Reading time

Snow! (more snow!)

It's been a snowy winter. And ever since Claire learned how to walk pretty well, it's also been too cold for her to really be outside long. But this weekend we went out and Claire walked for the first time ever outside! She loved it. Will was outside shoveling and at first she would stop and refuse to walk on any little bit of snow he had left on the sidewalk. She would point to it and 'ooh! ooh! ooh!' and refuse to go any farther. ('Dad, you missed a spot!') But soon she didn't mind that and walked back and forth on the sidewalk for a while, a huge smile on her face the whole time. The snowsuit is a bit big, but amazingly, she handled even the large booties pretty well.
-K

Claire loves her bunny and vinegar

Claire gets along quite well with Teaser. Even when he likes to sit in her chair, which happens frequently (see very first blog post ever!) she is willing to share and always likes to pet him or kiss him. Surprisingly she is actually pretty gentle with him, and he (mostly) enjoys it.

We discovered last night that Claire has some unique taste in food. We were eating samosas (look it up if you don't know what they are) and had made some dipping sauce for them. The sauce included apple cider vinegar, water, garlic and brown sugar. Claire thought the samosas were okay, but the dipping sauce was great and she would eat spoonful after spoonful of it. The sauce is pretty good on the samosas, but by itself... well, it wouldn't really be my first choice for a beverage.

Speaking of beverages... This morning it was well below zero and Kate decided to make some hot Earl Grey tea to drink. Can you guess who liked it? (Hint: It wasn't Teaser.)

Go Pack, Go!

The Little Fan

Sorry, Grandma C. Claire is a Packers fan. Last weekend she watched the game closely, (Top picture) and celebrated a touchdown with #4 (bottom picture). She'll probably watch the game this weekend too. Since her bedtime is 7pm, I suspect she'll have to read about the result of the 5:30pm game in the newspaper the next day.

-K

You'd never guess...

Claire has one grandma who's a librarian and another grandma who's a reading teacher. Claire loves her books. The first thing she does when she gets to the new day care lady's house in the morning is run over to the shelf and grab some books. (and yes, it is pretty close to running these days. Maybe sometime in the next month I'll get around to posting some video.) And story time with Dad before bed is so much fun, she'll even tolerate stopping playtime and getting her pjs on for those books.

These days Claire also loves helping undress herself. She can pull her shoes off, and the socks, sometimes the pants if they're already down around her ankles, and her favorite part is pulling her shirt off over her head after Mom has helped her get her arms out. She has the biggest smile on her face after that! Mom and Dad are already envisioning the days of coming in to her room after her nap and finding her naked in the crib, diaper-free and all. I think we probably have a few more weeks, though.

-K

Picture of the Day

Claire now has 8 teeth, including two molars (and a crazy head of hair after a bath).

-K

Read all about it!

Claire's dad got some press coverage on the front page of the Capital Times, Madison's afternoon paper. This is third article in a series that the paper has published over the last few months. The series has sparked more comments to the paper than any other in the last decade, according to the reporter.

-W

Hello? Claire?

Claire loves phones. Now, before anyone goes out and buys her a toy (or real - no!!!) phone for her birthday next year, she already has one and she'll probably be over this phase by then (I hope), and if not, it really doesn't have to be an actual phone for Claire. Calculators, remote controls, running shoe insoles, the checkbook, wooden blocks, and a travel alarm clock have all been 'phones' in Claire's imagination. Here are a few pictures:
-K

New Year with Old Siblings

(Ellen - we missed you!)

Everyone else was able to get together for deep-dish Chicago-style pizza on January 1, 2008 in Madison. (Interestingly, the only person from Chicago was the only person who had never had Chicago-style pizza.) We met Greg's girlfriend, Julie, and played some Trivial Pursuit. (Guys vs. Gals - and thanks to the pop-culture-hip Julie, the gals were able to answer 'Michelle Pfeiffer' to the tough 'pink' question in the center and win. Just in case you're keeping score at home, this now adds another game to the already famous 'Guesstures' game where the women dominate. In case I forgot to mention it, the women won the 2007 Guesstures match-up as well.)

Here are the group pictures that we took at the end of the evening. Vote for the "best" in the poll at the top of our blog.

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Thanks to the siblings' parents for the great, warm uniforms!

Here is a picture of Greg and Julie, our photographer for the craziness above:


-K

2008

Claire celebrated by going to bed at 7pm in 2007, and not waking up til 6:30am the next year.

Happy New Year everyone!

-K