First Days of School!

So I'm very behind and I'm going to try to catch up!! 

RIGHT after we had Claire's birthday and baptism, Cooper had his first day of first grade!

I tried to do a VERY simple special dinner the night before where Cooper got to pick out what he wanted to eat (chicken pockets). 

Look at sweet Cooper on his first day of zoo school when he was 3 1/2!  Crazy to see how little he was!

 

 

Iron Man is the new cool thing this year.

Can you tell he was getting bored of posing for pictures?

When we were getting ready to school, both Claire and Jackson wanted to wear their back packs as well!  We couldn't find Claire's so she used Cooper's old one.

 Cooper with some of our neighborhood friends on the way to school.

 This is his "mom, please stop taking pictures" face! :)  All ready for first grade!

 (this has nothing to do with first days of school, I just thought it was cute :))

 I had a little party after school for the kids (it was pretty simple- green apples to look like Mike and a rice krispy cake to look like Sully).

 Then we had Jackson's meet the teacher!

 Here he is with his preschool teacher!

 Jackson started school about a week or two after Cooper.  This was his very first day of school, ever!  I was so nervous for him because last year when I brought him to MOPS childcare he sometimes would cry and I had to go and get him.  But he had no problems at all, he LOVES school!

 Claire wanted to sneak into the picture. :)

 Here he is sitting at his table.  He was so ready for school.

So now two days a week it's just Claire and I for a few hours.  We are able to get a few errands done and I bring Claire to gymnastics on one of those days.  It's fun having one-on-one time with Claire but she misses her big brothers while they are gone! 

6 months with Claire

 This week marked a very special milestone for our family, it was our 6 month anniversary of adopting Claire!!!

The time has flown by- sometimes it feels like we were just in China (or at least just a few months ago, definitely not 6!), but other times it feels like Claire has been in our family forever!  Just the way it should be.

 She is such a silly goose-she has so much personality!  She has come so far from when we first met her.  She was so timid and scared to try new things.  Now she loves to do pretty much everything and is getting much better with meeting new people!  Hardly any timidity left (is that a word??)  Sometimes is unsure around new people (which is a great thing, that means she is attaching well to us) but is usually so friendly with everyone.

 She loves to play with her brothers and can totally keep up with them, and loves to color, play with her Mickey and Minnie toys, her baby dolls and her toy kitchen.  She is starting to enjoy reading more.  When she first came home she wouldn't sit for even a second and look at a book.   Now she'll sit and read a few at a time!  Her favorite thing to do is watch Mickey Mouse.  Which is so funny because she didn't have any interest in TV at all when she first came home!

 She is learning so many new things-she understands pretty much anything you say and can follow directions well.  She says quite a few words but her articulation is pretty poor due to her cleft lip-she just didn't get to use those upper lip muscles for almost 2 years of her life!  So now she's in speech and we're working on her articulation.  She tries so hard and is making progress! 

 She loves her family, loves to give hugs and kisses, and loves to do anything her brothers are doing.  We are so blessed to have her in our lives! We love you Claire Bear!!!

Claire's Baptism!

 

The day after Claire's birthday was another wonderful day...we had Claire baptized!  I tried to get a photo of her outside our beautiful church but it was so bright, this was the best we could get. :)  She is wearing the baptism dress that we bought her in China.

 Waiting for church to start.  Look at that little smile.

 Some of our family waiting for church to begin!

 My parents took a few photos of the actual ceremony.

 I love this, my sister Laura wanted to hold Claire and she agreed!  She loves her auntie!

 Our family with the Pastor.

 After the ceremony we of course had to take a bunch of photos!

Claire with her Godparents.

 All of the cousins.

 Our beautiful Claire Bear.

 Claire and her Grandparents.

 Our family.   It was so special to have her baptized-we love her so much!

Claire's 2nd Birthday!!

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Just 5 days after Jackson turned 4, Claire turned 2!  It was hard to switch birthday gears so fast, August is now going to be such a busy month for us!  But I sure had fun celebrating Claire's first birthday with us!!!

We had an ice cream theme since Claire LOVES ice cream. 

It was a low-key party, just family.  I didn't want to overwhelm her on her big day! 

Here is the birthday girl in the adorable shirt my friend Leanne made her.  I need to take better photos of her so you can see the entire shirt-it has her name on it and on the 2 scoop ice cream cone it has a "2."  (Her hairbow has a sparkly crown in the middle of the two flowers by the way-just perfect for our princess!! :))

Claire with Grandma and Grandpa B.

Grandma and Grandpa S were able to drive down for her party too, we were so thankful!

Laura made this BEAUTIFUL cake for her birthday, it was SO tasty and adorable!

Claire received lots of fun presents-one that she loved was this baby stroller.

 

Opening more presents!  I wasn't sure how she would do with all the attention on her, but she did great!

Ryan and I got her this mini trampoline-she LOVED it.  She is our most active child by far and so we wanted to get her something physical for her to do.

We did two small activities- pin the cherry on the ice cream cone (the kids helped me color the cone! :)...

and an ice cream cone piñata.

Then it was time for cake!

She LOVED it.  But loved the ice cream even more!

We love you so much Claire Bear!  We complete our family and we are so blessed to have you in our family!

Bye everybody, see you next year!!!