Birthday Girl

I can't believe my little girl is 3 years old. For the past year she has been telling us she wanted to have a Dora birthday party, so that is exactly what we did. Here she is enjoying the food at her Dora birthday bash.

We had so much fun. We played Pin the tail on Swiper.

We went fishing.

We played a balloon game. (I think this was by far the kids' favorite game)--So in the comments people asked about this game so I am editing my post. This is the balloon game....We blew up 75+ balloons put star stickers on them (since Dora is a star catcher), we had a few buckets. We would dump the balloons out on the kids and they had to pick up the balloons and put them in their bucket as fast as possible. By the end all the kids just wanted to kick the balloons and put them back in the garbage bag in order to dump the balloons again.

We played Dora cornhole.

Of course we had a Dora Pinata.

Last but not least here is the Dora cake Bryan and I made for her.

Potato Head

For Christmas Claire got a cute package of Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. They can be a king, princess, Mr. Potato Head, Mrs. Potato Head and a Chef. She loves them so much. Bryan has been trying to teach her to put them together all crazy (i.e. like the mouth in the ear spot and the feet on their heads). Claire decided to turn herself in to a potato head. Here is Claire doing her best impression of a potato head.

Snow

We didn't have a white Christmas, but we did have a white New Year's Eve. Here are some pictures of Claire playing in the first snow fall we had. She really wanted to make a snow angel. Here is her attempt at a snow angel.
She also wanted to make a snowman. The snow was just too powdery and wouldn't stick together. We made a laying down snowman. We just decorated the pile of snow the was built of from Bryan shoveling. Here is a our snowman...if you can call it that.
Claire wanted to help Bryan shovel. Here she is attempting to shovel. She actually did a really good job pushing the snow around.
Lois invited us sledding at her house, but we didn't think there was enough snow yet so I just pulled Claire around our yard in the sled. We tried pushing her down the little hill in our yard. It actually worked. Here she is sledding at our house.

Then on New Year's Day there was really enough snow to go up to Don and Lois' for sledding. Uncle John and Bryan took Claire sledding. She had so much fun. Here is a picture of her going down all by herself. Bryan went down next to her and then after they started he let go of the sled and she went down the hill by herself. I was proud of her.
Here is Bryan and Uncle John showing off and having a good time.
Here is Claire being a typical kid and eating snow. After they were all done sledding and playing in the snow Bryan asked Claire what she wanted for lunch and she said "I don't need lunch I already had snow." Its funny how kids think and what they say.

The Votes Are In...

Thank you to all who participated in the Ugly Sweatshirt voting (whether on facebook, blogging or by email). Here is the family picture to remind you once again how we all looked.
Here is who designed the different sweatshirts. Tucker designed Don's, Claire designed Terin's, Janelle designed Claire's, Lois designed Stacie's, Bryan designed Lois', Don designed Janelle's, Stacie designed Tucker's and Terin designed Bryan's.
The winner for the Ugliest Sweatshirt with 26 votes is.....
Stacie for designing Tucker's shirt. In second place with 20 votes is Bryan for designing Lois' shirt. In third place with 12 votes was Terin for designing Bryan's shirt.
The winner for the Most Creative Sweatshirt (this vote was extremely close) with 13 votes is....
Terin for designing Bryan's shirt. In second place with 12 votes is Tucker for designing Don's shirt. In third place with 11 votes is Bryan for designing Lois' shirt.

Christmas

We had such a wonderful Christmas. We hope everyone else did too. Santa was very good to us. Claire loves the "big" present he brought her. I say big because it is bigger than she is. Here is her big present.
You do ask her what she has learned. She will tell you that She learned that you don't climb on the doll house because it will give you an ouchy. She climbed on the doll house and it tipped over on her. She now has a step stool to help her reach to top of her doll house so she doesn't need to climb anymore.
Another gift she got was a trunk full of dress ups from grandma Lois. In the trunk she got a Belle dress, Cinderella dress, Sleeping Beauty dress and this one (my favorite):
She is my little ballerina. I think I might need to sign her up for dance lessons. She loved to be in the ballerina outfit. She asks to wear it every time we go up to grandma and grandpa's house. She has to wear everything...even the little ballerina slippers. She even will turn around, jump and kick her leg out. It is adorable!!!

Ugly Sweatshirts

For those of you who don't know it is sort of a family tradition that we exchange ugly holiday sweatshirts. It is also a bit of a competition. Here the family picture so you can vote. We need to know who is wearing the ugliest sweatshirt and who is wearing the most creative. Although voting will be closed in one week (New Years Day)...get your votes in quickly. Share the picture with those in your house and have them vote....the more the merrier.
Here are the names of everyone so you can vote. On the ground is Don. In the swing you have Terin, Claire and Stacie. In the back you have Lois, Janelle, Tucker and Bryan. I'll post voting results later.

Christmas Dress

Here is Claire in her Christmas Dress. She loved how sparkly it was. Thanks Aunt Janelle for helping us find such a cute dress.
The only issue with this dress is that it leaves glitter where ever she goes. It is cute, but oh my on Sunday the church bench was covered in glitter as was any kid who got close to Claire in Nursery.