Claire's Blessing

Claire's Blessing was yesterday. It was a really nice day. We had a lot of family and friends at the blessing and then we had a brunch afterwards with everyone. it was a really nice day. We were trying to get a quick family picture with Violet and Claire. It didn't work out. Claire was yelling because she was hungry, so now we have a bunch of pics of the bottle and Violet was grumpy because she wanted to go play with Noah, so she is trying to escape in all our pictures. It was pretty funny and I think is a realistic representation of life with two little girls.

We had fun trying to get a good picture and we gave everyone a good laugh.

Claire: "I just want to eat and sleep and your making me wear this dress and pose for pictures!!"
The Blessing circle minus Brad and a few special people that were there in spirit.

Diana came to the blessing even though she didn't get home from work till 2 AM and she had to go home and take a nap before getting up to get ready for work that night. I'm glad she could come.

Claire all snuggled up and happy before her big day. Claire is our screamer baby, this is one of her more peaceful moments. If you get a close up of Peter and I you will see puffy tired eyes, but we are happy and she is a pretty good baby overall. We are pretty lucky to have such good babies.

Violet in the swing, she doesn't seem to care that she's too big for it and she spends more time swinging in it than Claire does. She climbs over the back of it and slides right into the seat and then uses the bars to get herself swinging, she can rock the whole frame! She loves it.

Violet talks in her sleep

Last night I went into check on Violet after I got up with Claire and after I tucked her back in and gave her a kiss she sort of stirred and started to babble a little. I smiled and left, but in the hall I heard her giggle and say "oh Wesley". I think she really misses Wesley. The other day we got online with the Woods and I said to Violet "let's go see Wesley" she lined up our shoes at the door and waited for me, and was really upset when I told her we were going upstairs and not out to the car, but she was really glad to see that Wesley was on the Computer.

Violet is starting to acknowledge Claire's existence. She runs in to check her out when Claire starts to cry and is always quick to give her back her binky when she drops it. This morning Claire was sleeping on the couch and Violet went up to her and Said "hey! Wake up!" She doesn't understand why Claire sleeps so much, when there is so much fun to be had. It will be great when Claire is old enough to play.

Violet likes to hold Claire but loses interest quickly so I have to hold Claire up for her.

Claire is a snuggler, It is strange to have a baby sleep with us again, but hopefully she'll be like Violet and make the move to sleeping more in her crib in a few months. Violet has made the move to the big twin bed in her room, I think I'll store her stuffed animals on her pink bed until Claire is ready to use it.
I pulled out my shoes this week. I've been living in Flip Flops for the duration of my pregnancy (they are the only shoes that fit) My feet are still to wide for my heels so I'm not wearing them yet but Violet likes to walk around in them and she's pretty good at it since she wears her dress up shoes all day everyday (she'll be better in heels than I am soon).

What a fun weekend

We had such a busy/fun weekend! I am exhausted... well I think we all are. Violet has been sleeping the weekend off today and is now starting to wake up (it's 10 pm... oh well). Friday Diana, Peter and I took the girls to the zoo. I love the zoo and Violet does too, we let her just run around and it was great because our zoo is kind of small so you can see it all in about an hour and V was totally worn out by the end of our trip. I think her favorite part is the aquarium, she loves fish, and ran from tank to tank shouting look! Fish! It was adorable.

Here are V and her cousin Olivia playing with Peter on Sunday. We were at Ann and Larry's house for Grandpa's b-day dinner. The girls love to play together and we are planning a trip to the farm on Friday.
Olivia with her Grandma Ann
Grandpa Cecil and Grandma Shirley holding Claire. Happy Birthday Grandpa! We had Grandpa's favorite cake- Tomato soup cake.... it is actually really good!

Saturday my Mom and I took the girls down to Montesano, WA to visit my Uncle David's family. My Uncle Jeff (in the picture with my Mom) was visiting for the week and they had gone fishing everyday. We had an excellent dinner of Salmon (that had been swimming that morning). It was such a great night. I haven't seen Jeff in about 5 or 6 years.

