Portrait 11.52

My beautiful little girl admiring the new blossoms in our yard

(This was one of my favorite pictures that I took Monday night so I saved it to use as her portrait for this week's post.)

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

St. Patrick's Day 2015

We had a fun little St. Patrick's day breakfast yesterday morning.  Claire must've been excited because she decided to wake up extra early at 5:30 a.m.  I wasn't too thrilled about the early wake up call but I decided I might as well start cooking breakfast.  I gave Claire some cereal and almond milk (she still hates cow milk) to eat while I cooked breakfast.

I decided to cook whole wheat pancakes and add green food coloring to make them festive.  I also added food coloring to our milk so our breakfast included whole wheat green pancakes with maple syrup, green milk, and lucky charms.  I also made rainbow treat jars; one for Bryce and one for Claire & me to share.  The marshmallows are clouds, skittles, of course, are the rainbow, and Rollos are the pot of gold.  I let Claire eat some of the "clouds" & share a pot of gold with me later in the day for a treat after lunch.  She still only has 5 teeth so she doesn't get to eat any of the rainbow part of the treat this year.
Here is Claire's version of our breakfast.  I had to hide her Lucky Charms after this picture until she ate all of her pancakes because all she wanted to do was keep eating the marshmallows.  She's definitely her father's daughter.

After we finished breakfast Claire was already tired and ready for a nap since she had gotten up so early.  I put her down in her crib and she took a nice long 3 hour nap.  I got some cleaning done, finished my book I was reading, and then treated myself to a little 45 minute nap since I had finished everything and she wasn't awake yet.
After Claire woke up we dug through our closets and found some green clothing to wear to prevent us from getting pinched.  Bryce takes this part of the holiday very seriously.  I remembered I had this shirt for Claire that I found last year and dug it out of her drawer of clothes for this summer.  I thought it was perfect since the green flowers look just like clovers!

We spent the rest of the day playing, sharing snacks, doing laundry, reading stories, and we watched a few episodes of Sofia the First (Claire's favorite).  Claire is in a pushing & pulling stage so her favorite toys right now are those she can push & pull all around the house.  I didn't cook anything festive for dinner, we had lots of leftovers from the night before and I figured a green themed breakfast was enough for this year :).  I love holidays & little celebrations like this.  They always give me an extra boost of happiness!

Springtime

Yesterday evening while I was finishing up dinner preparations Claire was getting very impatient.  She was getting tired, hungry, and grumpy.  Dinner was in the oven but had about 30 minutes left to cook and Bryce wasn't going to be home from work for another 30 minutes either.  I decided we could use some sunshine to help distract both of us until then and I wanted to get some more practice with my new lens.  I grabbed Claire and my camera and we headed outside to roam around our yard.  

I have been using the Canon 50mm 1.8 since last July but the focus ring has started having issues the past couple months and keeps getting stuck (a common problem with this lens).  It is still under warranty so I am sending it in to get fixed, but it takes about two months for them to send it back to you which posed a problem with my photography business.  I had been wanting to upgrade to the Canon 50mm 1.4 at some point in the future anyway so I have been saving up some money from my photoshoots.  We also got our tax return last week (yay!) so Bryce & I talked it over and he agreed I could upgrade my lens now using the money I had saved up & a little bit from our tax return.  Then when I get my other lens back from being fixed I plan on selling it since I have the upgraded version now.  I have been loving my new lens.  I thought the 50mm 1.8 did a great job but this lens is far superior in comparison.  I can already tell a big difference!  The fruit trees are all starting to bloom in our yard so I thought that would be a great place to let Claire play and for me to get in some good practice shots.


Claire loves being outside so she perked up as soon we got out there.  She tottered around picking up blooms and fallen leaves (and of course tasted a few for good measure).  We both had lots of fun roaming around and before we knew it Bryce was home and dinner was ready.  Thank goodness the warm springtime weather saved the day!     

