Claire at 7 and 8 months

Claire has changed so much in the past couple of months! Right at 7 months Claire started sitting up on her own. In the past couple of weeks Claire started crawling everywhere! I love it when she crawls up to me and then pulls up for me to hold her. A couple of weeks ago she also started going from laying down to sitting up. Since she made this discovery she had one evening where she was awake from 2:00-4:00 am because she just kept wanting to sit up. Luckily, it has not happened again. Typically, Claire's schedule is she naps around 10:00 am and 2:00 pm and it ranges from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. Then, she goes to bed around 7:00 pm and wakes up for a feeding or two in the middle of the night before starting her day around 7:30 am. Claire has gotten her first bottom tooth in the past couple of weeks and  I am sure it will not be long before she gets her other bottom tooth. Last week we had to go back to the doctor because it appeared Claire had not gotten rid of her ear infection that she had the weeks prior to that. We were right. Claire is now on her fourth round of antibiotics. Technically, the doctor considers her to have only had three ear infections with the fourth one being the third that didn't clear up. However, if she gets another one we will need to see an ENT to explore whether she should have tubes or not. Bummer. We want to do whatever is best for Claire though. Now, I make sure she has yogurt every day to give her some probiotics since she has been on antibiotics for awhile. Luckily, she loves yogurt! She especially loves banana and blueberry yogurt. Claire is now wearing 12-18 month clothes and she is not even 9 months old yet. Wow! She has been our biggest baby yet. She is so squeezable! She has been making more and more sounds to try and talk. She is still so full of joy and happy most of the time unless she has an ear infection. The poor thing. We all love her so much. The girls have had so much fun with her crawling!

Claire playing with wrapping paper in Shreveport with Aunt Lauren and Daddy.

7 month picture.

Claire loves Kate! Kate was being a good big sister and playing with Claire.

The picture we used for the Baby Dedication at church this past month.

Claire's first time in our little play car. She loved it! I love how she put her hands on the steering wheel. She kept them there almost the whole time on our walk.

Claire and me. Kate or Carly took this picture. Not bad, huh?

Eating yogurt for the first time and loving it!

8 month picture

Leaving the Abilene Zoo.

Getting to swing on a swing for the first time in Abilene.

Another time at a playground. She was holding on pretty tight.

Claire loves getting to sit up in the baths now and play with the bath toys.

Getting dry after bath time.

Crawling! Don't you just love this face?

First Camping Trip

Zack took the girls on their first ever camping trip in April. It was to be a father daughter camping trip with Rod, Aubrey and Ryleigh and also Brent and Harper. This was also to give me a chance to have some time at the house with just Claire. The girls were so excited! I helped get their bags packed and Zack took care of all the camping stuff. Rod reserved a spot and organized it for them to go to Lake Ray Roberts on Friday and Saturday night. We were a little bit concerned about the chance of rain and thunderstorms, but it ended up being a perfect weekend weather wise. Rod got the perfect spot that was next to the beach area. Thanks Rod! I kind of felt sad that I missed out on this experience, but I was so thankful for them to have their time with Zack and me to have my time with Claire. The pictures are not necessarily in order of the way they happened, but it shows you all of the fun that they had.

This is the way Carly started the camping trip driving. Ironically, you will see that it is also how she ended her trip.

Zack had them do leaf rubbings.

A look at the camping site. Here is the playground.

Bathroom

Kate and Aubrey playing on the playground.

Breakfast time!

Uncle Brent blowing bubbles with the girls.

Enjoying the food!

Kate getting sticks for the fire.

I love these pictures of Carly and Harper exploring together.

Wow! Did they get dirty or what?

Priceless pictures of the girls sitting around the campfire together. I will forever treasure these pictures.

They seemed to really enjoy the playground there, especially the swing!

One of our favorite pictures. Carly just in pure joy over the fun of the swing.

Kate and Aubrey hanging out.

Rod making the hamburger patties.

The girls apparently made up this game of circling round and round this pole and hitting their head on the trash bag. Hilarious!

Kate and Ryleigh

Rod

The girls loved sitting with each other and on each other's laps.

Another meal time.

Everybody enjoyed taking turns riding the bikes that Zack brought.  

Carly enjoyed collecting leaves.

I am glad that Kate still has her Barbie with her  despite the rugged surroundings.

They really enjoyed playing at the beach area. The water was really shallow so they could walk out pretty far.

Kate and Carly sharing a towel. Love this picture!

Sweet, happy girl!

I don't need to tell you what is happening here.

Sweet picture of Zack and the girls.

Rod and his girls. Poor Ryleigh. You can tell in this picture that she was not feeling that great. Rod had to end up taking them home Saturday night because Ryleigh was having too much trouble breathing. So they just stayed one night and two days. Rod then came back up by himself on Sunday to help clean up camp. Ryleigh got well pretty quick after she came home and could get her medicine. Thank goodness!

Playing with the markers and coloring books that we brought.

Poor Ryleigh.

Here was their bathroom area. This cracked me up!

Brushing teeth and getting ready for the day.

Making breakfast burritos for breakfast.

Kate took these two pictures of Zack.

Breakfast burrito time!

I love Aubrey's morning hair.

Zack said Carly carried around this bag of dirt all weekend.

It is time to fix your hair. They did it all on their own. Good job girls!

We laugh because Carly always sprays her hair in this one area over and over again.

This is actually pretty soon after they got there the first night.

Rod fixing Aubrey's hair.

Hand washing time!

Zack said he let the girls enjoy eating while they were there so they did not have a limit on chips. Wow! Carly fully took advantage of this rule.

Hot dog time!

Enjoying camp fire time and s'mores.

Zack sent me these pictures of the girls sleeping the first night.  Don't worry he made sure they were in their blankets and sleeping bags before he went to bed.

Waking up in the morning. Zack said they slept really well in the tent. What a celebration!

Kate helping Carly with her shoes.

Exploring.

I love this picture of Kate and Harper.

I love these pictures of the girls all sitting together.

Harper greeting Zack and Kate in the morning.

Harper and Carly exploring.

Burger time!

Kate and Aubrey

Harper and Ryleigh

Goofing around together. Love it!

Sadly, it was time to go. Here is the loaded truck.

Carly did not make it far before totally crashing! This cracked us up that she still had her hand in the Sonic bag. She kept it there the whole entire time that she slept.

Kate was totally exhausted, too. She was just about to crash.

Almost there.

Both of them out! This is the sight that I saw when they pulled into the driveway. They didn't even budge when I opened the door.

Great job Zack on a memorable and special weekend with the girls!
What an awesome Daddy!

Meanwhile, Kamara and I enjoyed lunch at Abuelos with our babies.

Kamara and Hannah

I enjoyed taking Claire on a couple of walks. This was her first time to sit in it like a big girl instead of just clicking the carseat in it. I think she was excited, don't you?


Claire also got to sit in the high chair at Abuelos for the first time. It was nice. Our baby is growing up! We all had a great weekend.