December 2007: Christmas time!  Lots of preparations and shopping.  Claire did a fine job at making sugar cookies, and Santa must have appreciated it since Claire scored big with the presents. 

November 2007: Lots of visitors during the month: The Browns, Steve B. (all the way from Malaysia), and then Baba and Bobo.  And all that before Thanksgiving!
Turkey Day was fairly quiet with Karen and Everett coming over (and everyone ate too much).  Then we broke out the Xmas decorations on Friday and Claire was more than willing to help.

October 2007: After a slow start, October finished off with a flurry of activity.  We were evacuated from the house on Monday morning due to the wildfires, evacuated from Donna's parents place on Tuesday morning, and then Donna went into labor on Wednesday morning, and Ryan Cohleen was born a few hours later.  And after the family returned home a few days later, Claire really started to get into Halloween.

September 2007: Claire finally got her new bed, and she took to it very easily.  She was all excited when they were delivering it.  After that, we spent a couple days at the Hotel Del Coronado to play on the beach and relax.

August 2007: Baba came to town on business (along with Kathleen), and stopped by to see us (okay, it was to see Claire and we happened to be around).

And then we took Claire to a baseball game at Petco Park.  Donna got us tickets to the company box, so Claire had plenty of room to run around.

July 2007: We finally got around to painting Claire's new room (the first in the house).  And of course, Claire wanted to help. Two big events this month: a new playhouse for Claire and her first artwork with finger paints.

June 2007: We hung out for  day at the beach with Karen and Everett and their RV.

May 2007: We snuck in another trip to the Wild Animal Park and got a great look at the gorillas. We also finally got around to getting more professional pictures taken of Claire.

Mar-Apr 2007: For the Big #2 (Claire's second birthday), we went to Sea World to check out the whales, polar bears and dolphins.  Baba came to town in early April and helped Claire practice her putting.

Jan-Feb 2007: Happy New Year! After recovering from the holidays, we started off with a wedding, Donna's cousin Jeff, in early January.  Then it was just waiting for the putting green to get finished, but it is finally done!  And Claire is already equipped.

Christmas 2006: Actually stayed home this time (the first one in the new house!) Grandma and Grandpa Smith stayed overnight and the morning carnage wasn't too bad.  Everyone must have been awfully good this year since we all got some wonderful goodies.  And on Boxing Day, we took Claire to the Wild Animal for the night show.  They even had some snow-making equipment running!

December 2006 - Cruise: Cruising in Mexico with the Finley clan.  Claire really enjoyed the waves and the pool.  She developed quite the fan club with her teddy bear backpack/harness and her formal dresses.  Hard to believe she's not even two yet.