Seven Months Old

Claire is seven months old today. I'm using it as an opportunity to post some of the great pictures my mom took while she and my dad were visiting a few weeks ago. Some highlights at seven months:

• Claire is sitting up on her own now with fewer and fewer face plants (unless she's desperate to get a toy just out of her reach).
• Check out her long eyelashes--I've been jealous of them since she was born. (See the bath photo for the best look.)
• She's quite mobile by rolling herself all over the floor; unfortunately, that means we can no longer contain her many spit-ups to a blanket on the floor.
• I'm slowly but surely winning the nap-in-the-crib battle. She still screams bloody murder when I put her down, but generally it lasts only 10 minutes or so now instead of 45 minutes.
• All food is Claire's friend. She loves mealtime and hasn't refused any of the foods I've tried with her yet.
• Those of you who are Calvin Alumni will appreciate the souvenir my parents brought back from a conference they attended at Calvin. Of course, they also had the latest tuition figures...frightening.

Two Kills in One Day

After a few months of being, as they say around here, a "hunting widow," Nate filled both his elk and whitetail deer tags in one day in the mountains about 40 minutes north of our house. He shot the elk in the morning, packed it out with his friend Scott, brought it to the butcher in Helena, and returned to the same ranch at nightfall when he shot the whitetail buck. For those of you not familiar with hunting, this is not a normal occurrence. It is, however, a result of much time spent in the woods and also a little bit of luck. Claire and I are glad to have Nate home again... well except for waterfowl and upland bird seasons.

Visit with Grandma and Grandpa

We've enjoyed another wonderful visit with parents. My parents arrived Thursday afternoon from Washington to enjoy a three-day weekend with us. I put my parents right to work watching Claire while I rushed off for an evening of parent-teacher conferences, but then I had Friday off so we were able to have three uninterrupted days together. Claire, of course, loved the extra attention, and I loved having extra help around the house. In the past few days Claire has really found her voice and has started chatting and babbling up a storm. She's also discovered she can scream in frustration, especially when she's convinced Mom's arms are the ONLY place good enough for her to be at a particular moment. It's fun to see her get more and more personality--which my mom described as "intense." She's in constant motion and enjoys looking at the world while upside down. (I'm trying not to read into that one....) While the house seems empty again now that my parents have left, we can look forward to a visit from Nate's mom in early December and then a trip to Washington over Christmas to see my family again. (I don't have many pictures from this weekend because Grandma took most of them; I do have a family picture we took while they were visiting though.)