Red potatoes and White socks

After much debate and discussion we have decided to update our blog approximately 1 time a week, unless there is something noteworthy. Knowing this, those of you out there will be able to plan your schedules accordingly. This has been a good week here at the Dahle house. It took about the whole week for papa to recover from his week of nights, but he is doing well and having fun spending more time at home with his girls. Things are very busy around here as we are getting ready for our families to come out this week. It has been over a year since Nate has seen most of them. We are so excited to see them. And we are so excited for Claire's baby blessing on Aug 5th. She is such a fun baby and she is smiling more and more.

Claire rides in style in her own personal chariot- Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Carter and Grandma and Grandpa Dahle. After months of research and reading, we finally decided on the Valco Baby tri-mode jogging stroller. Mama convinced Papa and Claire that this purchase was in the best interest of everyone as she has vowed to use in extensively to show Claire the world. We can only hope and pray that it's use exceeds that of her bike (granted that would only take a few times out). We took it out for a trial run this morning and it was a success. Hill's exact quote, "It works like a dream."

Hurricane Claire strikes Charlottesville - specifically our apartment. Since Claire came 8 (can you believe it was 8 weeks ago today?) weeks ago, our apartment has never been the same. Despite the fact that she can't move around and get into stuff, the apartment always seems to be in disarray. In fact, our neighbor Rob (from the waffle party post) came over yesterday to borrow an egg and he was amazed by the disaster. I think he may have been tempted to call children and family services. Not to worry, we spent the ENTIRE day yesterday cleaning it up to get ready for our families' big visit!! It looks much better today.
Like father like son. Nate takes after his dad's love for a clean desk. After weeks and weeks of clutter piling up, there is a massive cleaning. Let's just say that the desk is always on Nate's list of chores to do. For those of you who haven't seen grandpa Dahle's desk, it is ten times bigger and just as cluttered (granted I haven't been home in over a year so he may have changed his ways). A quick note - this is where all of our blogging genious originates!!
Often in the morning, mama and Claire find themselves cuddled up for a nap together. Papa just couldn't pass up this picture. Claire is mama's little cuddle bug and they love spending time together in snuggling in bed. This morning, papa took over for early morning play time. Papa loves to be home with his girls.
Isn't she cute?
Tough love. Claire has had a few melt-downs this week and has really learned to take her parents for the fools they are. We decided if she is old enough to learn that fact, she is also old enough to learn how to cry it out a little bit. Yesterday she started crying as we put her in her car seat to go out to dinner. She got louder and louder and louder, until she just got plum tuckered out. Then she slept for a long time. This is a picture of her this morning after doing a very similar thing. Look how peaceful she is. Papa knew he would have to teach tough love sometime but he was hoping it wasn't this early.

Behind bars!

Bear on the look-out. Bear keeps an eye on Claire while she sleeps. He's a cute little guy. He has reduced the number of monster visits by 95% in his first month. He looks nice, but don't get on his bad side. Despite his upside, the goal is for Claire to give up stuffed animals before she turns 21.....Hill! I'll be honest, we have finally weaned Hillory off her stuffed bear Hook... at age 24.

Until next week, or until the news breaks in Charlottesville. We love you all.

A week without a title

The blog continues. It was a long week here and the Dahle house, but we all survived Papa's week of working nights at the hospital. Let's just say that he logged in excess of 100 hours in the past 7 days. So, I hope you sense his dedication to the blog as you read along. Whenever he wasn't at work, he was pretty much sleeping. But that didn't keep Mama and Claire from having all kinds of fun with their friends here in Charlottesville. We had a couple of milestones since our last post. First of all, Claire is starting to interact and smile and play. She is so much fun to have around. Both of our families will be out in the beginning of August and they are in for a real treat. In fact, papa was walking around Old Navy today and he saw a man sitting there with his child. Turns out the kid was 3 months old and Claire dwarfed her. She is a real chunk right now and she just keeps eating. Second, on Tuesday night, Claire slept through the night - from 11:30 to 6 (granted it was after mama wore her out with a trip to D.C.). Since then she has been sleeping from about 11:30 to 4. Nice job Claire, mama is much happier with this sleep schedule. Let's just say that papa is happy to be home to sleep too.



