Taking pictures

I got a new camera for Christmas.

I had wanted a digital SLR camera ever since we first brought Clara home. But, in the meantime, we were blessed to have a very good friend who had one and he quickly became Clara's "official photographer." His five-month photos of her our legendary in our family.

The first time we realized her knack for "smizing"

I couldn't be more thrilled that I have one of my own now. It's the best present I think I've ever gotten (thanks, Mom and Dad!). I use it almost every day and in any free time I get when Ryan's on baby duty, I plop myself down at our desktop and upload and edit pictures. I love it.

And that means that I've taken quite a few. 1500 to be exact. And that's only since Dec. 25! I don't even want to do that math for what that might be over the course of a year.

But how can I resist capturing every single moment? (Well, I don't capture every moment)

I waited a very long time to take these pictures and I'm going to take them. My poor kids.

So because they have to go somewhere, I'm going to start posting more photos here. After all, what illustrates our life with Clara and Luke better than pictures?

Well, maybe videos, which I need to start posting more of too.

Catching up

So much has happened lately with Clara and Luke and we are way behind in updating on this blog!

Here are some of the highlights:

* After weighing 7 lbs. 4 oz. at birth, then dropping as low as 6 lbs. 9 oz. and not reaching his birth weight again until three weeks old, Luke (now 2 1/2 months old) finally had a growth spurt around Christmas-time and has been gaining ever since. He now weighs in at a whopping 12 pounds 4 ounces!

* Clara (now 14 1/2 months old) is officially walking! Although she took her first (several) steps in my hospital room after Luke was born, she started walking full-time about a month ago. She'll be running soon.

* Clara cracks us up each and every day. She already has her own unique sense of humor. She's also talking up a storm, and some of her favorite words are Daddy, Lukie, baby, Nana, banana, poop, turkey, and amen. We were very excited the other day when she rubbed her eyes and said "night-night" for the first time (she says it all the time, but this was the first time she was clearly communicating to us with words that she was tired). She also likes to say "uh oh!" at totally appropriate times, complete with a look of great concern on her face.

* Luke moved out of the alien phase a few weeks ago when we finally made contact. It's so funny how one day they're just eating, sleeping and crying and then suddenly they are little babies who want to talk and play! Unfortunately for him, I think I was so caught up in the feeding and sleeping parts that I didn't realize he was trying to communicate for a few days. We're on the same page now though :)

* Speaking of that, he loves cooing, smiling and hitting whatever is hanging in his line of sight. He also loves laying on his back on the floor and staring at his big sister. He is obsessed with Clara.

* To my complete surprise, I'm actually doing pretty well at home alone with the two babies while Ryan's at work. We have a routine down now and add in the occasional teething, colds, hysterical fits, sleep training, and some intestinal upset and we still do just fine. My guardian angel is definitely helping out! It also helps that Ryan is able to come home for dinner every night. It's nice to eat as a family and he even gets Clara ready for bed when he has time.

* A BIG part of the reason things are going smoothly is that Luke is getting much better at sleeping. He takes good naps in his crib during the day and sleeps through the night in his crib. Well, last night he happened to wake every two hours which he has down in several weeks, so I'm hoping that's not a new trend!

Of course, what's a blog post on Our Life With Clara and Luke without pictures? Here are some of my favorites from recent weeks:

One year ago today...

.."Our life with Clara" began.

It would have been impossible to predict the chain of events that January 6, 2010 set off for our family, but it is safe to say we have never been more blessed. We can't imagine a world without our sweet daughter. In only one year she has made us better people, strengthened our marriage and brought our extended family together in ways we could have never imagined.

Who could believe that this tiny little creature, barely 5 pounds, could change so much and so fast? This past year feels like both the longest and the shortest period of time in our lives. That picture seems like it was taken yesterday, but Clara's presence in our family is so strong that we can't remember what it was like before she was here.

Since that special whirlwind trip to Louisiana one year ago, Clara has gained 15 pounds, a cousin and a brother! But we all feel that even though we didn't meet her until 5 weeks later, the moment she was born she had a Mom, a Dad, two sets of grandparents, 4 aunts, 4 uncles and a cousin who couldn't wait to meet her!

Happy Adoption Day, Clara Therese! Thank you for making our lives complete.

It has been a Merry Christmas for Clara and Luke

Clara and Luke are quickly learning the benefits of having loving grandparents! Both sets showered them many, many presents this Christmas.

First, Grandma and Grandpa Nobles came to Richmond and got to play Santa. Clara is just starting to get the hang of tearing into wrapping paper:

Grandma and Grandpa brought Uncle Bunny with them. It was his first chance to meet Luke and he found the perfect Buffalo Bills sweatshirt for Clara.

We shuffled off to New York bright and early Christmas morning, and despite warnings from our pediatrician that the trip would take double the amount of time, the babies were so good that it only took an additional 45 minutes. Nana Kirkpatrick was pretty excited to welcome both grand kids to Fort Plain.

