Busy Busy!

It's been a busy few weeks in the Parker house! Aaron and I have been working hard, and Claire has been playing hard. We took a family trip to New York with my mom at the end of January. We spent two fun days in New York City, enjoying the sights and the energy. Our hotel was smack dab in the middle of Times Square, on the 40th floor, so we had a great view of everything below, but were definitely high enough up to avoid the noise at night. Claire spent a lot of time with my mom while Aaron and I got out and saw the city. We went to the Empire State Building, had dinner overlooking Central Park with my cousin-in-law Kelsey and her adorable daughter Daphne (the ultimate NYC child, she's two and can hail a cab), and went to the Museum of Natural History. And I did make sure that we rode the subway, one of my "must-do's" for NYC. It was everything I ever imagined :) I also got to meet my friend Claudia in person for the first time, which was a lot of fun. After leaving NYC, we spent two days out on Long Island, staying with my grandma. Claire got to meet some of her great aunts and uncles, and had a great time watching the birdies with her GiGi (great grandma). She's a bit obsessed with birdies now. It was a great trip, and we can't wait to take her back up there again, when it's warm!!

I've been busy starting my new business, an Etsy store called Heritage Park Kids. If you've never heard of Etsy, it's a place to buy and sell all things handmade. (their tagline, not mine) I'm selling gifts and clothes for babies and kids. I've only listed a few things, but I'm always working on more, so check back often!! The link is: http://www.etsy.com/shop/heritageparkkids. I'm working on a Facebook fan page (that I will likely ask you to become a fan of) and a store blog. I decided to start it after getting quite a few compliments on the clothes that I've made for Claire. I'm hoping that people will like them enough to buy them!

Claire enjoyed her first real snowfall (the Blizzard of 2010) last weekend. She had a good time looking at the snow, and being held in the snow, but not such a great time walking in the snow, and definitely not a good time making a tiny baby snow angel. (I may or may not have forced her to do that) Unfortunately the snow was all gone by Sunday, and it's back up to 60 degrees this weekend. I'm not complaining about that, I'm kind of over the cold right now!

Claire's first plane ride!

Rockefeller Plaza

4 generations

Enjoying the snow!

Tiny baby snow angel

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family! Love to you all!

We all had a great Christmas this year, fun Christmas Eve with Aaron's side of the family, and then a nice Christmas day with my family. Claire had a great time opening presents, but might have been a bit overwhelmed by all of her new toys. She's having a great time playing with all of them, though! She got a bunch of toys, some very cute clothes, lots of fun videos, and some good books.

My birthday was yesterday, and was also a lot of fun. I spent a bit of time shopping with my mom and Colleen, then we sat around and watched The Office for a while, and then had Japanese for my birthday dinner. We finished off the day by going to Target and stocking up on marked-down Christmas decorations for next year! I like to think that this proves that with age comes maturity, because my absolute LEAST favorite thing to do when I was growing up was to shop for marked-down Christmas decorations on my birthday. Yay me!

Some christmas pics...

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas Eve

Opening Christmas presents

Scooting around her Sesame St busWearing some of her Christmas present jammiesEating mommy's birthday cake for breakfast

Then and Now...

Last year, sweet little baby...

This year, crazy hobo...
To briefly catch up on the last 3 months... Claire is 15 months now. She crawls all over the place, and is finally starting to take a step, but only between the couch and the coffee table. She has a great vocabulary, except the words that she's learned from her father... and some of those are unrepeatable. We're working on manners right now, and she's getting pretty good at please (or "pease" as she says it) and we get a "thank you" every now and then.

We took our second family trip to the beach for Thanksgiving, and Claire loved it. She got to see dolphins, go to a petting zoo, and feed the quack quacks. The beginning of the vacation was a little rough, with her fighting strep throat, but she's over it now, and is back to her typical happy self.




Claire's 15 month appointment went well, she was almost 20lbs, and by now, probably is over 20lbs, finally! She had gotten both versions of the flu shots, so we're hoping she stays healthy for the rest of cold and flu season! Her pediatrician is guessing she'll be walking by the next time she comes in, at 18months. Good lord, I hope so! Her chubby butt is starting to get heavy to carry around.

And one last gratuitous picture, of Claire in her new Christmas skirt!

Claire is ONE!!

Okay, well, Claire turned 1 two weeks ago, but I just haven't updated. Her one year checkup was great, she is up to 17lb 9oz (10th percentile, whoo hoo!). Her doctor was thrilled with her weight gain. She started army crawling a few weeks ago, and today actually did two steps (?) of hands-and-knees crawling. We expect her to be a pretty late walker, but that's okay by me! At least she's still light enough to carry everywhere! She has started climbing all over everything.

We didn't really do a "party" for her birthday, just her grandparents, aunts, and great grandma. She LOVED her cake, and tore into it, after mommy helped her get started. A bath was definitely in order when she was done. She got cute clothes, some fun toys, tons of books, and a few dvd's of her favorite shows.

