I've officially given up on the idea of "catching up" on this blog.  We'll just pretend nothing exciting happened in the last year or so... oh wait, that would be completely inaccurate.  This last year was one of the hardest, most stupendous, life-changing years ever.  Mark and I were lucky enough to become parents to our own darling Claire.  She has changed me in ways that I never even imagined were possible.  I thought I knew how exciting and crazy and difficult having a baby would be, but no sort of preparation could have helped.  Even little things, like getting used to early mornings (okay, okay, I'm not really used to it yet, but dealing with it better than I would have in the past).  And then there's the big changes, like feeling this overwhelming love and concern for another human being, most of it before I even really knew her little personality.  From the first moment they pulled her out (sorry, that's the most graphic I'll get, promise) and held her up for me to see, I felt this overwhelming rush of love and happiness.  I've never felt anything like it before.  Everything was 100% completely perfect with the world, even as all this craziness was going on and doctor's talking about bleeding (okay, that is the most graphic) and taking care of all sorts of stuff, I was holding my little baby and feeling like I had finally found the thing that made me complete.  The thing that I hadn't realized I was missing before until I had it.  This little girl makes life perfect. 

Now, that doesn't mean that Claire-bear hasn't had her difficult moments (props has to go out to Abby, Mark's mom, who came out to help us and for some reason let us talk her into staying up with Claire until about 3 am holding her and watching TV... how did we allow her to do that?  Looking back now, I seriously feel bad about making her do that.  Mark and I both asleep in our comfy bed, while she stayed up late until Mark took his turn and she went back to sleep on our air mattress.  We are so eternally indebted to her.  We will always look back on those first few days with fondness, especially because Abby was there helping us through it all.  And yes, for those who were keeping track, I slept through most of the nights, just waking up long enough to feed her.  I am the luckiest gal ever).  Okay, that was a long "aside" so now I've lost my train of thought.  Currently Mark is watching "Dance Party" in the background while I'm typing this, making it hard to concentrate.  Basically, it's crazy people dressed up and dancing to 80's music in a very bright studio.  Our local KOFY TV station tapes these shows on random Saturdays and invites people to come dance.  Then we get to watch and laugh at crazy people dancing insanely.  We especially love the repeat people who are on every episode.  Anyways, back to our current life...

Claire is now almost 7 months old!  Holy crikey I just realized how close she is to 7 months old.  I've been saying 6 months and haven't even thought 7 months yet.  And now she'll turn 7 months in 6 days!  So, Claire currently:

• Can sit up all by herself!  I was nervous to leave her alone sitting up by herself for awhile, but now she's totally capable!  

• As evidenced by the picture above, Claire smiles like crazy.  She has the sweetest personality.  Also, she has the chubbiest cheeks.  Her sweet personality and chubby cheeks are the two things most people comment on.  I love it!
• Claire laughs!  I was so excited for this one and she still definitely makes us work for a good laugh, but it's so cute.  See video below (sorry, it's kinda sideways.  I am computer/video illiterate apparently).  

• Claire is so close to crawling.  She has been able to turn over both ways for a month or two now, so she typically uses that method to get around.  Lately though, she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth.  Or she'll get up on her hands and her toes, sticking her bum up in the air.  It's hysterical. She can't quite figure out what to do at that point, so she usually collapses and rubs her head into her hands. She will push herself forward a few inches if you leave her alone for several minutes, but you can tell it's a lot of work for her. 
• Just the other day I put Claire in her crib to play with her music while I tried to get something done.  I came back to find that she had pulled herself up onto her toes into an almost standing position.  Apparently we'll have to lower the crib pretty soon.  
• Claire has always loved standing up.  I think she just likes seeing more of the world.  Recently, I tried holding her hands and walking along with her and she actually vaguely walked!  She got the motion, but was definitely not holding herself up and would have fallen hard if I had let go.  My little girl is growing up!
• We started feeding her solid foods just a few days before her 6 month birthday.  We started with rice cereal and she absolutely loves it!  She was needing more food apparently.  We then went to peas (loved), whole wheat cereal (loved), oatmeal cereal (loved), and prunes (yep, you called it... loved).  Our girl loves to eat!  She often gets upset at us for taking too long to get the cereal from the bowl to her mouth.  In fact, I often feed her while she sucks on her binky, to stop her little cries in between bites.  I give her a spoonful, pull it out and stick in the binky, then she sucks on the binky until the spoon is right by her mouth, when she drops the binky and I try to catch it while giving her a spoonful.  It's a fun, sticky process.  
• Claire loves watching other little kids play.  We think she's just very inquisitive.  She also loves watching cars drive by our window.  Oh, and the 30 Rock intro is engrossing to her.  She can't look away.  Sad that we know that, but she really likes it!   

With that, I have now caught you up on the last year or two of our lives.  The goal now is to update more often.  Stay tuned to see how that goes.  :)