Thanksgiving

First of all, this is a long blog entry, so if nothing else, be sure to check out all of the pictures.

Claire celebrated her first Thanksgiving two weeks ago...and she was the star of the show. She had lots of visitors, including her Grandmother Lana, her Uncle William, her Aunt Leana, and even a few of our greyhound friends (and yes, Vinnie had visitors over as well). It was quite the full house. After lunch, Grandmother Karen, Grandpa Matt, and Uncle Neal stopped by for dessert. It was quite the affair. Valerie and Lana spent the better part of two days preparing an unbelievable feast. Check out the spread (Claire being to the right of Leana in her rocker, so she's not in the picture):And here are a couple of cute shots of Claire with her Uncle William (who she met for the first time) and her Aunt Leana:
The day after Thanksgiving, we celebrated Lana's birthday with a fun walk around the neighborhood (we've had beautiful weather up until the past week), some quiet time at home, and a nice dinner out. Grandmother Lana can't wait to try out the web cam that Claire got her as a birthday present.

Speaking of presents, Claire got some fun stuff from just about all of her visitors, including some readers and spelling books from her Aunt Janet, and some nifty pajamas from her Aunt Leana. While she's not quite ready for the books, she was ready to model the pj's (using Vinnie as her stage): Have we mentioned what a good dog Vinnie is?

Another fun event was Claire's evening out with her parents and her Grandmothers. The purpose of the evening? One word: SANTA!Claire continues to be a sweet, happy baby, though she is changing so fast that she is keeping us on our toes. Her vocabulary of noises continues to expand, she can sit up for a few seconds at a time on her own and for several minutes if she has someone to hang on to. The worst part of Claire's day is when it is time for a nap...she seems concerned that she is going to miss something if she goes to sleep, so she can fuss quite a bit before finally settling down. She loves to try and engage us in conversation as part of her sleep resistance plan, which we fall for every time. She usually sneaks a smile or two in just to make sure she has your attention.

And with all of her changes, more and more of Claire's personality emerges. We are convinced that she will be a very inquisitive little girl...and we think there may even be some shenanigans in her future. Both of Claire's Grandmothers think she is just waiting to put her parents' wits to the test. And if you think we're getting ahead of ourselves, we have photographic evidence that she is making plans: