A 2 year old

It's true what everyone says about how little ones grow up way to fast. Clara turned 2 on April 27th. Crazy. She wanted an "Elmo birthday" so we went with a Sesame Street theme. Our current apartment is too small to host a party so we had it at my parents' house the day before her birthday.
The decor:

Ha ha, we tried ^^

The balloons were a big hit.

We had Snuffy's favorite meal of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. It happens to be Clara's favorite too.

After dinner, Clara enjoyed opening presents. She is at the stage where she wants to play with each gift as she opens it and it is hard to get her to open another present. But she really enjoyed every single thing she got.

Yeah, I was super pregnant. ^

After presents, we had cake. We just got a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and added a couple of Elmo candies to the top. We figured Clara could really care less about the cake and we wanted something yummy for the adults to enjoy. She blew out the candles, but wasn't really interested in eating any with all the fun toys around to occupy her time instead.

Thanks to our immediate families and my grandma for coming and making her special day so delightful.

Easter 2014

Holidays are so much fun with little kids. Clara had a great time with Easter this year.

My sister and I took our girls to see the Easter Bunny at the mall. I talked it up for weeks beforehand. Clara was too scared to go anywhere near Santa this last Christmas, so I thought that if I talked up the Easter Bunny, she'd be less apprehensive. We even went to the mall a couple of days before and just looked at him from a distance. She seemed really interested. Well, we did better than we did with Santa in that we actually got her on his lap. She was not happy about it though. Marseille was totally chill and cheesed it up for the camera.

A few times before Easter rolled around, Grandma Beth painted Clara's nails spring colors and they called them Easter egg fingers.

Clara got to do a little Easter egg hunt at her Noyce grandparents' house. 

It took a lot of encouragement to get her to keep looking for eggs once she discovered the candy inside the first ones she found, but eventually she got them all. Jackpot.

 On Easter morning, Clara got to raid her own little Easter basket, which she loved. We tried not to do too much candy, which is good because her grandparents each gave her a basket with plenty of delicious treats.

I didn't get a single picture of her in her Easter dress. Best mom ever. But here she is chilling at grandparents' house after church. We had a low key dinner with family at my parents' house to polish off the day.

Tulip Festival

We got a Thanksgiving Point membership for this year so we decided to check out the Tulip Festival at the gardens this year. Of course it was just lovely and Clara had a grand ol' time running all over the place. We didn't stay for too horribly long because I can't really lug myself around for that long. Technically I shouldn't even being doing stuff like this since I'm supposed to be on bed rest. Oops. We had fun though.

After the gardens, we went out to dinner just for fun. Clara really enjoyed pigging out on my applesauce. She is a handful, but so fun.

Baby Emma

Welcome to our newest niece, Emma Rae Woolley. She was born last Wednesday to my brother and his wife. This is only the second time I have become an auntie, and Clara is so excited to be a cousin again, at least in concept.

The baby is absolutely beautiful. Good job guys. Of course we went to the hospital to hold the baby after she was born. Clara held her for about 3 seconds, then declared "I'm all done." She was really interested in the balloon in the hospital room though. I wonder if she'll have any interest at all in her baby brother.

Congrats to Ben and Tosca. We love you guys.

Overnight getaway

Our due date is fast approaching (not really fast enough, but what can you do?) so we decided to do a little overnight getaway this past weekend to unwind and get a good night's sleep before this little guy joins our family. We wanted it to be low key so we just stayed at a bed a breakfast in Midvale in a Romeo and Juliet themed suite. We both kinda hate the story of Romeo and Juliet, but the room was nice with the just right amount of cheesy.

We had a great time. We ate out without our toddler in tow, which was relaxing and just divine. We stayed out past 8 PM. Ha ha. We got some water ice at Rita's and went shopping. We took the time to just peruse the aisles at the store without hollering at a little girl to stay nearby, don't touch that, no we can't buy that, etc. Then we headed to the bed and breakfast for tons of junk food, a movie (we finally watched Frozen), and as good a night's sleep as you can get at 35 weeks pregnant. In the morning, we got breakfast in bed, which was absolutely delicious (we forgot to take a picture because we scarfed it all down so fast), the headed to home to see our girl. We missed her, even though it was fun to take night off.
So I guess this means our batteries are all recharged and we're ready to do this whole baby-having thing.

Who needs lunch...

when you can have a Leatherby's sundae instead?

Christmas

I was lucky enough to get both Christmas Eve and Christmas off work this year. Since I have been so sick/tired/miserable with this pregnancy, we decided not to decorate for Christmas at all this year. I figured Clara will never remember and it was not worth the effort. I love Christmas and I am really not all bah humbug or anything. It has just been a rough few months.

We did our own little family Christmas on the evening of Christmas Eve. Here's a picture of the set up, in front of our entertainment center due to lack of a Christmas tree.

 Here's Clara walking in to see her presents for the first time.

 She had a great time opening gifts, and wanted to play with each one before moving on.

We split Christmas Day between Zack's family and my family. It's nice to be close to both families so we can share these special occasions with all of them. We enjoyed opening gifts, eating lots of junk, and just relaxing with people we love.