My parent's are redoing their entire front yard this year. They had to take out about 12 trees after last winter's snow storm, so they are starting from scratch basically. My Dad has been building a stone wall all weekend and it is starting to look really beautiful. It should be finished soon, and then they will start planting more grass and putting in a stone pillar fountain. I'm excited to see it finished.

Friday we went to my Grandparents house for a dinner and visit with my Aunt Katherine and her family. It was great to see them, I haven't seen any of them since they came up for my wedding. Katherine's youngest boy is 3 and he and Violet had a great time running around and laughing. It's fun to have cousin's visit.

This is the beautiful Sunset from my grandparent's yard. I love to watch the view in this yard, it is very special to me, because it is where my and Peter's wedding reception was.

These are obviously all out of order but this is V at the zoo and she is backing up as this shark is coming right at her, it was pretty funny. She looked up at me for reassurance that the Shark would stay on the other side of the glass, luckily it did.

V all dressed up in her fancy shoes with her keys and ready to head out on the town.... oh wait I guess it's too cold to go out in a diaper and heels. V can walk all over the house, up and down stairs in her dress up heels. Impressive.

Claire turned 3 weeks old this weekend and we just love her. She is getting so cute. We took her to the Dr last week and she was 7 lbs 11 oz and 20 inches long. She is perfectly proportionate 20% for weight and 25th for height. Violet was always 25 for weight and 95% for height.

Claire is starting to spend more time awake and she really likes to just stare at us, we of course love to stare back. She is a really quiet baby, except when it comes to food. On Saturday I had just finished telling my aunt Lisa what a quiet baby Claire was, when Lisa took the bottle out of Claire's mouth and she let out the loudest wail I had ever heard! It made everyone in the house turn and look. It was so funny! She was immediately happy as soon as the bottle was back in her mouth and she could eat eat eat!

eat a dessert day! Horray!

So Wesley is doing a preschool with 3 other kids from our ward. The themes are based from a website "holidays for everyday" http://www.holidaysforeveryday.com/ Yesterday was National Wilderness Day and Wesley came home with a nicely painted forest. Today is "Eat A Dessert Day" I think we will be observing that one. . . and not feel bad because, hey, it's "eat a dessert day" let's celebrate!! Things have been good around here. Not too much to report. Jonathan and I both got new callings. Jonathan works with the Wolf Scouts as an assistant and I am a CTR 7 teacher. We are both really enjoying our new callings

I always like to see pictures on the blog. I do not know where our most recent ones are, but here are some from the summer.

Sam loves to stand on this box and watch TV with Wesley. He also enjoys jumping over the couch via the box.

Sam likes to paint with his food. I think he gets more on the table, floor, and himself than actually in his mouth. You are only little once, live it up!

Our camera does some special effects. I was trying some out with Violet. She doesn't see too impressed, or maybe she is mesmorized. . . I can't tell. But she is very darling!

Wesley is just a great guy and a lot of fun. He is learning a lot and we have had some good discussions about life and different things.

That's all. When I find those pictures from our trip I will post a few. . .

emily

Ready to head back to real life

So, it's been two weeks and I've got major cabin fever. We went back to church for the first time in 3 weeks today and it was so nice to just be out of the house and feel more like a real person. This week ought to be fun, we have dr's appointments, play dates and a couple family parties. The picture above is one I stole from my Dad's blog that he's been doing of old family slides. This is my great grandparents Nida and Dewey Coy. If I'm not mistaken this is their 50th wedding anniversary portrait. I love this picture, I didn't know my grandpa but I did know my grandma. She died when I was 16 years old, which was 10 years ago. I can't believe it's been that long, she was a beautiful woman and I remember we use to always go into her room and ask for a piece of candy. Grandma always had several jars of candy, but we most commonly were given a piece of Werthers carmel. Werthers carmel still reminds me of grandma.

