Bunny Slippers

BB and Gigi bought these adorable bunny slippers for Claire. And she really seemed to like them. This was her right before bed tonight. She was so tired but in a very good mood! She blesses us so much every day!

Videos of Claire

Hope you enjoy these videos of Claire. In the first one she is trying really hard to get the bird on her jumperoo! The bird is by far her favorite animal on any of the jungle toys she has. In the 2nd video we caught Claire in the act! She has been turning on her mobile at night, in the morning when she wakes up, and even at 2 am if she wakes up. The 2am time has scared me a little...nothing like a little Mozart to wake you up. She doesn't actually get it on this time but comes very close!

One week down!

I am finally finished with my first week as a Coder Cat Kindergarten teacher!!!! This has been the easiest start of school I have experienced! I truly feel blessed by God to be working in Aledo and at Coder. The one down side to it is that I miss my friends A LOT!!! I'm the youngest teacher at Coder by 10 years! So, I just don't have that connection with anyone like I did at Anderson ( I miss you guys!!!) But, I know that God has me right where I am supposed to be. A couple of quick stories from the week and then I will post some pictures of Claire (for all of you who just look at this for Claire..haha) On meet the teacher night, a conversation with a mom and dad lead me to tell them that Michael is a youth minister at Bear Creek. A couple of minutes go by and she pulls me over to the side and tells me that even though they didn't know my name until that day, they had been praying for me daily for a year! And she felt that I was an answer to her prayers! I can honestly say that I believe that is the first parent to ever pray for me as their child's teacher! Then Monday morning rolls around and my vice principal brings me a pink and brown gift bag with tissue paper flowing out of the top (FYI one of my main love languages is gifts!!!) and it was a gift from a mom who "adopted" me for the year! She is friends with my good friend Shawna, and so she knows that I am a Christian and had been praying for this job. Anyways it had a bunch of my favorite candies and snacks and IBC rootbeer!!! But it also had a sweet note in it telling me she was praying for my year, and praying that I would be ok with having to drop Claire at daycare! I feel so prayed over right now and I truly believe that that is why I had such an amazing first week of school! God hears! Thank you so much for those of you who have called or sent e-mails this week telling me you were praying for me and all the encouragement! It has been wonderful!!!!!!!!!!

A New Friend!

Our friends Clayton and Amber came over last night for dinner. They brought their 4 month old, Brock, along to play with Claire. They had a good time together. Claire LOVES looking at other babies - she thinks they are really funny!
Let me give you a kiss!

Watch your hands boy!!!

I want to give you a hug!

Or pinch your face... I guess we need to work on playing well with others!

Our big girl!

Claire is getting so big! She is sitting up so well now and really seems to enjoy it. We weighed her last night and she now weighs 16 pounds!!!!

When she eats it is so funny! If we don't give it to her fast enough she opens her mouth and yells...aaaaa!

Last night we went to Cracker Barrel with mom and dad and Claire was watching me eat my mashed potatoes. All of a sudden she started opening her mouth and screaming aaaaa. So I gave her a bite and that unleashed a monster. She wanted mashed potatoes and she wanted them NOW! It was too funny.

5 months old!!!!

Our sweet Claire is 5 months old today! I can not believe how fast these 5 months have gone by!!! She is changing everyday! At 5 months she can, sit up on her own, roll over from her back to her tummy and tummy to back, she can turn her self 360 degrees, and she can scoot across the floor on her belly. She loves her toys, her bouncer, and her bumbo. She still LOVES being outside! She always wakes up in the morning with a huge smile on her face (which makes 5 am so much sweeter!!!) And she is sleeping for 8 1/2 hours straight. That time seems to be increasing little by little! I'm just glad that we have kicked the 3 am wake up just to wake up habit! Hope you enjoy the pictures and the short video! She was in such a good and playful mood today!

This is Claire sitting up playing with her baby

Turning herself around

Trying to figure out what I was doing

Long Day for Everyone...

Well, I dropped Claire off at daycare today for the first time. Michael will usually be doing the dropping off, but he is in Mississippi this week, so I had to drop her off for the first time. I had a meeting at 8 on the far side of Aledo and couldn't drop Claire off until 7:30, so my goodbye was very rushed. I am so thankful that our friend Suzanne is her teacher, it made it a little easier to leave her. I was very proud of myself, I didn't cry all morning long, I didn't even cry when I said goodbye - however, when I was in my car driving to work, the tears came flooding in. I had myself pulled together by the time I pulled into the parking lot at Stuard. So began my day, which I think had about 6 more hours in it than usual. Suzanne sent me an update about half way through letting me know that she was doing great - that was the best text message I have ever received! So as soon as 4pm rolled around I was out the door and on my way to pick up my sweet little girl! When I got there she was awake and happy to see me. Her note for the day said she didn't sleep much, which is probably why she fell asleep before I even finished buckeling her into her car seat. I know that this will get better...it is just not fun at all.

