Happy Thanksgiving!

We're having a great time in Iowa City celebrating the holiday with Brian's parents. It's sooo cold outside but we're staying toasty indoors and Claire is our entertainment. She quickly discovered the stairs and climbed up all 16 of them, then turned around and was ready to go down head first except mommy intercepted her!


She had her first bath in a real bathtub too. (Our tub at home is in the bathroom that is being remodeled)

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner -- thanks to all of Karen's work! Claire had some turkey baby food and she tried pumpkin pie since it's a holiday. She loved it!

Claire's using the same highchair that her daddy sat in when he was a baby. It has held up remarkably well, as has the crib and playpen.

We hope you all had a super Thanksgiving too! We're definitely thankful to have such awesome family and friends!

Walking with Assistance

Claire has not joined a circus, but we think a mini person walking while pushing a mini cart is impressive and entertaining. Here she is showing off:

Oh yeah, and did I mention we paid $25 for this fancy toy. Claire doesn't care how much money we pay for the toys, she'll walk with anything she can find that will assist her.

High Five, Claire!

This is what you hear in our household all day now. When we parents observe a new "skill", we can't help ourselves and we repeat repeat repeat until it is ooooold news! Claire must be getting very tired of this.

Just give me the bottle I'll take it from there

Lately Claire's been taking matter into her own hands...at least when it comes to her bottle feedings. Brian and I find it remarkable that she can hold her bottle with one hand and whip it around as she pleases. At first we thought maybe her hand was sticky or something but that is not the case.

She is eating up a storm! A day at home goes like this:

6 am -- 6 oz bottle
8 am -- 5 oz baby food and 1/2 banana
10:30 am -- 4 oz bottle
1 pm -- 3 oz baby food and cheerios
3 pm -- 5 oz bottle
6 pm -- 4 oz baby food
8 pm -- 5 oz bottle

We made it through the week!

Oh what a week it has been! I (Sarah) have been sick as a dog, er pig, and it has taken me a full week to recover from possibly the worst head congestion I have ever experienced. Both Brian and Claire did not get this flu nearly as bad as I had it, thank goodness. I am finally starting to get my voice back, and I can breathe through my nose again! I am less excited about getting my sense of smell back, because now I can smell Claire's dirty diapers. For a while I felt invincible during diaper changes.

Claire is back to her usual antics around the house. It's so nice to have her in good health again.
She's playing "drums" with Mommy...
Helping Daddy put away pots and pans...

Crawling around under the crib (she likes to carry something in each hand)...

pulling her toys and books off the shelves...

and making a disaster zone in her room!

Thanks to Daddy for taking care of Claire and Mommy all week! Don't know where we'd be without him. He did a fantastic job, despite being sick himself.

Swine Flu?

The smell of pigs is in the air at the Sivitz household. The Doctor thinks that Claire and I(Brian) have now just gotten over Swine Flu and Sarah currently has a case of it. Unfortunately it appears to be hitting Sarah much harder than the rest of us. Poor Sarah! Oink Oink!

Happy Halloween!

We did all our Halloween festivities on Friday, and it was a good thing too because Mommy came down with a cold/flu that knocked her off her feet on Saturday. So unfortunately, no trick-or-treating for little Claire! Booooo...but here is a photo of the 3 of us on Friday at my work, where the costume theme was the 80's:


Brian brought Claire to his work and they the won "most original" costume prize. In case you can't tell in the picture, Brian is a banana tree. Anyway, yesterday I was in bed all day with a low fever, and Daddy and Claire handed out all the candy to trick-or-treaters. Today I am feeling better (at least I'm walking around the house), and certainly Claire's cute antics are helping. She helped Daddy with the laundry this morning:



Then she played in her room, dressed up as tinkerbell:


We had our cheerios snacktime in the backyard on a picnic blanket too. She and Daddy are napping right now...they're both getting over a cough, so none of us are feeling 100%! Hopefully next weekend will be better.