Early Easter Fun

Yesterday we went to the support site for an Easter event hosted by Andy's division. There was an Easter bunny, to whom Claire took an immediate liking, an Easter egg hunt and Easter egg decorating. The weather was awesome and I was able to keep Claire looking cute. Thankfully she kept her "bunny ears" (pigtails) in for the whole morning. What a great day!

Claire hugged the Easter bunny right when she met him. She also spent some time trying to figure him out.

The egg hunt itself was over in less than five minutes. Claire was able to snag three eggs herself, but there were a bunch of older kids who were faster and a bit more egg savvy. Next year, I do hope to see a little more hustle. We'll be sure to run some drills before hand.

Although, she did have fun opening her eggs and to find candy inside!

Claire and her Daddy enjoyed decorating Easter eggs for the first time (for both of them)! Even Daddy was having fun.

Fun around the house.

The month of March hasn't been terribly eventful, but we have had some fun around the house. Claire absolutely loves swings, so we got her a little toddler swing for the back yard. Even though we have a number of trees, none are particularly good for attaching a swing to. Andy first tried to rig up the swing with this crazy ladder/metal bed frame contraption, but that didn't seem to work too well. Finally we attached the swing to a tree with some bungee cords, which works much better.

Claire also loves her new Mrs. Potato Head. She spends a lot of time putting it together and taking it apart. She certainly does find some creative ways to use each of the parts.... including the glasses!

We've also had a lot of fun at Carney Park and now that the weather is getting nicer, it's even nicer to go there. Recently, they had a family sports and activities day, where we hiked up to the rim of the park. Claire had a lot of fun riding in the backpack on Daddy's back and the views from the top were great. We definitely plan on going on a longer hike perhaps when I'm not pregnant...

After the hike Claire had fun checking out the booths and she even got some balloon animals from the clowns. As always, she and her friend Sadie, had a great time playing together!



Claire also loved helping Daddy put together a new bookshelf from Ikea. I bet she'll have a lot of fun helping to put together her big girl bed when we get her one in April.

Stuttgart, Germany

Andy had to go to Stuttgart last week for work, so Claire and I tagged along. We had a great time doing fun activities during the day and then at night, we all went out to enjoy some non-Italian food! During the week we went to the zoo. It was kind of rainy, but there were a number of indoor exhibits. Claire especially enjoyed the fish, the lizards, the monkeys and the tigers, all of which we got great views of. We also got to go to some very cool, indoor mineral pools. The complex that we went to had a great children's pool with all kinds of water features, toys and little slides. On another day, we went to an indoor play space with huge blow up bouncy castle type things, a mini indoor train, a fun slide and all kinds of other toys to crawl around on. Claire had a great time! I was also able to visit a beloved Starbucks and enjoy a venti vanilla latte... HOORAY!