Claire is 4 months old and growing like a weed! Well, okay, not a weed. Weeds are bad things. Um... growing like... a bacterial culture? No, that's worse. What's something good that grows quickly? I'm drawing a blank. If you think of a good simile, let me know.
Where was I... oh yeah! My sweet little Claire is getting so chubby and beautiful! She really has a personality all her own. She's a little shy about smiling at new people so if someone starts talking to her and smiling at her, she'll duck her head and grin into her shoulder. It's freaking adorable.
If she wants something, boy, you better know what it is that she wants and get it to her pronto. Otherwise you get the cute little complaining cry that means she expects better service.
The Great Sleep Deprivation has been getting better. Claire slept through the night twice this week and she's consistently sleeping for two 4-hour periods per night with a snack and sometimes a diaper change in between. She still loves her swing and we've gotten into a good routine of diaper change, swaddle, bottle, burp, and bedtime. It's not perfect, but we're surviving. Claire-bear is about 12.5 pounds now and most people say that's a good time to expect her to start sleeping through the night. (Gasp! Could it be?!)
I briefly entertained the idea of trying to sleep train her during my spring break this week, but I don't think I'm ready to let her cry and I don't know if she's ready to give up on the nighttime feeding. Maybe in another month or so. Or maybe I'll chicken out again. Probably the second one.
I know I have a LOT of catching up to do with pictures and everything. So let's get this party started, shall we?
Claire had her baby blessing blessing on February 16th. (I know, I KNOW! I'm a slacker. Stop judging. Just kidding. You would never judge me, would you?)
For those of you who don't know, the baby blessing is a little bit like a Christening, but (without getting too deep into theology here) not essential for salvation. The child's priesthood-holding relatives give the baby a blessing and officially announce his/her name.
This is Claire's blessing dress. I bought a dress and then added things to it from my wedding dress. I scrunched up the sleeves and added a belt and a lace collar.
When I was getting married, I fell in love with the lace and the fabric of my dress. It seemed like a waste to wear such a beautiful dress only once, but I didn't want to save it since I assume that Claire will want her own dress someday. My solution was this: I'm going to cut up my wedding dress and add bits of it to special clothes for my children. (blessing outfits, baptism, temple clothes etc.) I especially like the idea of making each of my kids a handkerchief from my dress when they go through the temple. That way they can have a piece of their family history and I get to use my beautiful dress for something other than gathering dust in a closet.
I made these shoes for Claire out of the satin from my dress. I tried to make them as small as I could and they STILL fell off 20 seconds after I put them on. This child will NOT wear shoes. :)
She looks so innocent, doesn't she? Looks can be deceiving!
THIS is how Claire acted for most of her photoshoot. :)
My trick: Holding a bottle in her mouth until she fell asleep and then pulling the bottle out of the picture and taking shots until she started crying again. :)
Scrunchy face!
I was wearing a BYU sweatshirt and Claire kept staring at the big Y on my chest.
Such a pretty girl!
Claire with Grandpa Wagner!
Mommy, Daddy and Claire getting ready to go to church!
Aunt Katie and Grandpa Wagner.
Some of the friends who came to the luncheon afterwards.
More friends and family
I LOVE this picture of my dad. Yup. He's gonna kill me for posting this.
Claire loves her Uncle Kyle!
Grandpa Denney!
For some strange reason, I didn't get ANY pictures of Claire with her grandmothers on her blessing day. :/
I did get pictures of them with her at other times though!
Look at that sweet lil face! Daawww.
All snuggled up on Grandma's shoulder!
Okay- time for some updated pictures of Miss Claire. I think the last ones I posted were her 1 month portraits. Yikes! So here's the last 3 months in short:
Claire learned to smile, which made 3 a.m. poopy diapers MUCH more bearable. It's truly amazing how much stress, frustration, and sleep-deprivation one little smile can pay for. This picture was one of Claire's first smiles.
A sleeping baby is beautiful in more ways than one.
These pictures were also taken in the wee hours of the morning. I think Claire must know that it's hard to be a good parent at 2 a.m. because she tries to be extra cute.
I usually think Claire looks a lot like Nick, but in this picture I think she looks like me.
So after Claire learned to smile, she would grin all the time, even when she was crying. It made for some pretty entertaining photos. It also made it hard to take her seriously.
You can't tell from this picture, but she actually had tears in her eyes. That's the kind of awesome mom I am. I take pictures of my weeping child.
We tried going to the park on one of my days off of school. Claire had fallen asleep by the time we got there, so she wasn't very excited, but she WAS very warm thanks to her second cousin (?) Annie. (cousin once removed? I have no idea. Where's Dave Craig when I need him?)
Funny story: I was doing laundry and Claire did NOT want to be put down. I needed to carry the clean, warm clothes upstairs, so this was my solution. Claire thought it was an excellent nap spot. The clothes eventually had to be put back in the dryer to get the wrinkles out because there was no way I was going to move her. I also couldn't leave the room because I was worried the basket would tip over if she squirmed.
One of the best parts of my day is picking this little angel up from Michelle's (her babysitter) and watching her face light up when she sees me.
Nick is much better at being a daddy than he ever thought possible. I never doubted him for a second!
Claire finds cameras very interesting, but she will NOT smile for them. She'll be all cute and smiley and then you pull out the camera and BAM! You get pictures of the "curious" face instead of the cute face. Sigh....
My current favorite picture. I think her eyes are going to be brown like daddy, but all of the strawberry-blonde hair she was born with has fallen out and been replaced with something a little darker.
We've also caught some cute moments on video:
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