Always on the move!

 Claire is using water to clean her feet. Thankfully we only had a little mess when she was done!

 Claire loves to "play" the game Payday. She has her own rules of course and seems to always win!

 Claire playing with her binoculars she made at preschool.

 Play-doh time!

Claire made up a game today where she had to sit in her chair and try to get a ball into the yellow bin she placed in the kitchen. She is so creative and I love the things she comes up with! 

Multiplication?

I decided to keep pushing Claire's math envelope by trying to introduce multiplication to her. I thought it would be kind of fun just to see if she would stay interested in it with no thought that she might actually be able to do it. Yet again, our little monkey surprised us. She picked it up much faster than the addition and subtraction problems we had been doing. I guess it goes to show that all you need is a half hour of focused energy and anything is possible.

Great Wolf Lodge

Claire and I got the opportunity to go with some friends to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas for two nights this week. We had an amazing time at this huge indoor water park! Claire had just finished her first month of swimming lessons so I was not sure what to expect. Claire blew me out of the water with her willingness to try new things. She loved every part of the water park except the large water slides. The first one she went down she really enjoyed so she tried the other large one that she was able to go down alone. When I met her at the bottom with her coming down backwards, I was pretty sure she wouldn't be going down those again! She really enjoyed the kiddie pool area and loved the wave pool. We even went down the lazy river a few times and through the huge fort area, as long as the big bucket wasn't going to dump while we were near it! Claire spent most of her time putting her face and head under water and jumping waves.

The Hlavka family

Spoiled rotten!

Shannon and Brandon were able to come and visit us for a week. Claire absolutely loved having her aunt and uncle here to play with and she soaked up all of the attention. Grandma and Grandpa got a short break from "school" since Claire decided to make Brandon and Shannon her "friends" for some of the time. Claire has become quite accustomed to having many people around to play with. It will be interesting to see how the next week and a half goes when Grandma and Grandpa are back in MN! It will be an adjustment for sure!

8 +12 all by herself

Family is everything!

Super charge my minivan please

For Christmas, Sheila wanted to knock one of my bucket list items off. Ever since I was little, I have been infatuated with Lamborghini's. I had posters of them on my walls, and went to car shows just to see them. Houston MSR racetrack brings in a company that will allow you race their vehicles on the actual racetrack. Needless to say I was very excited and very nervous. The instructor at the course had said that Houston is his second favorite track that they go to. He said it was a very technical course that will test your driving abilities. The two things I learned from this amazing experience are: The cornering of the Lamborghini was something I underestimated. I knew it would be able to put me in the back of my seat with its acceleration but I had no idea how much it stuck to the road. The second thing is that owning one on the street would be somewhat of a let down. It would be hard to put this vehicle to its abilities in bumper to bumper traffic. Even on an open stretch of highway, you could not use it the way it was intended. A closed course racetrack is definitely the way to go. Thanks Sheila for that amazing gift.

Our beautiful girl on Easter

We were able to get a professional picture taken by our friend Rachael Hodges during a neighborhood Easter egg hunt on Friday. I love how it turned out so had to share it with everyone.

Claire is having such a wonderful time with Grandma and Grandpa. She is definitely getting spoiled, as you can see from the pictures we have posted so far! Poor Grandma and Grandpa have to go to "school" every day and their "teacher" is pretty rough on them! It is so much fun watching Claire interact with them and they just have a way of getting Claire to laugh and laugh and laugh! We are definitely making the most of every day we are blessed to spend with Grandma and Grandpa. In the past 5 years we have only been able to see them for 1-2 weeks at a time so this is a very special time for us. We are very lucky that Grandma and Grandpa are so patient with their "teacher"!