YaY!!! Eleanor Claire is here!

A fantastic and whole hearted "Welcome, Baby!" to our new sweet cousin,

Eleanor Claire Hamilton

We can't wait to meet you!

Love and Joy and Happy New Year to all. What a wonderful world!

love,

jesse and mike and vera grace.

Our baby is a toddler!

It's official- Vera is one! We had a super fun first birthday weekend. We played all day on Friday the 12th. She played in the morning with streamers, throwing rolls across the living room and dragging them behind her throughout the whole house. Our house was pink and red in a matter of minutes. After awhile, she and I went to the Health Adventure downtown, which is an interactive children's museum. It was packed with school groups on field trips, and Vera didn't mind a bit. She walked through all the big kids, unfazed going from one toy to the next. We got some lunch and walked home and that afternoon we broke out a huge collection of paper towel tubes and danced to a new cd that Uncle Anthony gave her. We made cupcakes and then took a quick trip to the fire station where the fire fighters helped us turn her carseat facing forward. Hooray! She was pretty excited about her new point of view from the back seat. We managed to sneak a quick nap in there, but still by the time Poppi got home from work she was pretty exhausted. She went to bed early and we continued the celebration the next day. On Saturday we had bagels and cupcakes for breakfast and opened presents and cards with Mike, Anthony, and Antonio who's visiting from Venezuela. Vera is thrilled to have so many people doting on her every move. She is hilarious, doing the goofiest things and then immediately looking around the room to make sure somebody saw her.

What a one year old!

A little sample of the silly.

This is a bit of the ridiculous we're seeing these days.

We call this trick "Pants on Head".

Tadaah!!

Happy Late Thanksgiving!

Sorry for the delay- mama's been finishing up her school semester. As Vera now says, "Yaaay!"

It was an awesome first Thanksgiving and early Happy Birthday party in Raleigh at Glenn's house. We are so lucky, and so thankful..and Vera is too hilarious. She's been a ballfull of giggles lately. Mike wondered today if she might accidentally exhaust herself from laughing so hard. We'll see....:)
Here's a couple shots from Thanksgiving Dinner. Yum Yum.

She speaks!

Yep. That's right. First official real word. She's very proud of this ability to initiate conversation. We went to the nature center this afternoon and she said "Hi!" and waved her arms frantically to every animal who would listen. I know the goats heard her, but it's hard to tell with the donkey. He doesn't react much.

It's been a sicky sick week for the Figuera clan. We've triumphed over both head colds and a nasty stomach flu bug in the past seven days! Vera's daycare has been almost empty all week with kids home sick and her class had no babies at all on Thursday!

But, I am proud to report- we seem to be rounding the bend, and will no doubt be up and able soon enough.

Vera and I had a quiet, restful Sunday focused mostly on cleaning and sorting through my closet.

Here's how that goes: I sort papers and whatnot, putting things in different boxes and files and then Vera follows directly behind me, unloading every item from every box and every file and sometimes switching them around a bit.

You'd think that it would be more difficult, and perhaps a wee bit frustrating to attempt a project like this with her, but somehow she made the whole task more enjoyable. She was so serious and so determined to do her own sorting..that she was just fun to watch. We worked at it for hours (we have a big closet)..and even came back and did some more before bedtime (thus the footy pajama pics). I'm sure I would have given up much earlier without her by my side. Plus it was just fun to see her holding odd things from the past, like Mike's college ID or one of our wedding invitations.

Here are a couple pictures of her at work. Just for the record, every single thing on the floor had been in a box at some point, and was then flung there by the Little Organizer.

Sending everyone hopes for a happy healthy week!

Love, Jesse

Sunday Brunch Vera Style

Cheerios, pajamas, books.

Life is good.

ready, set, go girl, go!

She walks. She takes many steps in a row with her arms held up high on either side of her like a stick-up, falls down, does not skip a beat, scrunches her face in determination, stands back up in a sort of lean forward, tripod, then bend up slowly kind of way, wobbles, walks more, falls again, repeat, repeat, repeat. She does this many times over and then remembers where she is and that there are other people in the room, and that they are probably watching her..and then she looks up, smiles, and laughes hysterically, and the laughter makes her fall down again and she begins the process again.The caregivers at daycare said that yesterday she was stopped playing, got up, slowly walked all across the room, through the swinging gate into their dining area, all the way to the table, scooted out her chair, sat in it and started tapping on the table for food.That's our girl.

Vera took her first official steps today. First two steps, then four, then seven and finally twelve. All within the span of a minute or two..while Mike and I crouched on either side of her. Truth be told, I think she was walking towards Sabine more than either of us. She loves that dog like crazy.

She still prefers to crawl because it's well..easier and faster and no doubt safer. Still..she's officially capable of walking. I caught her doing it a couple times throughout the day and each time she'd look over at me with raised eyebrows and a huge smile, like "Yeah..that's right, I do this now." With this huge accomplishment, combined with the sad reality that I haven't managed to even crack her beautiful baby book, i thought maybe we'd try the blogging medium. This way I can note how fantastic she is, and post a bunch of pictures and you guys can just tune in when you want a little dose of her adorableness.

We have the best family and friends in all the world. Thank you so much for supporting us over these past ten months since she's arrived on the scene. We have had the most fun! So ..we'll try to track the fun a bit here on this blog. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it...right?