Cousin Love

Claire's cousins Lydia & Casen came over to last week.  I was doing a little photoshoot of Casen and we had Claire and Lydai get in a few of the pictures.  I was dying over Casen's face while he was stuck between the two crazy girls.  Its a good thing we are having a boy in just a few more months so he doesn't have to be outnumbered for too long!

Playtime with Claire

I took this picture last week just because I love the pretty light Claire's room gets in the mornings.  
I reorganized Claire's bookshelves to display some of the new books she got for Christmas and her birthday.  I love children's books and have to try to really discipline myself when it comes adding more to our collection :).  
Claire's Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Mecham gave her these darling Russian nesting dolls for Christmas and they are one of her favorite things to play with.  They keep her entertained for a good 30 minutes or longer which is so nice when I'm trying to get things done around the house.  Claire is pretty easily entertained and it is so nice not having to try to come up with new things to keep her busy all the time.  Hopefully all of my kids are that way!

January Catch Up

I haven't blogged much in January so here is a catch-up post with a bit of what we've been up to.  I found a whole wheat banana muffin recipe that I've made a few times to try to get Claire to eat something besides yogurt and toast for breakfast.  I add a few chocolate chips to the batter and am able to convince her that they are in fact 'cookies' so she'll gobble them up without complaint.
Claire and I took a trip to Ikea a few weeks ago to pick up some new nightstands.  We've been using some DIY nightstands I made out of crates when we were first married but I after 4 years I was ready for an upgrade.  I think these look so much nicer and I love that they have a drawer to hide some of the clutter.
I turned this little corner in Claire's room into a little reading nook for her.  She has spent lots of time there cuddled up with her books and babies.
We had a few more good snow storms throughout the month.  I love cuddling up on the couch or in bed with a good book and getting to watch the snow fall out the window.  It's probably one of my favorite parts of winter.
I've been reading lots of books (no surprises there).  I think I'm going to start doing a post at the end of each month with a review of all the books I read.  It would be a fun way to keep track of my reading throughout the year but we'll see if I can find the time to follow through with it.
We've also had lots of morning cuddling sessions with Rory & Claire.  Bryce's classes don't start until 10 this semester and its been so fun having him home for a few hours each morning before he has to leave for the rest of the day.  We haven't been up to anything too exciting.  Most of the winter days we spend staying warm inside with books, baking, cuddling, and lots of playing pretend.  I'm a big fan of all of those activities so its been a good month!  

Shirley Temple Curls

I bought a mini curling wand and curled Claire's hair for the first time a few weeks ago.  She looked so cute (and so grown up) I could hardly stand it!  She must've been feeling photogenic that day because she sat down on her stool and kept pulling all kinds of poses for me.  She is getting such a fun & silly personality.  I can't get enough of her!

American Girl Pop-up Shop

I found out there was going to be an American Girl pop-up shop in Utah for the holiday season a few months ago.  I told Bryce we HAD to take Claire with her Bitty Baby for her birthday.  Bryce didn't have school on the morning before her birthday since it was Martin Luther King day so it worked out perfectly to taker her down to Salt Lake that day. Claire's great-grandma Mecham gave her some money for her birthday so we let Claire get a new outfit and blanket for her baby with her birthday money.
Claire had lots of fun looking at all the dolls and seeing all the other girls shopping for their dolls....and I probably had more fun than she did :).  After we finished our shopping we ate lunch at California Pizza Kitchen before we had to head home.   It was a fun little outing with our birthday girl.  
By the time it was Claire's actual birthday we'd already had her party and taken her shopping so most of the celebrating had already been done.  I still wanted to do something special for her on her birthday so we made birthday pancakes with sprinkles.  We sang Happy Birthday and let her blow out the candles.  She did much better with the candles this time around since she knew what to expect!  I think she had a very fun birthday week and we had so much fun celebrating with her!

Claire's 2nd Birthday Party

As of yesterday Claire is officially 2 years old!  I don't know how that happened so fast and I'm a little bit in denial about it ;).  We threw Claire's birthday party last Saturday.  Her birthday is on the 19th but we celebrated it on a day when Bryce didn't have school or work and our families could come.  Claire isn't a big fan of cake so we decided to throw her a donut party.  Here is a picture of everything all set up before our guests arrived.
A shot with the birthday girl.  She was dying to open her presents but we were somehow able to distract her until everyone arrived.
I made two different kinds of cake donuts; vanilla with pink frosting and chocolate with chocolate glaze.  I also made donut kabobs with donut holes & fruit and we had chocolate and strawberry milk for drinks.

The first thing we did was open presents.  Claire was so excited to open them!  Since Christmas was just a few weeks ago she needed no reminding of what to do with them this year.  
Claire got a new outfit and a horse & carriage to go with her princess castle from my mom & dad.
She got play-doh, the melissa & doug play-doh accessory set, and cookie cutters from Bryce's parents.
We gave Claire a new dress, a book (Olivia & the Fairy Princesses), and a Bitty Baby!  My mom also gave me her old doll cradle so we fixed that up and gave it to her with her baby.  I had a Bitty Baby when I was little that I loved.  I knew I wanted to get Claire one for her first baby doll.  The only doll she had before this was the homemade fabric one I made for her birthday last year.  Instead paying full price for a brand new one I started watching on eBay to see if I could get a good deal.  American Girl has a doll hospital that you can send any of their dolls into to get fixed up.  I figured if I could find a used one in decent condition I could send it into the doll hospital and have the head replaced so it would look brand new, but it would be less than half the normal cost.  I found the doll & starter set in like new condition and only ended paying $45 for the entire set!  I was so excited to have gotten such a good deal!  The doll was in almost perfect condition too so all I had to do was use a magic eraser to get a few scratches off of the head.    

After Claire opened her gifts she and her cousin Lydia were too excited to eat yet so the adults visited and we let the girls play for a few minutes before moving on to the desserts.
Last, we sang Happy Birthday to Claire and started eating the yummy treats.  Claire was very unsure of the candles and did not want to blow them out so Bryce and I had to help her.  I recorded a video of her while we sang happy birthday that I will have to upload to this post.  

I didn't get a picture of her with all her gifts at her party but I took a few on Monday before we took her to the American girl pop-up-shop in Salt Lake (I'm going to do a separate post for that since this post already has tons of photos).  So here she is wearing her new birthday dress with all her gifts!  
She loves her Bitty Baby!  She takes it with her when she goes to bed and naps and always comes out of her room with it tucked under arm when she wakes up.  Its pretty adorable watching her play with & take care of it.  She is getting lots of good practice in for when she becomes a big sister in a few more months!  She had such a great birthday and it was so much fun celebrating it with her!  She is the sweetest 2 year old and is so much fun to play with at this age.  I love seeing her use her imagination and see her cute little personality developing more and more as she grows.  She is the best gift I've ever been given.  I feel so lucky that I get to be her mom.  Happy Birthday Claire, I love you too much!