Fun times with Claire!

Jeff and I got to go to Cozumel for a short vacation to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary (which was in November) while G-Ma was here to watch Claire. We brought home some small sombreros and had fun trying to get Belle to wear one!

 Claire has been very interested in reading lately and today after school decided she was going to read me some books. It amazes me how well she can read already. She is reading 1st grade level books and is one of two kids in her kindergarten class reading at the highest level for the class! We are very proud of our smart little girl!

 The two people who keep me going every day,

 and how they act together most of the time (always having fun)!

Claire gets a mani/pedi!

We started the day playing musical chairs with G-Ma before school.

It was so fun to watch Claire in such a great mood.

 After school, Claire and I headed to the nail salon for a special treat.

Claire loves to get her nails done at the salon. It is a very, very rare treat

but fun when we do go.

 Claire was a bit hesitant when the lady brought out the tool to soften her heels!

 Ta-dah! The finished product! Claire has multi colored toes and fingers with

flowers on and a gem in the middle. Pretty fancy stuff for a 5 year old!

Valentine's Day!

Claire's class celebrated Valentine's Day last Friday. Claire wanted her nails painted pink and red

for the occasion.

 After the polish dried, Grandma let Claire use her sparkly polish to coat over her color.

Claire thought she was pretty cool polishing her own nails!

 She did such a great job that I let her polish my nails too!

 G-ma and I got to have lunch with Claire at school last Friday. It was Spirit shop day

so Claire got to buy a few little things. Her favorite was a pen that wrote in invisible ink

and had a light on the end to shine where she wrote to display her message.

 That evening we got to go listen to Paw Paw sing at a restaurant.

It was so fun to see him in his element and Claire felt pretty special

when the lead singer came to give her a big hug!

 Me Maw came to spend lots of time with Claire also during the concert.

Claire sure gets spoiled when these two are around!

 Claire and G-Ma hard at work picking out a picture to color.

It is so fun watching them play and interact together.

Working on Valentine's cards

Claire celebrated her 100th day of Kindergarten on Feb 5th. They had a day full of cool activities. Claire got to make this mask and hat which had strips of math equations on them. She had so much fun and it was exciting to see how alive and full of energy she was while she shared her day with us!

 Claire worked very hard to put each classmates name on their valentine card. She had to be sure the letters were just perfect!

 We had a few left over cards so Claire and G-Ma (or Granny as she is now called!)

decided to give them a try and see what happened. They are etching cards so each one comes with a pencil to etch the black away. It was fun to see the cool patterns of color under the black! We think the kids will like them on Friday!

Making a Valentine's box

Claire's class is not having a Valentine's Day party. However, the kids get to design their own Valentine's box/bag and they get to bring valentines to give to each classmate on Friday.

Claire decided she wanted to make a butterfly.  I wrapped her box and cut the wings for her. She got to decorate them however she wanted. This ended up taking a few nights to complete so thankfully we started early!

 Claire's very first Valentine's box (wings decorated completely by her)!

She is excited to bring it to school to show her friends!