Happy Birthday Claire!

On Tuesday, we celebrated Claire's TWO year birthday! I can't believe she's been with us for two years. I was scheduling her pictures at JCPenny, and I actually said it was her one year birthday! After her pictures were taken, I looked at them and thought--"Who is this girl? She can't be mine! My Claire is still little!" But the girl in the pictures looked so big and grown up. I couldn't believe it.

Claire has been such a blessing in our lives. She is so sweet and tender-hearted (most of the time). I still remember when she was just a baby and Summer would tease Claire by making Summer's baby doll cry. Claire's eyes would just well up, and she'd start crying too. She's also so motherly. The first few days of Pyper's life, Claire would just sit by her and softly touch her arm saying consolingly, "No fry, baby. No fry." (No cry baby, no cry.) And Pyper wouldn't even be crying. :) So sweet. But when Pyper does cry now, I'll notice Claire sitting by her saying, "Sh. Sh. Sh. Sh." She loves taking care of her little sister.

Claire also loves watching movies. The first thing she says every morning when she walks into our room is: "Watch a movie? Watch a movie?" She's also picked up on saying "Never!" from Summer. I don't think she gets what it really means though; she just knows to say it when she wants to express something with force. Sometimes, she'll ask me to get her something, and I'll say, "Just a minute." Then she'll furrow her brows, pretend she's mad, and say forcefully, "No! Never!" I can't help but laugh.

Claire weighs 20 lbs and is 30 inches tall. She is in the 80th percentile for height, but completely off the charts with her weight. Her doctor also mentioned that she is impressed that Claire is speaking in complete sentences now. She said that's really impressive for Claire's age.

In the past couple weeks, any time we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she'd say, "Chocolate birthday." I think she kept meaning chocolate cupcakes. But when it was time to eat the chocolate [black bean] cupcakes, she just ate the frosting off. I think she was mostly excited about the cream cheese frosting. Who wouldn't be?

For her birthday, we ate dinner, then had her cupcakes. Then we had a little "party" for her--just our little family. We played the "Humpty Dumpty" game (keeping Humpty Dumpty from falling on the ground to the Humpty Dumpty song), and then we all got some bells to jingle while we sang along to "Jingle Bells." Then Claire opened her presents. (We did Humpty Dumpty to our Christmas tree lights, and then I realized the camera was super blurry so we turned the lights on.)

Sweet, sweet Claire Bear. We love you!