Halloween-who & Hilton Head

Well, now that Christmas is over, I think it’s a good time to post an update on little Claire’s adventures for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Christmas coming soon?

I guess I’ll share this, as it’s a relevant family update, and an excuse for why I’m so dang behind on this blog. We bought (another) house! It’s going to be in a neat little community south of Tyler that has a community pool and sidewalks. Hooray! Pictures to come once it’s finished, nobody wants to see a construction mess. And we still love our current house and are planning to keep and rent it out.

Ok, on to some baby stuff!

Halloween!

Claire Daly was Cindy Lou Who (from the Grinch Who Stole Christmas) for Halloween. Because, well, she’s a straight doppelgänger for Cindy Lou… and she’s also no more than two. I think Dr Seuss would appreciate my strict interpretation.

Ace of course was the trusty dog Max 🙂

She had all kinds of festivities at daycare, and did round 1 of trick or treating.

And then for the big event, we drove up to Oklahoma. We saw Great Grandma Ruth, Great Aunt Nancy & Uncle Jeff, Cousins Ellie, Jake, Taylor, Jamie and Garrett.

First we ran around in the big yard and played with the chickens!

Then we got to play with Cousin Ellie

And then we got dressed in our costumes.

And we took our whole crew Trunk or Treating. By the end, Claire was diving out of my arms to grab the candy on the table.

And the next day we spotted our brand new Odell Beckham Jr jersey… sorry Oklahoma fans, I just couldn’t get a Baker Mayfield jersey.

November

Claire turned 19 months in November, I think we can officially stop counting by months, and just say she’s one and a half.

We kept it low key most of November because of the surge of Covid cases. And my last bout of antibiotics for the case of Strep that never died. The last time I went to the doc I had to take Claire with me, she was not happy.

Work was crazy and our free time was pretty much spent looking at houses. But I did capture a few good little outfits here and there. First up, cheering for the Steelers.

Some funny ones they took at Daycare

And then I was loving this bear outfit.

and these sweet boots.

Well, I guess I should give an update on this sweet girl finding her voice. We worked a LOT with singing and words and we are getting some fun new ones:

Thanksgiving

Well, we decided to hit the road from Tyler to Hilton Head to go se Gigi Pam, Victoria, Jill, Sandy and Chris for Thanksgiving. We figured we were either brave or stupid, taking a 14 hour drive with a baby but it turned out to be neither. Claire was generally amenable in the car, and in this crazy year, it was so worth the drive so Claire could see her farthest family!

Here is Claire & James gassing up with some Mexican food before we hit the road! We did about 1/2 of the driving after bed time or during a nap. That really helped us with the amount of entertaining we had to do in the car.

Well, it just so happened that Thanksgiving morning was a nice warm day. So we took full advantage and took Claire to the ocean for her first swim. She LOVED chasing the bubbles and kept running back for more!

We had a lovely feast, and then the next traditions came in— football! Cousin Matt sent her some adorable Michigan attire, and James let her sport it while they played Penn State… I don’t think he would have been so amenable if it had been Ohio State.