So, I am incredibly behind again on blogging but here it goes anyway. We had Clara’s birthday party at the beginning of August. We had a great time with just a few friends over for swimming and food. Clara really seemed to enjoy her party, particularly when everyone sang Happy Birthday to her.
All of the kids…
We were so happy to have Nick, Betsy, and Silas join us for the party!! We both now have baby girls born only a few days apart!
Since I missed some blogging over the last several months, I may play a little catch up. We all went back to Mississippi in May for a good friend’s wedding that Jeff was honored to be a part of — congratulations Mark and Hayley! The wedding was great, and we had such a good time seeing friends! It’s not too often that we get to spend time with them.
Unfortunately, Jeff had to head back to work after the wedding while Clara and I stayed and traveled to the beach with my family. We had a great time! This was really Clara’s first real beach trip. It was so much fun being at the beach with family and all being together for several days. Clara really enjoyed her time with her cousins. Anna Ruth even took her first steps while we were there– and to her Aunt Beth! I was thrilled! We did lots of playing at the beach, eating good food, and just enjoying time together. Thank you Nana and Pops!
And one of my favorites from the trip…
Clara just turned two at the end of July. It is so hard to believe! Time has gone by quickly, and we have really enjoyed our time as a family of three (soon to be four)! I really want to remember this time.
Clara is a vibrant, busy, independent little girl. God has given her a strong personality. It can be hard to deal with sometimes as a two year old, but I know these traits will serve her well as she grows. She is kind and loving, always wanting to “hold mama.” She has been learning to be kind to friends as well and often says, “nice, kind friends. no hitting/pushing.” If we could only get her to implement these lessons all of the time!
Growing
Clara has always been on the small end and that continues. At her two month check up, she was just over 22 lbs and 33 in. We always get the same talk from her doctor that she is below the norm but nothing to be concerned about.
Eating + sleeping
Clara is a pretty good eater– at least with things that she likes. Right now, her favorite is “blueberries, ya-peas (strawberries), yogurt.” Since our Seattle trip, this combo also includes granola. She still refuses meat and fish. I was making spaghetti the other day, and she told me, “no like it” as I was cooking the ground beef. After we discussed what it was, it became, “no like ground beef.” Oh well. Other favorites are packs (applesauce, chia, kale-mango) and fig bars. She still enjoys smoothies which I pack with tons of spinach and green juice (either our own homemade version or a kale-ginger juice from Costco).
She has always been a great sleeper and still sleeps about 12 hours a night, from about 8pm -8am. This has been her go to for a while now. She just takes one afternoon nap, usually from about 2-4. We are still putting her in a sleep sack at night because she has yet to out grow it, it provides some additional warmth (although it’s getting pretty warm here already), and seems to keep her from contemplating the dreaded climbing out of her crib. She is down to just pajamas at nap time which has been interesting now that she can take them off on her own as well as her diaper. We have just had once incident so far, and it was not fun. Update, since it has taken me over a week to finish this post before actually posting it, we are now done with the sleep sack. This occurred mainly because she was asking not to wear it. So far, still no climbing out of the crib…
Wearing
Again, Clara has always been small. She consistently wears a size smaller than her current age, although she seems to slowly be catching up. She is wearing 18 month clothes now with some baggy 24 month clothes mixed in. She is starting to have an opinion about her wardrobe, “I like this shirt” or “wear pajamas forever.”
Doing
As I mentioned above, Clara is busy. She enjoys running around the house with Walcott, swimming, and venturing out to her favorite spots– the aquarium, zoo, splash pad, and children’s museum. Right now, it seems the children’s museum is top on her list. We bought her a puddle jumper at the beginning of the summer, so she just swims around the pool on her own now and readily jumps in to one of us while wearing it. While at home, she still likes to play with her activity table although it has become her “minkus (music) table” where she plays the piano. She is a fan of building towers with her blocks and playing with her new guitar and microphone that she got for her birthday. Before the new microphone, she was using our TV antenna while standing on the hearth and singing. All before the antenna finally broke… She likes to set up her “suitcase” (aka- box with a handle) with her microphone in front of it, sit down, and play her guitar and sing. I think some Seattle street performers were her inspiration. She frequently plays with her kitchen and sets her table with play food for dinner. She has started to really enjoy pretend play which is so fun to watch. Recently, she was pretending to take a bite of some plastic strawberries and looked at me and said, “I’m pretending.” She then pretended to pick one out of the bunch, put it in her mouth, then smiled and said, “pretty tasty.” She has also started having her little people “talk” to each other while she plays. She still really enjoys books and will sit and listen for as long as you will keep reading. Some of her favorites are “But No Elephants” and “Elephant Goes to School” (both from her daddy’s childhood collection) and “Pete the Cat” and “Iggy Peck, Architect.” One day while we were walking to a bus stop in Seattle, she started saying, “walking down street. brand new white shoes” which is a line from Pete the Cat. When you ask her if Pete cried, she says, “goodness no.” It’s pretty funny. She will sometimes read on her own too, “strawberries are red, ladybugs are red, little bird (instead of Big bird) is yellow….” I recently found her flipping through a book with Walcott next to her. He also had a book between his paws. She said, “I read this book and Walcott read this one.”
