Nana and Papa's house

Claire is having an excellent visit with Nana and Papa.  We arrived on Monday, it was a very hot day so Claire spent most of her time in the pool.  Nana made Claire's favorite dinner, homemade ziti with sauce.  Today it rained for most of the morning so we took a trip to Target and found Claire a ride-on toy.  The weather cleared up by the afternoon so Claire could try out her new toy.  Tomorrow we are going to the zoo!

Claire and her ride-on toy:

It is also fun to push it:

Summer Vacation!

My summer break has officially begun, so on Friday Claire said goodbye until August to her daycare teachers.  We spent Friday night at my co-worker Leanna's house.  It was a beautiful evening to celebrate the start of summer break.  Claire enjoyed walking the grounds, exploring the tadpoles in the pond, and playing with the dogs.    

On Monday, Claire and I are headed to Nana and Papa's for the week (Cory is at a conference). We are looking forward to many adventures, including Claire first trip to the zoo. 

Claire likes to move her chair around the yard:

Spinning in the yard with mommy:

Leanna shows Claire some rocks:

"Hey mom, this place has TONS of rock to pick up!"

Exploring the garden:

Checking out the pond:

Playing with fetch with the dog:

Independent Play

When ever we have people over who have children they are surprised by how well Claire plays by herself. She loves attention, but she is also able to sit down, focus on a task and play by herself. We have three videos of Claire doing just that (the videos are a bit longer than usual). The first video is Claire wrestling Curious George and just being silly; then deciding to play with the nesting dolls. The second video is about 5 minutes later when she is still sitting and playing with the nesting dolls (I have two more I'm not posting of her still playing with the nesting dolls 15 minutes later).

The third video is Claire playing with the little people from the garage sale. We have since named each of them; we have Daddy, Mommy, Nana, Papa, Grandma, Grandma 2, Grandpa, Aunt Becky, Aunt Becky 2, Dexter, Dexter 2 (the school had a few sets of twins), Uncle Dan, Aunt Jean and Aunt Sarah.

Little people and coloring

Claire is enjoying playing with her Little People.  She likes to put everything in the school house, close it up, and then take everything out again.  

Claire is big enough for her rocking horse.  She can say 'rock', although it sounds more 'wock'

A few weeks ago daycare introduced coloring and Claire is quickly becoming our little artist.  She is still working on holding the crayons correctly, but she is very focused and tries very hard to mimic our hand position when we show her how to hold the crayons. 

Her latest masterpiece:

Laundry basket rides

We had an excellent weekend.  On Saturday Claire slept in until 8:40am and on Sunday until 8:15am! I made Cory check on her both mornings because I was worried why she wasn't awake at her usual 7:00am.   This weekend our village had their annual 'attic and seller' days; we scored Claire two vintage fisher price toys - the little people school house and barn.  Cory and I remember playing with these toys as kids and it was neat to see Claire loving them as well.

Now that Claire is bigger she no longer fits in her diaper box, we had to move her to a laundry basket for rides.  Her monkeys joined her for some laps around the sofa.