Randomness

Mark and I were called to be in the nursery in our new ward, which so far has been quite the adventure.  It's a little weird for us because Claire is still only 9 months old (just barely 3 days ago!), so she's only really halfway to being in nursery for reals, but she has to go with us starting now.  We are so lucky that she is a fairly easy baby because we can occasionally put her down and she will entertain herself and/or just watch the other kids.  It's just when the other bigger kids get excited about her and get to close and/or step on her, or when she tries to play with a toy that isn't safe for her.  It makes the calling a bit stressful.  There were multiple times today when I was trying to calm down a screaming child while still holding and/or playing with Claire.  She will have lots of socializing opportunities and will be very used to nursery by the time she's really supposed to be in there. 

We still can't quite believe that Claire is already 9 months old.  Her life just seems to be flying by!  She's now been outside my belly and hanging out with us for longer than she was inside my belly.  It has come up so much faster than I would have thought.  There are hard, long days occasionally (and sometimes hard/long weeks), but all in all it just flies by.  I think back on some of her little phases that seemed to last an eternity at the time, but have now completely passed.  Of course, we're always dealing with some new phase, so we can't relax quite yet.  Right now she is having some troubles with sleeping.  For the most part she used to be so good at sleeping and not crying during the middle of the night, at least not more than a 5-second "put the binky back in" cry.  Over the last week or so she has started waking up for long stretches in the middle of the night. 

We have had lots of visitors recently, including Randy/Sandy and crew, Brett/Becky and crew, and my parents.  Our last set of visitors just left, so we're getting used to a quiet house again.  We loved having each of them and have enjoyed being able to have lots of mini family reunions.