Grandpa Carter makes a visit to Charlottesville. It was short lived, but it was sure good to have him out. Claire had a great time playing with her grandpa and undoubtedly grandpa Carter was overcome with emotion upon meeting his first and favorite grandchild. We were sad to see him go.

See the smile? Can't wait til' she get's teeth. Here grandpa Carter shares the story of when he met his grandpa for the first time (We are unsure how long Claire's great-great grandpas lived and if grandpa Carter did indeed meet one or both of them). Given the fact that Grandpa Carter must have been very little. We do believe the memory to be fabricated.

Claire is just lounging by the pool with papa. This picture does not do Claire's sunhat justice.
Luxury living at the Lakeside apartments. Check out this view of the lake. Rumor has it that the Lochness monster has a distant cousin who lives in this very lake. So far no pictures have been obtained, but papa is saving up for a slr camera to get one.
Hill's furniture is in use!! Papa made some killer burgers on his outdoor cooker. P.S. I still have had no written apologies about the birthday gift.

I'll be honest, I was hoping for a better post, but it is 11:30 and this family is exhausted. We promise for a better post soon. We love you all.

A Slow Week

Not much to talk about this week at the Dahle house. Papa has had to work alot and Mama gets to stay home all day and play with Claire. She is doing so well and she is starting to smile, and play and want to stay awake more. The baby must sleep. She is so excited to meet her Grandpa Carter tomorrow. He is coming into Richmond for a business meeting and coming over to visit us. It will be a great experience for all as he gets to hold his first grandchild for the first time. We'll definitely have the camera available. Nate drew the the short straw this weekend. He gets to go take an 8 hour test tomorrow and then go straight to work for a 14 hour shift overnight. He will have to summon his eagle powers to make it through the day. Hill gets to go shopping in Richmond with her friend April. She will have fun spending her birthday money. And now, for a few pictures, because there isn't much else to talk about.

Claire couldn't choose which toy to play with so she played with all of them. As you can tell all of her toys love playing with her. I hope that everyone who has given her a toy sees it in this picture and knows that she truly loves each and every one. Sometimes mama gets jealous and steals Claire's toys and then we have to remind mama about the 10 commandments.
Claire has had enough! With a swipe of the hand she breaks free of all of her toys. She only wants to play with Papa because she misses him during the day and she misses speaking Italian. Right now we are studying together the conditional past verb conjugations. Claire got 95% on last nights pop quiz. Those of you who have not seen Claire in person are missing out on the cutest baby in the world (Please see latest issue of BABY Magazine page 42 column 1 for reference).

Continuing a long-standing Dahle tradition... WAFFLES!!! Watch out Grandpa Norm, there is a new cook in town. Fine, we stole the recipe, but the results are the same. 9 of 10 people say that these are the best waffles that they have ever eaten. There is a discussion in the household as to whether or not we should pick up the waffler that makes 4 at a time. Imagine how much more satisfied the party guests would be.

From left to right. Amanda Mudrick, Ben Mudrick, Ryan Harris. Some good friends enjoying the waffle party. Notice the smiles. Despite having a baby, the Dahles can still throw a good party. Again, Claire wanted nothing to do with the party and she was fussy the whole time. Somehow it wasn't all about her and she wasn't happy about it.
Our neighbor Rob from across the hall fulfills two lifelong dreams - 1-eating a fresh belgian waffle (he claims only to have eaten the eggo style), and 2- having his picture posted on a blog. Rob and his fiance' Dena (pictured later) are wonderful neighbors. They are our go to people when we need to borrow stuff. And Rob loves our cookie recipe.
Hill gets into the waffle action. She was the perfect hostess. Everyone is amazed at how quickly she is getting back to her pre-pregnancy form. She is the best mom and the best wife ever. Don't worry, she is already talking about her next birthday present. She has 358 days to dream big (and pray that we get a massive raise to cover all those dreams).
We promised to show a picture of Dena. She loves that orange juice, but truly the smile comes form the waffle that she just finished.
This just in... the 10th survey participant caved, now they are all recommending Dahle waffles. Cheryl Harris (who's husband Ryan is pictured above) shows proper technique in cutting the perfect sized piece with appropriate proportions of whipping cream, waffle, syrup, and strawberries. Nice job Cheryl.

