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

Sharing books...and Mommy

Update with the bear - 42 weeks

Happy Halloween!

We had a Halloween 'photo shoot' this morning. I'll post more cute pictures later!

We laugh every day in this house!

Enjoying Lake Michigan

'Camping' at Hoffmaster

The VanderMey side of Nathan's family has a family reunion of sorts every Labor Day weekend. Nearly everyone comes and camps together, spending the days at the beach and the nights around a single, huge bonfire. This year we were 'camping commuters.' We drove to the park every morning and back every night when it was approaching Clara's bedtime. It was great to see everyone. There are lots and lots of little ones - nine under the age of 4!

The performer

It seems like every time we visit either side of our family, Clara decides it is time to pull a new stunt out of her bag of baby tricks. She is clearly an extrovert and loves the attention! This visit, she decided she had a large enough audience to display her ability to clap.