Summer time is busy and this last month has been a big one for Clara. It was full of milestones, growth, and lots of action. So, let's get right to the updates.
Clara's first milestone was teeth. Clara got her first two teeth this past month. They are her front bottom ones. She had been working hard on them for what seemed like forever, drooling and gnawing on everything. They finally popped through and are almost half way up now. She looks so cute when she smiles and you can see them, but it is a little sad that her gummy smile is gone forever.
two little teeth popping through
Clara's second milestone is she is on the move - crawling! Oh my goodness is crawling a game changer. We thought it was going to happen a lot sooner since she had been getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth on them for over a month. She finally learned how to move her hands and legs. She is sort of mechanical in how she does it. Dad says she looks like a wind up toy.
This little bird is getting into everything. She loves to chew on electrical cords, so we have had to place pillows in front of the couch so that she doesn't pull on the ones for the lamps. We suppose that we could get rid of the lamps and just sit in the dark.
As far as other appearance changes, Clara's hair is finally growing growing growing. It seemed like it was on pause for a little while, but it is really starting to come in. It looks extra sweet when she has a headband on. It's almost time for barrettes!
sweet stuff
As far as things going on, we had a busy month. We started by celebrating father's day by taking dad out to his favorite restaurant, 1808 American Bistro. We attended a week of kid's VBS at our church. Clara loved the music and sat and clapped along learning about God through an interactive children's play. On the last day, her and her brothers got to dress up as their favorite character, so they decided to dress up as the tree frogs.
tree frogs
We decided to hang out at home for the 4th of July weekend. We went to the Sunbury bi-centennial parade. The boys were so excited to have candy thrown at them and to see all of the tractors. Clara just watched and took a short nap on dad. We also got some smoke fireworks and sparklers, grilled out, and had our own celebration at home.
at the parade
independence day
The boys attended zoo camp, so Clar got to have a fun zoo day with just mom. We walked around and saw pretty much everything. Clara got a short nap in the stroller. There were quite a few different baby animals to see so Clara fit right in - baby tigers, a baby polar bear, and baby chimpanzees.
sleepy girl
checking out the manatees
Right before the Independence day weekend, mom found out that one of her dear college friends had lost her fight with cancer. We made the trip to Indiana to attend her celebration ceremony and burial. It was a hard, yet beautiful weekend spent remembering our sweet friend and catching up with old ones. This was Clara's first really big car trip. She did fantastic, despite being off schedule due to so much traveling. She was a little fussy in the car, but that is to be expected when you spend 16 hours in the car over 3 days. We stayed that night in Indianapolis with our friend Robin and Peter on the way home. The kids enjoyed playing with the Kim boys and hope that they will come visit us soon.
We also had fun learning new things. We went to a metro parks program on fireflies. Mom attended a weekly women's bible study, so Clara and the boys get to go to adventure camp every Thursday morning. This was the first time that mom put Clara in nursery. She did great. Clara also got to hang out with mom while she watched the brothers go to swimming lessons for two weeks. We made trips to the park, play dates, went to a local farm for story time, and went to COSI for the big truck show, . We are so lucky she is go-with-the-flow, because often times she has to be being the third child. We spent the rest of our days playing at home. Clara loves to sit and look at books (and chew on them). She also loves playing with the little people farm set and bounces up and down to the music. She has become really independent and is able to entertain herself and spend long periods of time playing with the same toy (10-20 minutes!). She loves to watch Daniel Tiger with the boys when they watch it, although mom is no fun and doesn't typically let her.
Clara is such a joy.
There are so many things we don't want to forget about this age: the way she rubs her fists into her face when she is tired, the way her cheeks press out when she sleeps, the way she puts her head down and crawls to mom as fast as she can when she sees her, the way she cackles when she is tickled, the way that she rolls onto her side and lays there looking nonchalant, the way that when she is on her tummy she wiggles her legs and bottom while keeping her arms and head still, the way she squints her eyes and shows just her two little bottom teeth when she smiles, the way she puts anything she finds into her mouth, but doesn't fuss when you take it away, the way she pushes away from you when she doesn't want to be held anymore, the way she has mastered the pincer grasp and expertly gets puffs into her mouth, or uses it to pinch your arm and leave a bruise, the way she smiles at everyone she knows but takes time to warm up to strangers, the way she flaps her arms when she is excited. We just love this girl so much.
We never thought we would have nicknames for our children, but we do. Clara already has quite a few. Eventually most of them will fall away and we will stick with one or two, but hers are:
birdy - because she likes to flap her arms up and down
clarabelle - because her name is shorter, it's nice to have a longer version that adds beautiful to your name. mom sometimes goes by annabelle.
baby bella - short for clarabelle
This has been another blessed month with our sweet daughter.