This post is a bit scattered, but here is a pic of V this week. Violet is excited to go to the zoo this weekend with her Aunt Diana, I'm sure we'll have some fun pics to post of that. Violet is still adjusting to being a big sister, but as we've started to get back to our normal schedule she is a lot happier about things. Today when we got to church and were getting out of the car she said "ok, come on baby!" She was so excited to go to Nursery, I was walking around the halls with her towards the end of sacrament (she's maxed out of good behavior at about 45 minutes) and she just went and sat if front of the nursery doors. When I took her in after sacrament she just ran right in and started to play and when I went to pick her up she was still dancing around and having so much fun.

Claire is spending more time awake this week, her favorite time to be awake is between the hours of 1 am and 4 am. She doesn't stay up and cry but she just stays awake and hangs out. She hardly ever cries, except when it comes to food, if we take too long to get her bottle together she really let's us know, but it is such a cute little cry that we can't help but smile. Peter and I take shifts to make it through the nights and I think we'll make it. Needless to say we are grateful for afternoon naps!

I am feeling pretty good these days, sometimes I have remind myself to take it easy otherwise I overdo it and end up needing some IBprofen for my back at the end of the day. I'm anxious to get back to life and get back into shape. I've lost some weight and am now 8 pounds below my pre pregnancy weight, which I am super excited about. This pregnancy was so different from Violet's, which I'm really grateful for. I think Heavenly Father just knew I needed a super easy pregnancy and delivery because we would be moving halfway across the country at the last minute. We are almost done tying up all our loose Texas ends, we got the last of our bills and have been able to take care of those quicker than we thought and we are just working to take care of what's left of our lease... we don't have to pay anymore rent but there are a lot of fees when you break a lease! Oh well, things are starting to fall into place here. Peter has a temporary job lined up and some good leads for a more permanent job, thanks to a really great friend who has really helped us a lot with the job hunt. We have really been blessed and we know that this was the right move for us. The way has just opened up before us and we've always taken that as a sign that we are on the right path.

Well Claire is starting to give me the food warnings so I better get moving on that bottle. I'm having a good day and I'm looking forward to a good week.

Family reunion/ Claire's first week

Claire is one week old! This week went by so quickly, it is so fun to have a new baby again. I forgot how tiny and sweet babies are. Claire finally got her first bath at home this morning. Everyday we would say, ok we'll do it today, but she was always sleeping so we kept putting it off. By this morning though, she really needed a little rinse off.

Violet is starting to like Claire, and even comes to snuggle with her and Mom every morning. Two sweet girls is so fun.

Violet passed her swing down to Claire. Claire doesn't really care for the swing too much right now. I think the music may be too irritating for her.

Claire is so tiny, even newborn clothes are ridiculously huge on her!

Getting ready to head to Grandma and Grandpa's for the afternoon.

Peter took Violet out to the Corier Family reunion on Friday. She really needed some time to run around and be the center of attention again. We also took her to my parents house on Saturday to run around with the dogs, she loved it!

We are trying a new kind of bink with Claire, in order to minimize binky fights between the girls. V doesn't seem interested in Claire's at all so far, in fact she likes to make sure Claire has hers in.

Violet has found some great hats and loves to run around with a cute old lady hat on all day.

Peter snuggling with Claire. Claire loves to be held while she sleeps.

Peter's patented burping position, Guaranteed to get a good burp out of any gassy baby.

Video that Peter took at the reunion for Katie and Emily, who weren't able to come. Maybe we'll all be able to go next year :)

Claire Elizabeth Corier

Claire was born Sunday afternoon. She was 6 lbs 13 oz. She is a great baby and I am so happy she is here.

We are obviously all a little tired but I think so far we are doing pretty well in the sleep department. Claire likes to sleep during the day and stay up and eat all night, I think that's normal. Violet is slowly realizing that Claire is here to stay, but she was just happy to have Mom and Dad home.

Claire's first bath. After a minute she realized she liked the water (like V) and stretched out and relaxed in the sink. It was really cute. Ok well I'm going to go sleep while I can.