Claire's New Year

We were favored with a fun visit from Uncle Mike and Aunt Sheri over the break. Claire is waiting in the warm car in this picture. It was roughly 26 degrees below zero that day with microbursts of 50 mph. The second picture is of Claire today--January 5th. I thought an absolutely up to date image would be nice. She's growing like a weed--the doctor says she's in the 90th percentile for height and the 30th for weight, so she's a tall slender (strawberry) blondie.

Claire's 1st Christmas: A Great Success

For Claire, Christmas was a wonderful collection of lights, music and most importantly, BEADS. She's quite big on gaudy Christmas tree beads and has claimed a few strand remnants as necklaces. It's apropos considering the dream I had just before I got Claire--she was a four year old girl with wavy strawberry blond hair who came speeding around the corner into my grandmother's living room drenched in colorful necklaces and exclaiming, "Look, Mama! BEADS!" In the dream, I responded, "Oh you are so pretty Claire!" and was then awoken by the surprise of acknowledging the little girl as my daughter. Interesting.

Claire was so excited for Christmas that she switched her normal night owl routine and gave me a "silent night." It was exactly what I wanted for Christmas.

The movie shows her reaction to the present frenzy of her uncles and aunt on Christmas morning and pictures include famous beads and a picture of Claire with her Great Grandma Regular. For the uninitiated, I named her "Grandma Regular" when I was in pre-school because she was the grandmother who I saw "regularly."