The Hunter Family Five: Welcome Clara!

We welcomed Clara Christine Hunter to the world on September 17, 2015 at 10:40am. She was born at 39+1 weeks via repeat C-section and weighed a whopping 7 pounds, 8 ounces (our biggest baby of all :) and was 20 inches long. We fell madly in love with her right away and I think she knew my voice immediately. She screamed for the first 10 minutes after she was born and when they finally brought her over to me I said her name and she immediately calmed. The whole room chimed in with "Well she knows that voice!" It was really sweet! And she is such a sweet little baby girl. She is full of energy already and reminds us so much of Hannah Kate as a baby. She is active, doesn't love to cuddle into us because she wants to be facing outward to see what's going on in the world around her, has an opinion already about what she wants to be doing (and lets us know about it), and gives lots of smiles all day long!
Nonny & PopPop came to help take care of the big kids while I was in the hospital and Patrick bounced back and forth between home and the hospital each day. The day Clara was born they brought Charlotte, Hannah Kate, and Micah up to meet her and they were all in LOVE with her! They each got a turn to hold her and kiss her and get a picture with her. She is still the most loved little baby around 3 months later. The girls love her like she's a little baby doll but Micah is fiercely and madly in love with Clara and doesn't want anyone else to hold her except him. He gets down on the floor next to her every time she's on the playmat to show her the toys and talk to her. If she's crying he tries to talk sweetly to her and puts her paci in her mouth. He wants to share everything with her from toys to clothes (if he outgrows something he tells me to give it to Baby Clara when she gets bigger) to kisses. I have loved getting to know this little girl who brings so much joy and so many smiles to our lives every day!

Her 2 month stats:
Ht. 23 inches (73%), Weight 10 pounds, 10 ounces (31%), Head circumference 39.5cm (84%)

What Clara is up to at 3 months:
*She loves to be held facing out so she can see what's going on around her and screams at me if I put her in the baby carrier facing in.
*Her best friend is a little plastic giraffe attached to her swing who she smiles at and talks to as long as she's in that swing. That giraffe gets the most smiles of anyone in this house!
*She LOVES to watch the ceiling fan spin around.
*She's got reflux so she's on Zantac and as long as she gets her meds she's a pretty good baby.
*She's got this cute little cowlick in the back of her head that makes her hair stand straight up! And she's got a lot of hair for a baby...more than all 3 of the others combined had at 1 year old!
*She smiles all the time with her whole face! It lights all of us up when she gives us those smiles :)
*Her favorite activity right now is to lay down and play on her playmat. I love seeing her on it because this was Micah's playmat from when he was a baby. And I love that Micah is not jealous of her but is always excited when I tell him that something she is now using used to be his. Did I mention he is madly in love with her?
*Another thing she loves is her bathtime. She gets so relaxed when I put her in her little bathtub and she loves getting her hair washed. That was the only other time she stopped screaming in the first couple of hours of life is when she & Patrick left the OR with the nurse to get her cleaned up. He said she screamed every minute of it except when they washed her hair and she calmed right down and looked around. But the screaming resumed as soon as the nurse finished washing her hair ;) I use that as a little trick sometimes to calm her down in the evening during the fussy hours. She has a rough time most evenings with lots of screaming and crying but will usually calm right down if I put her in the bath.
*She's giving stretches of 6-8 hours of sleep at night now, which feels amazing!
*She usually loves her carseat and will go right to sleep in it, just like Charlotte & Hannah Kate did. This is great because I can run so many errands while she just sleeps away.