Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone out there has a very happy Thanksgiving holiday. We have a lot to be thankful for here. :)

Our big 4 year-old

Yep, our little girl turned four. How crazy is that? The really crazy thing is that she and I have the same birthday, but she keeps getting older while I stay the same age (somewhere around 29). Odd.

Anyway, Claire got a big dose of birthday this year because her actual birthday was Friday and her party was Saturday. And she got sung to at school on Thursday since that was as close to her birthday as they were going to get. Not a bad week for our Claire-bear! Here is the gratuitous slide show from her birthday at our house and then her cowgirl party at the gymnastics gym:

Little ballerina

I went to Claire's dance class on Wednesday and took a few photos of her in class. Madeline was really interested in the dance moves too. When Claire's teacher noticed Maddie doing the dances on the sidelines, she found an extra pair of tap shoes and Maddie got to tap with Claire's class. Boy was she excited! It's going to be a long wait for her until she turns 3 and can go to lessons too.

This weekend Claire had her dance "showcase". It's not exactly a recital (no costumes), but all of the classes got up on stage and did a few routines with the lights and a crowd watching. It's supposed to help them get over their stage fright for the real recital next spring. I don't know if it worked or not, but they sure were cute up there!

Leaves are falling

Ever since the first few leaves fell off the tree in our backyard Claire has been begging for a pile of them to jump in. Fortunately for her, Phil can't stand the leaves everywhere in our yard, so he grabbed a rake and made a big pile for her (well, it was actually for the lawn maintenance folks to come and vacuum up, but she was happy about it anyway). I think the two of them had a nice time.

Butterflies

I don't know if the local butterflies were overly cold, tired from migrating, or just super-friendly, but we had bunches of them on our basil this week. They were nice butterflies, too. One even perched on Claire's jeans for awhile and the girls were able to catch a few to look at.