Jimmy, Kelli, and Claire

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Claire's 1st Birthday!

On friday-June 22nd- we celebrated the 1st birthday of our sweet baby girl. I can't believe it has been a whole year since she joined us. I love her more than words could possibly describe. She is our whole world. She is growing so fast and has learned so much in just one year it is crazy. Here are some pictures from her birthday photo shoot.

We threw her a little party- she devoured her cake! We took her to the zoo because she loves animals- goes crazy with excitement when she sees them! It is so funny!

My attempt at a cake- not as amazing as the image in my head but it still turned out ok!

The zoo

A few fun facts of my one year old girl:

She is a crazy fast crawler

She can walk along the furniture, pull herself up, can push a walker, and stand independently- but not walking yet- soon i'm sure

She loves other kids- just wants to play with them

She is a pretty friendly little thing

Has a silly personality- just does the funniest things

Has a few words- not just babbles- they include: ma ma, da da, and yum yum- she says it whenever she sees food or gets in her high chair.

She can sign "more", play peek a boo, wave, clap and do patty cake, and moves her hands to itsy bitsy spider.

Happy Birthday Claire

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Mount Rushmore Road Trip

We took a family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota... Clark Griswald style. We road tripped it about 10 hours and stayed several days in a cabin and took in the sites. We had such a great time as a little family.

Mount Rushmore

Sylvan lake- so beautiful

Big Horn sheep

We made a trip to Bear Country USA- so fun- Claire LOVED the animals

Wolves- right next to the car- kinda scary

That is a bear asleep in the tree

Mountain Lions- also asleep in the tree

Claire bear lookin at the baby bears

We next traveled to Custer State park and saw... more animals- a little bit more wild though than Bear County...

Buffalo- we bought Claire a stuffed one and its her favorite!

Really friendly donkeys. They use to be pack animals to take travelers around the park but were set free a number of years ago- now they just are a wild pack that try to eat food out of your car

Needles Highway- crazy cool rock tunnels

We also visited the Badlands. Really beautiful. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon

Mountain Goats- Big momma and her babies

We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial- still in progress

We rode the 1880 train- it took us through the mountains. It was relaxing and fun

Wall Drug- apparently its a big deal. It was advertised for about 300 miles

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Latest and Greatest

It has been a little while since I have updated the blog- We have just been so busy!

We just got home from AZ for my little brothers wedding. We had such a great time with my family- it was so good to see everyone together!

Claire has grown and learned so much- I thought I would share a quick video of her first swim!

We took advantage of the AZ heat and took a dip in the pool-

She held on to Dad so tight

She is now a big time crawler! She is all over the house exploring. It looks like a tornado hit our family room. She can also pull herself up to standing.