Firsts

Only a few days after her 9 month checkup Claire started to drool more and not sleep as well... and we've discovered the culprit. Her once toothless grins are being replaced with some pearly whites. :)

Also, remember how I said she had taken a falling step once but we weren't counting it? Well, I've changed my mind. I'm counting it as her first step because she is quickly learning to take more and more. :) (hope the video works, it was being a booger to load!)

I can't believe how fast she's learning and growing! She's becoming more and more of a little girl and less of a baby. :)

Fun at the Zoo

Since Scott has spring semester off of school we decided to have some of our summer fun a little early. So we packed up Claire and headed to the zoo in Salt Lake City. She won't ever remember this zoo trip, but we sure will! We had a lot of fun seeing all the animals ourselves and trying to point them out to Claire. :)


Most of the time Claire was more interested in the other kids looking at the animals than at the animals themselves. That Rhino was so close, only a few feet away with just some glass in between, but Claire is actually looking at a little girl a little below her. :)

We saw some of mommy's favorites... the elephants and giraffes!! I realized seeing them up close, how weird and funny looking my favorites are, but I still like them. :)


We saw the tigers...they were all taking naps when we saw them, so they weren't as exciting...but the sign made us laugh. :)


Claire kept wanting to get down and walk around, but as soon as we put her down to walk, she usually finds something to look at and she'll sit in the middle of the road. We saw these ducks with the baby ducks following and she wanted to walk closer to them. I had to actually hold her back because the big ducks were hissing at us. :)


I think our favorite part was seeing the monkeys. They were the most interactive. The one monkey came right up to the window and looked at Claire! I don't know if she even noticed it looking at her though, she was staring at the kid next to us. :)

And of course we had to do the whole comparison pictures... Claire's pretty close to the actual monkey size, don't you think? :)


It was a fun trip overall. Can't wait to do it again when she's a bit older! :)

Three Quarters of a Year Already?!

Ready for some more fun facts about Emily Claire?


1. She's 9 months old now! That's three quarters of a year old. That's as long as I was pregnant with her. We have now known her longer out of my tummy than in! :)

2. She weighs 16 lbs 10.5 ounces and is now 27 and a quarter inches tall. Not a whole lot different from last time but still growing slow and steady.

3. She's in the 25th percentile for weight and 5oth percentile for height. My guess is that she'll be tall and skinny... or taller than me anyway. :)


4. Claire is crawling and cruising everywhere. She's even taken a few falling steps towards us... I don't know if we can really count them as her first steps though. :)

5. She'll give us kisses if she's in a good mood. Open mouthed and wet, but so cute!


6. She's also waving goodbye now. She's been waving her little arm occasionally for a little while, but just recently she does it when we are saying goodbye to anyone or when we are putting her to bed.

7. She loves solid food as long as it's something mommy and daddy are eating. She wants anything off of our plates. She doesn't like the gerber foods very much unless it's the finger food snacks. I wonder if it's a texture thing that she got from me... :)


8. She likes to blow on her food. I think she's seen me blow on some things I've given her to cool them off and now she thinks she should do it to everything she eats. She'll even blow on me occasionally when I'm nursing her, it's kinda funny. :)

9. She sleeps really well now. From about 8pm to 7am. She'll usually only wake up once during the night and if I can't get her to fall back to sleep right away she usually gets to come to bed with mommy and daddy. I don't mind at all, cuz she sleeps so much better with us, but Scott has gotten kicked off by her a few times... she just likes her space. :)


10. She's usually super happy. She loves to be around people, loves to be outside, loves her baths and loves swimming. She is still a momma's girl and doesn't like to be too far from me, but she still has fun with others and loves to play with friends and family. She's such a joy to us and growing so quickly. Before we know it she'll be a whole year old! :)

tulips galore!

the weather was finally warm. after two weeks of wanting so badly to go, but being hampered by snow and plain bitter cold, we finally made our way to the tulip festival at thanksgiving point.

of course anytime we head up north for anything, we have to stop at fazoli's for some food. we really like fazoli's, and we sure do love those bread sticks. unfortunately they closed the only one here in provo, so we sadly only get some fazoli's when our travels take us up near salt lake. it was a good lunch before heading off to the gardens.

claire loved all the flowers. well she always loves being outside. we are definitely excited for the summer so we can spend some more time out in the sun.


thanksgiving point will always hold a special place in our hearts. we first visited the gardens on the day i proposed to amber (it was a major step in "operation: woo amber"), so when we get the chance, we love to go back for a stroll among the beautiful flowers. an extra bonus for us is that tulips were amber's bouquet at our wedding, so it made it even more special that the gardens were featuring a quarter of a million tulips for the festival. good times.

