Our little thumb and bottom lip sucker

I think Claire came to this world determined to enjoy herself. She is easy going and smiles and laughs easily. She is already 3 1/2 months!!! All she needs is a little love, a soft blanket, her thumb and her lower lip.

Now you see it...

Now you don't.

Well Ashlyn liked the fireworks this year supposedly. She had her head buried into my shoulder most of the time, but glanced up to get the general idea that they were in the sky and were different colors. It must have made quite the impression. She still points to the sky from time to time naming all the colors she saw. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Here are a few fun pics.

The Girls love walking with daddy...very lively conversations

Claire is already quite the jabber box. Smiles a lot and coos and does this funny laugh/cough. She usually likes to chat with us at 9 or so at night before she goes to bed.

It's fun to see these two together. Claire is really patient, even when Ashlyn shows her love by laying on her and saying, "Hug!" Ashlyn is still really concerned when Claire is fussing (maybe because it is so rare) and she loves to make her smile. Claire is smiling and is a lot more talkative than we remember Ashlyn being, probably because there is so much more chattering going on around her, thanks to Ashlyn. It's been a mighty fine summer so far. We'll be blessing Claire on August 5th if anyone wants to have an excuse to come to San Diego. The trip is worth it. Look as these beautiful sunsets...

I still have cougar pride, even with spit-up all over my shoulder.

Children see the world from a different perspective

Ashlyn came up with a new beach game...and it's good for your hair too.

Here are some current pictures of our little Claire. We are amazed that she still has her hair, and she has also started laughing. She is so fun and cute in my unbiased opinion. 7 weeks has flown by.

Maiden Voyage

My mom got us this 3-D clown fish kite that I've had in the trunk for about a year waiting for a chance to use it. We had a fine wind last week at the beach so Brock got to take her for her maiden voyage. Ashlyn's new favorite movie is Mary Poppins and she was so excited to go fly a kite up to the highest height. I also clipped this picture out of an Abercrombie&Fitch ad and it had an uncanney resemblance to Brock and our clown fish kite.

I took this picture of Ashlyn yesterday and thought I could find some other pictures that would illustrate her tendancy to organize and stack things. In my opinion, a little OCD never hurt anyone. Remember that these are things I had no hand in, but rather walked in on. I don't know too many two-year-olds who prefer order to chaos.

In the forth picture above Ashlyn had balanced her fork in her sippy cup flip-lid hole. She did a similar thing this morning when she discovered that a waterbottle Brock had on his nightstand could balance on top of the light shade. I've taken it off a few times, but when I go back in the room the water bottle is back. During mealtime she will also stack her little cheese squares or crackers neatly before she eats them, and if she has a few items like a cup and some utensils on the table beside her she will line them up and put them the same distance away from the edge of the table. Bathtime is also interesting. She currently has 17 rubber duckies representing different holidays in her bath which she will line up on the edge of the tub all facing outward. She does like to dump toys out all over her room, and knocks over her block towers after she builds them, so I'm not too worried about her.

I think whoever coined the term "terrible twos" was mistaken. Ashlyn is quite fascinating to interact with and observe. Kids are amazing.

No time to explain so just imagine the story behind each picture!

Sisters, Sisters, you've never seen such devoted sisters

Brock and I have been trying to decide if Claire will look like Ashlyn, so here is a study of our two little girls. Definately some family resemblance. I tried to get some similar poses from hospital to one week; Ashlyn is on the left and Claire is on the right. I can't believe she is a week and one day already. Ashlyn seems to be adjusting well. In one of the pictures of Claire you see a little bear and some stuffed animals. Ashlyn brought her the bear when she noticed that Claire's pacifier had a bear on it, and slowly she built a little shrine around Claire with her stuffed black dog that we named Dutchess and another bear. I took that as a good sign that these two little girls will get along just fine.

Introducing Claire Micaela Solano. Born 2:45 am on April 17th. 7 lbs. 14 oz. 20.5 inches long. Look at those skinny little legs. The black band was a security alarm so no one could steal her. The swelling in her face has gone down, and she is looking more and more like Ashlyn did except her hair is darker. Another little miracle. She is a good little baby.

Can you remember the last time you've been this upset? Come on Claire the world isn't that bad of a place.

Ashlyn turned two on April 18th, and hopes that Brock doesn't get his wish of only having to organize one party and buy one gift for her and her little sister to share. I love how Ashlyn got Brock's curls but unfortunately her hair is super fine like mine. It's great that balloons make it stand on end and every time she goes down a slide it flies up in the air. Who knew that static electricity could be this entertaining.

The sad truth is that I have not posted a single thing since January 26th, and I wish I had a really good excuse, like going into labor or something, but I don't. In fact, now that I didn't go into labor conveniently during Brock's spring break last week, I now need to wait until at least Sunday so Brock doesn't miss out on some very important meeting/tests on Friday and Saturday. We'll see how compliant our new little girl will be.

So, I finally got the pictures off our camera, so lets catch up on what the Solano's have been up to lately.

Easter was fun with an egg hunt at the church Saturday morning that Ashlyn seemed to really enjoy after I showed her that the eggs had candy in them. We dyed some eggs Sunday morning, but Ashlyn just wanted to eat the eggs and try to grab the cups of brightly colored "juice". We hid more eggs Sunday morning around the house and Ashlyn got really excited this time raising the eggs up above her head, yelling yeah and shaking it whenever she found one. She didn't know how to react however when she came across the brain-shaped "stress ball" that Brock decided to hide along with the eggs. Ashlyn had also been excited about a new toy provided by Great-grandmother Plumb. An exercise trampoline with a hand crafted denim/sequin spring cover/pad. This girl loves to jump, and she always wants daddy to "come" and jump with her. She'll go grab his hand and "pull" him up off his chair and kind of makes a grunting sound like she is straining and using all her strength to help him up. I guess I just do that whenever I am trying to heft my 200 pounds around the house. If you tell her to jump high she'll jump and wave and say hi while she's jumping...a smart-alec in the making.

We've been enjoying some beautiful weather and try to get to the beach from time to time and take walks around town by the fountain or to the park. Ashlyn is expressing herself more and more with new words, and it keeps Brock and me on our toes. It gets tricky when she combines words into one like minethose and morethis. She is also revealing to me the phrases I must say a lot like "you ok?" and "here you go!" She also says "YES!" and "all right" and whenever we toss a ball to her, even if it hits her in the face, she says, "Nice!" She also just chatters a lot and has lots of things to say where she will intently look at you and thinks you should understand what she's saying. Bibo means rainbow, and Obie is Mowgli from the jungle book, but most of the other nouns she know are very clear like "trampoLINE!!" Ashlyn is now in the process of bringing me all of the plastic food from her kitchen, putting them on the computer desk, and telling me to eat. I guess she might be trying to tell me that she's hungry and that I should post this and get on with the day. Hopefully our next post will introduce the newest Solano to everyone, and that it won't be two months from now.