Cough

Claire has had a cough since her 12 month check up, so on Monday mom took her back to the doctor to make sure its wasn't another infection. Luckily (or unluckily) it was viral so they couldn't give her anything. But her ears were 100% clear, which was a relief; she is on albuterol to hopefully have the infection move out of her chest.

When we go shopping in town she comes with us, if we pause too long she tries to go for whatever is on the shelf next to the cart.

 And she waves to every passing customer at Tops.

Claire spends an ever increasing amount of time playing with reading her books. She has been enjoying all the new ones she got for her birthday. After work we will usually read her at least 5 books each before bed, although some nights its just 5 little ducks five separate times. She will go through her book bin until she finds the one she wants to read, then she will carry it across the room and sit on your lap so you can read to her.

At daycare the transition from two naps to one has started to occur, unfortunately today she only napped in the morning and refused to nap in the afternoon. So after work she cuddled up to mom for a 10 minute catnap before dinner.

Making Soup

While we are making dinner Claire helps out by making soup.  It involves a lot of stirring and taste testing.  

"I can use lipgloss and carry a purse just like mommy"

All my new toys

We have been introducing the toys that Claire got for her birthday slowly, only one every couple days. She loves all of them. Here are a few photos of her playing with the ones we introduced this week.

This toy dog sings and talks to her, before she could use it we downloaded her name and favorite foods/songs. Now it greets Claire by name.

 She is still working on how to use the drum.

 Her new game is to climb into the kitchen and shut mom and dad in the family room.

Finally for Friday we have a video from last weekend of Claire playing with Grandma and Grandpa.

More photos from her birthday weekend

One of her favorite things to play with at Grandma and Grandpa's house is the Claire sized rocking chair. It serves as her home base in the house and almost every time we set her down, she goes to sit and rock. After three days of rocking she got home and tried to do the same thing in her non-rocking chair. She looked confused why her pink chair didn't rock. Another thing that she loved was playing with the photographs in frames. She was especially fascinated by the 8x10 photo of herself; almost life sized. I don't know if she thought it was a mirror, but even she couldn't help staring at the beautiful baby.

Now that Claire is one year old, we decided to reduce our blogging frequency to three posts a week. Trying to balance a toddler and two full time jobs is harder than we thought when starting this project. So the pace of 232 posts consisting of around 1400 photos (roughly 1/10 of the photos I have taken this year) and over 100 videos this year probably won't be matched in 2012. We will be trying to stick to a Sunday night, mid-week, and Thursday night post.

Claire's Birthday Party

On Saturday we celebrated Claire's first birthday with a party at Grandma and Grandpa's in Rochester. While Claire was a little shy at first, she warmed up to the crowd.  She had a blast opening presents, chasing around other children, and showing off her party dress.  Special thanks to Grandma, Grandpa, Nana, and Papa for making Claire's first birthday party a success.   We will have more party photos later in the week.

After a fun filled weekend Claire crashed at 7:15pm tonight.  Nana and Papa are watching Claire on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, so the fun the continues!