Portrait 10.52

Claire pretending to be shy after naptime.

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

Rory & Claire

These two are becoming inseparable lately and it's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.  They follow each other around all day long pestering one another equally.  Rory has learned the best place to be during meal times is right under Claire's highchair.  Claire likes to sneak her pieces of food and giggles uncontrollably when Rory reaches up and licks her toes.  Claire loves to lay on Rory and give her hugs & kisses all the time.  Rory loves to lick Claire and follow her around the house when she walks from room to room.  They've found a good rhythm.  I'm so glad they get to grow up together.

Zoo Day!

Yesterday Bryce and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary of marriage.  A few months back we talked about some ideas of what we wanted to do to celebrate our anniversary and one of things was to go to the zoo.  We actually went to the zoo on our honeymoon so we thought it would be especially fun to go on our anniversary this year and take Claire with us.  It worked out perfectly since Bryce is on spring break and has school & work off all week.  I was a little worried at how the day would go since Claire has been having some pretty rough days lately from teething, but she was so happy and excited the whole time we were there!  We decided to head down in the morning when Claire normally goes down for her first nap.  We stopped for breakfast at Einstein Bagels before we drove down to Salt Lake and then Claire slept for almost the whole car ride down.  It worked out perfectly!  She woke up right when we pulled into the parking lot, ready to get out and explore.
We showed her the giraffes first.  She was very intrigued and just kept staring them down.  It was funny to see her try and figure them out.
This giraffe was sticking its tongue out all over the place.  It was so funny to watch.
After we showed Claire the lions we had to take the classic Hogle Zoo photo by the lion drinking fountain.  Claire inspected all of its teeth and tongue thoroughly after our picture was taken.

We stopped by the gorilla & orangutang exhibit and took a few more classic zoo photos.  You can't leave the zoo without a picture by the gorilla measuring wall.  They have a tiny 4 month old orangutang right now that is so adorable.  It was curled up taking a nap so I wasn't able to get any good pictures of it but it was so cute!  

Claire was in awe, I'm sure, at the enormity of the elephants.  She would point at them excitedly and shout in her gibberish language.  While we were visiting the elephants the workers were out with them having them do tricks and perform for us. It was so neat to watch.  Bryce and I both wish in another life we could work as animal trainers at a zoo.  I really think it would be such a cool job.  We also got to watch the seals perform and do lots of tricks at their exhibit but I was having too much fun watching so I didn't take any pictures.  

Claire loved these tiger statues!  She scampered right up to them and kept patting them and giving them loves.  Bryce picked her up and sat her on the smaller one for a couple of minutes and you can see from her face in the last picture that she thought it was the funnest thing ever.
The gorilla in the outdoor exhibit was playing hide & seek with us.  He was laying right up by the window and kept pulling the blanket up over himself & then he would pull it off and pop his face out.  Claire wasn't really sure what to think of this massive black furry thing popping his face out at her.

Bryce's favorite animal is the tiger.  He was so excited for Claire to see it.  All day long he kept prepping her and asking her, "What does the tiger say?"  Then she would smile and let out her little growl.  I was even able to get a semi-decent picture of them in front of the tiger while it was prowling around. 
My favorite animals at the zoo are probably the zebras with the elephants coming in as a close second.  The zebras were all pretty far away so Claire & I just got our picture taken in front of their exhibit while they were grazing around.  I think Claire's favorite thing was getting to see all of the other kids running around all day.  She kept walking up to random kids all day trying to play with them.  It was the cutest thing.  We seriously had the best time.  It was such a fun day!  Claire slept on the drive home and then we used a gift card we had been saving and picked up Costa Vida salads for dinner so I didn't have to cook.  It was a great way to celebrate our marriage and the family we've created together.  Bryce and I are planning on going on a real date this weekend as well with just the two of us.  We think 3 years of marriage is definitely worth celebrating twice in one week!