Tag Archives: Claire Elizabeth

4 Months Old!

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Claire 4 Months

Ummm hello! Didn’t I just write Claire’s 3 month update?!?! Time keeps going by faster and faster, I can barely keep up!

I feel like I start this post the same every time but we are falling more and more in love with Claire. She is so cute and adorable that we can’t get enough of her. She is constantly making us smile.

Here’s the rundown on 4 month old Claire:

  • Weight: 13 pounds 3 ounces – as of her 4 month birthday, September 8.
  • Loves: Seeing herself in the mirror, hanging out on her tummy, eating her fist and fingers, and Sophie la giraffe (teething toy).  She gets soo happy when Zoe is around and is truly fascinated by her.  We got her one of those keys teething toys and she loves it. We give it to her when we’re in the car and I always tell her when I’m putting her in the carseat, “Don’t forget your keys. We’ll need those to drive!”. 🙂 She also loves hanging out in the baby carrier facing out. Which also means, she does not enjoy the Moby Wrap anymore. She’s interested in seeing what’s going on and does not enjoy having to stare at our chests. She still loves to talk a bunch which is the cutest thing in the whole world. She also loves grabbing the pacifier loop and taking it out of her mouth to wave it around. I don’t know why but I’m so entertained by seeing her hold her pacifier. It’s so cute seeing her hold things. Okay you caught me, everything she does is the cutest thing in the whole world.
  • Hates: Baths! Oh dear does she hate them. If you were in another room when we’re trying to give Claire a bath, you would think we’re torturing her. Poor girl is not a fan. We really want to bring her in the pool but I’m afraid she’s going to scream bloody murder. She really is the happiest baby except when she’s hungry, tired, or… you guessed it, getting a bath.
  • Talents: She’s started to reach out for things which means she once in a while gets a handful of Zoe’s hair and she grabbed Zoe’s nose the other day. Zoe looked so surprised but handled it very well. Such a good puppy. When Claire’s on her tummy, she’ll get up on her knees and try to move. We think scooting is in her near future. She just recently discovered her feet and loves holding them whenever she’s laying on her back. I don’t know why, but I was so excited for her to discover her feet so I’m very entertained by this new talent. It’s sooo adorable. It made taking the picture this month a little more challenging though because that, combined with her rolling over, made her a moving target!
  • Sleeping: Sleeping hasn’t changed much. We’re trying to put her down a bit earlier now (around 9pm) and I know that’s late for some people but she does not appreciate being put down before that. She reacts in a way that makes us think she’s saying, “What the heck! I thought we were having so much fun and now you want me to sleep!?!?”. Once we put her down, she wakes up once or twice if her pacifier falls out so we’ll put it back in and then she generally sleeps until 4:30am. Not too shabby! Oh and, I don’t want to jinx it, but three nights in the last week she slept the WHOLE night. Meaning, from about 9pm to 6:30am. To say it was glorious is an understatement.
  • Other Random Facts:
    • She is the queen of drooling. I really don’t know how such a tiny individual can produce so much drool. Like I said last month, we think she’s teething. No sign of any teeth popping out yet though.
    • Have other mom’s had people ask you if your baby is a good eater? I think that’s the strangest question but I get it all the time. Yes, she enjoys eating…What else do I say? And she is still exclusively being breastfed.
    • Our doctor gave us the go-ahead to feed her solids. He recommended starting with rice cereal so we might be doing that soon. We haven’t decided exactly when we’ll start but probably soon. She’s so interested in watching us eat now which is one of the signs they tell you to look for when they’re ready.
    • She falls asleep in the car whenever we drive somewhere so if we run a lot of errands in one weekend or drive a couple hours somewhere, it totally throws off her schedule. It’s almost as if she gets jetlag… except without the jet. She sleeps way longer than normal the next few days and is very lethargic. We’re going to try to avoid any long driving trips as much as possible because it really screws her up.

Other than that, I’m reminded every day how lucky I am to be the mommy of such a little angel. She really is the best.

3 Months Old!

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3 Months

Claire turned 3 months old on Friday, August 8th! She is changing and learning so much every day. CJ and I really can’t get enough of her and we find ourselves saying, “She’s so cute” approximately a million times a day. She keeps us laughing and smiling constantly and is such a joy to be around.

