A visit from Auntie V!!

We were blessed with such a GREAT visitor this weekend! My sister flew in from Las Vegas to play! She hasn't seen Clare since April when we were there visiting so she was sure surprised at how much Clare has grown and changed! Clare had her first (of many I'm sure) birthday celebration when Auntie V gave her a birthday present. She got new pj's, a new fall outfit and the cutest bath toy! The weekend was way to fast and we were extremely busy. I think all weekend Vanessa and I kept saying "too bad this isn't just normal life for us." To be able to just meet for dinner or grab a coffee would be such a treat, but since that isn't possible we jam everything we would do "normally" into our 3 days...so we ate out, watched movies, played cards, had a party, went to church, sat in Starbucks, went to a festival, played at home and got ice cream...all in 2 1/2 days! I'm sure Auntie V is sleeping soundly on her flight back to Vegas right now as I type this. We will really miss Auntie V until we see her at Thanksgiving, but her and Clare keep in touch pretty well with their phone calls :)

I wish SO badly that I could report Clare is walking...that I cannot do, but I can tell you that she is close and hopefully in the next few weeks we will be on our way to moving on two limbs rather than four! In the last week Clare has been trying so hard to walk. She barely holds onto the couch or table, moves her feet really fast and propells herself forward. It mostly lands in a big thud, but the effort is definetely improving. Every now and then we get a little half step and I ask LD if it can count as her first step (I'm so anxious to record it in her baby book that has a gapping hole!) and he says "not yet!" So hopefully our judge will give us the clear on her first step in the next few weeks!

Clare's little personality just keeps getting bigger and bigger..I LOVE it! She is quite clumsy and tries things she definetely shouldn't like trying to get into the toy basket thats just too small, and thats when LD says she's just like me (thanks!). Tonight she had us laughing so hard that LD had tears in his eyes. She would look at us and babble for a few minutes, using her hands and then stop abruptly and burst into serious laughter. This went on for a good 10 minutes...it was like a little comedy show!! I'm working on getting more of her new "tricks" on video but she's all of a sudden to the age where she just freezes when she sees the camera.

Only a few weeks from the Big First Birthday..so hard to believe!!