Merry Christmas!

Clara loved tearing up the wrapping paper on her first few presents then was kind of over the whole present thing. She did really like her baby doll and gave it lots of hugs. Here are a few pictures from my phone. I haven't uploaded the ones from my camera yet.

We are currently in Indiana with almost a foot of snow and its Sooooooo beautiful! Can't wait to take Clara out to play!

Merry Christmas Eve!

As has become the Willis tradition we currently have two sickies in the house with more to follow I'm sure. This will be the 4th holiday in a row that sickness has swept through the house. Clara woke up with a fever last night and stayed awake most of the night. Mom followed in suit this morning. I think next year I'm going to get everyone a dose of penicillin for Christmas.

On another note, Miss Clara has learned how to climb the stairs and thinks its cool stuff. This kid has got to stop growing so fast!!

Cutie

Christmas Party

We had an awesome time at my accountability group Christmas party this weekend. It was full of laughing children, great friends and lots of good food. Clara loved watching the 4 older boys play. I think we amazingly made it through the night with 6 children in the house and nothing got broken!

And we have teeth!!!

Clara decided that the whole getting one tooth at a time is rather rediculous so she got two this week. The first bottom tooth broke through on Monday then the second bottom tooth on Wednesday. Today her top gums are red and swollen. She has been pretty fussy but thankfully has slept really well. The Hylands teething tablets are amazing!! Thank you Lori for recommending them!!

Here is a picture of our girl mesmerized by her baby Einstein old macdonald DVD. It's the only one she will watch and we may have watched it quite a few times this week to give mom a break from the fussiness.

9 months old this week!!

Clara is 9 months old!!! Crazy!! We love her more every day and love watching her grow and change. The last week or so she has decided she wants to be a little more independent which is a whole new phase! When she wants to get down she will let you know it!

Clara at BurgerFi. She LOVED these metal tables. It made a great impromptu drum!

Helping Dad.

So awesome to live next door to a park. We love to swing!

We got to pet the bunny at Pet Supplies Plus last week. The bunny may never be the same but Clara loved it! She squealed so loud everybody in the store could hear her!

We can hold our own bottle now.

Just mastered how to open all the cabinets and drawers. Last night dad had to install the cabinet safety locks and Clara was a little upset this morning that she couldn't get the cabinet open.

Clara's most favorite thing is sneaking into her room and pulling out all the freshly washed and folded clothes. Because folding clothes once is not enough fun for mom and dad.

We can pull all the toys out of our toy box.

And we can walk with our push toy!!

Christmas Parties

Last weekend we had Brian's work Christmas party at the NC Science Museum which was really nice. They had meal courses set up on the different floors of the museum so you could just walk around and munch as you look at things. The food was catered by Rocky Top so of course it was delicious! They had shrimp and grits which is my FAVORITE! Things got pretty exciting about half way through when the fire alarms started going off and the safety walls came down dividing up the museum. The fire trucks came and we had to wait outside in the cold while they checked things out. Turns out it was the fajita station that set the alarms off. We did get a good photo opportunity of us standing in front of the capital while we were waiting! Overall it was a really fun night! Our sweet friends Beau and Sharon looked after Clara while we were gone. Sharon has a little girl on the way that I know will be best of friends with Clara one day! 

The week before last we had another Christmas party, this one in Raeford.  My dad's side of the family has a big party every year which is always nice because get to see family we don't normally see very often. My cousins came from Charlotte with their two little girls and it was so fun to watch Clara interact with them. Yes she follow them everywhere! She was so worn out after all that crawling and playing that she was asleep in her car seat before we even got out of the parking lot!

Clara was quite adorable in her Christmas dress until she spit up all over it.

Clara and her cousin Chloe

 Clara and Caitlyn. Is it me or do these two little ones look a bit alike?

Playing "school" although I don't think Clara was being a very good student.

 

So on the Willis side there are 3 great grandchildren, all girls and all their names start with C. The name thing wasn't planned but I think its fun.

8 months

Well I'm a bit behind seeing how Clara will be 9 months old in 3 days but at least I've been good about taking pictures.

