She's walking!

Last week we announced her walking with the walker, but this week Claire actually took a couple steps on her own!  She reached this milestone just a few days shy of her 9 month birthday.  That is about a week earlier than when Luke started walking.  We're so proud of our mobile little lady.

The other big news this week is that Luke received his first "report card"and we had our first parent/teacher conference.

Here are a few snippets from his mid-year report:
"Luke comes to school with a big smile each day".
"He is a thinker and has a good vocabulary which he uses to ask many questions."
"He is very curious about the world around him and dives in fully to explore."
"Luke is great at contributing to discussions at circle time."
"He is a leader in our classroom."

The parent/teacher conference was great.  Matt and I really like his teachers, they seem to be so caring and professional.  They reiterated everything that was in his midyear report, and really had no concerns at all with his development.  Great to hear!

What else happened this week, hmmm.  Well,  Claire ran a fever for just short of 48 hours, which we were concerned about but it seemed to go away pretty quickly.  Luke has started to entertain Claire by saying "Bzzzzzzzz!!" like a bumblebee to her, usually shouting it out of nowhere.  She loves the attention from him and the sound he makes.  Luke has also just begun to get into his stuffed animals for the first time in his life.  He named his dog on his dog blanket "Triscuit" (the one that Katie & Joe gave him when he was born).  I think this name is so cute, and I love that he thought of it by himself.  We don't even have Triscuits in the house that much, I swear!  He also likes to play with "Loopy", the monkey that belongs to me, actually, and has been a part of our home since I got it while on a date with Matt to the zoo.  He set up Loopy and Triscuit on the chair so that they could hear the bedtime stories I was reading him and look at the pictures, too.  Both of these kids are so fun, I tell ya!

Here are a couple pictures from the week.

Birthday party for friend and now fellow 3 year old, Sarah Cohen.  It was at the Kohl Children's Museum, which was really fun for all the kids.  Look at this tiny party hat on Claire!

Cate, Helena and Claire Donovan were there, too

Claire is such a stinkers at mealtime now.  She likes to remove the top part of her tray, for one.  She also refuses to eat baby food, she only wants to feed herself with things she can shove into her mouth with her own chubby fingers.  So she's eating little tiny pieces of real food now, not pureed.  This feels like a big milestone too!  But since she's not really good at feeding herself yet it can be a long, painful and messy process to get a meal into her.  

We enjoyed a visit from my second cousins Judy & Jim..  They were so sweet to come all the way to our house from Waukesha, WI just to spend the afternoon with us.  They are such neat people, and we had a wonderful time visiting with them.

Hi!  I'm the fastest crawler in the West!