Sunday, March 25, 2012

Happy 3rd Birthday, Claire!

I started on Claire's cake Thursday night. In this picture Claire is licking the batter off of the spatula while I'm making the Oreo crust and chocolate cake.

Birthday morning. Claire's first picture as a three year old. She actually wanted it taken!

She didn't want photos taken of her in her princess dress (from Mia), but I managed to get these anyway. She LOVES her princess dress.






Complete with glass slippers. I had to take this while she was watching Toy Story (which we let her do on her birthday).

Eating some snacks before presents.







Every child should have presents wrapped in ACS (American Chemical Society) wrapping paper.




This was my first ice cream cake. It had an Oreo crust with chocolate fudge, chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream, with sprinkles that Claire picked out (she calls them sparkles). Claire also wanted Mickey Mouse on the cake. Luckily, any time she sees three circles, she calls it Mickey Mouse, so I used Oreo cookies for the Mickey face.






We didn't realize the Claire had picked out the candles that don't blow out. Oops.






















Friday, March 23, 2012

Claire's 3rd Birthday Eve...Day

As a means of not preparing for my back-to-back lectures beginning at 10am, I've decided to memorialize a few more Claireisms on the Eve (day) of her 3rd birthday. Claire has been saying some absolutely adorable things lately.

On the way home from daycare, Paige was crying and Claire said, "Momma, I think Paige is trying to say, 'I love you, Momma." I said, "Claire that is so sweet. I think she's trying to say, 'I love you, Claire, too."

I have an old key chain flashlight that I've given Claire. Every night she disassembles it and doesn't quite get it back together the next morning. Andrew put it back together for her before bed and she was shining it in his face. Andrew asked her not to shine it in his eyes to which Claire replied, "I'm just trying to see your beautiful face."

The other day as I was changing Paige Claire came over and said, "Momma, Paige is my best friend."

When I put Claire to bed at night, I'll tell her, "You know Momma loves you all the time, every day. I love you when I'm happy. I love you when I'm sad. I love you when I'm tired. I love you when I'm mad. I love you when I'm frustrated. I love you when I'm scared..." Claire added, "And you love me when you're jealous." This must have been a word learned at school because we hadn't used it before, but I replied, "Yes, I even love you when I'm jealous."

Claire loves picking flowers on our walks and often likes to hold them or lay them by her leg in the stroller. She doesn't like to have her hair brushed, but loves to wear headbands. (This changes every few weeks.) Her favorite color is still blue, but every once in a while she'll say, "blue and pink." Her current favorite stuffed animal is a white bear that was given to her Grannie Beth, and subsequently to Claire when she had grown so attached to it during our visit at Christmas. She also loves a lamb that she got from our church at her baptism. Claire has quite the sweet tooth which I blame on our attempts at potty-training by rewarding with an M&M (We won't be doing that with Paige. She rarely had sweets until we started rewarding her last summer for sitting on the potty.) She is though, potty-trained and such a big girl. Claire loves to make Paige smile, touch her cheeks, and give her hugs. Claire is a wonderful daughter and big sister.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Paige's First Romp in the Grass (an overlooked milestone)


It was such a gorgeous day and one benefit of daylight savings is that we can play outside after dinner. This was Paige's first time playing in the grass.