Time Flies When You're Having Fun

I look back in awe that I kept up on this blog a bit more regularly in the past. Alas.. we are feeling refreshed and a bit on the see-saw end of tackling the to-do list rather than sinking on the end of no light at the end of the tunnel (can you say run-on sentence?)

But a nice long beautiful sunny Seattle four day weekend later - we emerge - and the blog is calling for an update... so here goes, in the last 6 weeks or so...

Cousins Sarah & Wayne along with baby Finn came out to visit Cousins Thom & Melissa along with baby Jack - it was great to get all the little cousins together on the Herrman side!

We made another trip over to Yakima - just the kids this time. Uncle Matthew, Aunt Colleen, Cousins McKenzie & Ben along with Auntie Annie all joined in on a big fun Z Kids Family trip to visit Great Grandpa. It was SO much fun! We even snuck in a trip out to the old house - so many wonderful memories growing up and visiting grandma and grandpa there... I just know Claire will have similar memories at the magical house that is her Grandma and Grandpa's house.

We headed up to Tulip Town to take in the colorful fun that is Mount Vernon in Spring! It was fun in the sun - a perfect Spring day.

At least a few weekend days have been spent with Aunt Colleen, Uncle Matthew, McKenzie & Ben. Cousin McKenzie let Claire borrow her Sweet Ride! The Mini Cooper! Uncle Matthew gave Claire the ride of her life !

Claire is to the point of feeding herself anything and everything.. what a wonderful transition this has been! No more feeding her.. so now we all enjoy dinner time as a family, Claire grasping one cheese chunky at a time, one spoon full of yogurt and slamming sippy cup of water after sippy cup of water. Its great!
Plus we can order food off the "kids" menu... wow ... small victories are cherished :)

I spent my first ever night away from Claire... so so sad... and the night before Mother's Day to boot... but totally worth it.. to celebrate the other baby in the family :). Little Auntie Annie graduate from college! (and boyfriend Rich!) Yay! I decided to leave Daddy and Claire at home with puppy and the kitties to get over some sickies and to forgo the long loooong road trip to Pullman.. A wonderful ceremony and fun weekend! Plus I got back just in time to enjoy a wonderful dinner with daddy and my Claire bear!

We've enrolled Claire in music classes through her "school". I love that my nearly 11 month old already goes to school... the care givers are called faculty, we pay tuition, we have parent teacher conferences, open house nights, they have recess, snack time and she has a classes to choose from like yoga, music, foreign languages and a standard curriculum of math, reading, science, language/English, art, etc... its great! Claire loves her music classes.. and clearly didn't inherit the lack of attention gene.. she sits calmly in a circle shake shake shake'n her maraca's .. she loves music class so much that I bought her a musical instrument set at whole foods.. a wonderful wonderful thing! She is becoming quite the dancer...

To continue the fun baby tricks by Claire - she has perfected - "Touch Down"... something her Auntie Annie learned at a young age.. Claire does Touch Down Colorado, Touch Down Badgers, Touch Down Sounders, Touch Down Mariners.. you get the point.. and as you can see every "goal" is a touchdown...

and to totally catch up on life.. this last weekend was spent at Lake Chelan. A beautiful 3+ hour drive from Seattle later we were in a wine country, apple orchard, boating, cute town oasis that is Lake Chelan. Aunt Colleen's parents live over there and secured a house for us to borrow for the weekend. It was great. Great company, good food, funtimes and some much needed down time. In addition to the regular upside of vacation Claire over came her fear of crawling/walking through the grass, had her first swimming experience in a snow melt fed lake and daddy got his fix of super nerdy board games with uncle Matthew.

For those Seattle-ites out there we drove I90/Bluet Pass East (2 hour backup on Friday) but a gorgeous day to cross the pass and Hwy 2 West. What a fun loop! We are making plans to do the Cascade Loop in the future.

We have been blessed with incredible weather this past week(+). With temps into the high 70's into the foreseeable future. Its a great time to be living in Seattle! Breck was in doggy daycare all weekend and came home with the best groom job ever (Thank you Downtown Dog Lounge!). Chris and I took Tuesday off and accomplished some much needed chores around the house in preparation for Claire's 1st Birthday Party BBQ later in June. If you're reading this you are more than welcome to come over June 27th 11a-2p. I'll try to get some invites out soon :)

Until then...