Ballet

Both Gabby and Claire took ballet classes over the past year. They have loved every minute of those classes and were excited for their end-of-the-year performances, which took place in June. I was impressed that neither of them were shy about being on stage.

Claire's class of 2/3-year-olds.

Claire in her performance attire.

The photos of Claire on the stage were taken by our friend, Joshua Williams, who had a much better angle than we did. Thanks Josh!

Claire practiced her part at home so often that even Daddy knew how to dance to "This Little Light of Mine". Where is my video of that...?

Below is a video of Claire's performance. They did such a great job, thanks to Miss Kellie.

Gabby's ballet/tap class of 4/5-year-olds:

Don't ask me why they made her whole class pose like this for their individual shots. Is there a name for this difficult move?

They sell flowers at Gabby's show, so most parents end up getting suckered into buying something for their children who see everyone else getting flowers. We gave each of the girls a rose before the show, hoping to avoid purchasing an overpriced flower there. It didn't go so well. Gabby was disappointed that everyone else's flowers included a cheap plastic star on a stick. Next time I'll just buy a plastic star on a stick.

Gabby was eager to run up to be the first one on the stage when it was time for her class to perform.

I know this will likely interest no one except the grandparents, but below is a video of Gabby's performance. (Note: There are no staring contests going on this time.)

Claire Turns 2

On July 30th, we celebrated Claire's actual birthday as a family.  She was a little confused at why she had a party a week earlier, but was still only 1, so this day (and more presents) seemed to ease her confusion.

I think our children have learned at an early age that the better the reaction to a gift, the more people want to give gifts.  These girls get excited even before they recognize what the gift is.  It's great.

A bike helmet...

...plus a horse on a stick...

...equals an extra safe ride.

If you are having a birthday in our family, you get to request your favorite meal for dinner.  Claire picked macaroni & cheese and chicken.  It was an elaborate request, but I managed to boil that water alright.  :)  For dessert, she chose a raspberry tart, which seemed like a rather grown-up request, considering the other options I presented her with.

At her check-up the next day, we learned that Claire is 27lbs 3oz and is 33 inches tall.  She is under the 50th percentile, which is a first for us with either child.  (Gabby was 4 pounds heavier when she turned two.)  Luckily, they are both cute and healthy!

Claire's 2nd Birthday Party

Our little Claire turned 2!  To celebrate, we threw a "Bubbles and Brunch" party for her with some of her friends.  Plus, we celebrated while my family was in town, so the cousins were able to join in on the fun as well!

We began with some games:

(1) Find the fuzzy bubbles.  (An easter egg hunt equivalent, but with little fuzzy balls - always a hit)

(2) Pass the bubble beach ball around in the circle to music.  Yeah, I may have forgotten to prepare this game, so we followed whatever instructions happened to come out of my mouth next.

(3) Bubble madness with the bubble machine.  Enormous bubbles were also supposed to exist, but I completely forgot about it and the huge wand sat inside in its package the whole party.  Oops.

Claire at one point froze (as seen in bottom right photo) and stood like that in front of the bubbles for several minutes, despite the bubble chaos around her.

The good photos above (the top three) are courtesy of Elina Ylitalo.

It turns out the theme of bubbles/dots/circles is as easy as it gets.  You can find dots on just about anything.  I forgot to take a photo of the set up, but for food we had pancakes with sprinkles, eggs (they were supposed to be hard-boiled for the round effect, but I was met with resistance on that one), donut holes, blueberries, sprinkled animal cookies, bubbly orange juice, and chocolate milk with straws (for blowing bubbles).  And of course, my signature (can't mess-'em-up) cupcakes with sprinkles, mini ice cream cones and cream puffs for dessert.

I am not sure what Claire is wishing for, but it looks like she is pretty confident that it's going to happen.

Photo of Claire on the left, courtesy of Elina Ylitalo.

It seems the kids all had a good time.

And Claire certainly loved all of her great gifts.

Happy Birthday, Claire!

The Rest of May

It appears that it is time for me to catch up and give a quick review of what we've been up to lately.  Here is a glimpse at the rest of May:

I realized one day after church that we hadn't had a photo shoot for a while, so we captured a few of the girls' smiles.

