swimming around. She wanted to put her face right up to the glass (yuck) but mostly she just pointed and followed them as they swam all around the tanks. SHe didn’t even notice that some of them looked very scary (and were bigger than her!)Since we got Aunt Jenn in to the zoo for free, she treated us to an icecream cone. Claire took a big bite and got a funny look on her face (sooo cold!)How much sense does it make to bring a kid and a stroller, but then carry the kid while someone else pushes an empty stroller? Yeah, I know… but that’s us.Towards the end of the afternoon, it was starting to get cooler and Claire (still not fussy) was acting a little bit tired. She was such a trooper.Claire got her second wind when we went in to the monkey house. They were eating bananas (just like her) and jumping around. She couldn’t figure out why she couldn’t touch them though….Monkeys- come back!The Rickards (Jeff and Jenn) and the Essers (Claire and Co) at the end of Claire’s first zoo trip. Thanks Ashley for taking our picture! What a great day!

Pictures taken 12/21/07 through 1/16/08. Mostly Christmas!

Colleen | March 10, 2008 | Claire, Family | 2920 words and 1,234 views | 1 comment

I’ll catch up eventually. But I don’t want to skip ahead, since we are kind of using this site to help keep track of all of Claire’s happenings, new tricks, etc. I won’t explain much about these pics except to say they are from Christmas. That was 3 months ago. I know. But enjoy.
Claire eating avocados. She seemed to like them.OK, no more! She was getting tired, and after this went down for a nap!We dedicated Claire at church on Dec. 22nd, and she was wearing her Christmas dress. We tried to have Pastor Sheri take a family photo with the trees on stage before service started!During her dedication, they put her cute OU cheerleader pic up on the screen. She was the star for about 3 minutes!She didn’t cry, or scream but she sure did squirm during the last couple minutes of us being up there. This was right around the time when we was starting to crawl, so she only wanted to be on the floor moving all around and not being held!Here’s my mom entertaining Claire at the restaurant after the service. We had about 15 people come out afterwards to visit and help us celebrate.Playing with Uncle Jeff. Claire loves this, but unfortunately Jeff was only home for about a month at Christmas. They sure had fun while he was home though.Feeding Claire sweet potato baby food on Christmas Eve (we went out to eat after church, and yes she is wearing the same dress!) I just thought this pic was funny because of the expression on her face.Christmas Eve- Claire in her dress in front of our Christmas tree. I was procrastinating putting her to bed because she was being so cute and smiley!Claire really officially started crawling on December 24th. She just tooooook off! And from then on, she wouldn’t sit still which it makes it much more difficult to take pictures.Cutie Claire.This girl can find the tiniest piece of carpet fuzz and get in her mouth before you can stop her. Not to mention dog toys, blackberries, remotes, etc.I call this chubbalish.Claire’s first Christmas Morning… getting ready to open her stocking!Um, did I mention the crawling started? Where the heck did Claire go? (Her directional abilities had not quite developed by this point).Jeff was making her dance. And she liked it!Christmas dinner with the Essers and the Rickards.Claire helping Jeff open his gifts.Claire opening one of her many gifts. She got more than most of us put together.The girl loooves to eat paper. Paper towels. Computer paper. And apparently wrapping paper too.This hat didn’t make her happy at first. But she had just woke up from her nap (she slept through dinner!) and she was quite hungry during present-time.Welcome Baby Meg to our family! It took a couple days for us to pick a name for the baby Grandma Susan got Claire, but I (Co) decided that Meg fit. (I love the name but I know Matt won’t let me name our kid that, and the baby just looks like a Meg!)Mommy and the babies, Claire and Meggy.So many presents for such a little girl.Oh! Claire loves to put her mouth on the smooth plastic baby face. I try to get her to KISS the baby but she only wants to slobber and suck on her cheeks! Oh well…Reading stories with Grandma Vicki.Matt got a Nintendo Wii a couple weeks before Christmas, and so this was the center of our entertainment since it was a blizzard out! Grandpa Rick was helping Claire polish her Dance-Dance moves. Some day maybe she’ll look just as silly as Daddy and Uncle Jeff as they goof around on those mats.We got to visit Grandpa John a few days after Christmas since he was out of town during that week. Claire loves to climb all over things/people.PLaying in the laundry basket- even after she got about 200 things for Christmas.Funny face in the basket.PLaying Wii with Daddy.Excuse me, could you tell me whose bath this is? Oh, it’s Claire’s bath. Got it. (thanks to Daddy who picked out the foam letters for Christmas).Mohawk baby.Claire always knows where Sooner is, and viceversa!Very mad at something…Ah yes- much happier now with a duck in her mouth.Mommy, Claire, Meg on the floor, and Sooner too. (Daddy was watching tv- obviously it was Sunday NFL playoffs)We met Sarah at the museum. Last time Claire was barely 3 weeks old, and this time she was crawling around looking in all the dioramas at the animals. Look Monkeys!Learning lots at the museum!I can’t remember why they had these fake goat things, but we decided to ride one anyway!They have a huge dinosaur puzzle and so Claire made friends and helped by moving all the pieces around for them.Of all things, I think she was most interested in the goldfish. Of all things…Mommy and Claire with the HUGE dino!

Skiing with My Dad

Matt | March 5, 2008 | Skiing | 44 words and 861 views | no comments

Again, it’s nice to see so much snow in the middle of summer, so here’s a post from February 29th and March 1st of my dad and I skiing Vail.

It was perfect weather, and not even that cold if I remember correctly.


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