Lost and Found

Mike lost his wedding ring 2 years ago. At the time Emmett was only a few weeks old and we were in our house in Bountiful. I remember on the day he lost it he had spent the morning outside working on his old 4Runner. There was a lot of snow on the ground (it was January) and he walked in the house a few hours later and said "I lost my ring". I was bummed, but not too upset, because I knew how much he paid for it: $50 on Ebay. (When we got married we had no money, and we found a jeweler selling mens titanium wedding rings for next to nothing so we bought one). Anyways, I was more sad because of the sentimental value to the ring, not the actual value itself. We looked everywhere for that ring, and searched even after the snow melted, but never found it.

Fast forward 2 years later, Mike has since bought a new wedding ring, (happily purchasing it through Ebay again) and this past December we moved from our house in Bountiful into my parents home in Saratoga Springs. In January we found some great renters to live in our house. Literally 2 DAYS after they moved in Mike got a phone call telling him that their 4 year old son found a wedding ring and wondered if it was ours. At first Mike told them no, and that he didn't know who's it might be (hello?!) but I quickly reminded him of his lost wedding ring and told him to have them hang onto it until we could pick it up and see.

We had to go to Bountiful this weekend to do a few things and they gave Mike the ring their son found. Sure enough. Its the one. Count on a 4 year old to find what we couldn't.

The original ring is the one closest to him on the left.

My Sweet E"claire"

I took this picture this morning. I could kiss those cheeks all day long.

• She's finally starting to get some peach fuzz on her bald head which is cute. It reminds me of when you see baby chicks with all that crazy fuzzy hair.

pic by google

• She's going to have blue eyes, and so far seems to have light blonde hair.
• She's a cat napper during the day, and will only sleep about 45 minutes, unless I put her in the swing, which then she can sleep for hours if I let her. She loves that thing. I finally get what sleep deprivation feels like though, (cause Emmett was the best sleeper, and he still takes a 2 hour nap everyday) but I think the last time I got a nap was when my mom was here after we brought her home from the hospital.
• I call her my little diva. She hates being ignored or put down when its her awake time. She will get near hysterical in only a matter of seconds that makes you wonder if she sat on a pin, and as soon as I pick her up she's immediately happy again. She also haaaates her carseat. Trips in the car always include her crying until she falls asleep. And visits to the store always include me holding her in the sling, while an emtpy carseat sits on the cart because she will not sit in that thing happily. Ever.
• When she got her 2 month immunizations she cried pretty hard for about 5 minutes. Later that night, she cried for 2 more HOURS. I felt so bad. Tylenol didn't even do much for her. No doubt she was tender and sore where they put the shots in her legs, but I remember Emmett hardly even whimpered at his 2 month shots...?
• I love having a girl. The boys went to Moab last week for a quick 2 day camping trip, and me and Claire went shopping at the mall and made hair bows. I'm glad I'll always have her for company when the boys have the urge to get dirty.

The boys in Moab, UT

Krista's Baby Shower

My sister Krista and her hubby Nate came into town last week and stayed with us for their spring break. Krista is 7 months pregnant so we thought it was perfect timing to get her and Nate's old friends together from Utah for a fabulous baby shower. We made all the decorations, favors, and food. The theme was owls.

Diaper cake. The little owl on top was hand made by my mom that she gave me for Christmas (for future Claire). It worked out perfect since it was IMPOSSIBLE to find an owl in any part of this city for the cake topper.

Advice tree

Can you see the "evil"owl? We wondered what it would look like with different colored eyed owls. The red eyed owl looked a little scary so we only did one. (Shoot, Krista we never kept track who got it?!)

At the end of the night.

Since you can't even tell she's pregnant in the above picture, heres a kindof side shot of the mom to be.

So glad you guys came! I loved putting together a fun party for little Baby Lowe.