As far as how Claire is at 3 months old, here’s the lowdown:

  • Weight: We’ll know her exact weight when we go in for her next checkup on Monday the 18th so I’m not positive how much she weighs. I’m guessing she’s a little over 12 pounds but don’t quote me on that. Our scale at home is not too accurate so we just have to wait until the next doctor visit.
  • Loves: Tummy time and rolling over. Now that she can roll over, she spends most of her time hanging out on her tummy. She also loves eating her fist and talking. I’m guessing we’ll need unlimited minutes for her cell phone when she gets one (in a million years) because she’s quite a talker already. I take SO many videos of her talking because I can’t get enough and want to hear it all the time. I wish I could know what she is saying. She still loves standing and is very curious so she likes to be held facing out so she can see all the action. She also loves being outside, ceiling fans, her BabyBjorn chair, and her burp rags. It’s so funny how she’s gotten attached to her burp rags but we can only assume it’s because she always has one near her for any spit up emergencies and they probably smell like us.
  • Hates: Not being fed on time. She likes to eat every 2 hours and 15 minutes on the dot and she will DEFINITELY tell us even if we’re a minute late. I’m not sure who gave her a watch but she’s quite amazing at telling how long it’s been!
  • Talents: Rolling over! She LOVES it so much. If we put her to bed and she’s not drowsy enough, she immediately roll over to her tummy and have a little party in her crib talking. I can’t even tell you how cute it is to walk into her room and see her adorable little face looking up at us.
  • Sleeping: She now sleeps in her crib, yay! We started putting her in her crib around 2 weeks ago and it’s been going pretty well. As far as how long she sleeps, it varies. If we’ve had a busy day and she hasn’t gotten any solid naps, she gets overtired and tends to wake up more. Other nights, she’ll sleep for 7 straight hours. Those are the nights we look forward to. 😉
  • Other Random Facts:
    • She gets really smiley when she first sees me or CJ. She loves her mommy and daddy. 🙂
    • She is starting to fall asleep when we’re driving again. She went through a phase where she didn’t like it but now she’s okay with it. She’ll hang out and talk for a while, suck on her fist, and then pass out.
    • We think she’s teething because she is drooling constantly. She also gets upset sometimes and we can only assume it’s from the teething pain because feeding, changing her diaper, and trying to put her to sleep doesn’t help.
    • She’s getting more and more interested in Zoe which is so cute. She stares at her and occasionally smiles when Zoe runs past her.
    • I started work again this week and everything is going pretty well. I definitely cried on Day 1 though… multiple times.

2 Months Old!

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2 Months Old!

It really feels like yesterday that we had the one month photoshoot for Claire and here I am writing her two month update. People tell you it goes by fast but, seriously, it really does. Well, to be honest, the first two weeks were the longest two weeks of my life but after that, time flew by. Every day we fall more in love with Claire and are so amazed that we brought such a beautiful little life into this world.

What’s Claire like at two months old now? Well…

  • Weight: I haven’t weighed her since last Tuesday but she was 10 pounds 8 ounces then. I’m guessing she’s around 11 pounds now.
  • Loves: Standing. She can’t stand on her own, obviously, but she loves when we hold her up to stand. She’s able to look around more, stare at her feet, and feel like a big girl. If we try to lay her down when she’s in the mood to stand, she is not happy about it.
  • Hates: Madonna music. Seriously, I’m not kidding. When it comes on the radio, she immediately starts crying and when we change the song, she stops. It is SO hilarious!
  • Talents: Projectile spit up. When we were about to leave our B&B for my niece’s wedding, we placed her in her carseat, tucked her in with a nice blanket, and were about to pick up the carseat to head to the car when what it seems like a garden-hose-like force of spit up flew out of her mouth. We were surprised but the look on her face was priceless. CJ and I immediately started laughing. She has the best facial expressions.
  • Sleeping: Not much has changed in this area. She still wakes up once in the middle of the night around 3:00/4:00am and then again around 7:00/8:00am. We’re lucky it’s not more often but I’m sure it will happen occasionally when she’s going through a growth spurt.
  • Other Random Facts:
    • She gets overwhelmed when around a bunch of people that are ooogling over her. She stays calm while it’s happening but by the end of the day she hits a sensory overload and then the infamous “witching hour” that we’ve heard of begins. We try to keep visits from people pretty short so she doesn’t get too overwhelmed.
    • She’s the most smiley and talkative during her 3:00/4:00am feeding and first thing in the morning. It makes waking up in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning so worth it and I look forward to those little smiles.
    • She’s starting to enjoy her activity play mat and is starting to swat at the toys hanging above her. It’s so fun to see her entertaining herself with toys.

Daddy daughter time

Other than that, I think it goes without saying that we are head over heels in love with our little girl.

