Claire and Karsen, professional bakers (almost!)

Claire had one of her besties overnight on Friday night. Saturday morning the girls decided they wanted to bake. They went through the cookbook and found some bars to make. After getting all of the ingredients, they worked together with very minimal assistance from Mom and made a delicious dessert! It was so fun listening to them figure things out and watching them work together to get the task completed. They each had their own ideas and had to talk it out to decide which idea was best. With Claire being an only child, she doesn't have to follow other's instructions often so it was wonderful to see her giving up some of her ideas to try her friend's plan. I am very proud of their team work and I know Grandpa Larry would be so proud of how wonderful Claire has become at baking!

Happy Easter!

 So blessed this Easter day. Thank you Jesus for rising from the dead so we can live forever in Heaven! 

Claire woke to a note left for her from the Easter bunny. Every year the bunny has little riddles for her to do along with some exercises before finding the next egg. She had to jump in place,

                                     

 do squats,

 do high knees,

 balance on one leg,

 run on a path three times,

 relax and stretch,

 and play musical chairs (plus a few more exercises). She has always been excited to do this and has been talking about when the bunny comes for days!

 The final clue brings her to her basket location. This year she was super excited to get some peeps, a llama she named Lucky, and an emoji Chia pet!

Mommy and daughter at church this morning! Love this kid to the moon and back!

We were blessed to celebrate Easter with Mamalu and Papado and our good friends Rob, Fietka, Raleigh, and Emery (their daughter and her family). Papado and Rob have been busy building a tree fort and Claire has loved playing in it with the boys!

The beautiful people who have taken us in as a part of their own family! God is so good!

Making Easter cookies

 Grandpa Larry got Claire into baking at a very young age. She loves to be in the kitchen

and had fun doing Easter cookie cutouts yesterday.

 This is the face I get when I ask her to look at me and smile, the face I get when she is sick of me taking pictures! I tell her that it may annoy her now but someday she will be grateful to have so many memories captured.

 She FINALLY gave me a decent look for a nice picture!

Claire's creations after they are all baked, frosted, and sprinkled! Boy do they taste delicious!

I have had more than one or two!!!

Coloring Easter eggs

 I am soaking up every moment that Claire still loves doing traditional things! We had a blast dying Easter eggs this year! Of course she had to do everything by herself but with much convincing, she finally let Jeff and I each color one egg!

 My little scientist hard at work measuring the correct amount of water into each bowl.

Claire and her Daddy with their beautiful colored eggs.

 Claire loved how her eggs turned out this year, especially the yellow one with the blue spots.

We all thought it looked like a miniature dinosaur egg.

First long course swim meet of the season

Claire had her first long course swim meet of the season yesterday and did great! She cut 13 seconds off her 100 backstroke! She also swam 50 fly and 200 IM. I love this picture of her 50 fly! Great form Claire!

 All ready to swim her 200 IM.

Claire was very determined this meet and worked super hard to get good times. She never ceases to amaze me! Unfortunately last night she started not feeling well and came down with the nasty flu so had to miss the second half of the meet today.