Growin' on up

Clementine is becoming such a big girl lately. It's all happening so fast now! The new things she does and says each day blow my mind!
Lately she's been very into her personal care. She wants to brush her own teeth and her own hair, wash her own hands and face, etc. Here she is the other night brushing her teeth and washing up before bedtime.



Here comes the fake spit!


Clementine has also been into helping as she gets dressed or undressed. Here she is after nap as she tried to undress herself



These next few pictures gross me out but may have been the highlight of Cameron's Christmas! Everyone knows that I don't *love* meat, especially red meat. I have even argued that my teeth don't even tear into meat (I swear I was meant to be a herbivore). That posed a big problem when I settled down with Meat's biggest fan.
We wondered which way our offspring would go. Needless to say, she went the way of her father.
Here she is on Christmas eve. She had her own sliced up pieces of roast on her plate--most of which she had already devoured at this point. She hungrily picked up a HUGE (and obviously rare) piece of beef and tore into it like a hungry lion cub. I dared not take this slice away as I feared for my extremities!


She actually ate the meat just fine but made a huge mess in doing so. Cam was so proud he had to document our little carnivore!

I guess this is just one more step in becoming an independent little lady!

Jingle Bells

Clementine is definitely in the Christmas spirit!

Here she is as we were finishing up lunch today singing Jingle Bells. Well, at least the memorable part of Jingle Bells--"HEY!"

O' Tanenbaum...O' Tanenbaum

We put up our tree last weekend and Jack's been going bananas ever since. Those blinking lights do something to him! This is our first tree in our new house, of course. But it's also my first ever live tree AND the first tree we've had together in about 4 or 5 years! We have very few ornaments to decorate the tree, but what we do have...well, they are ALL Cam.
We have Yoda:

And Chewbacca and the shiny dude:

And what Christmas tree is complete w/o Superman??

I plan to find some scrapbooking, celebrity-gossip-represented, Starbucks and cupcake ornaments ASAP.

Cookie Party 2009

Today we had our 1st Annual Christmas Cookie Party! Cam wasn't feeling so hot so he was in charge of photography. Clem and I both donned our super cute aprons just in case we got messy (we did).

This little icing "pen" was supposed to be for drawing on our cookies. Instead, Clem first tried stabbing it into her cookie to make polka dots. Then she discovered that sticking the end in her mouth would just cut out the middle-man and disperse sugary goodness with immediate results.

This green sprinkler shaker just DUMPED sprinkles everywhere. Clementine loved it! She had about 2 inches of sprinkles on one of her cookies. We saved that one for Daddy.

Santa Train (aka Stand In Line alot Train)

Today was the day! We had planned this day for months--our first trip on Santa Train! We have been talking and reading about trains, we even rented the Polar Express in preparation for Clementine's first train journey.
Earlier today we headed down to North Bend to meet up with Sissy, Patrick and Nolan at the train depot. The babies were very excited.
We stood in line waiting for the train to arrive. Clementine was very excited right off the bat.

The train ride from North Bend to Snoqualmie was fun and very silly. Our super busy girl just isn't used to standing in lines and sitting still on trains.

I held Clem on my lap for awhile then it was Daddy's turn. While Cam was holding our girl one of the volunteers came up RIGHT behind them. He was decked out in a strand of blinking Christmas lights--I knew we were in for some real fun! He had a microphone and started singing Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. Loudly. And directly behind Cam's head.

Here is Nolan's expression during carol-singing. He was a little confused.

Clementine was not confused. She knows this carol very well but wanted no part of the microphone holding, blinking light bedazzled man. She got as far away from this guy as she could--while still remaining in Cam's lap.

Then we got off the train and stood in another line. This one was a DOOOZY! It was the line to see Santa! We were there for a very very long time. Clem is one busy 2 year old so this was today's challenge. We each tried holding her. Cam put her on his shoulders. There was a coloring station, music and a random golden retriever hanging about. I had brought many many different snacks for our girl. But Clem had her mind set on climbing, running and being rambunctious. She stayed busy while we were in line, but she really did a lot better than I had anticipated!

