"No Way!"

Clara's newest and seemingly only phrase.

She picked it up on Monday.  By Tuesday Mitch, who had spent the entire day with her while I was in and out of the house, estimated that she had said it at least 500 times.  He also noted that, upon discovering this little phrase, she seemed to have suddenly forgotten how to say any other sound or word.

"No way!  No way!  No way!  No way!" Came periodically from the back seat as we drove around running errands and grocery shopping that afternoon, and not without the appropriate highly-expressive intonation.

It's actually quite entertaining to have an occasional and authoritative "No way!" punctuate your conversation. "It's true!" became our most common response back to her, along with a couple of chuckles and other comical defenses for our previous comment.

Where did she get this you may wonder?  Her daddy of course.  For a long time now it has been his way of reacting to her babbling "remarks," prompting her to continue her pseudo-conversation.

Apparently, she liked it.

17 Months and Growing Strong

Mitch set up our home studio this morning to do some prep for an upcoming engagement shoot.

The result?  Some fun pictures of Clara.  :)

This is her new go-to position.  She has added hair twirling to thumb-sucking, and no longer has any interest in doing one without the other.

The pluses to this are:

1. Hair twirling has replaced hair pulling (she was getting a thin spot)

2. She's sucking her thumb less due to the inconvenience of the two-hand requirement. 

3. It's cute.

Last night she and I watched a movie together, and she sat in my lap, absentmindedly twirling MY hair, as it fell beside her face.  

Also, Clara can find and say many of her body parts now.  Here she is showing off her...

Belly:

Nose:

 

 Cheeks:

 And Eye:

17 mo. olds are a blast because you can teach them so much and they catch on so quickly.  This is especially fun for Mitch and I considering we're both teachers by trade.  Clara is a good outlet for our teaching compulsions, considering neither of us are working in our field at this point in time.

Softball

One fun thing that we get to do as a family each Sunday afternoon is watch Mitch play softball.  It is a great time.  He plays in The Crossing's men's softball league (that's our church), which alone support its entire own league, with around 12 teams!

There are several young families on his team and the teams he plays against, so Clara has playmates and I have other moms & spectators to chat with.  I have gotten to know many more faces from church through the three seasons he's participated.

And because it's fall ball, we have had some outrageously awesome weather. 

For each game, I pack Clara a snack, a water, and a selection of toys.  Yet she still manages to be quite a handful.  ...perhaps even more so than some (not all) of the other children.  She is constantly attempting to climb the bleachers, eyeing other people's drinks, trying to pet random dogs, heading out onto the softball field, going in the dugout, wandering off for parts unexplored, etc.   

Let's just say I don't exactly sit back and watch the game.  Despite all the chasing, reprimanding, supervising, and redirecting, we still manage to have a great time.

It's just fun being a family.  I like coming to support Mitch, watching his big plays (the 25% of them I actually catch anyway), watching him lead his team, and debriefing/assessing his batting percentage and contributions on the car ride home.  

I like Clara being an environment of community, which we have truly found at our church, and building friendships with other women.  

Softball, you are my friend. :)

Clara carries her toys from the parking lot to the bleachers.  She normally can't make it the whole way without sitting down right in the middle of the sidewalk play with them.