Yay, communication!

Claire seems to have figured out that talking's not all that bad. Lately she's hit the long-awaited for "language explosion" - not just with words, though - phrases and sentences, which we're loving.

Lately we've had:
"That's a horse." - to Ray while watching Backyardigans
"Over there." - telling Ray where his shoes are.
"Down there." - telling me where her hair rubberband fell
"More water." - well, you can probably figure this one out
"No." - not thrilled with this one, but it was bound to happen.

And she's also less shy about making animal sounds - the other night Ray got a "moo" and a "buzz" and she's developed a respectable "woof."

There's a fountain at the Reston town center near Arlington. Kids aren't supposed to play in it, according to the sign, but they really shouldn't have made it so tempting. Claire and two older girls were chasing fountain spouts when we were out there last weekend. Claire got soaked, but loved it! (until she fell and skinned her knee, then we dried her off, changed her and had a good mexican lunch...a skinned knee tends to be our natural ending to most things).

Spaghetti night!

yum! Despite the mess, Claire's getting better at using her fork and spoon. She definitely prefers the spoon. She's developed a move we'll need to patent - as she puts the spoonful of food in her mouth, she uses the back of her other hand to make sure all the food actually gets into her mouth.

Another month of constant motion

July was BUSY. We went up to Shelter Island for July 4th, Claire played at the beach a bit. She is now the proud owner of big fat crayons and loooooves drawing with them. We went to a water park out in the 'burbs - she had a great time splashing around. .....and she kept growing. And growing....and growing! Her car is newly accessorized with a Springhill Motor Co. sticker, and Rosa decided to see what all the fuss is about with that Pooh chair.

Two missing videos

The two car videos showed up on the left, but two others came and went mysteriously. So here they are: DiaperCam and "Chair" .

Happy (almost) Father's Day!

Claire got her first car today! Ok, it is really a car-on-a-stick, but she loves it. She's been borrowing (er, carjacking) one at the park that another kid has, so we trekked out to Wal-Mart and found her one this morning. Huuuuuge hit with the little girl! There's two videos of her in it on the left here, along with 2 other new ones.

The one where she's typing is kind of funny - and she says "chair"! The one where she's on the changing table shows nothing but a little thigh, but is her first video as camera-person, and a little weird but funny.

Also, today she said "bub-bub" a lot - I was blowing bubbles in the car for her on the way back from Wal-mart.

Mid-June, just another day or two in the life

Claire's latest discovery of really fun things to do involves the laundry baskets. The other night she got her blankets in there with her and sat there while we read stories. I think she'd sleep in there if she could.

Anyone remember the infant rocker on the stand that she spent the first 5 months of her life in? Well, we remembered that it comes off the stand and is a toddler rocker -- which she loves(despite the sour expression on her face here)! So, yay, more furniture that's Claire-sized!

Jean and Harmon gave us some dresses from a friend of theirs, and they have come in handy in the last couple of days of 100000000 degree heat. The ladybug and the pink gingham from the 16-month picture are two of them. Love them!