Hey Grampy, I like your glasses!

11/28/08
Photo by Grampy

Thanksgiving Day

Since Nathan worked on Thanksgiving, my parents, Clara and I just enjoyed a beautiful day together. We took Clara to the park and then went to the lighting of the trees in the Galleria.

Somebody at Continental Loves Me!

When I found out that I was pregnant with Clara, Nathan had just interviewed with Continental. Our calendar from March 2007 reads March 14 - Expecting!, March 15 - Nathan offered job at Continental, March 16 - Turn in letter of resignation. He started training at Continental on April 2nd and after one of my first OB appointments he gave me a Continental bib and t-shirt for the little one we had not yet met!

Celebrating Thanksgiving and continuing Clara's birthday

We celebrated Thanksgiving on the 25th because Nathan worked Thanksgiving Day. We tried some new recipes including a roasted butternut squash soup that was delicious! Here is a picture of our table, pre-feast.

Clara had a virus and an ear infection, so she was pretty worn out the night before when we celebrated her birthday. We saved some of her presents and she gradually opened them over the course of Grammy and Grampy's visit.

Playing with the push toy from Mommy and Daddy.

Opening and admiring the strawberry apron that Auntie Emmy sent from Japan.

First pair of pig tails!

Happy Birthday with Grammy and Grampy

11/24/08

She's still the Pumpkin Princess!

Grammy painted this special plate!

Clara blew out her birthday candle, all by herself!

It was ice cream cake. Can you tell?!

I love my animal friends!

11/15/08

11/21/08

Great-Grammy has given Clara so many stuffed animals...and she loves them all, especially her 'First Teddy Bear' and puppy!

First time on the swing

11/12/08

Vintage baby

11/09/08

I love that Clara has some of my baby dresses. Someone crocheted this for me. Thanks for being a memory-keeper, Mommy!

Don't mess with the 'do

11/03/08

Picking up where I left off... Halloween

On Halloween a group of the moms from church got together to take Halloween costume pictures of the 'littles'. I ran over to Walmart and the pumpkins were greatly reduced, so I picked up some props for our photo shoot.

Joshua

Elly and Joshua

Group Pictures

Note: Elly volunteered to be covered with a black blanket and prop up the littlest, Abigail.

As you can see, the boy-girl-boy-girl arrangement didn't work out too well for Clara.


We rearranged them and let the boys be boys.

The picture that belies the process.

When you have five pumpkins and a cute bumblebee baby, you can't have just one photo session! Clara and I went over to a courtyard in our apartment complex to continue the fun.

I am sure that my neighbors, were they watching, thought I was crazy. I had Clara in the umbrella stroller and five pumpkins in the regular stroller as I strolled and struggled to navigate our way. Then, Clara was so intrigued with the grass, stones, plants, etc. that she would not look at the camera. I resorted to making high-pitched, bat-like screeches to get her attention.

Hey, it worked...

One more birthday video

Birthday Videos

First Birthday Celebration in Michigan

Once upon a time, about one year ago, on a beautiful autumn day, a little pumpkin girl appeared in the Polderman Pumpkin Patch.

Come join us to celebrate the first birthday of our pumpkin baby Clara!

10/25/08

Videos

Because Clara is on the move now (She started walking at the beginning of October) we have lots of blurry pictures and videos, hence the scarcity of pictures from mid-October.

Reasons that there are not videos in the recent posts:

1) I am just trying to regain some semblance of currency to the blog and uploading videos at the normal speed takes so long.
2) Blogger is painfully slow right now.
3) The videos from October are all "old tricks" now because of my failure as a blogger.

Bug books

10/9/08

An, as yet, undeniable truth...

10/4/08

...where there be grass, there better be a pacifier.

Go Hatters!

10/2/08

I am not a mother who is insulted when people refer to Clara as a boy. Puzzled, perhaps, given that she is usually wearing pink, but not really insulted. When I dress her in something a little more ambiguous, I try even harder than usual to keep a bow in her hair. Well, I was in Dillards, Clara was wearing this outfit and her bow was MIA. A salesman asked me how old he was. I said, with no special emphasis, "She is 10.5 months." He said, "The baby isn't a boy!" I said, "No, she isn't." He insisted, "Really? She looks like a boy!" I, ever trying to be a diplomat, cheerfully remarked that she was wearing a unisex outfit, so it might be hard to tell. The diplomacy wasn't even slightly effectual ..."No! She really just looks like a boy," he persisted.

Hrmph...What happened to "the customer is always right"?

Daddy and me

10/1/08

Tasting avocado

9/8/08

Honestly, it is now one of her favorite foods
(after yogurt and cottage cheese) and she eats half of one a day for lunch.

A sample of September

9/7/08

September seems so long ago. Clara was littler, but life was not simpler! I don't have too many pictures because I was in Orlando for over a week when Hurricane Ike came through the Houston area and Nathan wanted to be able to video it so he kept the camera. We certainly missed him. He ended up working in Continental's back-up facility during the arrival of the storm for about 30 hours straight because the next shift couldn't come in to work because of the wind strength. If you are interested in seeing the videos, leave a comment and I will direct you to the site where he uploaded them.

9/8/08

9/9/08

This is Clara's Exersaucer 2.0 that a friend let us borrow. It has a seat that rotates around the activities, but she would have none of it. I believe her words were, "I can stand here and do it by myself." Okay, she didn't say it, but she sure did communicate it!

9/26/08