Saying
Clara’s vocabulary has exploded. She is talking in full sentences now and clearly gets her point across. We have always known she is very verbal. From early on, she would point to her pink chair in her room as she woke up and say, “Sit, talk.” In the last month, she has started adding in some really fun words like forever, maybe so, all the time, at some point, everyday, so much, actually, not really, cool, awesome. For example,
“I wanna wear Nana’s earrings so much”
“I wanna see hippos at some point”
“I want Mommy read this book, actually”
“I want green juice so much. All day”
“I poop in diaper every day” (in response to attempts to encourage using the potty)
“Walcott read this book forever”
Mom- “Do you have a stinky diaper?” Clara- “not really” (she did)
As you may have noticed, “I want” is a dominating phrase. Also, it is also really clear from her speech that she likes people. She can name almost all of our friends and family and talks about people regularly. After our trip to Albuquerque, she started telling me that “Matt lives Tucson” and “Ryan Yunuen live Mexico.” She requests to pray for specific people before bed, lately this has been “pray Brayton and Beau,” and randomly brings people up throughout the day. She can name pretty much all of the words in her 100 words book and knows so many animal names that we are blown away. She says things frequently that Jeff and I just can’t believe she knows. She learned the word “sledgehammer” the other day as Jeff was doing some work in the yard, but still says that the “nail gun” is her favorite.
She really enjoys singing, hence the microphones. She regularly sings Happy Birthday, Jesus Loves Me, the first line of How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (which is what we sing to her as we put her to bed), I’m a Little Teapot, and the ABC song. She has definite taste in music as well. Now in the car, she proclaims from the back seat, “I don’t like it this song. Different song” or “I like this one!” She discovered classical music in Seattle while listening to the radio and really seemed to like it as well as the many street performers we saw in the city.
Loving
Clara is into shoes right now and loves to find any around the house, put them on, and attempt to walk around. She likes to “get ready” with Mommy and put on chapstick or use her makeup brush. This was not something I encouraged, but I guess it’s just what happens when a little girl follows her mom around all the time. Another new favorite thing is getting her own cart at Trader Joes. She is a big fan of TJs. She tells us, “I like cookies at Trader Joes” that she often gets instead of the sample and will also readily discuss “samples” and “stickers.” Clara enjoys sitting on the kitchen counter while I make smoothies, wash dishes, or really do anything in the kitchen. She also likes to collect her book bag, other bags, sunglasses, and sometimes her suitcase and tell me, “see you later, have fun and come back soon.” She then walks a few steps, turns around and says, “I’m back.” She usually tells me that she went to Tucson, Mexico, or sometimes the grocery store.
On our way to Whidbey Island, we spent the morning at a blueberry farm. This is not something we can do around Phoenix, and we had a great time! Clara really likes blueberries. She quickly caught on to picking them from the bushes but mostly put them straight into her mouth. The few that made it to her bucket only lasted there for a few seconds.
We stopped in La Conner for lunch and a quick walk around their downtown. What a quaint place! Then we headed to Whidbey and arrived at our cabin that afternoon. It was lovely! I can definitely see the charm of living somewhere like Whidbey. I love the mix of mountains, forests, and beaches.
The cabin we rented had a marked trail to the beach, so we headed that way. Little did we know that it was a trek with lots of stairs down into the woods and finally a crazy set of stairs down the bluff to the beach. It was gorgeous! So private and beautiful!
We visited Langley that evening for dinner at Prima Bistro with great views of the water.
