A crawling & babbling 8 month old

Claire is 8 months old this week, and she has celebrated by doing a ton of stuff!  She officially is crawling, it is so exciting.  She can move her little pudgy legs and arms and get from here to there. She also is starting to babble.  We have heard lots of "ma-ma-ma's, ga-ga-ga's & da-da-da's".  Finally, she pulled herself up to a standing position in the crib for the first time on her own, and also can move from a laying down position to a seated position herself.  She is 20.5 lbs and 28" inches long, which we looked up is still 75-95%.  Our big girl is growing up too fast!

I'm kind of a big deal
Here is a little video of her "talking":

This past weekend we had a really wonderful impromptu visit with Mom, Dad and Grandma, then celebrated Emil's birthday on Sunday.  We're still enjoying all those Fall activities as Halloween approaches!

Luke put his head in Claire's lap and she started stroking his hair.  So sweet.  He's like his Mom, always angling for someone to play with his hair!

Playdate with school friend Joey and his little bro Ryan.

Ladybug welcoming Grandma Mary

Walk in Open Lands

Explaining that Grandma is the princess, but she needs a crown, and he's a knight.

Rousing card game during kid naptime.

Carving his pumpkin.  His interest lasted about 4 seconds.

Matt ended up finishing this beauty with Luke's request "A long face with three ears"

Claire thinks three ears on a pumpkin is pretty silly!  

We stopped by my friend Katherine's little girl's 1st bd party on Sunday.  It was so fancy and beautiful!

Birthday girl Lily.  

The rest of the day was spent celebrating Emil's birthday.  He chose to celebrate by going out on the boat!  It was such a beautiful day and fun to have lunch and open presents on the water.

Enjoying the sea air in her face!  I mean...lake air.  

We drove the boat all the way up to Kenosha.  

Luke got bored on the way back home and ended up watching Backyardigans below deck, all snuggled up in the pillows and blankets.  This kid has a tough life.

Claire fell asleep in Donna's arms on the way back.

Birthday dinner

Birthday cake!

bobbing for apples like in his Halloween book

Bam Bam and Luke playing together

Hard day at the office - working on her laptop

First School Picture Day

Luke had his first of what will be a long road of school pictures ahead of him.  Didn't they turn out adorable? I wish I had gotten some of those smiles during the Shutterwinks photo shoot.  You'd never know that he was crying and carrying on the whole time, almost.  This photographer was a true master, you have to admire the craft.  He had a way to address every kid antic, he must have seen them all by now.  Want to be held by Mom? (I'm hiding down below in both of the bottom pics.)  Putting hands over his face or in his ears? ("Hey, buddy, can you fit your hands in your pockets, can I see?") Closing his eyes in defiance? ("Did you go invisible! whoa!" - then Luke would smile and open his eyes at that suggestion.)  The key is that he only needed him to smile for a split second in each pose to "get the shot".  Amazing.  By the way, Isolene got him dressed in that outfit, I could never have gotten him in that.  It takes a village, people.  (Not the actual Village People, but you know what I mean.)  I somehow volunteered myself to be one of the three "room Moms" of Luke's class this year, so I was on hand the whole time to help wrangle the kids during pictures.

Kinderhaven Purple Class 2013-14

Notice the fingers in the ears, he was feeling unhappy and stressed by having to sit and smile for his picture, so in went the fingers in the ears.  

In kid development news, Claire is standing up while holding on to things unassisted, now, and her balance is improving more every day.  She is so on the verge of crawling, it is going to happen any moment now.  She is eating all range of different foods now, and has expanded her preferences to include more than just sweet tasting things.  We are building up quite a freezer full of homemade baby food cubes.  She seems to like cauliflower a lot, and is pretty fond of barley and millet, too.  Her sleeping is still not stellar.  We'll get a night or two of good sleeping, but not too consistent.  She still has crying episodes in the middle of the night at least once or twice a week.  What is slightly better than the middle of the night wake ups, but is still brutal, is the 4:45-5am wakeups.  It isn't the middle of the night, but it really is not time to get up yet!  She's gotten into a bad routine of being up and bright eyed from 5-6am, then falling asleep in either Matt or my arms around 6:15 until 7.

This face will melt your heart.  This is how she wakes up at 4:45am, smiling and good natured and.... not sleepy.

Luke is starting to give Claire hugs and kisses, and plays with her a bunch, too.  We have to make sure his affection doesn't move into assault territory.  She's pretty tough and rarely cries when smooshed.  He doesn't like when she cries.  Instead of complaining about her crying to us, he just shouts frantically, "It's ok Claire, it's ok!!"  Especially in the car if he is watching a movie and she starts making noise, he is a big fan of the not-too-sincere comforting words method.

ponytail

Over the weekend we had a bunch of fun activities planned.  Matt took Luke to a military museum that he has passed a hundred times, and almost everytime we pass it going to WI he says "I want to take Luke there."  He finally did and they had a great time.  The whole family went out on the big boat on Friday night - my first time actually out on the water and it was great!  A little chilly, but the experience of being in such a bigger boat than their old boat was awesome.   Then we had a playdate with our friends and neighbors-for-now (they're living in their parents' house temporarily) Cate and her girls Claire and Helena.  We hit the Highwood Pumpkin Festival for a short spell (hahaha!) until the rain poured down on the outdoor festival, boo! (hahaha!)  Then we had our Kellogg brunch with a couple of my girlfriends, and finished the weekend with a delicious meal at the Baranko's.

Hot chocolate time down below deck

'lil pumpkin

Highwood Pumpkin Fest

Cutie pie pumpkin.  Katie lent us all of Isabelle's cute Halloween outfits and bibs.  Adorable.

The brunch was at Kathleen & Andrew's house, and the Conklin clan were there, too.

pretty Miss Jordan

AJ

Drew and Luke getting the band back together. Luke was on drums back there.

Those two always have a blast together

On the way back up to our neck of the woods we stopped at the Morton Arboretum.  It was gorgeous Fall day, and the kids area there is amazing.  

Caramel apples, yum!

More apple picking from the tree in D&E's back yard.  Luke filled up his tractor full of apples and drove it around the yard.  I've already made two batches of apple sauce, apple crisp and apple pie.  I'm apple crazy!

A boy and his dog at the fishing hole.  

Donna & Emil's backyard is like heaven for our family.  The adults love the peaceful nature experience, and Spumoni and Luke love the exploring.

Yummy dinner!