April C's

I'm going to keep this month short. I did everything, but we also kept busy this month playing and doing things. Claire's also learning all sorts of new things so I've kept pretty busy with her too, which doesn't leave a lot of time for projects. :)

Cook: I've always loved quesadillas when we go out to eat, but when we'd make them at home they would usually consist of just cheese. Boring. I found a recipe for these Chicken Ranch Quesadillas though, and they were delicious. :)


Create: I've been wanting to make curtains for Claire's room for a long time (we had been using a blanket to keep her room nice and dark for naps). I figured curtains would be fairly easy to do... and they were pretty easy, I finished them with black out lining and everything. Only problem was when I hung them up they somehow turned out to be too small! :( I must of measured horribly wrong or something cuz they are just not wide or long enough. I'm still counting them as my finished project for April but I do plan on fixing them... Just need to figure out how... :)


Capture: Scott's brother and wife came down to visit for the weekend and let me take pictures of them. We went to this old, run down pallet factory site for a more urban look. It was tons of fun and I really did learn a lot from doing these. Take a look at the rest on my photoblog.

a week of easter

this easter holiday has happily extended itself for much longer than the single day on the calendar would suggest. the festivities began the monday before as we spent the evening at mom and dad mcclellan's house for a wonderful dinner and an intense easter egg hunt. i would like to thank claire for writing such a fantastic blog chronicling the event - she is so talented at such a young age. :) since then the fun has only continued.

the rest of the week continued fairly uneventfully. on saturday i had my final tackle football game of the year. half of my team couldn't make it, which left me playing qb against a team of behemoths, behind a depleted o-line, with no subs, already sore from a brutal game the week before. i took quite a few hits. later that day, beaten and broken as i was, we were able to enjoy the company of some of our closest friends as we celebrated jake and katie's baby's first birthday. we had some pizza, ate some gluten-free cupcakes, and enjoyed good times with our circle of friends. i can't believe how fast these kids are growing!


the next day, after raiding our easter baskets of all their candy, we got dressed in our easter sunday best (my girls looked so beautiful in their matching outfits) and headed off to church for the last time. okay, that's a little misleading, but it sets up our next little story. we have been in this "married student ward" since we first got married two and a half years ago. it's been a good ward. we haven't made a whole lot of close friends (amber and i are just too darn shy sometimes), but we have come to know some really great people. but the church has decided to do away with a lot of the student wards in favor of more family wards. as with any change, we find ourselves both excited and nervous at the same time. we will definitely dearly miss those with whom we have come to know.


later that evening we headed over to my brother's house for easter dinner and some family time. we enjoyed a delicious ham dinner with corn and potatoes and the best rolls. mmmm. thank you so much ken and sherry. and thank you becca for an easter basket for claire - you're the best aunt. :) the next day we headed up to the lehi pool to enjoy some swimming and to hang out with our friends chance, sarah, and their little one. claire definitely enjoys her baths, and she had fun last time we went swimming, but she seemed to absolutely love it this time! she had a blast splashing everyone she could. i think our little girl is going to be a swimmer.


while that officially concludes "easter week" for us, we still have some other activities planned. we bought an easter egg dying kit the other day and plan on painting us some eggs here real soon. and we will be heading up to thanksgiving point soon to enjoy the tulip festival. we're pretty excited about that. and while all these fun activities and easter egg hunts and candy galore make the holiday a blast, we would be amiss to not mention the real reason behind the holiday - the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ. very little in this life can equal the peace and comfort that comes from the knowledge that our family will be together forever thanks to the resurrection of our Lord. we know that death is not the end of the story, only the end of one chapter, with many more chapters to come. amber and i testify that Christ has risen from the tomb and broken the bands of death for us all. we echo the words of the prophet joseph smith:

"And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!" (d&c 76:22)

A McClellan Easter Egg Hunt (from Claire's Perspective)

Earlier this week mom and dad packed me away in my car seat for like the bazillionth time that day. I screamed, cried, begged them to take me out but it was no use, we kept driving. So I did the only other thing I could think of doing... I fell asleep. When I woke up though, I found myself at grandma and grandpa McClellan's house! I was so happy to see so many of my cousins there and they seemed pretty excited and happy to see me too. :)

We all ate dinner first, then I got to play with my cousins for a little bit. I even taught my cousin Kylie a new trick!

After a while mom got pretty excited and picked me up and we all went down into the basement for some reason. And then we just waited.


In the basement everyone just sat or stood around. My cousins ran around me and danced and the adults all talked...I didn't see Grandma, Uncle Daniel and Aunt Lia though. I wonder where they were...


And then...it was crazy! Everyone went upstairs and started tearing apart grandma's house! They seemed to be looking for things. They looked up high and down low, they opened cupboards and closets... and they kept yelling "I found one!"


I didn't really see the big deal until Daddy picked me up and pointed to some kind of little green ball. To humor him I decided to try and pick it up. It wasn't too heavy and it rattled a little. Then Daddy opened it up and I found something else inside. It was pretty interesting but I guess I'll never know what it was cuz it was taken away. :( At least they let me keep the ball. :)

With Daddy's help I found a few of those round toys, which I guess are actually called "eggs". My cousins opened their eggs and kept finding things inside. At one point my cousin gave me something brown and a little squishy. I don't know what it was (I think my mom called it a tootsie roll), but it looked good... I almost got it into my mouth before mommy snatched it away!

After a while all the craziness died down and everyone started packing things up. I said goodbye to my cousins and then mommy and daddy packed me away again in the dreaded carseat and we all went home. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the fun time we had! :)