Happy Birthday Clara!

Today Clara turned two. It seems much longer than two years that Clara has been a part of our lives, but it also has passed in a blink of an eye. Clara is growing and learning all the time. She speaks very well and has a lot to say. She has strong likes and dislikes and is very strong-willed. She likes picking out which hair bows she will wear each day and has a keen fashion sense and is overall very girly and likes pretty things, babies, and purses a lot, though she also really likes cars and trucks. She still does not really like food that much, though she is doing really well weight-wise and recently hit twenty pounds, finally. She is in the third percentile in both height and weight, which is a big improvement for her and is the first time she has been above the first percentile in quite some time.

We don't do really big parties after one (well until they are old enough to ask for them. Then we will probably start them again), but we still do have a party so this afternoon our family as well as Julie, Andrew, and Benjamin and Grandma Peg and Grandpa Ron came over.

I try to have each kid's favorite foods on their birthday. With Clara that's pretty hard because her favorite food is probably ice chips. But she does like carbs a lot so we had rolls and mandarin oranges for lunch and then pizza for dinner. Because she is lactose intolerant, to her pizza means breaksticks, which she likes but doesn't love. But we also let her have some pop with ice chips and eat her beverage with a spoon and she really loves all those things, so even though she doesn't exactly have a favorite food, she liked her dinner a lot.

After dinner, we did presents, which made her very happy. She really seemed excited about most of what she got (possible exception is the blanket I made her, because blankets are a step up from clothes when it comes to gifts, but I think she'll enjoy it when she uses it) and kept saying "Oh Wow". Joshua was totally happy to help her out with the gifts. After we opened gifts, we took a brief break in festivities for Clara to talk to Aunt Josie on the phone. She isn't quite able to have a real conversation on the phone yet, but I think she's getting closer.

After phone time, it was time for cake. Clara likes cake, but Joshua loves cake so Joshua had spent all day talking how good the cake was so Clara was pretty psyched for it since she trusts Joshua on stuff like that. But she was a little confused. I made cupcakes for everyone, but she had a special purse cake that Jason made for her. But she didn't realize it was a cake so she was a little confused.

But she figured it out and gave herself a round of applause when people sang happy birthday to her. She enjoyed her cake, though being Clara she is very self-regulating and told me she was done with it after several bites. She was happy to share with Joshua, though, who thought this whole "one cupcake" thing we have going on in our family is for the birds.

She had a really happy birthday and I was a little sad to say goodbye to her baby years, but we were all happy to celebrate with our sweet big girl who we all love so much.