a small hi

Claire loves to watch her fingers bend. Lately she has been "waving" a lot. People that see her think that she is waving at them. Ü I'm pretty sure she has no idea what she is doing, but we still think it's cute. :)  Shaun caught this on his phone the other morning. 

Trip part II: Idaho

Claire and I had a wonderful time in Idaho! We spent most of the time visiting with family. Here are the highlights! 

Claire and Nana! 

 We got to visit my Aunt Leisa and her cute family in Idaho Falls. It was really fun to see my cousins all grown up with kids of their own. My uncle made us AMAZING omelets, too! So much fun! 

 Claire loved playing with uncle Ben! 

We also spent quite a bit of time with my Grandma T. This is the lady Claire was named after. She is so sweet and Claire just sat in her lap for the longest time. :) 

 Nana and I had to try a new hairdo for Claire. We put the the curlers in first thing in the morning. Claire so so good to not even pull at them. To our disappointment the curls didn't work so well. Next time I need to put more in and roll them a different direction. 

 I know this picture is blurry of Claire but I just love the smile on my Grandpa Lundquist's face. He was so cute with her!  

 We really enjoyed visiting my grandparents in Swan Valley. I have so many fond memories of my time there it was great to be back. Claire was an angel the entire time, too. 

Papa and Claire during Saturday General Conference. It was so fun to see my dad play with Claire. She just loved him. My dad even came home from work early one day just to spend time with her.  

It was funny because during the break between sessions Claire was napping so my dad and I were outside digging out the trampoline pit. The first shovelful of dirt didn't quite make it into the wheelbarrow. My dad just shook his head and said, "your kids grow up and move again but some things never change." It made us laugh. Thankfully I am not as klutzy as I used to be.  

This is almost the entire Murray family at family night. The family still gets together monthly. The weekend of General Conference is one of my favorites because we all take a turn sharing about our favorite talk and then eat yummy food. It was so fun to see all of my family again!! 

Tyson and Brittani were able to come up for the weekend too! It was a PARTY! 

 Uncle Ben 

 Uncle Tyson was so good to us! He was very helpful in taking out dirty diapers, keeping Claire awake in the car (so she would take a good nap at home) and playing games with me. We had a great time!  

This is a four generation picture! 

Grandma T, my mom, me & Claire...too bad Great grandma lives in Bountiful or we could've made it five generations. 

What a fun trip! Thank you to everyone who made such an effort to get in touch! While I was home there were three wedding receptions of siblings of friends I grew up with. It was perfect timing to reconnect with them! It was so great to see all of you again! 

We made some great memories!

p.s. the flights home were not too bad. The first flight the lady sitting next to me didn't speak english. That was a long three hours. The second flight was fine except for we got all settled on the plane and then there was a problem so everyone had to get off and it turned into a three hour delay on top of the two and half hour layover to begin with, so we arrived at midnight... but I was grateful for kind people and the baggage workers that were able to get Claire's stroller so she could at least nap while we waited. :) Yeah for nice people! 

Utah/Idaho trip part 1

March 20th -April 3rd

Claire and I flew out early March 20th. It was a very long day of traveling. Claire did amazingly well considering all of the factors involved. The craziest part was our plane ride from Atlanta to Utah. It was over 4 hours long. She is so good about sleeping in her crib I have a hard time getting her to sleep for longer than 20 minutes in my arms. Well, we took off and I got her to sleep. YEAH! We were sitting next to a really nice guy from Georgia going to Jackson Hole. He had two young boys of his own and was loving Claire. She was smiling a ton for him. The craziest part of the flight was about an hour into it. Claire had woken up and then started crying. I changed positions and realized she had a BLOW OUT clear up her back. :(  Thankfully the seat belt sign was turned off so I could take care of it. I went into the lavatory and there was not a changing table. So I put a blanket over the closed toilet seat and put her down. She is really into rolling lately so this was quite the task. Not a moment sooner after I had her diaper undone we hit some turbulence. So now I was trying to not get motion sick on top of  keeping a poopy active baby safe. Thankfully I was able to quickly take care of the problem and then sat her on my lab to dress her. During that time as I was bending down to get her sock off the floor I accidentally hit the call button. The stewardess came about 7 minutes later when I was done.

I sat back down in my seat and the kind man that was sitting next to me said how he noticed that the call light had gone on while I was in there. He was afraid I had hit my head or something and it was all I could do to get help. So he flagged down the stewardess and then she came to my help. What a nice guy. He was really looking out for me, which I appreciated. I learned some really cool things about him and his family. They were high school sweethearts and she actually had a heart attack while taking her nursing boards. She was in a comma for a few days and when she came out she said that she met God and that in two years she would have a child. Almost to the day she had a child. Great family.