She did pause to look at the miniature town under glass at the depot.

All that waiting in line...and we finally met Santa. He was a great Santa; no loud HO HO HOs. He was very soft spoken and asked Clementine as we walked up to him what she wanted for Christmas.

Just as she did with the caroler on the train, Clementine wanted as far away from this strange man as possible. She was practically scaling my body to get away. So we whispered to Santa a few things on our wishlist. Then gave Nolan a turn (I can't wait to see these pictures). Clementine never did sit on Santa's lap.

We got some great pictures of the babies during our journey today and we got some super goofy ones as well!

These are always my favorites:

Here she is checking to see how well I brushed this morning.

Cam is NOT being hurt in this picture, he is mugging for the camera! He's very convincing though!

It's a little hard to see in this picture but Clementine has a hot chocolate beard to go along with her hot chocolate jowls. LOVE this face!!!

Giggly Girl

Last night Clementine was eating away when something hilarious happened. Only she knows what kind of hilarity sparked this but I love it and I hope it happens more often!

A Few Random Clem Pictures

Here is my baby's belly! It's so cute! She's not really doing anything here but I just love her belly sticking out--and the love handles! Don't get me started! Can you see the curly-q in the back of her hair? Last night, Cam and I decided to paint our hallway brown. So after a quick trip into town to our favorite store (Home Depot) we came back to tape while Clementine was still up. She is in a "I must help you" stage right now so I gave her a strip of painters tape to "help". I thought for sure the cat was going to get it, but Clementine stuck to the same wall I was working on! She's so thoughtful!

When we're done painting we'll post new pictures of the brown hallway. It looks fantastic! :)

First Dentist's Visit

Clementine's first visit to the Dentist went off without a hitch! She was a superstar at the Dentist's office and the hygenists and receptionists loved her! (how could they not?) This office is only for children and they sure know what they're doing. It was great because that put us all at ease! Actually, Clementine was at ease from the moment she walked in the door. She wanted to walk in by herself, so we opened the door for her and she marched right up to the receptionist's table where there were about five ladies waiting to begin the day. She smiled and said "HI!" to every single lady standing there then went to play in the play area. She's such a character!

This children's Dentist's office had all kinds of stuff for kids her age. A puppet with dentures so Clem could brush it's teeth, sunglasses to wear, a mirror for her to hold. It was fabulous.

The day was a total success, Clem's teeth and gums are healthy and she loves brushing her teeth by herself. We did learn that Clementine still has about 4 more teeth due to arrive any minute now. Here I thought we were done with teething!

November, A Retrospective

This is Clementine in November 2007. She is nearly a month old. We hardly knew her at this point! She slept all the time and was struggling to eat or keep weight on. Our family of three was totally sleep deprived and were just starting to figure stuff out. At this point I had to nurse Clementine on a strict two hour schedule. When I wasn't nursing, I was pumping. We did this all day and all night long. I remember just camping out in the living room thinking I'd never get to sleep again! She was just barely 6 pounds here! Here is Clementine in November 2008. Still bald but we could tell she'd be a blondie. In this picture Clementine was "cruising" the furniture but she had learned to walk about a week previous. She was sleeping through the night (at long last) but was still struggling to keep weight on (she did not inherit this from me). She had just weened herself and was desperate to start eating big people food (and bottles of formula). We started to see glimpses of her personality here: very silly and goofy, a big time animal lover and stubborness that rivals only Cam's.

And now here is my big girl, sitting at the table in a big girl chair (no booster or high chair for this independent minded bug) drinking milk from a glass (sippies are for babies, she says). She finally has hair! She is a big time talker and she has a BIG personality. She is so sweet, so sensitive, a great friend to her classmates and very passionate. She loves to make everyone around her laugh. She loves to help mama and daddy, she gives drive-by-snuggles and is still desperate to be a big kid. She is getting two year old molars and she no longer struggles, at all of 32 pounds, to keep weight on (she's discovered carbs).

