Saturday, February 28, 2009

Best Week

Wedensday, February 25th was quite a day. It was Ash Wednesday, Chelsea Handler turned 34, Kate McCormick turned 1 a bunch of other stuff happened on this date in history AND . . .

Mike Hassler turned the BIG 4-0!


We really know how to party down in the Hassler household.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We had our own little family birthday party on Wednesday (yes, we had shrimp, no meat). I baked a cake and everything. I'm all domestic and stuff now.

Then on Friday night we went out to dinner with some of our friends at The Lighthouse (yes, seafood again - at least Lent was after Valentine's this year) and had a ton of fun. It was so nice to get out and about with friends.

In other news of the week . . .

Daymara is a U.S. Citizen!


Mom, Dad, Claire, Thor and I all went down to the ceremony on Friday (Isabel and Yamen came too!). There were seventeen of them taking the oath. It was pretty interesting. So my Venezuelan sister is now my American sister. :) But she will always be Venezuelan.

Here are the the Three Fabs.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I got rythm, I got music . . .


Claire is working on sitting up all on her own.


She loves to play with her music station that she got for Christmas from Aunt Cindy, Uncle Keith and Cousin Blake.


As you can see she loves it a lot.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Miracle of Miracles

Daddy saw Claire rollover from back to front. And then just to show off she rolled back to her back. How talented!


Playdate

Last week Claire had a play date with her friend Eric.


It was supervised the whole time by the mommies so not hanky panky went on.


They had a lot of fun and were vaguely aware the other was there. All in all it was a fun time for both babies and mommies.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Party Girl

We went to Claire’s friend Kate’s 1st birthday party. Little known fact about sweet Kate, she shares a birthday with Claire’s daddy. So next Wednesday. February 25th, Kate will be turning one year old while Mike turns the big 4-0. Is it weird that my husband is turning forty? Of course it isn’t, well maybe a little . . . Anyway we had a really fun time at the party and are so happy for Kate being such a big girl.

In other news Claire showed-off at Grandma Hassler’s Friday and rolled over for her. However Grandpa Hassler missed it – must be something in the genes. (see here) Grandma Deal is anxiously awaiting her performance and Grandpa Deal is anxiously awaiting missing it. Ha ha. We’ll have more tummy time tomorrow so maybe she will practice then.

Oh yes, and Claire wanted to give a big shout out to Aunt Becky! Thanks for coming all the way from St. Louis last weekend just to see me. :)

Monday, February 16, 2009

Things I’ve learned . . .

about being hit by an uninsured motorist

For those of you who don’t know, I was hit by an uninsured motorist while I was on my way home from work on my lunch hour. I was going home to watch the Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama with my family when I was crossing Rogers Avenue on a green light and go nailed by a teenager (but eighteen) who didn’t even think about stopping at the red light. My guess is that he was going around 45 mph or so. Long story short in the following days I learned that he didn’t have insurance and had “technically” stolen the car. Sooooo here is what I have learned and am glad I did.

1. Make sure you have good insurance.
2. Make sure you have uninsured and underinsured driver insurance.
3. In the state of Arkansas, if you are hit by an uninsured motorist, you do not have to pay your deductible (one of the few or only state that protects its residents this way).
4. There are A LOT of people driving out there without insurance. I was _very_ surprised by what people have been telling me.
5. Your insurance company then acts like it is the insurer of the other party (doesn’t pay any of their problems).
6. If you don’t have car rental insurance for if you are the party at fault, they still should rent a car for you.
7. If they have an insurance card at the accident, it doesn’t mean it is still in effect.
8. You may have to call their insurance to find out.
9. If they had proof but it did not actually have insurance, the police WILL NOT issue a ticket after the fact.
10. You can however go the City Prosecutor and sign an affidavit that they did not have insurance (you will have to have a letter from the insurance company they put on the police report – not hard to get). You could have to show up to court depending (will let you know if I do) to verify everything you wrote on your affidavit. Yes, one more inconvenience but if you don’t, they just get away with it and won’t ever have insurance.
11. If the damage is more than 70-75% of the value they will total out your vehicle – even if they have been working on it for three weeks.
12. You don’t ever come out ahead.

If you have any questions about this or need any advice if you find yourself in the same position, please feel free to ask.

I'll post a picture of the new car in the coming days. Mike and I realized we don't think we ever took a picture of the Ford 500 so we are going to take a pic of this one ASAP

Thursday, February 12, 2009

You just call out my name . . .

. . . and you know where ever I am
I’ll come running to see you again.

Yes, yes, Claire is calling my name! Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma. This is what I get to wake up to in the morning. She doesn’t necessarily discriminate to whom she says it but she says it to ME! Her first words - and she is quite good at it. We are now working on da da da da. We think she is going to be a talker.

No more news on the rolling over front but I will be sure to keep everyone posted. It is so funny, when we have her on the floor playing everyone stands around waiting for her to perform again. We strategically place toys, stand in strange places trying to entice her to rollover once again. But has she? She has not. She just rolls back and forth and stomps her feet and exercises her vocal chords. Ma ma ma ma. Music to a mother’s ears.


This is a pic Mike took of Claire when they were done folding laundry the other day. She loves her butterfly!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Rollover Claire Elaine

Quite an eventful last couple of days. Claire rolled over tonight, she went to her first baby shower sans womb Saturday and on Sunday I guess she was cranky for a bit (she usually isn’t, really).

The Tale of the Rollover
Basically Claire has been working on rolling over for a while now. We had her on the floor in the living room while we were making our dinner and I went in to check on her. There she was on the floor; rolled up on her side - reaching for her jingle hippo. I watched the struggle, expecting her to wobble back to her backside when it happened. There she went, got her arm out from underneath her before we knew it, she was on her belly. And then I said “Oh my goodness, she just rolled over!” and Mike came yelling “What, what, what? I missed it!?!?! All of life’s major moments, I’m going to miss them, aren’t I? Roll her back over and let’s see if she does it again.” So I took jingle hippo from her and put her on her back to see if she would do it again for Daddy. What a reward for finally rolling over, eh? So we watched and strategically placed toys and ourselves to get her to do it again. Well she showed us – she didn’t do it again. See what we get for taking away the hippo?

(Yes, I didn't see Hazel until after I took the picture. I changed the diaper right after this pic)

The Baby Shower Enjoyed on the Outside
The shower was for our friends the Halls and their sweet baby Andrew. It was a post birth shower. He is three months old and growing like a weed! So cute. It was fun to see some friends and finally really celebrate his birth and coming home. We also got to see Caroline, one of Claire’s friends. They were due on the same day and were both born early but Claire was a week earlier than Caroline (and a lot bigger, surprise surprise – do we know many babies she wasn’t bigger than?) It was very cute, Claire reached out for her and Caroline reared back to take a better look. I think they will be friends for a long time.


Cranky Sunday
What can I say, Mommy is bad at keeping on the schedule and she got too over tired and got a bit/log cranky until she slept for a while and then she was smiley, happy Claire again.

Daddy Feeding Claire

Maybe?

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Super Party

We all went to a party at my folks house for Super Bowl Sunday and Thorsen’s 12th birthday. Claire got all dressed-up for the occasion.


I think we might have gotten the right present for Nephew Thorsen.


We didn't watch much of the Super Bowl but we had a fun party just the same. We started watching just in time to see a 3-D commercial sans 3-D glasses. Oh well. We did get to see "The Boss." he put on a good show but I missed the 501s with a plaid shirt.


Mike said he missed Courtney Cox. We all thought he looked a bit like Tom Jones.