Claudia has been a good girl this week. She saw her friends Mitchell and Jordan yesterday and today she saw Jake and baby Hailley (sp??). Right now she is out shovelling snow.

We have been practicing saying our name and our address and phone number (just in case we get lost...) and she is getting pretty good with us. Of course, we have to work on it with other people.

Claudia helped paint the new baby's room and is pretty excited, we think. Pretty soon.

So on Tuesday night I was getting Claudia ready for her bath.

"I am not taking a bath"

"Why, Claudia?"

"Because I am going on a TRIP!!"

"Where to Claudia?"

"To Elizabeth and Kerry's!!"

Thankfully, Elizabeth was home, packing for her own trip and took our phone call. So then Claudia decided she needed to get out both her suitcase and backpack and sleep with them.

She woke up the next morning: "I wanna go on a TRIP!"

Luckily, a trip to the museum and Friendly's made her happy for now. With Elizabeth and Kerry and Margo going to Ireland and Mimi going to Portugal she has heard about lots of trips and definitely wants to participate.

Mimi arrived today from Pennsylvania. This resulted in lots of crown wearing and parades. Claudia was very excited to show Mimi everything.

Miss Judy and Mr. Stuart came over for dinner and had lots of Ravioli with us. Miss Judy has been to most of the red dots on our clustrmap in the past few months. Perhaps she can help boost our reads in the "Stans".

Last night we are upstairs and Claudia says "Daddy, can you get my suitcase"?

"OK, Claudia" I get it out. She starts rolling it to her room.

"Where are you going, Claudia?"

"To Kerry and Elizabeth's" she says very matter of factly.

Pretty soon she will know where the bus station is and we will be in big trouble.

We have been going swimming every Sunday. Today Claudia was able to pull herself out of the pool all by herself. It was very impressive. She did it many times because she was having so much fun.

She went to the first half of the Super Bowl party in her cheerleading costume so she could yell "Go, Giants, Go!". She has a friend named Peter who is a few years older and was very nice and played with Claudia. After that she was waving and running and having a good time. Thanks Peter!

Last night Claudia and Daddy had a "Big Date" and went to Friendly's. Claudia got all dressed up and wore 2 bracelets, 2 necklaces, and her earings. She was very beautiful and very excited.

She ate a ton of macaroni and cheese and ALL of her ice cream ("ConeHead"). We then came back and read books, took a bath, and went to bed ("I'm tired!"). Claudia likes to "read" her bedtime books herself now. She reads one side and we read the other.

She continues to be quite talkative and fun with us and quite bashful with everyone else. We are beginning to try to get her out by herself a little more so she can't completely lean on Mom or Dad.