We hope you all enjoyed this post. Surprisingly we have not received multiple emails/texts/phone calls requesting an update. Maybe fan support is dying out. Not to worry, we will still post for those of you who are die-hards. Nate made a real sacrifice to get this post up tonight before he starts his week of working nights. We love you all.

Every party has a pooper!!!

Here is Claire getting ready for the big night out on the town for mama's birthday. She loves to take a bath. The current thought is that she is looking alot like Nate. Poor girl. She would be much better off if she looked like her mama. Luckily there is still time.

Papa and Claire took mama out for dinner for her birthday. We went to a little burger joint we found when we were out here looking for a place last year - Red Robin

We love this sweet little outfit that Claire got as a gift. She and her mama are so pretty. It is a 3 month outfit, but you will notice that our Claire is a little bit of a chunk. She went to the doctor yesteday for her thrush and they weighed her in. She is a whopping 11 lbs. 3 oz. putting her in the 95th percentile for weight. Who knows what mama is putting in that milk - seems a little more like straight cream.
Papa took alot of slack about the deck furniture for Hill's birthday. But he would would not crack. Luckily Claire came to the rescue. Somehow she snuck out of her crib, logged onto the internet, and bought mama a running outfit for the race she is going to do in September. Mama loved the outfit and Claire was pretty proud of herself. She could not let the last ten months of hard work by mama go unthanked. Claire loves her mama.
There was mention made of a party pooper. Well, here she is in the act (maybe you thought i was referring to her diaper). Midway through the meal she wanted nothing more to do with this boring party. She decided to let everyone know how well her lungs had developed. We finally got out of there and let us know the rest of the way home that she wasn't happy with the party. We will try to do better on the next one.

Hill had a great birthday. She got cards and calls from all of her favorite people and she felt so blessed to be so loved. She still loves the deck furniture and she is looking forward to the race (every time Nate finds a new way to surprise her - he requests that all of you who made comments about his practical nature please submit written apologies). We love you all. Til the next blog!!!

Happy Fourth of July!!!

We had a great fourth of July and we wanted to share some pictures and memories while they are still fresh in our minds and hearts.

Happy Birthday Hill! Hill has been wanting deck furniture for months now and the right deal came along. It wasn't the perfect deal so Hill had to agree to it as her birthday present. It was tough for her to accept that her gift was something to benefit the whole family. But she did it and we love the furniture. P.S. Hill's birthday is on July 6th.

Look how cute my girls are in their fourth of July outfits (Imagine how long it takes for two girls in the house to get ready). We went up today to some friends for a barbecue all dressed in our red, white and blue. We had such a fun time and ate some awesome food. Claire enjoyed the barbecue just a few hours later. Unfortunately daddy didn't do so well in the game of baci. He was unable to summon his eagle powers.

Mmmmmmm. Flag Cake

Hill's Masterpiece. Does this cake not look delicious? The Barefoot Contessa entered our lives last year on Hill's birthday and ever since Hill has wanted to make this cake. A July 4th barbecue is obviously the time to do it. It was the best cake ever. We had a fun time decorating it and even more fun eating it. Hill thought it might be a good idea to make it again in August when our families come out. I told her that I thought our arteries and our wallets could only take it one time a year.

Some of the great friends that we have made in Charlottesville. It has really been so great to meet such amazing people.

Of course we finished up the night with some fireworks. Look how beautiful Hill is. And the other little girl in the family was unfazed by the loud explosions as she slept right through them.

Bonus Picture. Il Dopio Mento - There are many ways to tell if a baby is getting enough to eat, i.e. wet diapers, messy diapers, appropriate weight gain, etc. We have chosen to measure the size of the double chin. So far it looks like she is doing just fine. Keep up the good work Claire.

Bonus Picture 2. Look how strong she is getting. She'll be rolling over in no time.

The latest and greatest

Daddy and Claire getting ready for bed. Notice the amazing swaddling job. Claire loves to be snug as a bug in a rug!!

Here's a quick peek of Claire at the gym (Baby Einstein Gym, that is). How else do you think she gets so big??? Claire last weighed in at a whopping 10lbs. 2oz.

Round two

I decided to put Claire in the same darling outfit she wore last week because no one really got to see her last week -we had a blanket covering her the entire time and we were sure (by "we" I mean Nate) to let all the onlookers know that she was not to be touched unless they sanitized first and even then they could only touch her "piggys". She is seriously the cutest baby!!