CloverandFig

Mar 10, 2010

Clover Lately

Clover will be 14 months old this weekend and has been one busy girl. The weather has been nice so we spend a lot of time outside. Clover bangs on the door and brings me her shoes to let me know she's ready to play. We also started a Mommy and Me swim class a few weeks ago and Clover loves it! She's definitely a little fish. Clover has fun roaming all around the house now, including up and down the stairs all by herself. She likes to sneak up stairs to visit Daddy while I'm making dinner sometimes. Clover loves to mimic us cleaning and has started putting her own toys away, yay! Her vocabulary gets bigger everyday and she is able to communicate her needs to us well. Among these new words, her favorite word is "NO" which she uses often to let us know, that she knows, whatever she is doing or touching is a "no, no". She also uses it to firmly stand her ground when she does not agree with use or like what we're doing, haha. It's hard to take her seriously sometimes because it's the cutest "no, no" you've ever heard. I do my best not to laugh tough.

Clover in the locker room after her first swim lesson. We had so much fun and she is a little fish!

Clover's poor little boo boo after falling on the front porch and tearing her finger nail off :(

Splashing in the puddles on one of our many rainy days. There was an amazing double rainbow outside too....not sure why I don't have a picture of that.

Modeling her pretty dress

Having a snack after a long hike up to Rattle Snake Lake on a beautiful Sunday.

Happy girl after her snack and ready to head back down the mountain.

All tuckered out after all that work :)

A little fun in the sun with my barefoot baby.

Bringing me her shoes to go outside...silly girl :)

Watching Daddy plant the apple trees he bought us for Valentines Day

Clover pushing her BFF and neighbor Sydney

Clover loves to play dress up with her Tinkerbell costume.

Charlie hitchin' a ride in the Radio Flyer.

Helping Daddy...or not...clean the bathroom.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Ready for story time.

Clover and her cousin Aresa at their dress up party

Trying out her new tricycle! Her legs are long enough to reach the pedals, she just needs to get the jist of actually pedaling and steering.

.....hitching a ride from Daddy until than :)

Just an evening around the house goofing around with the Weeb!

Proudly showing off her crazy hair during bath time.

Jan 12, 2010

Happy 1st Birthday Clover!

I can't believe my baby is one!! This has been the fastest year of our lives. Last January 14th (Clover's due date) I went to bed feeling suspicious that tonight just might be the night. Even Charlie was acting a little strange. At 2am I woke up with my first contraction and immediately couldn't walk, talk, or sleep through them, which is what my Midwife told me would be the sign that I was in real labor. Michael packed up the rest of our bags and loaded the car while I took a bath and we were out the door by 4am. It became clear during the drive in that I would definitely be needing an epidural. From the beginning, my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart lasting 1 minute each. We got checked in and the midwife told me I was already 5cm dilated. I got my epidural at 6am. By 10am I was 9cm dilated and they decided to break my water. It took 4 more hours to get to 10cm and then it was time too push. I pushed for an hour and out came Clover Ann at 3:17pm! 13 hours of labor, 1 hour of pushing, and the beginning of the best year of my life.

Clover's birthday was a special day. I was a mess the entire week leading up to it and once it arrived I didn't want it to end. We were happy to have our closest family and friends here to celebrate and had a great time.

Our good friends Jack and Terri Adishian sent this box to Clover, complete with Birthday balloons and a new Summer outfit! She played in the box for two days, played with the balloons for 2 weeks, and is looking forward to wearing the outfit in a few months! Thanks again...we love you!

The garage refrigerator all set with party food.

Ellie and Kaj aren't wasting any time on the Pirates Booty :)

My beautiful cupcakes! I've never made anything like this before and I'm really proud of how they turned out.

Fairy cupcakes up close.

Name that baby game. Michael's sister Heather won!

Clover's favorite snacks....cranberries, cheerios and blueberries. I put Michael in charge of counting. Our friend Greg won this game.

The happy birthday girl with one of her favorite gifts.....Mommy and Me swim lessons with our neighbor Sydney and her Mommy Christy!

It was a full house!

Clover opening all of her birthday gifts.

Clover eating her smash cake! I made a giant cupcake that matched all the little ones. She loved it! I put so much frosting on the top though that it took her awhile to get through it all to the actual cake. By that time she was full, so she ended up with a belly full of cream cheese frosting and ran around the house like a wild monkey for the next two hours.

When Clover was around 3 months old I had the idea to start organizing pictures for a slide show documenting her first year. I gave them all to Grandpa and he worked his magic! We played this slide show during her party. *Warning* you way want to grab a tissue :) Enjoy!

Thanks again to Grandpa for documenting Clover's 1st Birthday party on tape!

Oregon Coast

We had our 2nd annual Lowe/Hughes reunion on the Oregon coast in November. Last year I was 5 months pregnant and the house was full of three rambunctious dogs. This year we had an energetic 10 month old added to the mix. A lot can change in a year!

The weather wasn't great. We spent a lot of time inside working on puzzles, playing games, eating and drinking. We only went into town once where we did some shopping and watched a huge pack of Sea Lions camped out under the docks, which Clover loved. It was nice to have an excuse to stay inside, spend relaxing time together, and let Clover get to know her Uncle Brian, Aunt Valerie, and fur cousins Edwardo and Otis.

The day before we left Clover came down with a 102.6 fever. She didn't have any other symptoms of being sick aside from being a little fussy and clingy, and after speaking with the pediatric nurse on the phone we were pretty sure she had Roseola. Roseola is a viral illness most commonly affecting kids between 6 months and 2 years old. It is usually marked by a sudden on set of high fever lasting several days, followed by a rash just as the fever breaks. We were given the OK to travel so we packed up. Clover did great! She acted like her happy joyful self and entertained us all. She even did great in on the 10 hour drive to and from the beach house. We had her on a schedule for Tylenol and Motrin to keep her fever down and by the last morning of our trip it was back to normal and her rash showed up, which didn't seem to bother her in the least.

We are already looking forward to next year!