Claire's First Birthday!

I can't believe that one year ago, I became a mother to the sweetest, happiest, cutest little girl ever. This past year has been, by far, the best of my life. I can't believe I was so lucky to get Claire so fair as my daughter!










22 lbs even (she must have lost weight with her food strike and all the moving she is doing!)

Claire has started saying more words lately, it's adorable. She says "All-duh" after eating when we ask if she's all done. She puts her toy cell phone to her ear and answers either "hi" or "hello" (the phone says hello when you open it). She can say"sigh" for outside, "nigh-nuh" for night night, bye, baby, uh-oh (she drops the keys in a video below and says it), mama and dada of course and I think a few more that I'm forgetting. She's also started nodding her head at everything she likes or when we ask her questions. It's fun to say, "Is daddy crazy?" and get this cute little nod from her.



She loves to hold everything in her left hand. In church a few weeks ago, I gave her a small pack of tissues to play with and she pulled them all out, then gathered them all with her right hand and placed them into her left hand. Once she was holding all of them, she threw them up in the air and started the process all over again. It's cute to watch her try to put multiple toys in her hand and keep dropping them and then trying again.

Claire is such a good little walker. If she wants to get somewhere fast, she'll drop to her knees, but she's been walking more and more all the time. She can easily walk across a room and it won't be long before she gives up crawling, I think.



She still loves to read books. By herself or with us. She also loves the song "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" by merv griffin. We regularly play it on youtube.
I love wearing her, and I think it's so cute when she falls asleep like this.


Claire LOVES her baby and her bunny. See the video. She carries them all over.



This is what happens when you take them away.




She loves making messes and pulling stuff out and putting it back (sometimes). Totally worth it.
Claire LOVES to color. It surprised me that this happened so early, but she gets so pleased to see a "picture" form with a crayon or on the magnadoodle thing. She even gets which side of the magnet pen is right (I know it's wrong in the picture, but after a few seconds she figures it out and turns it around). She is definitely right-handed. If I hand her a crayon and put it in her left hand, she immediately switches to her right. It's pretty cute to see.


Claire just started clapping, and the same day she got a top tooth. A few more top teeth are on the horizon, but haven't popped through just yet. She loves to point to her head any time someone says the word "head" or point to other people's heads. Actually, she also points to things she wants now. Or she'll point to something, and then point to the person that the something belongs to (she picked up her our cousin Camila's candy bar, and then pointed to Camila).


This girl loves to eat everything. She actually went on a food strike for a whole week recently, and ate hardly any solid food at all. But she's back to her normal self now, thankfully! I was getting sick of poopy diapers in the middle of the night!



Allergy wise, I think she reacted to either goat dairy or wheat (in her diet, not mine) so we took those back out and she's doing fine again. I had cow dairy this week for the first times since September I think. I just took a break but she hasn't had any major breakouts so I might keep eating it to see how she does. Definitely won't give it to her, and I can only do soy rarely, but it will be nice to not worry so much about food.
Mmmm, applesauce.


When I say everything, I mean everything. Including dirt.
I can pull out the camera and say "Say cheeseburgerrrrrr!" and she gives me smiles like these:



Happy Birthday baby girl! We love you!