Happy Birthday Jesus!

Christmas cookie time!

 Jeff and Claire worked hard last night making the cookie dough for our Christmas cookies.

 Today Claire and I made our cookies. Claire did most of the work. First she rolled out the dough.

 Then she worked on cutting out pictures and placing the cookies on the baking sheet.

 No cookie is complete with some frosting so next Claire made the frosting.

 She then very carefully frosted the cookies. 

And finally she added her special touch to each cookie with sprinkles! Then we got to sample some. They got a thumbs up from Mommy and Claire! Merry Christmas!

Meeting Santa

 Claire had to practice her smile for Santa while we were waiting for Daddy to get home. This is one of my favorite poses. How did my baby get to be so grown up?

 Looking so beautiful underneath the Christmas tree!

 This is Claire's super excited smile!

 We did not have high expectations when meeting with Santa because every year before this one Claire would grab hold of me with a death grip and start shaking as soon as we got anywhere near Santa. This year we had a wonderful surprise. We talked it up all day long. Claire walked up to Santa holding my hand and as we got closer to him, she started to try to get out of my hold. She hesitantly walked up to him and stood there. I put her into his lap and to my surprise she didn't cry, she even smiled for the picture! We were so very proud of our girl!

The stress of meeting Santa got to Claire and she crashed in the car on the way home!

 

 

Little helper

 Claire started her busy day by helping Mommy get the marinade made for our chicken. She did all of the measuring of ingredients.

 After lots of mixing, she then dumped it over the chicken in the crock pot. Not even one drop was spilled. Claire was very careful!

 After going to look at Christmas lights in the surrounding neighborhoods, Claire got home and wanted to dust. She loves to dust the entire house, including the walls! We don't complain!

 Here Claire is busy with Daddy working on writing her letters and all of our names. She starts by tracing our names and then writing them herself next to the traced name. She is getting better every day with her writing abilities! 

Busy getting ready for Christmas

 Claire brought home from preschool this Santa and cotton balls. Each day she gets to add a cotton ball to his beard. On Christmas day, we will have a full-bearded Santa!

 Our little elf Eddie joined us this year from the North Pole. He likes to hang out in all kinds of crazy spots and this is where Claire found him this morning. Looks like he was busy playing with Claire's jewelry and ended up tangled in the Christmas tree!

 After school today Claire wanted to paint some snowman pictures. She had so much fun picking out which colors to use.

Tah dah! The finished project. Very unique and creative!

Oh My Lord...

Claire must have learned a new song at pre-school. We believe it is suppose to go "oh my lord laying down in bethlehem" but it comes out like "oh my lord, lay down in bed for him".  At least she is paying attention at school.

Time with Grandma and Grandpaw

Next American Idol?

Riding my new bike!

Claire got a new bike and was very happy to show us all how good she could ride it. She hopped on this new bike and drove around the empty garage. She did amazing at turning and needed only a little help to learn how to use the brakes. After some practice in the garage, we moved to the driveway and then on to the sidewalk. Today we went all the way to the other side of the development! She has picked up on this so quickly. It is great to see how well she is doing with bike riding but hard to see her on such a big bike at the age of 3 and a half. Just one more way she is showing us how quickly she is growing up!

Claire's restaurant

Claire has been keeping Grandma busy working in her restaurant (and here she thought she was coming to rest!). Claire is very specific about how her restaurant is run and makes sure Grandma follows her regulations! As you can see, Claire requires her staff to wear a Claire apron and beautiful hair jewels!

Claire's beauty parlor

Claire has lots of fun making Grandpa look "beautiful". She takes her work very seriously and is very proud of the final look!

It's hard work being beautiful

 Claire got into my makeup today and was excited to look beautiful for the restaurant. So I decided to let her play a bit. First she needed to put on some powder...

 Then comes the eye liner (the sponge end of course)....

 And finally some blush for the cheeks!

Tah-dah! All beautiful for my Daddy!

Another busy day!

 Claire loves to be a big helper these days. When it was time to water the garden and landscaping, I was told to move away and let Claire do it because "I can do it myself". So, I stepped back and watched my 3 year old daughter take on the task of watering. She did a wonderful job and only needed help getting the garden hose around the landscape. I guess it is almost time to step back more and let Claire do some of the daily tasks around the house.

Concentrating so hard on making sure each plant got just enough water!

 Busy riding bikes with our neighbor boy Cameron. Before we know it, they will be taking off in their cars!

I love it when Claire plays so well with her friends! So much fun watching them interact and listening to the stories they come up with. Imagination running wild these days!

Halloween gone wrong

I was all excited to get off work today and hurry home to take Claire trick-or-treating. Well, she had another idea. Jeff did an awesome job at getting her all dressed up at Tinkerbell (again, thank you cousin Ellie for sharing all of your things!) and she was all pumped up to go get candy, at least until Mom pulled up.  We stopped for a minute to get a few pictures and then we were off to fill our buckets. Well, we hit one house and immediately Claire decided to hide behind my legs and start to whine. Jeff took her home and had a talk with her and she decided she wanted to go inside and get her jammies on for bed. So, the evening Jeff and I were looking forward to all day quickly became a disappointment to us both. You just can't make a 3 year old do something she doesn't want to do! Lesson learned! Good thing we took pictures first!

Gymnastics

Jeff and I decided to enroll Claire in gymnastics to help her learn some skills and meet some new friends. She was so proud to be able to wear a leotard (thank you to cousin Ellie for giving them to her). When she got dressed for gymnastics, she kept twirling around saying she was so beautiful! The bottom picture is us practicing a move she learned at her first trial class. As long as she loves to go, I think this will be an activity that we will keep her in.

School project

Claire brought home this purple feather from preschool the other day. Her task was to decorate it and return it so it can become a part of the classroom turkey. I got Claire some glitter glue and paint and she got busy decorating. As you can see from the pictures, she was very focused on detail and we ended up with a very beautiful feather made 100% by Claire!

YMCA Fall Festival

On Friday evening we were able to take Claire to the YMCA Fall Festival. The weather had changed due to a cold front and we dropped over 20 degrees so it was time to get out the pants and jackets. Jeff may never admit it, but I will...we have become officially whimpy! It was in 50's and we were freezing! Anyway, we all had a fun time. We especially enjoyed watching Claire come out of her shell a bit. This was the very first time she would stand by a dressed up person for a picture. Usually she just clings on to me so tightly I can barely breathe! We were very proud of her. She had a great time getting her face painted and sat so still we could have balanced a plate on her head! Then she found the bounce houses. Once she started with those, it was hard to get her off. It was a very fun family event.