..and this picture pretty much speaks for itself.

And the best is yet to come.. Clara and Luke get to meet Cousin Caleigh for the first time today! More cute pictures to come.

Christmas card preview

It goes without saying that we are pretty excited to send out Christmas cards this year. In past years, we have always tried to be as creative as possible with our cards and that usually meant subjecting our pets to awkward poses and lengthy photo shoots. Photo shoots, that usually left us with cat scratches up and down our arms.

Last year, we took Christmas cards "off". We were busy with a bunch of other things and honestly 2009 wasn't the best year for us, so we didn't feel like we had a ton to celebrate.

Flash forward to 2010 and things couldn't be different. We certainly don't have any additional time, but with two new babies we have a lot to celebrate and so much to share.

A must for any Christmas card that we have ever sent since we've been married is that it has to include a personal photo. Before our "real" children, that meant Sophie Belle was usually the star. One year she appeared as an angel, another with her head through a Christmas wreath. Sophie would generally be cooperative, which meant she always got in. The other pets... not so much. Like the one year when we dressed Jasper (our cat) up in this Santa outfit:

We got her in the Santa suit, but she was so angry that she scratched us, ran off and hid under the bed until the shoot was over.

Despite our difficulties, we usually end up with a pretty fun photo to share. The next issue is getting it designed and printed. A not so easy task. As we were going through the adoption process we discovered Shutterfly. It is an incredibly easy- to-use photo processing web site that can turn your simple photos into really professional cards, letters or whatever you need.

We used Shutterfly to design a photo book that gave potential birth-moms some insight into what our family was like. The result was magnificent. The web site walked us through the process step-by-step and gave us the option of editing our work as we went. For a really cheap price we ended up with something that gave us a useful tool in our search for a son or daughter. We had them ready to send to adoption agencies, private adoption attorneys and other potential leads that could help us grow our family.

As it turned out, a lead on Clara came just as the books arrived. While they didn't turn out to be necessary in our adoption process, they now are fun little storybooks that we can share with Clara and Luke about what our family was like before they became a part of it.

We have returned to Shutterfly for help with designing the most important Christmas card of yet. Just like the photo books, we were so impressed to find the myriad of design options and creative ways we can create Christmas cards. The other cool thing we discovered is that they have a wide range of birthday invitation options. That will come in handy when we are planning holidays and birthdays in the future because, Luke and Clara's birthdays are so close together and so close to Christmas and Thanksgiving. Shutterfly also seems to be a perfect place to find gift ideas for the grandparents who are already obsessed with anything that contains photos of the two.


So without further ado.. here is a preview of what to expect from the Nobles Family Christmas Card 2010. (Not the whole thing.. we don't want to spoil it!)

A pledge to post more

So there is no question that Our Life With Clara has been a little neglected over the past few months, but we have several good excuses.

*We just completed a lengthy, but successful home mortgage re-finance.
*We took the truck off the road, but haven't had any luck selling it quite yet.
*We bought a pumpkin for Halloween, but honestly never got around to carving it.

..oh yeah and then there was this:

LUKE WAS BORN!

Chances are if you read this blog, you are a pretty close friend or member of our family so this isn't really "news". However, it's relevant because "Our Life With Clara" will now have "and Luke" added to the title. Karey and I are going to work at putting out regular updates on what our two munchkins are up to.

Both are already filled with plenty of personality so I am sure there will be a lot to share. Like for instance, this:

Yes.. those are Clara's first steps and yes they did happen IN the hospital the day after her baby brother was born. But don't think she has been off to the races since. While she seemed pretty excited to walk there, she still thinks crawling is a better way around.

Thanks for stopping by and check back often!

Clara at eight months

Our little girl turned eight months old on August 1 and it seems like she's growing and changing every single day!

She's been sitting up for a while, calling Ryan "dada", and holding her own bottle and feeding herself (when she's in the mood). And while she's been mobile for a couple months now (back scooting, rolling across the room, and pulling herself along the floor flat on her stomach), she's now doing the "army crawl" which I've heard comes right before actual crawling. She also gets on all fours and rocks back and forth, seemingly unsure of how to actually move forward. Any day now!

Clara plays for hours on the floor every day and loves all of her toys, especially her little piano. But I spend a lot of my time pulling her back from going near everything she shouldn't! She is drawn to underneath our end tables, the brick on our fireplace, under her pack and play and just about anywhere I really don't want her to be!

She's also a total daddy's girl lately. I always say her favorite things in order are 1) my iPhone, 2) the remote, 3) her daddy, 4) my flip flops, 5) Sophie, 6) Jasper, and 7) her mommy. That's okay, I know she loves me too!

We'll be celebrating her first birthday before we know it (and that means baby #2 could be here too!).

Our friend Matthew was kind enough to do a little photo shoot with Clara the other day (which she was not too thrilled about), and the photos are below.

Happy eight months, Clara!