Anyway, we arrived to Utah with Claire covered in rashes. Apparently the circulated air on the airplane did a number on her skin. I immediately got the benedryl out of the luggage and within two hours she was much better.Thank goodness! (I'm glad I packed everything under the sun just in case.)

Claire did awesome with so many new people. She didn't have stranger anxiety at all. She loved the attention for sure!

Grandma and Grandpa Broderick 

Aunt Beth took us to Kneaders! Yummy! 

Do you like my new shades? 

We LOVED seeing all of the Broderick family again! They sure spoiled Claire with some new darling clothes and lots of attention. It was pretty rough the first 24 hours trying to get Claire adjusted to the time change, especially since we just had daylight savings a week earlier. But the family was very helpful in holding and cuddling this tired girl. 

They also spoiled me! I got to eat at Cafe Rio, PF Changs, and Kneaders! Pretty much my three favorite places in Utah. Plus, I really enjoyed the time catching up with everyone. Charlotte and I even got to take a walk during the afternoon in the beautiful sunshine! It was great! 

My mom and brother came and picked us up Thursday. 

On our way out of town I met up with my friend Bonnie, and her cute girl Millie. It has been years since we have seen each other. It was so fun seeing her again! 

On our way to Idaho we stopped in Bountiful to see my Great Grandma who is 99 years old. Claire was getting pretty tired by this point but she still did pretty well to let GGrandma hold her. It was great to be in Utah! Maybe next time we can stay longer so we can see more of you that we miss so dearly! 

Part II: Idaho coming soon 

Content: Claire 7 months old

Claire is now 7 months old! We cannot get over how cute and sweet this girl is! While I was visiting the family the comment I heard over and over was how content Claire is all of the time. She is a dream baby! (minus the waking up to eat two times a night still) Although I don't know anything different I will take their word for it! :) Several people at church asked me if she ever cries. Yes, she does cry but it is only when she needs something specific.  

This month Claire seems to be perfecting her new found skills. She is quite good at rolling over both directions. Also, she can't get enough of her fingers. She LOVES to watch how her thumbs bend. And she is a pro at finding her pacifier and putting it in her mouth. She loves the plastic rings and is getting really good at passing them from one hand to another. Claire gets really excited if a dangle something in front of her. She is unique in the fact that she does not pull on my hair or earrings. She merely runs her fingers in and out but she doesn't yank. I am still cautions as I don't want to lose an earlobe but I think it just goes along with her calm personality. She also leaves her bows and headbands in all of the time. Also, whenever I say, "can you smile?" she gives me or anyone in the room the  biggest grin. 

She is still growing slow and steady. We are trying to get Claire to eat solid foods without shivering at each bite. We can usually get two or three bites of pears and then she is done. We definitely don't have an over-eater on our hands. :) 

Happy 7 months baby girl! Thanks for making our hearts melt with your smile. 

Happy Birthday Shaun!

Shaun's birthday was great! Claire and I had just gotten back from our two week trip to Idaho and Utah (that post will be coming soon!) in time to do some fun surprises for Shaun. 

Thursday I threw together a surprise lunch for him and his lab. I made chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, chips and a yummy punch. 

For dessert (since they all work with plants) I made the pudding oreo mix with a mint plant in the top. The tag I made said, "Special Mo'Mint.'" I thought it was very cute. I just bought a package of herbs at the store. :) 

It was funny because Shaun thought I was really trying to "root-out" plants. Hehe

Friday night I made a special dinner for us. I made Cafe Rio Pork burritos. They were DELICIOUS! Shaun recently got called to be the ward mission leader and the Elders had a rough week so we invited them to join us for dinner.

Shaun actually made his own birthday cake. Carrot cake with dried currents instead of raisins. The funny part was he asked me to get carrots with the green stems still attached. (They are hard to find, by the way) I assumed that he was going to be using the stems for decoration. So I was being very careful to not to ruin them in anyway. I even put a plastic bag around both ends and told Claire we had to be careful with Daddy's special carrots.

Well, turns out I was completely wrong. When you buy carrots with the green stems they can only be out for three weeks max, where as the bagged carrots can be stored up to 6 months. Also, the carrot flavor is much stronger the fresher they are. We had a good laugh over my assumption. :)

This was Shaun's birthday gift. It's a really fun game that we played with our friends, the Stauffers. He was thrilled!

We finished the night watching this movie, The Help. It was awesome! We really enjoyed it! Shaun had a wonderful birthday and now is officially 28! I sure love this man of mine.