Rain was predicted the next day so we decided to stay around Whidbey and have more of a relaxing day. We spent the morning hiking the bluff trail at Ebey’s Landing. Even with the misty, cloudy day, the hike was beautiful. Clara enjoyed seeing huge snails, slugs, and bunnies. I don’t think I have ever seen snails like these. Maybe the ones in Mississippi are just puny and these are just normal sized? She really did like seeing the snails but just not when they got too close…
We stopped in Coupeville for lunch at Ciao. Later, we briefly visited Double Bluff Beach and then had a steak dinner at the cabin.
On our last full day, we went to Deception Pass and were so glad we did! It was beautiful and the weather that day was great. Clara really enjoyed the beach, meeting new random friends, and petting any dogs nearby.
We had lunch at Knead and Feed in Coupeville and wandered in some of the shops. We stopped in Langley to see downtown again and then headed back to the cabin with a sleepy child.
We took the ferry back to Seattle the next day and stopped in to see the Flagship REI. This was one of the things on Jeff’s to do list while in Seattle. It was impressive! We are all three fans of REI, and this one did not disappoint. Clara always enjoys the tents, kayaks, and bikes. We had lunch near Pike Place and visited the “guy throwing fish” again since it had been such a hit. Unfortunately, Clara was scared this time and did not want to get too close.
Overall, we really had a great trip and were so thankful for the time together!
We decided to take a family trip to Seattle this summer– to escape the oppressive heat of Phoenix, to get in one last trip before we become a family of four, and to travel before we have to start paying for an extra full price plane ticket after Clara turns two (ouch). Side note: We are having a baby! Baby girl Rottman is coming around Thanksgiving this year. We could not be more excited for this gift and thank our Heavenly Father for another child! More on that later… Back to Seattle, we have some great friends from Seattle that made us so excited to visit after hearing them talk about the city and who also gave us some great tips. Before the trip, we decided we were going to take public transit and forgo renting a car until necessary. So, we arrived at the airport, took the light rail to downtown, and then took a bus that stopped within feet of the house we rented for the next several days. This may sound easy, but with a toddler and lots of luggage, it was an adventure. Jeff did a great job finding us a house to rent which was only a few blocks from Green Lake. We had been talking to Clara about visiting Seattle, and about a week before we left she started randomly saying, “I wanna go to Seattle’s house.” So, here we are at Seattle’s house and here is Clara embracing Seattle style in front of our rental house. This was mostly her doing, including the nice headband.
We spent the sunny afternoon walking around the lake, canoeing, and playing on the playground. This was Clara’s first time on a boat, and she had been talking about it for a while. “I want to ride in canoe.” She and Jeff had done some trial runs in kayaks and canoes at REI. She was ready! She enjoyed it for the most part and was pleased to “help” me paddle. So we did it all that day– a plane, a train, a bus, and a boat.
We spent the next day in downtown. We had breakfast at The Crumpet Shop (another great tip from friends) which even Clara enjoyed and then headed to Pike Place Market. Jeff and I have decided that this one of Clara’s favorite things from the trip. She has talked about it every day since then, “man/guy throwing fish. market. fun.” It has been the subject of many crayon and magnadoodle drawings.
We saw the first Starbucks, cheese being made at Beecher’s, fun street performers… Clara was enthralled by a band with a violin, banjo, washboard, and stringed bucket. We then headed towards the Space Needle, had a burger at Dick’s, and played at the Children’s museum. Whew… then we rode the monorail back to downtown. Clara fell asleep as we made our way to Ivar’s for dinner. She woke up just in time to join in on the fun of feeding chips to the seagulls.
The next day was dominated by our visit to the zoo. Clara loves the Phoenix zoo, but it has pretty much been off limits for the last month and for the next few with our 100+ temperatures. The Seattle zoo is great! We walked the 1.5 miles there from our house and then spent almost 5 hours wandering the zoo… tiring but fun. One highlight was feeding the giraffes…
We really appreciated how well you could see the animals with many exhibits having several places to view. We caught the bear at the perfect time and found a little window only a few feet from him eating a cantaloupe. Clara is at a really fun age right now and loves to recount her day. This is one of the things that she mentions, “Bear ate cantaloupe. I saw it” or “I feed giraffe.” She also liked the hippos which is a favorite animal right now and one that we don’t have at our zoo. After the long zoo visit, Clara took a 3+ hour nap. We finally woke her up to go to the park while Jeff walked to a nearby sushi place to get takeout for dinner.