Chubs

Claire is now 6 weeks old and is changing a lot and packing on the pounds. In fact, I was looking at her yesterday in her bouncy chair and she reminded me so much of a photo I took of Emmett when he was that age.

Claire 6 weeks

Emmett 4 weeks

I think they are starting to look a lot alike. Emmett loves to poke her chubby cheeks and say "funny cheeks!" as his finger squishes them.

I sure love my fat, squishy babies.

No Crying

When we brought Claire home from the hospital, Emmett not only got the title of "big brother" but also the official title of "terrible two's".

He's been seeing the naughty chair and his room a little more frequently as his tantrums have picked up in frequency.

He has also been hearing a lot of: "Emmett stop crying" or "No crying" phrases from us on a pretty regular basis. Yesterday Emmett threw a pretty big fit and we put him in his room to calm down. After a few minutes Mike went in there and talked to him until he said sorry and was happy again. Typically the pep talk always includes something along the lines of "You're being naughty, and you need to stop crying before you can come out of your room". Sometimes he gets it right away and will stop the first time, but sometimes we have to leave and repeat the process 2 or 3 more times before he'll stop crying.

Later in the evening after all was said and done and the 2 year old was happy again, we were in the kitchen getting dinner ready and Claire was in the bouncy chair. She was getting fussy and started to cry. Emmett looked at her and said "No crying Claire!" (except instead it sounded like "No crwying Clear!")

Another story happened about a week ago. I was on the computer focused on something probably very non-important. But he came up to me and started saying "Time out chair!" I looked at him when I realized what he was saying and said "Emmett's a good boy, you don't need to go in the time out chair". But then he said in a very serious tone, "tractor crying" and pointed at the time out chair in the dining room. I looked over there and saw that he had placed his little toy tractor in the chair.

Glad he's starting to get it.

Sleeping Beauty

Here are some newborn pictures we took of Claire the week my mom was here. These were done on my mom's new camera she got for Christmas which is awesome (and makes ours look like crap) thanks mom! Enjoy!

2 Weeks

Claire Nicole is now 2 weeks old. We gave her the middle name Nicole after her aunt Krista Nicole. I love having a baby girl. And I love having a smaller baby. I felt like with Emmett I never really got that little newborn since he went straight into 0-3 month clothes instead of into newborn clothes. She's so sweet and a really good baby. I'm feeling a lot better too. The first 10 days after a C-section are the worst part, but every day past that gets easier. My mom has been here since the day before Claire was born and has been a life saver. I'll be sad to see her go this weekend. I seriously couldn't do it without her. One baby is pretty easy, but when you have a toddler too, thats another story. Especially when said toddler has mastered the art of tantrum throwing ever since we brought Claire home, and also tends to wake up at 7:30 in the morning. To have my mom up to feed him breakfast and let me sleep in has saved me. He is very sweet to Claire, but is having a hard time adjusting to Mom and Dad's attention being taken away. He's getting better though and hopefully this will turn a corner soon.

On our way to the hospital: 39 weeks, 4 days.

She loves to stretch her legs out. Which I believe is the reason why I was so much more uncomfortable with this pregnancy than I was with Emmett's.

A tired Dad with a sleeping Claire in his lap, who probably has a stressed out look in this picture because he just got done putting a screaming 2 year old to bed.

We had a lot of fun taking some portraits of Claire. (Which I will post soon!) Here I am trying to warm her up in front of the space heater so she'll fall back to sleep.

Crazy how they ever fit in there?

We tried to take a family pic and got only ONE good one. (Now located on my header) Here is an outtake. Poor Claire's headband is in her eye, and Emmett is trying to escape. Hahaa. I think the look in our eyes tells you we're not sure what we've gotten ourselves into yet!

Welcome home Claire

Claire Nicole Gleue

January 19, 2011

Born at 11:19am

7lbs 7oz, 21 inches

Busy catching up on sleep, recovering from surgery, and enjoying being a family of four. We're so happy to welcome her home.