Labor Day at The Treehouse

(by Aubree)

Yesterday my friend Lena was going to The Treehouse, a children's museum in Ogden, and she invited me to tag along. It was sooo much fun! They had a pirate theme, so I dressed Clara up like a pirate the best I could with what we had, and enjoyed "Pirate Day."

If you've never been to the Treehouse, they have tons of little stations that kids can learn from, like a medical station, music station, Renaissance station, barn, etc. They also had a little workshop show on how to be more like a pirate. It was pretty cute.

I apologize that there's so many pictures, but I just thought there were too many cute ones and I couldn't leave them out!

My little pirate!

Clara dressed up in Renaissance attire.

This is Lena's daughter Gwen playing with the giant chess pieces.

Lena and me.

Clara at the doll station.

I love this one! Clara had so much fun playing with Gwen.

Those are some big chompers!

There was a lower table for babies, and she had a lot of fun there.

Lena's other daughter Elsie and Clara on the fire engine.

Such a cute little cow girl.

Clara in the tepee playing with the drums.

Clara and Gwen playing on the drums.

Elsie got chosen to go up on stage for the pirate show. She was so excited!

Vern (Lena's husband) and Elsie

Clara was worn out, so it was time to head home...

But first we had to get a picture with the cow for daddy.

Little Home Improvements Make a Big Difference!

(by Aubree)

If you've ever watched home improvement shows on HGTV, you always hear them talk about the importance of window treatments. When we moved into our house two years ago, almost all of the windows had blinds, but no window treatments. I was a little intimidated about picking out window treatments, so I kind of put it off. But I finally decided it was time, and I talked Jeff into helping me pick out and hang some window treatments. It's true what they say . . . window treatments make a big difference. Here's some before and after pictures.

We have a sliding glass door that leads from our kitchen out to our deck. It had some vertical blinds that were ugly and broken. We finally got to tear them down and put up some curtains.

Before

After

For Clara's room, I found some cute flowery valances for her two windows.

Before (window #1)

After (window #1)

Before (window #2)

After (window #2)

After (both windows)

Our bedroom is fairly dark, with a dark accent wall and dark wood furniture, so I wanted something light for the window treatments. I thought these white sheer curtains would be perfect.

Before

After

Eight Months Old!

(By Aubree)

Clara is Eight months old today! It's going so fast, and we just love our little Clara Bear more and more every day! She has such a cute personality, and it's been so much fun watching her change and learn new things.

Here's what Clara is up to now:

-She started crawling about 3 weeks ago, but has done straight crawling (no army crawling) for about a week or more.
-She pulls herself onto anything she possibly can. Her favorite thing right now is to pull herself up on the couch or a chair and stand up.
-She has 2 teeth on the bottom front.
-She says dadada and we have decided that is her first word.
-She has said mama, but only a couple of times.
-She makes this sound like she's hissing, but with more of a k sound. She doesn't do it as often as she used to though.
-She isn't stranger shy anymore. She got over that pretty quickly, thank goodness.
-She loves to flirt with the people sitting behind us at church. We try to move her so she can't see the people behind us, but she will worm her way back up to look at them.
-She can crawl up stairs.
-When she wakes up, from naps or in the morning, she will be standing up in her crib looking at the doorway, just waiting for someone to come get her.
-She eats pretty much anything, but recently she is getting a little bit more picky. She will still eat anything, but just not the whole thing if she doesn't fancy it.
-She likes to blow raspberries on my cheeks and arms.
-She LOVES when Jeff gets home and when he comes in the house he will say hi for a minute, and then go change his clothes, and she will throw a fit when he leaves the room.
-She's probably the happiest she has ever been and I think it's because she can get around on her own.
-She has stood up without holding onto anything for a few seconds at a time. I think she will be walking as soon as she possibly can!
-It seems like she can understand some things that we say or at least she's trying to understand.

Here's all of the things she likes to pull herself onto! (i.e. anything!)

The big girl crawling!

My parents came to visit yesterday and she had so much fun playing with them!

This is her waiting for me to come get her after her nap.

She gets into everything! I gave her this ribbon to play with and it was sealed, the next thing I know the seal is off, and half of the ribbon is unwound!

Toys?

(By Aubree)

I don't know about anyone else, but I've heard this many, many times: "Why do I even bother buying toys?" Clara loves playing with things that she knows she shouldn't be playing with and things that don't look like toys. She has recently started to think that it is a game when she goes for something she knows we will take away, like the phone, and she will army crawl as fast as she possibly can towards it (which is pretty darn fast) and we will come behind her and she will have a huge smile on her face!

Here are some example of her enjoying things that aren't actual toys.

You can't see it very well, but Clara has chosen the bowl of snacks to play with instead of all of the toys around her.

We bought a toy remote for her because she was constantly going after the real ones. As you can see I set up a test to see if she would choose the toy closest to her or the actual remotes. What do you think happened?

Yup, she crawled right over her toy and went after the real ones. What can you say? The girl enjoys a challenge!

In her hand is a granola bar still in the package.

Saving her favorite for last. . . paper. She could probably play with this all day if it was indestructable, but I guess the destructability is half of the fun, right?

Happy Birthday Jeff!

(By Aubree)

Jeff's birthday was yesterday and we had such a nice day all together! We all slept in and then Jeff did some work from home, and a few hours later, he and Clara decided to take a nap. Then Jeff opened his presents--with Clara's help, of course. In the afternoon, we went shopping and then ate dinner at the Training Table. For dessert, we got cupcakes from Cold Stone and we enjoyed some Simpsons on DVD.

Happy birthday yesterday, Jeff. I love you so much and appreciate all that you do! You are so kind, loving, patient, great dad and husband, great supporter, and hard worker. I can't imagine my life without you!

Clara couldn't wait for daddy to get here. She wanted to open the presents all by herself!

Yay! Daddy's here to open presents!

This one's just cute!

She's such a great present opener! She's warming up for Christmas!

Daddy and Clara posing with the ties that she gave him.

We got Jeff two shirts, two ties, and a grilling rack.