What else....
-Aaron and I had our 3rd anniversary on August 17th, and went to Longhorn for dinner. Claire loves their mashed potatoes as much as I do!!
-Aaron had ACL surgery 2 weeks ago, and is recovering. It was pretty rough for the first few days, and it's a good thing that we sent Claire up to Nana and Grandpa's, because I would have gone out of my mind trying to take care of both of my babies.
-Claire is "talking" a lot more lately, and actually does have quite a few real words... mama, dada, nana, duck, quack, bye bye, doggie (although it sounds like o-dee), cracker, and a few others that I can't remember right now.
-Football season starts tomorrow! Aaron, as always, is super excited. I'm excited, but not anywhere near the level he's at. But Claire will get to wear her Georgia dress to our friends house to watch the game.
-Claire has her 3rd tooth, up on top, and it is HUGE!! It looks like she skipped the baby tooth, and just went straight to the adult tooth! I think she's in the process of getting her other top front tooth, so hopefully once that is in, the other one won't look so big.

In my "big" news, I am now 1 year into my remission. Not everyone knows this, because I didn't share the store with many people, but when I had my c-section and had Claire, my doctor discovered that hiding behind the cyst that I knew I had was an ovarian tumor. It was removed (the whole ovary) and when the pathology was run on it, the doctor discovered that it was in fact a malignant (cancerous) tumor. I've been seeing an oncologist every three months, and have always been considered a "no evidence of disease" patient. Basically, when they removed the tumor, they basically removed all chance that it would come back. But I have to go to the oncologist for 5 years before it's considered "cured". I actually go back to the doctor on Tuesday for my official 1 year checkup, but expect everything to remain totally normal. According to the doctor, 1 year is a big deal. So yay me.

Now, here are some pictures!

Official 1 year old picture

In her pink tutu
Hee hee, here's my butt!
UGA tutu
In her Georgia dressHer giraffe cake (she loves her giraffe lovey)

Wondering why everyone is singing to her

At the beginning of her cake

And the finished product!

First Beach Trip

Every year our extended family on Aaron's side takes a trip to Grayton Beach in Florida. It's our favorite place to visit, and Claire was actually named after the beach. And no, she was not conceived there, since that's what everyone assumes. This year's trip was probably our best ever, because it was Claire's first trip to a beach! She wasn't too sure about the sand on the first day, but warmed up to it after a few minutes. It's tasty!!

We spent lots of time playing on the beach, hanging out with the family, going to the Red Bar, and shopping, which Claire did not love as much as Mommy did. But she got a ton of cute clothes, so she should be happy! The girl loves her clothes! I got lots of new clothes too :) Gotta spoil yourself every once in a while!!

On the 4th of July, Michelle and I did an impromptu photo shoot on the beach with Jenni the photog, and got a bunch of cute pictures! Jenni bought the girls adorable matching dresses at Strasburg that were perfect for some beachy pics. And I had some fun playing with them on my photoshop!



After the photo shoot (at 7am, the only time you didn't want to die from the heat), we went and watched the Grayton 4th of July parade. Claire watched from Daddy's shoulders, but wasn't too into the parade.

We watched the 4th of July fireworks on the beach, which is really pretty awesome in Grayton. The town in about halfway between Panama City and Destin, so you can see the fireworks from both of them, as well as the ones that are shot from a barge out in the gulf. And there were lots of people shooting fireworks on Grayton's beach too. So there were fireworks everywhere you could see! Claire did pretty well, especially since the last fireworks that we saw scared the crap out of her.

4th of July pics

going to dinner

Oh my...

the whole group....21 people, 3 dogs, and 3 houses
and she's done...

We're very excited to go back next year, Michelle has already reserved our house! Grayton Sanctuary, get ready!!

New Milestones!

No pictures to prove that either of these are true, but Claire has finally gotten her first tooth, and has started crawling! The tooth has been a long time in the making, I've been able to see it under her gums for almost a month, but it finally broke it's jagged little edge through on June 30th. It's very adorable, even though you can't see much of it yet. She has also started some army-crawling, and can scoot around pretty well that way. She's trying to get up on her hands and knees to do some "real" crawling, but for now, army-style works for her! Hopefully some pictures of both new "tricks" to come soon!!

10 months?!?!?!

How did that happen?? Claire turned 10 months old on Saturday. I swear, she's getting so big so fast! She's up to 15lb 12oz, which means she put on half a pound in the last month, which is more than she put on between 7-9 months, so she's doing great. And no wonder, the kid eats like a pig! She still isn't crawling, although I can tell that it's not far away, but she's mastered a little roll/scoot that gets her where she needs to go. I told her she can start crawling once we get back from vacation, but it'll be easier to keep track of her while we're on vacation if she's not crawling yet. And then on to walking!

And speaking of vacation.... we're getting very excited for our first real family vacation! We leave in 12 days for Grayton Beach, and cannot wait! I've already started packing. There is an unbelievable amount of baby stuff that we need for a week out of town! Some of it will probably be a little excessive, but I guess that's something I'll learn for next time! We're sharing a house with Aaron's cousin Michelle, her husband Gary, and their little girl Ella, who Claire is crazy about. (She's very into "big kids") Michelle and I are having a good time planning, and working on our base tans before we go! Only 8 more days of work until we leave...

Of course, I have to include Claire pics, to keep the fans happy. So here you go!

Chilling in Nana's bed

Watching Baby Einstein

Eating graham crackers, the messiest food ever!

Swimming with Ducky

Hanging out with her buddy Ellathe wind-blown look