This little girl is our pride and joy.

Dreaming of Warm Weather

Blustery winter weather has us stuck in the house and we are thinking about the days when we could play at the park all the live-long day! Here's a classic video of Cam and Clementine playing chase at our all time favorite park last summer.

Practically Perfect in Every Way

This week was Clementine's 2 year old physical at the Pediatrician's. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Clementine is in the 95th per centile for height (36 inches exactly) and weight (32lb 1oz)! At least she's proportionate! She's come a long way from the 5.5 pound baby we brought home from the hospital over two years ago!! Clementine is by far the tallest toddler in her class at school, she is also the youngest!
I had a minor concern regarding her speech which I shared with the Doc. She is still babbling more than speaking; I understand most of what she's saying but her speech is still really basic. Doc said she's fine--more than fine, actually! With >65 words mastered (thank goodness that animal names and sounds count) she's above average for two year old communication. Just goes to show how much I know! Average for two years old is 20-50 words. Huh.

She also had her H1N1 immunization yesterday and at the time it didn't phase her at all! I mean, she didn't even seem to notice the poke--even the nurse was surprised! Today is a different story with lots of soreness, wimpering and a low grade fever. Poor little bug laid it on thick this morning--so I took the day off to snuggle with her.

Next up is a visit with the dentist! That should be exciting!!

Another Silly Routine

When Clementine switched to drinking from a cup we noticed how little liquid she actually consumes. So to get her to drink more, we started giving Cheers at dinner. Throughout the meal one of the three of us will say "CHEERS!" and we all clink glasses then take a drink. Clementine loves it and she's actually getting some liquids into her body now!

Halloween 2009

We had such a great Halloween this year! Clem dressed up as her all time favorite animal: a COW!!
Downtown's businesses had trick or treating during the daytime which fit perfectly for this little bug's--or cow's, I suppose--bedtime!

We went downtown after nap and went store to store trick or treating. We ran into several friends downtown (they took that first picture up top) and one asked Clementine "What does a cow say?" to which she replied "PLEASE," She'd been practicing saying please since "trick or treat" is a mouthful! Love this little girl!!!!

Clementine got several lollipops, which she can eat, and shared the rest with mom and dad. She had a lollipop as we went around to all the stores. This was her first real candy experience and you can see she just went into a candy coma!

Since we were downtown we decided to get a potato burrito at Casa Que Pasa. While we waited these two sat on a bench cracking each other up! I think the sugar caught up to them!

After downtown, we were sticky with lollipop slobber and worn out! But I begged for one last picture on our haybales on the porch.

Jack would only wear his Cowboy costume for a few seconds and he did not enjoy it this year. I was desperate to get a picture of my Cowboy and baby Cow together. This is as good as it got:

After that, we changed and took baths and Clementine helped me pass out candy to the 800,000,000 trick or treaters that came to our house. She loved putting candy into kids' sacks and saying "Bye bye" and closing the door. It was a fabulous Halloween!

Clementine is a born actress. She loves to perform, especially for new audience members. Aunty Kelly came up for Clem's birthday last week and Clem had her act all worked out. The main staple of her show consisted of wind sprints. Clementine would run as fast as she could from one end of the room to the other and all of us would cheer.

I love the arm movements while she runs. This kid is funny.

Then and Now

At the pumpkin patch in 2008

And 2009

I really cannot wrap my mind around the fact that Clementine is two! TWO years old! She is getting to be such a big girl now. We timed Clementine's party to come right after her nap. She woke up a few minutes before people came over to discover our present to her: a red kitchen! She was so excited!

She loves her kitchen ALMOST as much as she loved the balloons around the house

She paused just long enough to open one gift from her buddy Kyah, then she was off zooming around the house again.

Cousin Nolan came to the party showing his cow-spirit!

A good time was had by all. We ate lots of goodies, opened presents and had cake and ice cream.

And the birthday girl was one worn out two year old by the end