Clare is now three months and she is turning in to such a fun part of our family! She really blossomed this last month and started to give us a glimpse of her personality. We had another busy month that included her first airplane ride, first Christmas, lots of family time and then settling back in to our routine in Oklahoma.
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| Big 3 Month Old! |
Before we headed to Phoenix for Christmas, we opened a bunch of presents at our house in Oklahoma because we didn't want to travel with everything that we got for the kids. I also made the kids take a few pictures dressed up in little Christmas outfits :)
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| Baby in a Stocking! |
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| Such a sweet big brother! |
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| Cuties! |
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| Little Ham :) |
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| Reading the Christmas Story with Daddy |
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| He loved this lion! He started roaring at it :) |
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| Haha! |
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| Smiles for mama! |
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| Big yawn! |
I was very nervous to take both of our kiddos on a plane to go to Phoenix for Christmas. Since I had to nurse Clare, she sat with me and Grayson sat on Julian's lap. I definitely got the easier child! Grayson really wanted to be up moving around and exploring everything. Clare was awake for a lot more of the flight than I expected her to be but she handled it like a champ and we made it with very few tears, no yelling, and only slightly frazzled parents!
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| Waiting to board the plane |
Clare really seemed to have a pretty significant change in how she handled the evenings just before we got to Phoenix which was a blessing because month two had included a lot of crying with eating being her only comfort. She still has some off days but overall she is now a pretty happy baby, even at night.
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| Chatting with Mama! |
This year was our year to spend Christmas with Julian's family in Phoenix. We started out the trip by doing some family pictures at the train park in Scottsdale that were taken by my best friend Jessie. We got some pretty good ones though with two little ones it was tough to get one where everyone looked good! A big thanks to Jessie for taking them!
We went to the Princess resort to tour their very impressive light display which Grayson really loved! He ran around pointing at everything and was just so excited at all of the fun stuff.
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| Lights with Grandpa M |
On Christmas Eve, Julian's family got together for dinner and then we all went to a nice candle lit service at his parent's church. My family ended being in town as well at the last minute because of a program that my younger brother was doing so they joined us for the service and it was really great to have everyone together! I loved being able to see all of our loved ones at the same time. Clare was really adorable at the service, especially during the singing because she just stared up at me with a big smile while I sang the songs down to her! G was happy playing with his unlit candle until his Uncle Joel showed him a lit one and then he was trying his hardest to get a hold of fire. Julian's family opens presents on Christmas Eve so we went back to their house and started opening but we didn't get through a whole lot before everyone got tired so we headed off to bed.
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| Smiles for Grandpa P! |
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| Christmas Eve service! |
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| Sweet baby with her proud Grandma P! |
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| Our Little Family :) |
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| He LOVES t-ball! |
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| Daddy daughter moment |
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| Love this baby! |
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| G with his Grandma M by the fire |
Christmas Day we slept in, opened a few more presents for G and Clare and then we met up with my family at a park. The advantage to Christmas in Arizona is that you can play at the park even in the middle of winter :) Grayson had received a t-ball set for Christmas so he played with that and just generally ran everywhere across the park. Clare got in a nice little snooze in the stroller while everyone else was playing.
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| Playing with Uncle Pat and Uncle Gabe |
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| Aunt Chelsey was trying to teach him how to bat |
After the park, we went back to my in laws house and finished opening presents. It was so much fun to see G get really excited about his presents and have a great time opening them. He got spoiled by everyone with all sorts of fun gifts. His two favorite presents this year were his t-ball set and his Cardinals sweatshirt. He got so excited every time that he looked down at his sweatshirt and saw the Cardinal on it!
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| Reading one of his presents with Grandpa M! |
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| Clare with Uncle Pat! |
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| He loves his Cardinals sweatshirt! |
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| Playing with Coco |
Before we left Phoenix we decided to spend a day at the zoo which was a lot of fun. Grayson is old enough to enjoy seeing the animals now and he just loved running around everywhere. My family and my friend Jessie and her mom came with us so we had a lot of help to keep him safe! He particularly enjoyed the petting zoo which was cute to watch. Clare spent most of the zoo sleeping on various different people. We wanted to take some family pictures at the end of the day but we had to rush through them because she was done with the zoo and Grayson was getting tired.
Julian's parents gave Julian and I a night at a hotel in Scottsdale with them babysitting our kids for us so that we could have a little adult time as one of our Christmas gifts and it was so great! We stayed at the Firesky Resort which was a cool sort of retro hotel. We got a surprise when we checked in and the desk clerk informed us that we were going to be staying in the Presidential Suite! Our room was huge- it had a dining room, a living room and the bedroom. There was a two way fireplace between the dining and living rooms and it was really nice! It was a little hard to be away from the kids, mostly because I was worried that Clare wouldn't have enough milk to last the whole night since she is only breastfed and I didn't have a ton of pumped milk but it worked out! We got together with a bunch of our friends for dinner and then cards that night and it was so nice to have adult time!
We got back to Oklahoma in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with some good friends out here. We didn't make it until midnight but that is pretty standard when you have two very young kids :) The rest of Clare's third month was spent adjusting back to Oklahoma and the freezing cold weather. Clare had a runny/ stuffy nose for several days but she was happy even though it was a little hard for her to breathe! We finished out the month with a quick weekend trip to Tulsa to visit our friends there which was a lot of fun!
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| New Year's Eve with great friends! |
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| Playing with Miss Quinnley |
At three months Clare:
- weighs about 14 1/2 lbs. She is quite a chunk and growing daily!
- is about 24 inches long. It's hard to measure a baby but she is starting to get too long for her pants so I know she has grown.
- wears size 0-3 months but she is definitely getting ready to move up a size since she is so long.
- is sleeping 3-6 hours at a time at night. I'm hoping she will get more consistent soon but I'm grateful for the sleep I am getting. For most of the month she was refusing to sleep anywhere but on me but the last week or so she has been spending at least half of the night in her rock n play so I'm hoping she will continue to get better at that.
- smiles a whole lot more and is just a lot of fun to have around!
- likes her Jaque the Peacock toy best. She really likes all of the colors on it and the crinkle noise that it makes.
- can sit in the Bumbo chair though not for too long at a time.
- seems to enjoy music, especially when we sing and dance with her.
- hates the cold wind in End and lets me know about it!
- loves her baths and likes to kick her legs to splash
- likes her play mat when she is on her back though she still doesn't care for tummy time
- is such a joy to have in our family!
