"Sube mommy"

Claire and I went to the park today. The entire time she was climbing up anything she was saying "sube" (sue-bay) and when she wanted me to follow her she would say "sube mommy, sube". I kept trying to figure out what she was saying and what it meant. Well, leave it to Dora the Explorer...I found out what sube meant tonight while we watched the show before bed. Sube means climb in spanish. I was very impressed this evening when I realized that Claire knew all along what she was saying at the park and had learned some spanish words from her favorite show. What a smart kiddo we have, one that never ceases to amaze me!

Some fun pictures

                                                             Claire and her mega curls!

                                                               Me and my Mommy!

                                   Helping Daddy plant the garden. We can't wait to see what grows!

                                        Driving to the store with all of the necessary accessories!

                    More painting with my friend Cyrus. This time we kept the paint on our hands and feet!

                                                                    It's hockey time!

                                                                   I love my Daddy!

My sweet angel

Ok...so we have had some trying times over the past week or two with strong personality and pushing buttons. Despite all of that, Claire never ceases to amaze me. Tonight after a bit of a struggle to get her to bed, Claire asked "will you lay with me Mommy?". I crawled into bed next to her and closed my eyes. Soon after, I felt her little hand rubbing my back and my face. Almost like she was saying "I know I push you too far sometimes but I want you to know that I love you no matter what". It was such a special moment that made my heart melt. What a great way to end a crazy busy but fun day. I love my little girl more than words can say!

Valentine's Day party

Our church had a Valentine's day party for the preschoolers last Wednesday. First they got to play a game of walking around on hearts while the music played. When the music stopped, they had to sit on a heart and if the leader rolled their number on the dice, they won a prize. Claire must have been lucky that night because she won 3 times!

The next game they played was standing on a heart and tossing beanbags onto other hearts a distance away. Claire excelled at this also and got 3 of the 4 beanbags onto hearts!

Then we moved on to painting handprints onto the paper in the shape of a heart. We got to take these home in a frame.

The final activity was decorating cookies. Claire had a blast spreading the frosting and putting on sprinkles. I think she liked licking the frosting off her knife best of all!

A cute picture of the kiddos at the end of the party! Everyone had a great time! It was fun watching Claire interacting with other kids and the leaders. I think she is going to love preschool in the fall!

Pushing buttons

I believe we have hit the "terrible twos". Over the past few days Claire has been pushing my buttons to no end. She has started to tell me that she doesn't want something, and when given a choice to make, she won't say anything. I give her warning and inform her of what will happen and she still remains quiet. So, when the time is up, I follow through with what I tell her will happen if she doesn't answer. At that point she goes into extreme meltdown mode which takes many minutes and lots of patience on my part to get through!
Claire also started asking "why" for everything. This seems to have happened overnight. Today was the first day she has hit me hard with "why" for every single thing I say. Patience is key and this too shall pass!
On the bright side, we just finished day 4 of wearing "big girl panties" and have had no accidents in these 4 days! Claire even sleeps in her panties and thankfully, no wet bed so far. I am very proud of how quickly she caught on this time with the potty training. I guess if I would have just waited for her to be ready, I could have bypassed the torture we went through when Mommy thought it was time to get potty trained!