Happy Birthday, Claire Bear!

This past Friday was Claire's fourth birthday. I have an extra special place in my heart for Claire. She is just so different than all of my other children. She's generally very quiet and imaginative and moody. I think she'd have been much happier as an only child. She plays very well for hours by herself or with a select friend, but big groups seem to make her uncomfortable. As with every birthday, she had a kind of hard time this year because she was so excited to be the birthday girl, but having everyone look at her and pay attention to her makes her very shy and cranky. She's just my sweet, quiet, thoughtful little thing...with a healthy splash of temper.

Friday (the 17th) was her actual birthday, so Daddy got up with her in the morning and they went on a donut run. She got to choose whatever donut she wanted and a strawberry milk, which she thought was quite exciting. She also spent the entire day ending every sentence with "on my BIRTHDAY!" For example:

"Mom, Emmie just hit me. On my BIRTHDAY!"

"Mom, I just tripped and fell down. On my BIRTHDAY!"

"Mom, Hayden just took my toy gave me a mean face. On my BIRTHDAY!"

Dramatic, much?

Anyway, on Saturday we picked up a couple of little friends and took them all to Chuck E Cheese. Claire has been talking about going there for her birthday for at least a month, and was driving me crazy all morning asking every 2 - 3 minutes if it was "time to go yet?".

Friends riding the "horsey's"...









Cute baby Ella...



McKenna, Camille, Emmie, and a Monster Truck...



Lauren and McKenna...



Claire playing one of her favorites...



Kaiya, obsessed with getting tickets, as usual...



Daddy, with Kaiya's obsession rubbing off...



Emmie, taking her tickets to Daddy...



Claire...



Hayden posing with a picture of herself...



Hayden driving...



Camille and McKenna, playing a very intense game of bowling...



Emmie was very in to this driving game...



Kaiya and her tickets. What did I tell ya?...



Camille and McKenna...



Claire watching the show...



Emmie and Milli...



Claire...



Milli...



Then we came home for pizza, cupcakes, and presents!

Claire's "everyone is looking at me" face...



The group...



Daddy and sisters...



Claire...



Camille...



Lauren and Milli...



Present from Grandma...



Claire and her best friend, McKenna...



THEN on Sunday, my family came over for cupcakes, ice cream, and more presents. Isn't she spoiled rotten?

Hayden and cousin Katelyn...



Everyone playing with Piper, who was in heaven...



My pretty Hayden...



Katelyn and Piper getting aquainted...



Kaiya...



Shannon and the birthday girl...



Emmie...



Grandpa and Claire...





Uncle Troy and his "I'm pretending to be interested" face...



Blowing out her candle...



Rachel making Kaiya crack up...



Emmie and Hayden, enjoying that ice cream...



Grandpa's exercise for the day...



Opening presents...







Thank you to EVERYONE who made this such a special weekend for Claire! She's very excited to be four, and has now moved on to stretching as high as she can every day and asking me if she's tall enough for the big roller coaster at Disney Land now that she's so old. This morning I told her I'm not sure she's tall enough yet, so she better eat lots of vegetables and drink lots of milk. She replied, "Oh, fine. Will you make me broccoli for dinner?"