The next day included biking around the city. We saw the Fremont Troll, Gas Works Park, The Ave, and the University. Clara was at first scared of the troll but warmed up to him a little before we left. She talks a lot about him too, “Troll under bridge. I scared. Troll making noise.”
Gas Works Park was beautiful with great views of the city.
We ate at a great Thai place on The Ave, Thai Tom. It is such an interesting shift now traveling with a child. The small, cramped Thai place wasn’t quite the same with a 2 year old. Of course, she certainly adds a lot to our travels, and we are happy to see her enjoying and learning new things! Jeff picked up a car that evening for our trip to Whidbey the next day, so we took advantage of having our own transportation and headed to Queen Anne for dinner. We walked to Kerry Park which was breathtakingly beautiful with a clear view of the city and Mount Rainier in the distance.
Molly Moon’s ice cream was next. This was another recommendation and was well worth the trip!
The other night, Beth went to the Rotty’s house for a girl’s night so Clara and I got to hang out. I decided we’d go on a run. Clara always loves riding in her new stroller and I needed the exercise. So not long after Beth left, I started fixing Clara a snack for the road (a necessity). She was pretty interested in my preparation, so I told her that we were going to go on a walk. Well this got her really excited. She started running around the house repeating “Walk, Walk”.
Then, all on her own, she went and found her book bag that her Aunt Fifi gave her and started running around the house. Now, for some context, we usually grab a few toys to throw in there with her to keep her entertained on walks, but this was always done by us. The subsequent conversation went something like this:
“What are you doing with your bag?”
“Toys”
“Why are you getting toys?”
“Walk”
“What toys are you getting?”
“People, Crab”
We often pack things into that bag, like a change of clothes and a diaper for church, but this was the first time she packed it by herself. It was really cute and I love her choice of toys.
Ok, so I realize that it is now March, and we are way behind on our blogging efforts. I hope to do a few catch up posts and then get back to current happenings. Here are a few December highlights excluding our time in Mississippi which should be in an upcoming post.
Avocado is a favorite.
Clara started a new thing this month where she decided that she just wanted to stay in the bed in the morning. She already hangs out in there quite a while before I go get her and seems to enjoy herself. I almost feel like she isn’t fully awake if I don’t give her at least a half hour. This was different though, I would go to get her after a usual amount of time, and she would be uninterested in getting out of the bed. She was just fine with reading books in her crib though. On this particular day, she was in bed until noon. Wow… this didn’t last long though, and we were quickly back to our normal routine. Although, I am definitely not complaining about her more typical hanging out in bed habits.
Jeff received Zoolights tickets from work so we planned to make a fun family night of it. Unfortunately, our tickets were for the same day that Walcott escaped our yard (as mentioned in a previous post). Thankfully, we found him with a nice couple via Craigslist but Jeff had to drop Clara and I at the zoo, pick up Walcott and take him home, and then join us at the zoo. Not exactly the family night we had in mind, but we still enjoyed it. Clara wasn’t too thrilled with the carousel but the talking giraffe was a highlight. We had just bought her some cold weather gear and were able to try it out before heading to Mississippi in a few weeks.
Clara is showing off her early Christmas present from Nana and Pops– a wheely bug mouse. It has been a huge hit.
Jeff had a random day off in the middle of the week today so we took advantage of our extra time and went to the Children’s Museum. Clara is just now about the age where she really enjoys all of the exhibits at the museum. We all really had fun!
These first pictures are of Jeff and Clara in the huge climbing structure at the museum. Clara was pretty bold and didn’t show much fear. She must get that from Jeff. I only wish I had a picture of all three of us going down the narrow chutes at the end where you went down one hole to a lower level and then crawled to the next hole to keep descending (unsure if this thing has a name) with a parade of kids behind us. As we were in it, we overheard one of the museum workers saying that this was the first time they had seen adults in this section. Nice.
Jeff and Clara making a pizza.
Clara is a fan of tents lately so she liked this part of the museum. She now brings us a blanket at home and says tent so we will put it over our heads and hang out underneath.
Also, check out Clara painting in the art center’s castle. Pretty cool…
After a short nap, we went to dinner at a nearby Mexican place. We had been in a phase with Clara where going out to dinner just wasn’t too enjoyable. It seems that is getting better though. She had fun at this place and enjoyed having her own meal of a quesadilla, rice, and beans. Too bad a lot of it ended up in her hair.
