Clare is on a pretty regular routine where she goes down for a nap at noon every day. A few weekends ago we were running errands and weren’t quite home in time for nap. At 12:03 on the dot Clare yells from the back seat “Blanky! Binky! Milk!” It was as if she looked at her watch and knew it was nap time.

Clare has started adding an “y” to a lot of her words. She has quite a vocabulary these days and when she gets comfortable with a word she starts to customize it. Examples include “moon-y,” “boot-y,” “nap-y,” and just about anything else that takes her fancy. It’s pretty funny but it adds another layer of deciphering to figure out exactly what she’s saying. She is starting to string words together and has said “Wow, look at the moon,” “open the door,” and “up the stairs” lately. Some of her favorite words lately are “No! Stop!” She particularly likes to yell this to the dogs, but she’s been known to say it to J and I, her toys when they aren’t doing what she wants, or anything else.

Speaking of stairs, Clare can now walk down them without holding onto anything. This scares the bejesus out of J and I so we watch her pretty closely and remind her to slide down on her tummy. She’s also really getting into climbing, and over the weekend figured out how to climb into her high chair. Yikes…

Ever since Clare saw a real elephant and the lighted elephants at Zoolights she’s been a little bit obsessed with elephants. We bought her a stuffed elephant with a baby and she carries them around everywhere. She also makes the elephant noise (which is kind of like a raspberry) and lifts her arm up over her head. She’s also a little bit obsessed with zebras, so I think a stuffed zebra may be next. I’m also looking forward to a dry weekend soon so hopefully we can go to the zoo again and see the real elephants and zebras.

We started off the Christmas celebration with a visit to Santa at the downtown Macy’s. Clare was really into the Santaland decorations, especially the train (which promoted a few “chugga chugga choo choos” and the ‘reindeer’). She was less enamored with Santa and turned into a clingy little monkey as soon as she saw the big guy. As you can see we remedied it by me sitting on Santa’s lap with Clare on my lap. She hung onto me pretty tightly, but she did talk to Santa compare shoes with him, and give him a fist bump on her way out. All in all, not to bad.

Obviously, Clare much prefers Santa Daddy to Santa Claus. She really got into opening presents on Christmas Eve, especially the paper and bubble wrap.

The payoff: A happy little girl on Christmas morning!! Clare approached her Santa loot very carefully, with a lot of exploring, but as you can see she loved it. I think she spent all Christmas Day climbing on and off her little chairs, setting all of the dishes on the table, opening and closing every door, turning every dial, etc.

Presents aside, we had a great Christmas with family. Mom made a prime rib on Christmas Eve night, and J made a Mexican fiesta feast on Christmas day complete with beans, rice, pork shoulder, and tortillas from scratch. All this while battling the brutal cold that I’m finally over.

These are the pictures that Clare’s beloved Manny Adam took in November. There’s mostly just a lot of pictures of a busy little girl, but I love how Adam captures Clare’s various expressions in her activities. I’ve also included a few pictures of her and her buddy G. I haven’t put any with G’s face (it’s not considered polite in the blog world to post pictures of a child’s face without their parents permission) but you’ll have to imagine that most of Adam’s pictures are of Clare and G playing together.


Her first time running across the bridge all by herself!

This face makes me laugh!

As the weather gets colder and wetter, the layers become more important.

Lastly a picture of Clare and little G laughing during snack. She just loves her days with her “boys.” When we pull up in front of the house she’ll start yelling “Adee (Adam)! Gee! Adee! Gee!”

Dear Clare,

Hooray! It’s Christmas season in the McPherson household! I love Christmas, and I especially love celebrating it this year since Clare is old enough to enjoy parts of it. First order of business, get a Christmas tree. We haven’t gotten one in the last two years for various reasons and I really missed it. So last week I told J that over the weekend we were getting one, come hell or high water. Fortunately for everyone, it was a clear, dry (if cold) day to head out to Sauvie Island and chop down our tree.

Clare was getting over a cold, but she liked tromping through the trees and playing with Grandma and Grampa.

Finally! The perfect trees!

The finished product! When Clare saw the tree after she woke up from her nap she clapped her hands and said “pwetty!”