My little scientist...

... found a little stink bug crawling in the kitchen this afternoon, and was fascinated!

Look Mama!

 

Had to get closer...

... moving on to push ups? Not quite sure. :)

She watched it for a bit, then tried to "sweep" it away with her hand. When it flipped over and started crawling again she touched it and looked at me. I told her she could pick it up and so she did, and was fascinated when it started crawling on her hand!

I figure it's never to early to start science class, huh?! It's so fun watching Clara's curiosity and fascination with the world around her grow as she notices things in more and more detail.

For Anna...

... here's the video of Clara playing hide and seek with her Daddy (with an extra one as well!). :)

What Mama has been up to...

A few things I've been up to since we've been home:

Making Clara some new fleece pants (notice the swirly bum!)...

and a diaper cover for the summer (yep, I'm a little obsessed with the swirl - I tell you, in person it's WAY too cute!):

 Adding a ziploc bag holder (to reuse bags from leftovers, Luke's lunches, etc) and a curtain to cover my ugly spice rack to the kitchen counter (the fabric is from Cameroon and matches the trim on my kitchen curtains):

And doing my best to keep up with this little one (who tries to grab the camera at ever opportunity)!

What we have been up to lately...

During the holidays we had a lot of fun traveling to see family and generally staying very busy. My perfectionist tendencies have kept me from blogging because I want to go back, catch up, write about everything and do it right. But I know that if I wait for that to happen I'll never write again. So here I go, jumping in where we are. It seems that Clara woke up on January 3rd and decided she was a toddler! Here's a bit of what we've been up to since we returned home from our holiday trip on Jan. 2nd:

Unpacking from our trip

Trying Mama's boots on for size

 

Discovering the joys of toilet paper

Can you find the baby?

Here she is, a ghost!

She loves the new pants Mama made her

Stealing Mama's camera and taking pictures is always fun...

Wearing clothes is overrated, but aprons are the best!

We've had tea parties every day since we've been back

Already multi-tasking: helping Mama fold diapers while watching cars and drinking tea!

Lots and lots of baking. She always wants to help!

Some fun in the snow...

And from today, wearing Mama's sweatshirt...

...and Daddy's hat!

She's a busy little girl and keeps us on our toes!

Words!

I have been bad at keeping lists of Clara's words as they have appeared, but sat down today and wrote down all the words I could think of. I feel like there may be a couple missing here or there, but Luke went over the list too and this is a pretty good picture of what she's saying these days. I was shocked to discover that she has 100 words! (Exactly! But 111 if you also count signs and animal noises.) Here they are (for the sake of clarity I have listed the actual word, not her pronunciation. On some words she's very close, on others not so much. But anyone who's around her for a day or so can understand her - she's a very good and persistent communicator!):

Names:
Mama
Daddy
Baby
Sadie Mae (sound like, "Seee Meeeee!")
Abby
Lauren
Karoline
Beka
Annabelle
Papa
Gramma
Andrew
Matthew
Joel
Moose
Pony
(these last two refer to a specific moose and a specific pony, though she does use pony in general as well)

Food words:
Eat
Food
Snack
Chair
All done
Water
Juice
Tea
Applesauce
Blueberry
Bread
Banana
Cereal
Cheerio
Cheese
Spoon
Fork
Apron
Stir (always comes in a double, "stir stir!")

Body and clothing words:
Hair
Eyes
Ear
Nose
Mouth
Teeth
Tongue
Chin
Elbow
Belly
Back
Knee
Toes
Socks
Shoe
Pants
Shirt
Jacket
Hat

Activity and action words:
Ride (for piggyback ride or riding her rocking horse, etc)
Bath
Shower
Sit
Lie down
Rock (asking to be rocked or rocking her baby doll)
Out
Off
On
Outside
Inside
Up
Down
Open
Close

Other words:
Phone
Hot
Fire
Okay
More
Lap (when she wants to get up in your lap)
Other side (when nursing, or simply to ask to nurse)
Moon (Goodnight Moon, though she knows what the moon is too)
Jesus (particularly in relation to her "Jesus Loves Me" book she receive for Christmas)
Book
Paci
Blankie
Jammies
Kitty
Brush
Two
Three
Snow
Beep
Help
Hello
Hi
Bye Bye
Love you (Hoo Hee)
Uh oh
Oh boy
Oh no

and of course the current favorites...
No
Nope
No ma'am

Animal noises:
Moo
Bak Bak (chicken)
Meow
Honk
Woof Woof
Hop hop (bunny)
Neigh (but with an "Mmmm" sound)

Signs she still uses:
Please
Thank you
Drink
Eat
All done
Sleepy
Help

The past two weeks her two-word phrases have really exploded as well. Early favorites were "Sit, Abby!" (Abby is our friends' dog), "No, Sadie!" and "Rock Baby." Lately though she has been mixing and matching words much more frequently. The big one today was, "No, NO SOCKS!" (so she didn't have any socks on until naptime, when I finally insisted). A few days ago we saw a mom with infant twins in the grocery store and for a couple days afterward I heard a lot about "two babies!" "More" and "no" are good candidates for coupling with other words - "more blueberry" or "more applesauce" are common breakfast requests, "more kitty" was frequent at my parents' house. The speed and dexterity with which she is mastering language never cease to amaze me. Now that I have a base list, I am hoping to do a better job of keeping up with new words and phrases, though she is not an easy one to keep up with!