Super Baby!!

Claire's favorite thing is to be flown around the house like Superman and I got some good pics of her in action today with her bib on as a cape.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

This past week Claire has celebrated a couple of firsts. Last Friday night we celebrated Mimi's (Todd's Mom) birthday at the Bright Star restaurant (our favorite!!). It was Claire's first trip there and she gave Mimi a message for her birthday (The bib shown below-- it really wasn't ready early enough to bring to the restaurant--but we wore it over to show her a few days later). Claire also started daycare this week and has really seemed to love it. She has done really well. She is sleeping well, playing well, taking her bottles well, and I think she really likes seeing all the different babies and teachers. She came home yesterday with her first art project, it was so cute and it's made out of wood (not paper plates like I would have expected out of a preschool valentine project).

Mondays with Grandma

Claire spends every Monday with Grandma (my mom) and she always manages to get some cute pics of her playing throughout the day. Here are some cute ones from yesterday.

Claire is rolling over!!

Claire has loved her activity center and plays us wonderful music on her little piano all the time. She has started rolling over this week and now won't lay on her back for hardly a second without rolling over. If we walk out of the room for a minute she will end up halfway across the floor before we come back in. It's been fun to see her get mobile, but it definately adds more danger to leaving her alone for a second. She loves to be tickled and can get to laughing pretty hard when she thinks the funny noises you are making is cute.
She has been eating rice cereal for a couple of weeks and this week we added sweet potatoes as her first veggie. She didn't really seem that impressed with the sweet potatoes, but Todd tried them and didn't like the taste either. I think we will go for a fruit next, maybe pears or bananas. I'm going to experiment with making some of my own baby food this week and freeze it for later. If anyone has any experience in making baby food let me know.

MLK Weekend in Florida

Last weekend we went to visit some very good friends (Kristy and Peyton) who recently moved to Florida. We stayed at her families hunting cabin and had such a wonderful time seeing the Patterson's and spending time with some of our Birmingham friends that also traveled down for the weekend. Claire is such a good traveler and even though she had a cold and was recovering from her first ear infection she still slept pretty good and wasn't fussy at all. Todd enjoyed hiking around the property and took Claire out in her carrier and walked her around a good bit. It is such a relaxing place to be and we love visiting the Patterson's. We miss you guys being in Birmingham!

Our Holiday Vacation to Chattanooga

This year for the Connell Family Christmas vacation we all went to Chattanooga for a couple of nights. We went to Ruby Falls and Rock City on the first day and then stayed in a hotel downtown and went to the aquarium and walked around downtown the second day. Claire was such a great traveler and slept so well in her portable bed and behaved so well at all of the attractions. She really loved seeing all the new stuff. Here are some pics of her and the rest of the group during her first aquarium trip.

Claire's First Christmas

Claire must have been a very good girl these past four months because Santa really brought a lot of gifts this morning. She enjoyed watching us open all the presents and posed for a bunch of pictures under the tree. We hope you all have had a very Merry Christmas! We loved our first Christmas with Claire and feel very blessed.

Our First Boo-Boo!!

Last week Claire got her first boo-boo playing with a three year old little boy at the babysitters house. I thought I'd share it with you all. It's a scratch on her nose that really didn't look that bad the first day. It took a couple of days for it to scab up.

Christmas Growing Up

As we get excited about our first Christmas with Claire, we have been looking back at pictures of ourselves as babies and young kids on Christmas morning. We decided to share some of the pictures of us growing up. Feel free to share who you think Claire looks more like--we can't tell yet!

Lisa's first Christmas

Lisa opening presents

Lisa surrounded by Legos, (I still have all of them!)

Todd(in the red) and Tim on Christmas morning

Todd getting an engineering toy already!

Tim holding Todd

She's already three months old!!

It's so hard to believe that Claire is already three months old. She is growing so fast! The last three months have flown by. She is babbling so much and loves sucking on her hands. She will spit out her passifier to get to suck on her hands. She is still sleeping through the night great and has only had one night in the last few weeks where she woke up in the middle of the night and wanted to eat and stay awake. She is averaging 8-9 hours a night, and Todd and I are loving it. Here are some pics from the last week.

Enjoying Thanksgiving

All dressed up to cheer Bama on to beat Auburn

Visiting with our friends Brian and Emily and their new baby girl Leah. She is only 12 days younger than Claire.