In other news, Claire has gained a new furry best friend named Zoe. Pictures to come soon. 🙂

Claire’s Nursery Reveal

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Some of you may be curious about what Claire’s nursery looks like. We are in love with it (and I like to think Claire is too ;)) and are still working on adding some final enhancements to make it perfect. It’s hard to say when a room is ever “done” but hers has been pretty much done for a while. We just want to take it to the next level.

Right now, this is what Claire’s nursery looks like:

Claire's Nursery! This is the view when you enter the room.

Claire’s Nursery! This is the view when you enter the room.

Crib, glider, and corner photo gallery

Crib, glider, and corner photo gallery

Her changing table

Her changing table

As far as where we got the items for her room – it’s a mixture of Pottery Barn Kids, Amazon, Target, Buy Buy Baby, Cost Plus World Market, and a few other random websites. We wanted her nursery to have a gray and soft yellow color scheme and we also wanted it to be classy and feminine. I’m a little obsessed with Pottery Barn Kids rooms so we used their design style as our inspiration.

The “C” in the gallery wall was a DIY project. We bought a wooden letter from Michaels, painted it yellow, wrapped it in lace, painted the canvas a light gray, and then hot glued it to the canvas. I’ll have to see if I took pictures through the process and maybe I’ll do a blog post on it. It was super easy and turned out so cute!

As far as what we are still planning on doing to her room – we want to add a bookshelf and hang a few pictures.

We feel like she needs a bookshelf in her nursery to keep all the children’s books she has and add a little extra decor. It’s taken quite a while to find the perfect one but we finally found one and ordered it a couple days ago. We can’t wait for it to arrive in a couple weeks. It will also be the perfect location for her baby monitor to sit.

We bought a frame from Pottery Barn Kids that has a space for a picture of every month of her first year so we’re thinking about hanging that to the right of the window. We’re planning on putting the bookcase to the right of the crib (it’s a white corner bookcase) and are still deciding what we want to hang above the crib. We have several ideas that I’ve mocked up in PhotoShop but we’re still not sure which one would look best. Stay tuned. 🙂

And because a post about Claire is never complete without a photo of our beautiful girl, here’s one of our little family on Father’s Day!

First Father's Day

 

We hope you have fun plans for the upcoming 4th of July weekend!

 

What’s in a Name

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When CJ and I first found out we were expecting, we immediately jumped into coming up with name options for both a boy and a girl. We had a ton of names on our girl list but not so many on the boy list. For some reason, coming up with a boy name was too difficult for us (maybe that was a sign that we were expecting a girl?). But anyway, we went through our list of names for girls and kept narrowing it down and then expanding it when we found a new one that was a contender. We tried to imagine what name would fit best when I read someone’s blog post about how they came up with their daughter’s name and it really resonated with me (and CJ too, once I told him about it).  I wish I could find that post because she was so eloquent with how she explained her reasoning but allow me to try in my own words…

emily0314

Claire. A name that I’ve known since I was four years old when I first met my best friend. Claire was magnetic even then. A person that you would look up to and admire even if you were decades older. When I moved to California, I feared that we would lose touch but we never did. In fact, we became closer. She is that friend that you can talk to once a year and it’s like no time has passed. She’s one of my heroes even though she’s only 3 months older than me. She’s the type of friend where you don’t have to say a word but she knows exactly what you’re thinking. She has supported me and been there for me no matter what. Not to mention, she is strong and independent and so incredibly accomplished. She knows what she wants and will do what it takes to make it a reality. I’ve never met someone who doesn’t love Claire and I don’t think I ever will.

When CJ and I were coming up with names and I read that blog post that I mentioned, I told CJ about it right away and we agreed immediately – if we want our daughter to be like anyone in the world, it’s Claire. She’s kind, caring, driven, independent, inspiring, and most of all – the best friend you could ever ask for. So we decided then and there, even before we knew we were having a girl, that if we were having a girl, her name would be Claire Elizabeth. Claire, because we hope that our daughter will grow up to be like the powerful and wonderful person that she’s named after. Elizabeth, because I’ve always loved my middle name and the names sound beautiful together. Not to mention, we hope she’s a bit like me too. 😉 It also works out perfectly because her name has both of our initials, C and E.

Our Claire <3

Our Claire ❤

So there you go, now you know how we decided on her beautiful name. 🙂

Claire and I at my 16th birthday party

Claire and I at my 16th birthday party

So cheers to every friend out there that inspires you to be a better person! Those friends are the ones that you should hold onto and never take for granted.