Valentine's Day 2015

I started off our Valentine's Day this year with a festive breakfast in the morning for my two loves.  I made egg-in-the-hole toast for Bryce and I & used heart cookie cutters to cut out the hole.  Then I used the extra heart pieces of toast for Claire's breakfast and cooked her some scrambled eggs.  We also had strawberries and orange juice.  Bryce and I enjoyed our breakfast thoroughly...and Claire decided to be a stinker and only ate her toast & some yogurt.  (If I keep offering it, one day she'll start eating more of a variety of foods, right??!!)
I surprised Bryce with a box of chocolates and the card in the earlier post from Claire.  My mom has a tin box in her toy drawer that Claire absolutely loves.  She plays with it every time we go there.  She loves to put things in and take them out and put the lid on and off.  I found this little Valentine's tin at Michael's and I thought it would be perfect for her!  And I was right, she loves it.  We gave her the little tin filled with Teddy Graham's and the Romeo & Juliet board book.

Bryce had to work in the morning and also had to take a biochemistry test, so Claire and I spent the day together at home until he was done.  When Bryce got home that night we had my parents babysit Claire while we went to dinner.  My grandparents gave us a gift certificate to the El Matador for Christmas so we decided to use that for our date.  Our food was really good and it was so nice being able to spend some one on one time with Bryce.  After we got home we finished off the night sharing some chocolate covered strawberries I made and played one of our favorite trivia games together on Bryce's iPad.  It was a really fun little holiday for us.  Valentine's Day was officially the start of Claire's second round of holidays, as crazy as that is!  I'm so lucky that I have two Valentine's to celebrate with!

Valentine's Day Cards

I made these fun cards with Claire this past week to give to her grandparents and her daddy on Valentine's Day.  I wish I could say I came up with them by myself, but I found the idea on this cute blog.  I know I'm posting this after Valentine's Day but I had to wait until everyone received their card so I wouldn't ruin the surprise.

Here is Claire admiring her handiwork.  The cards were really simple to make.  I painted her hand with red acrylic paint and stamped a bunch of handprints on white card stock.  I did two sheets so I would have several handprints to choose from.  Most of them ended up being smeared red blobs, but I did end up with three good ones!  Once Claire was napping I cut out the handprints and pictures of her face and put the cards all together.  They were super easy and I love how they turned out.  They are definitely an idea to keep filed away to use for any occasion!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from my little Valentine, Claire Olivia! 

(Valentine's Day post last year, can you believe how much she's changed in one year?!)

Portrait 6.52

Portrait 6.52 

Her eyelashes are a mile long.

"A portrait of my daughter once a week, every week, in 2015."

Newfound Freedom

I took advantage of the warm weather yesterday afternoon and took Claire outside to play in our yard.  It was Claire's very first time getting to walk around and explore outside.  She was a little unsure at first but very intrigued with this newfound freedom of getting to walk across such large expanses of grass when she is just used to walking from room to room in our house.
(She had to bring Princess Aurora along for the adventure.  We rarely find her without one of her princesses clutched in her little fists.)

Playing with leaves and twigs, trying to figure out all these new textures.

Rory, of course, joined us on our adventure too.  I snapped this picture of her patiently waiting by the door for me to lead her to the yard. She loved having company and excitedly sprinted circles around the tree in our backyard until she was able to bring her energy level back down to normal.

Haha this was Claire's face while she watched Rory sprint around in circles.

I loved seeing Claire's curious little mind at work discovering this new-to-her outdoor world.  She studied everything around her very carefully, but I think she gave the experience a good verdict.  As disappointing as this winter has been for a girl who loves her snow, I have to say it wasn't such a bad thing getting to play outside with only jackets on in February!  

Updates in Claire's Nursery

I thought it would be fun to do a post on Claire's updated nursery.  Previous posts of her nursery here and here.  As she's grown this past year it has been fun to add little updates as she's entered the toddler stage.  We store her books and a few toys on her bookcase.  Once she was mobile and started crawling (and then walking) I had to rearrange her bookcase and move some of the breakable decorations to the top shelf.  I like to rotate out the book on display every now then to switch things up.  Most of her toys are wooden or handmade ones which double as decor (win, win!).
We store all the rest of her toys in this chest and in the baskets on top.  I also switched out the white & black rug that used to be in here for the gray one we used to store under our dining table.  We ended up getting tile under our table so I stopped using our gray rug there and it got more difficult to keep her white rug clean once she was crawling around and playing in the nursery. I actually think the gray rug looks cuter in her nursery anyway.
I bought Claire this little owl backpack a couple of weeks ago.  Now that she is older we don't need to pack nearly as much stuff as we used to in the diaper bag.  I thought a little toddler sized backpack would be perfect for outings to the park, library, or trips to grandma's house when we don't need or want to lug the big diaper bag around.  She also looks ridiculously cute wearing a backpack that's almost as big as she is.
I didn't want to get rid of the tassel garland I made for her birthday party yet so I hung it above her crib temporarily.  I'll probably leave it up for a few more weeks and then try and figure out a way to store it without ruining it.
We still use her dresser as a changing table and it works so well!  I don't know how people can survive with out a changing table of some sort.  Trying to get her to lay still while changing her diaper on the ground is nearly impossible, but she'll lay totally still on her changing pad without trying to roll or crawl away.  


And I can't forget the cute little girl who lives here.  She's definitely the cutest part of the room (and her fluffy little buddy is pretty cute too).  Her room is my favorite room in our house, which is probably a good thing since it is easily where we spend the majority of our time!   

52 Week Portrait Project

It's no secret that I love weekly photography projects as I've done one previously for our dog Rory & Claire's 1st year of life.  Weekly portrait projects are all over blogland and I think they are so great.  I love them for a few reasons.  One being that it gives me a reason to pull out my camera and document at least once a week.  I usually take a lot of pictures anyway, but the extra motivation and obligation definitely helps especially during the busy weeks.  Second, I like that it gives me an opportunity to continue to practice and improve my photography skills.  Third, and probably most importantly, it documents growth through the year and it is so fun to look back through the pictures and see how much Claire has grown and changed.  If you haven't already guessed I've decided to commit to taking a weekly portrait of Claire in 2015.  I won't really be doing big updates with the pictures, unless something significant happens, just a little synopsis of what is going on in the picture.  I've already been taking Claire's picture at least once a week anyway, so here are weeks 1-5:

Portrait 1.52 

A portrait from Claire's 1st birthday photoshoot.

Portrait 2.52 

Claire playing on our bed.

Portrait 3.52 

Claire reading stories in the nursery.

Portrait 4.52 

Claire helping me dust

Portrait 5.52 

Having a little tea party with her bear and doll.

"A portrait of my daughter once a week, every week, in 2015."