Such a Willing Model

I wanted pictures of Clara in her Santa dress to send with our Christmas cards....

Yeah, this is one of the better ones. Hahaha! Can you just see the resentment in her eyes?

My Favorite First!

The life of a child is full of so many firsts... First cry, first smile, first laugh, first roll, first solid foods, first toothl, first crawl, and the list goes on and on! As parents, we celebrate those little things like our kid has just won the olympics. Well, tonight Clara has just accomplished the biggest first of her 7 month old life.

Drum roll... What did she do that is so amazing?...

My baby just fell asleep. After being put in her crib awake. On her own. No bottle. No hand on her back. (Here's the gold medal...) Without Crying!

I am so giddy I want to jump for joy and dance a jig and shout from the rooftops!... Or... Instead I think I will publish this post and go to bed.

Mmmmm.... Goodnight blogland. :)

Yes, she often sleeps with her bottom in the air!

Photos to Fight Cancer!

My friend's little one-year-old boy was just diagnosed with Retinoblastoma, a form of childhood eye cancer. He is such a good, happy, handsome little boy and he tries to give Clara kisses when she is at church.

I will be doing a fundraiser over the next few weeks, so if you are in Southern Idaho and want to help out by getting your picture taken, please let me know! They have also set up a donation account in Logan Tingey's name at US bank. Every little bit helps!

 Look at that cute little guy! Please keep him and his family in your prayers!

Sleep

Clara is such a night owl! She is a good sleeper (she can go 9+ hours without waking), but she has never gone to bed before 10:00. She also has never gone to sleep at night without eating, nor has she ever slept in her crib without being transferred there already asleep. Lately for some reason, she wakes up anytime we move her there. Maybe she is just getting too big now.

We have decided that for her sake (& mine!) she needed to learn to fall asleep on her own. This has been a difficult task for us. The plan has been to complete the night time routine, then put her in her crib full and awake. We stay by her crib comforting her with gentle touches, stories, or singing but we don't pick her up. The past four nights have been filled with loud crying lasting over an hour until she is finally exhausted to the point of sleep. Tonight, however, I put her in her crib and she didn't immediately start to cry. She never worked herself up to hard crying, only soft, mild sobs for a little while. She fell asleep within 30 minutes. This gives me hope... We shall see what the next few nights hold.

If this works, the next task will be 9:00 bed time! Ha!

Mischief

It's like someone flipped a switch and Clara is all of the sudden into EVERYTHING!

I put her down for a nap and found her like this when I went in to check on her...

I think it's time to move the mattress down a notch!

This is random, but I love babies in little hoodies! I thought this one was cute... I'm not sure who it came from, but I'm so grateful for hand-me-downs!

Check out those cheeks!

She's finding lots of new places to explore...

And learning lots of new tricks (we were going for rides in the laundry basket  -the Leavitt version of those motorized kid Jeeps- and when I went to get the camera she stood up all by herself!)... 

But she still needs to figure out how to get back down.

My Little Sister is Married!

~Tara & Kolby~

November 6th, 2010

It was a beautiful, warm, fall day for a wedding! It was perfect!

I don't know why, but I love this picture. Maybe because it's so real. Haha...

Quality Entertainment

101st Post!

Happy Halloween from the Peters! 

We had a Toy Story theme going... Dennis was Woody, I was Bo-peep and Clara was our little Sheep. I love home-made costumes. I hope Clara loves them when she gets older!

 She practiced saying "Ba ba ba" all week...

 Clara and her loyal sheep dog, Ambrosius.

 We made her costume (the night before halloween) out of three sweaters I found for 25 cents each at the second-hand store. It was my first experience sewing clothing without a pattern. I used a pair of pj's as a guide. The best thing was I didn't have to finish any edges because it was made from knit and fleece! The black was taken from the ribbed sleve and bottom edges of the sweater. The pink was fleece and I just "appliqued" it on with a zigzag stitch, and her hat was the neck of the turtleneck tied with a scrap (No sew hat! Dennis is a genious.) The back is just fastened with hook & eye closures. Oh, Dennis also came up with the idea of a detachable tail so that she didn't have to sit on it in the car seat.

I bought extra sweaters to try and refashion for Clara this winter.... We will see if I ever get around to making them! And then it takes even more effort to post about them! Hahaha.

P.S. I finally saw Toy Story 3 today... It was pretty cute! The first is still my favorite though. :)