My favorite moments: I love taking you for walks in the stroller and watching you take everything in. You sit straight up in the front of the stroller holding onto the tray so you won't miss anything. It doesn't matter how cold it is, you will not lay back and let me bundle you up. Being outside is still one of your favorite things and makes you happy no matter how tired or fussy you are. I love watching you play by yourself in the living room. You do really well occupying yourself with your toys and usually only get antsy when your tired or hungry. You still aren't much for reading books, mainly because that requires you to sit still longer than you like. Hopefully that will change since I have gotten you about a zillion books already! I love watching you when dad gets home in the evenings. You grin ear to ear and kick your feet like crazy or bounce up and down if you are standing. 

Clara quirks: These days trying to put a clean diaper on you is like an all out wrestling match. I have to bribe you with toys so you will lay still and even that doesn't always work. This week you learned all kinds of new "challenges" which includes pulling your toys out of your toy box all by yourself and opening the cabinets and dresser drawers. You are completely mesmerized by Baby Einstein Old MacDonald. You won't watch any of the other videos I have for you so we just sit in the exersaucer and watch old MacDonald every time I need a shower while you are awake. Maybe all that exposure to farm life is why you weren't at all afraid when we took you to grandpa's farm over Thanksgiving. You got to see the cows, pet the horse, ride on the tractor and the 4-wheeler (going very slow I might add). You loved it all! 

Nap/Sleep: The last couple of months have been mixed with good weeks and bad weeks during the night.  You will go a couple of weeks sleeping from 8pm - 5am, have a bottle at 5am then sleep till 8am. But then something will happen, either we travel or have company or you don't feel well and you will start this waking up every 2 hours nonsense. Each time it seems to last 4-5 days then you go back to your regular schedule. Thanksgiving was rough because we were out of town for 4 nights so by the last night you got up every hour during the night. Thankfully it only took you two nights to get back on schedule once we got home. Probably because you were exhausted!! This week you seem to be doing better about when you need a bottle and making it until 7am then going back to sleep for one or two more hours. Naps are going great. You still take 3 naps a day usually 45min - 1h & 15min. I've tried letting you get away with two naps when you have taken an extra long early afternoon nap and every time you've been a cranky mess by 7pm so we are sticking with 3 naps for the immediate future. You rarely cry now when we lay you down in your crib to go to sleep. I guess you know now that it doesn't help to cry because mom still isn't going to let you get up. The few times I have gone in there because you were crying you had dropped your pacie outside the crib and who could go to sleep without their pacie! 

Eating: By your 8 month birthday you were completely weened. We tried Enfamil formula but that didn't seem to suit your system very well and made you spit up even worse than normal, not to mention you really didn't like it.The Similac you take just as well as breast milk and seem to spit up about the same so that is what we have kept you on. When we stopped nursing, it didn't bother you one bit. As long as you got your milk you didn't care where it came from. You eat one solid meal a day which usually consists of half a jar of fruit and half to 3/4 a jar of vegetable. Sometimes some rice cereal or oatmeal. Fruit and sweet potatoes is definitely your favorite although you have gotten better about eating things like peas and green beans even though they definitely aren't your preference. We have also started giving you puffs which is super convenient when I'm trying to keep you occupied while I cook dinner. It took you a while to be able to get them in your mouth by yourself because they would stick to your fingers once your fingers got wet but now you eat them without a problem and beg for more. This week we gave you some whole peas which you loved and did really well picking up and eating by yourself. On Thanksgiving we gave you pureed turkey which I thought tasted disgusting, mainly because the texture was awful but you didn't seem to mind and ate it without any problem.

Mobility: You are crawling all over the place and getting into everything!! You will use just about anything stationary (and some not so stationary things like Abby) to pull up on so you can stand. You cruise across the room holding onto the furniture and can walk behind your push toy as long as we are holding onto it. Today you started walking while holding my hands. Your balance is still pretty shaky but you are fearless kid! I think your balance would be a lot better if it weren't that you get so excited you start bouncing up and down.

Love watching you grow and learn little girl!! Your smile melts my heart. Just don't grow up too fast. 

Bunny pictures are getting increasingly more difficult now that we are mobile.