On Mother's Day, my gift was to deal with two children (one of them very squirmy) on an airplane for 6 hours.  So the family made it up to me the following week, serving me a yummy breakfast in bed, lots of artwork from Gabby's school and many hugs and kisses.  As a side note, when we first excitedly told Gabby about going to NYC and missing two days of school, she began to cry because I would miss out on the Mother's Day Breakfast at her school, where she would have sang a song to me.  Very sweet... I think.

One of Gabby's best friends, Tori, moved to San Diego.  It was hard for Gabby to understand that it will be a long time before we see her again.  She kept telling me, "Mom, I think Tori is on her way home because she said she would be back in 100 days."

Claire had some firsts: First dental exam and first hair cut.

I probably should have taken an "after" photo of the hair cut.  Considering she is the second child, I was just proud of myself for remembering to take a photo of the event with my phone.

We also began some outdoor activities, like attending my good friend Micia's wedding reception on a boat on Seattle's Lake Union and having friends over for a Memorial Day BBQ with homemade lemonade.  Unfortunately, I failed to bring my camera out, so I guess you'll have to imagine something pretty amazing in their place.

Moment of the Month

I suppose the most shocking moment of the month for January goes to Claire.  The day after she turned 18 months, the girls were playing hide-and-seek in the bathroom closet and came across Gabby's old training toilet. You would think it was a buried treasure chest, the way they were so excited about it.  The next thing I know, Claire is sitting on the toilet and going pee!

We all assumed it was just a stroke of luck, but when she asked to go again later, she did it again - almost instantly - and has continued to do so 3-5 times a day since then (for almost a week now) with mostly dry diapers.  I am a little confused because I still have her mentally categorized as a baby (it seems with each child you think they are comparably younger and capable of less, perhaps because you aren't looking so anxiously towards the next milestone).  So I guess I am being dragged into potty-training, ready or not.  The funny thing is that we thought that Claire would be our difficult child to train because she finds so much joy in doing the opposite of what we want her to do - oh, wait - she is doing just that.  Plus, this is only the beginning....

Claire

When Claire turned one, we had her pictures taken.  In the past we have always been rushing last minute, so this time I made sure we got their early - too early.  Somehow we were there an hour early!  Don't ask me how - I am not used to everything like traffic all going in my favor.  For an adult, an hour would not be a big deal.  For a child who has about a twenty-minute zone of happiness without snacks, this is a problem.  And I certainly didn't want to give her snacks that would get her white shirt messy for her photos.  Not to mention once you start feeding this girl, there is no stopping.  We barely managed, with the period of cute happiness expiring right when it was time for photos, but all things considered, it could have been worse.  Here are the shots we got:

Gabby wanted to join in for a couple of pictures.  She forgot to smile and I was so busy trying to keep Claire in the frame, that I forgot to actually tell Gabby to smile.

I tried to be creative, but Claire (who insisted on wearing this hat for the first hour while we were waiting) would have no more of it.

But she did not complain when I handed her a real cupcake....

Thanks, sweet Claire, for always making us smile!

Claire's First Birthday

Our lovely Claire turned one and we had a cherry picnic party for her.  It was a lot of fun to celebrate!

First came the decorations and food.  I still feel new to the kid's birthday party scene and what I have yet to accomplish is to have everything set up early enough to actually take pictures of it.  With my kids pulling on my ankles as I tried to set up, this is the best photo I have of the food table, even though I had not finished putting everything out.  Moms who succeed at this - what is your trick?

 I tried making red velvet cupcakes from scratch - a first.  I am still undecided if the taste is worth the extra effort.  The decorative details were fun to plan.  Most of my inspiration (including the water bottles with cherry suckers) came from stephmodo - I love her entire site.  We weighed down individual balloons with little bags of cherry sours.

Another resource for details was Etsy.

Claire had her first cupcake.

Although she really hesitated as to whether we were going to let her eat that whole thing by herself.

The gifts were all a hit... even to the guests.

Secret meetings were held under chairs.

Kid-sized ice cream cones were served.

Claire had trouble keeping hers off the ground.

One of the crafts was to color an ice cream treat or cupcake coloring page and glue a cherry on top.

Gabby took the cherry part a little too far.  She glued onto multiple sheets the rest of the day.

The kids all went home with their goodie boxes and a balloon and we were sad to see the party end.