Easter 2013

Easter was March 31st this year, an early year.  Fortunately the rainy weather held off just enough for us to get Easter egg hunts in.

We started the day with Easter baskets and a small egg hunt (6 eggs) in our living room.  Claire loved it!  Her basket was filled with lots of b's - bubble bath, books, bows, and bunny ears!  The Easter bunny also brought a few goodies for mommy and daddy too! 

Easter baskets

Reading a new book with Daddy

Found an egg

Got my ears on!

We headed off for church (where Claire wasn't too terrible).  Then we headed down to Stockbridge for brunch with all the Schulze's.  Mmm, brunch!  We had a great Easter egg hunt and bubble blowing extravaganza outside.  The egg were hidden over a large space, allowing all three granddaughters plenty of opportunity to find eggs without fighting over them.  There was even a bunny spotted hiding in a bush!

Cousins

What's this hiding in the tree?

Still trying to get a good picture of the 3 of them

Love this out take! 

Walking with mama

Sharing??

Bubbles!

Pure childhood joy!

She would NOT let go of her basket

Love this picture of Claire and Grandpa

Balance beam

More swinging fun

After all that fun, we headed over to the Simpson house for even more Easter festivity!  More egg hunting and a delicious dinner.  I think the eggs got hidden a few times since Claire was having such a blast and doing so well at spotting the eggs.

Easter bunny stopped at Grammi's too

Showing Auntie how to find eggs

Got a bucket full already

Ooh, I see one!

Egg hunting with Grammi

Showing Paaps an egg

Exploring the contents of her eggs

Posing with Paaps (and eating!)

Still stuffing her face with Grammi

Claire also had an Easter party at her school.  They hid eggs outside for the kids to find.  They were very smart to keep the eggs empty and allow the kids to turn in their empty eggs for a baggie of candy that would have been in the eggs.  Then the kids chowed down on some food!

Found an egg!

Here's one!

Losing an egg from her basket as she dashes off for more

Food!

Jeff's 32nd birthday

We celebrated Jeff's 32nd birthday with a few gifts, a visit to a local science museum, and pizza and cake with our families.  We had pizza at Aurelio's, which is originally a Chicago pizza chain that Jeff and his family used to frequent before they moved down here.  Some local folks recently opened a branch down here in Georgia.  All the Schulzes were thrilled!

Claire helps open presents

New watch!

Watching quarters go 'round at the museum

Time for cake!

Claire is a big fan!

March 2013

Zoo:
We took our little munchkin to the zoo on a beautiful March day.  It was a good day for seeing all the animals out and about.

Elephants!  (And you can hardly even tell I'm pregnant here!)

Look at those wild animals!

Checking out the gorillas, Mommy's favorite!

Up close with the tiger

Hail

Jeff, Claire, and I drove down to my parents one day for dinner with some family members and Claire and I decided to spend the night while Jeff headed in to work.  Just our luck that mother nature decided to gift the area with a severe storm and giant hail!  Golf ball sized and up!  My mom measured one at 3 inches wide.  And of course it tore up Jeff's mechanical baby, a.k.a. his car.  Busted windshield and dents all over the body.  A few thousand dollars worth of work fixed it up good as new.  Thank goodness for insurance!

Hail covering my parents' yard

Hail next to my hand

One piece of hail in Jeff's hand

Misc photos - A random selection of Claire photos from March 2013

Doesn't everyone wear mom's underwear over PJ's?

Posing' with her new "pack-pack"

Big stick

Little angel

Practicing sneaking out of the house

Trying to eat while still hanging on to her balloon

Our spring flower  :)

Mmmm, pasta!

Cookin' Dada's birthday cake

Daddy just barely fits

Claire's first haircut

Claire's hair is finally growing!!  

And it grew enough to warrant a haircut.  The front was hanging in her eyes and the back was getting long enough to start to resemble a mullet.  So on March 7th, I took her a local kids cut place, figuring they were used to uncooperative, screaming kids if things went bad.  And I thought it might.  

I was correct.  Claire hated getting her haircut!  She screamed through the whole thing.  Didn't even want to sit in the airplane chair.  Not even the bribe of TV and a lollipop appeased her.  But we soldiered on, with me holding her head still at times so the stylist could cut it.  

Before

During (a rare calm moment)

The trauma is over!

Looking good!

The after (bow in her hair pulling back the side)

To take her mind off the trauma, we visited the new cupcake shop conveniently located next door.  :)

Repeat Ultrasound

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Baby girl's big ultrasound revealed a cyst in her brain that they doctor's office wanted another look at.  So I went in for another look on March 29th.  And it was good news!

The cyst has completely resolved and the ultrasound tech couldn't find any evidence of it at all.  Also, all the blood work I had done weeks earlier came back good, indicating low risk for the issues they screened for.  So all seems to be well with baby girl, as far as we can tell.

And I got a few more pictures!

Baby girl's profile at 23 weeks

Baby girl's face, 23 weeks

That bottom picture is looking at her head on, so to speak.  So you can see her large forehead (the drak area on the right), moving left down to her nose and eye sockets and then to her little cheeks and chin.  It's not as clear here, but on the monitor during the ultrasound I noticed a pretty pointy chin.  So this one may have the Schulze chin!

Claire is 2!

We had Claire's party the day before her actual birthday.  So we did a few things to make the actual day a little special.  Most of the day was filled with church and Mommy and Daddy buying new furniture while Claire napped.  (Aunt Jamie was staying with us at the time, so she was around to babysit).  But Claire did get to try out some gifts from her party, go to the playground, and go out for special birthday aw cweam!  (That's ice cream to those of you who don't speak Claire-ese).

Trying out her apron and glubs from John and Jess.  Ready for cookin'!

Play time!

She loves the swings!

Mmm, ice cream!

Birthday girl and her mama