7 months

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New this month:

She only weighs 16 pounds this month. Didn't gain much compared to every month before! She's still not fitting in a lot of her 6 month outfits. Grow already! Mom is ready for some fun new outfits!

She LOVES bath time and faucets. She sits at the faucet the whole time trying to grab the falling water. Now she has a giant tub that she can crawl around in, she loves it. 

This had been one rough month in terms of sleep for the both of us. She got sick AGAIN, which kept her up due to stuffy nose, ears, headache, coughing, and who knows what else. Luckily, Ben has adapted to having a screaming child and sleeps right through it. Sleeps right through me kicking and punching him while yelling his name too. Lucky chap.

BUT I'm happy to announce that moving was all she needed. Once we got here 4 nights ago, I let her "cry it out," lasting only about 20 minutes twice and she slept clean through 8pm -- 8am!!
She went from 7 feedings a day to 4! And only makes a peep around 1am or 3am and then goes back to sleep. It has changed my life.

New with momma: I'm feeling VERY behind in the fun "losing baby-weight department." Yes nursing shaves a lot off without any effort, but then there's a plateau you hit when you're still eating junk and not exercising. Hit that about 2 months ago. I know it's all my fault, only having exercised a handful of times, but it's hard when you don't get any sleep, and the nursing thing makes dieting out of the question. So.... I'm excited to get rid of the extra 10 pounds lurking and haunting me. I officially start exercising and eating healthy THIS WEEK. Gosh, wish me luck.

Back to Claire. Standing.  On everything. I love it, it's so cute. When you stand in one place for more than 3 minutes, suddenly you'll feel a little mouth on your toes, then hands pulling on your pants, and then she's balancing herself with your legs.  Now that we're in this large house (living at Ben's dad's house for a while), she has much more space to crawl and stand and explore. She always finds herself stuck under a coffee table, in between chairs or who knows where else. She's got me on my toes!

She is the happiest baby on earth. Always smiling so big you think her face is going to crack. She loves to scrunch her face/nose.

Loves banging on her new piano:




And is eating finger foods like a champ! You eat 3 times a day. You've enjoyed the flavors of:

Sweet Potatoes

Carrots

Bananas

Pears

Apples
She also loves snacks now. Yogurt bites, mum mum's, bananas, and cheerios. 
 She grabs your face. And when she catches your gums... Ouch! 

She's a pro-crawler now, up on her hands and knees like a big girl. 

We love this little girl. Thanks for making every day so much fun Claire!

Goodbye, again...

Man, it's hard to move! 

We just wanted to say thank you to all of our family and friends here in California. All of you have made an impact on our lives and we're so sad to leave. You've made us feel like family and we've had so much fun getting to know you. 

Thank you to everyone, all our family and friends everywhere who have been supportive and excited for us in the new chapter of our lives. I've never seen Ben more excited about the opportunities awaiting him and we're so happy to be by family.

Okay, lots to do tonight and we're off in the morning! Got our tire chains, junk food, and Baby Einstein... bring it. 

iPhone Icon

So I'm REALLY excited about this. If any of you iPhoners who like our blog want an iPhone icon, I just made one! 

All you have to do to add it to your phone is open our blog up in Safari, click "Add to Home Screen," 

label it, and it's there!

 

Then when you want to see what we're up to, you just click the icon instead of searching in Safari.

I made one for my Photography Blog as well, so just go to camillegarrison.blogspot.com and follow the same steps! Sweet huh?  

If you’d like to create an iPhone icon, create a 158px158px icon. Save the icon as “apple-touch-icon.png” and put it in the root directory of your site. That’s it!

Happy day of LOVE!

Here's to falling in love everyday.

Hope you all have a love-filled day with those you love. 

Triple Threat

This girl is a maniac. We love how fast she's growing and learning but come on! I feel like we've been robbed a couple of months and didn't get much of a transition into the whole 'just-you-wait-they-get-into-everything' age. Triple threat = crawling + standing +... pooping. In the tub. Last night. It was awesome.

A couple of fun random clips lately. Watch her stand!

Now that she's standing herself up, she'll do it on everything, sturdy or not. It's made packing very difficult.

Oh and did I mention she's sick... AGAIN. She just got better 3 weeks ago. Frustrating. She had a fever last night, luckily went away this morning. But here we are all clogged and miserable again.

Between editing photos, being sick, packing, and constantly watching this monkey... we're pretty busy over here. Down to 12 days left before we move! We're getting so antsy and anxious.... but sad at the same time. I wish we could just take all our friends with us!

This post will be a little random. Here's a pic of us at The Olive Garden on Ben's birthday. Thanks for watching Claire, Brooke!

Also, was wondering what to do for Ben for V-day and found this cute idea from my good friend Brooke.

Okay and I LOVE Craigslist. It rocks and I've found the best stuff lately. The activity table you've seen her on standing at is originally $45 but we got it for $15! And this beautiful piano for Claire!

We've been in the city a couple times for some photo shoots and took advantage of the last times we'll be in the city. Man, we'll miss San Francisco.

Loves her pickles.

Alright. Lots to do. Peace out!

we adore you.

my darling ben, on your special day,

i want you to know, and i wanted to say:

i hope you feel loved. hope you feel great.

i could not have picked, a better mate.

you make me feel loved, so special so good.

claire feels this too. if she talked, she would,

tell you she's lucky to have you as a dad.

you're loving, you're funny, you're pretty darn rad. 

we love you so much. there's no one like you.

i wish everyone out there could be this blessed too.

so here's to you and your 27 years here.

too bad we're mormon, and can't have any beer.

 but that's okay, because your love makes me high.

i'm pretty good at rhyming... okay, that's a lie.

we love this man and are so grateful for him in our lives. happy birthday baby.

she's already like her daddy.