I'm a big girl!

Yesterday my baby turned three. I really don't know where that last year went but now it is gone and Claire is a year older. This birthday was a ton of fun because Claire understood what a birthday was and she knew her birthday was coming. She kept talking about going swimming for her birthday and so on Saturday we took the family swimming. All of the kids had a blast. They all had so much fun that we probably should go again soon. Sorry there are no pictures of swimming. I didn't want to take my camera there and worry about it getting ruined or stolen. Sunday was the big day for Claire. I set her wrapped presents out in the morning and she didn't try to unwrap them all day. We made her wait until after dinner to open them so Grandma and Grandpa Hoenes could be there to see her open them. We had a nice dinner with Grandma and Grandpa here. We made steak even though Claire doesn't like steak but that girl doesn't like hardly anything. If I would have asked her what she wanted for dinner she probably would have said "Corndogs". After dinner the party started and boy was Claire ready for presents. She could hardly contain her excitement while sitting in the birthday chair. It was so much fun seeing her so excited.

Claire is showing us how old she is. This is the only way she can hold up 3 fingers.

You can tell by the look on Claire's face how much fun she had opening presents. I loved her reactions to all of her presents. Claire has to be the most animated and loud child of ours. Listening to her tell a story is a blast.

Here are all her presents. Can you tell how happy she is?

So, when we went to light the candles on the birthday cake we couldn't find the candles. We had just used them a week ago so I kind of blamed Corbin for not putting them away in the right spot. Come to find out this morning that Claire had put the baggie of candles in Maelyn's backpack. I guess I need to apologize to Corbin! Since we couldn't find the candles we had to improvise a little and use tea candles. Not the best looking but Claire didn't care one bit. She just likes blowing out any sort of candle.

We are so lucky to have this girl in our family. Yes, she is difficult sometimes but she is also full of life and fun. She loves to sing and dance just like Maelyn. She is stubborn like her mom and hyper like her dad :) She loves to pretend to play house with Maelyn and she also loves to show off to people. I wish I had her energy bottled up so I could use it when I needed to. This girl can go and go and go. She is like the energizer bunny. She won't hold still for anything unless she is watching Dora the Explorer and has chocolate milk. And the best thing about her is that she LOVES her mommy!