Baby Einstein and going green!

Claire received these PJ's from a lady at our church during our church shower. I thought they were the cutest PJ's ever and could not wait until she was big enough to wear them! Well she's big enough! She thought it was so funny to look at her feet and see herself. And she kept grabbing the caterpillar and trying to look at it.
Now to the going green part! We started last week giving Claire veggies! We have always said that we would make our own baby food, and now being on a budget it just makes sense. Last week we started off with avocados which she LOVED! We stuck with avocados for 6 days just to make sure she tolerated them ok - and she did. This week is it green beans! It was so fun to use my waterless cookware the way it was intended to be used! It was quick and easy and very budget friendly - 24 feedings for $4!!! And that was with FRESH green beans!!! While at the store tonight I went to look at jarred baby food and it was going to cost me a dollar a feeding!!! So we are very excited about all the money we will save!
Be in prayer for us this week please. Michael is on a mission trip in Mississippi, I am starting back to work this week, and Claire starts daycare on Tuesday. I'm starting to stress a little bit, but I know that God is in control...but if you would please pray for us when you think of us!

Family Reunion

This weekend was our annual Caper's Family Reunion. We get together twice a year - once for our reunion and once the Saturday before Christmas. For our reunion we go to Bend, TX and stay and the Sulfur Springs Camp. We have a beautiful view of the river and cabins big enough for us to sit and talk in.

This is my cousin Allison's little girl Sidney. She is going into 5th grade, and Claire really seemed to like her!

This is my cousin Melissa's little girl Lainey Jo. She is 1 and too cute for words!

This is my cousin Melissa with her oldest daughter Landry (almost 3) and Lainey and in her cute little baby bump are Lillian and Graydon due in December!!

This is my cousin Kathy! She is now a newly wed!!!

Jamie and Claire

Gus (aka Jan) and Claire

Melissa, Lainey, and Rob

The cutest baby at the reunion...and on the planet!

Sidney - This was the pool, which was fed by a spring and is ICE cold!

New trick

So our sweet Claire is starting to mimic things we do. The other day she repeated "uh oh" after my mom and I said it...I wouldn't believe it either but luckily my mom was there to hear it also! But today, while spending time with daddy, her daddy taught her to stick out her tongue when he did. I must say it is pretty cute...I know we will regret this later :)

Fun in San Angelo!

This weekend we went to San Angelo to see my grandparents. It was great to get away for a few days...and Claire didn't seem to mind - she was spoiled beyond belief this weekend!

After her bath. Michael and I think it is so funny
that she thinks it is funny to shiver. It takes me longer
to get her dressed after a bath b/c I'm laughing so hard
at her shivering!

Just the 3 of us!

My grandpa and Claire. I have a very similar picture
of the two of us. I posted it below. It is a little
blurry b/c it is a picture of a picture...but it is one of my
favorites!

My grandparents and sweet Claire

Claire and grandma

Claire and her uncle Jamie - we miss him so much!!
Claire thought he was the funniest thing ever! I think it was because of all the silver on his face!

D'Ann, Claire, and Jamie

Just chillin

We had a wonderful weekend! Thank you grandma and grandpa for letting us come and get away! We really enjoyed it!

Introducing Mallory Monkey!

Mimi came to visit today! And she took Claire to Babies-R-Us to "pick" out a toy. Now I didn't think that a 4 1/2 month old could pick out a toy, so, as we walked the toy isle handing her toy after toy she would look at them and kind of pick at them. However, when we handed her Mallory Monkey she grabbed her, and hugged her and didn't want to let go of her. So, Mallory Monkey was purchased and brought home for Miss Claire to enjoy...which she has!
Two side notes:
1.Michael doesn't like the fact that it is a girl monkey and she doesn't have a shirt on...I pointed out to him that in real life girl monkeys don't wear shirts either.
2. Her name was Mallory Monkey on the tag...and although we have a Mallory in our lives that we love a LOT...we did not name the monkey after her...but we could let her think that :)

Prayer

Today I met with our prayer team before church to pray. I had Claire with me, which I was a little nervous about, I didn't want her to bother anyone. But the neatest thing happened. As each person prayed Claire would look at that person and study them and listen to them as they prayed. It was so neat to me because I felt like I was setting a good example for my daughter. I want her to grow up wanting to have conversations with her heavenly Father. I don't want her to be intimidated by prayer. And I want her to take everything to the Lord in prayer. And today I felt like God was telling me that by taking her with me I am setting that example for her. Just thought I would share that with you.

Don't worry grandparents I will post pictures soon!

Cute pictures from this week

These are just some pictures I have taken this week and I thought they were too cute not to share with everyone!

This is Claire's new favorite place to be. This is the quilt my grandma, her great grandma, made for her! We put all her toys on it and she goes round and round in circles playing!Waving at everyone

At nap time I could not resist taking a picture of these oh so sweet toes!!!

Such a sweet face!