Claire's two! Part one: highlights of the kids' party

Claire turned two on Friday, April 11. Dressed in a cute dress from her godparents, she was all set to party!Paul took the day off and we invited over seven kids and their parents from our adoption group for a party. We feel very fortunate to be a part of this group, and we were so happy they joined us in celebrating our Claire-bear! The kids had a lot of fun checking out Claire's toys, and Claire tolerated it remarkably well; she didn't have any meltdowns about the kids playing with her toys although she did remark several times very quietly, "baby's" meaning "that's mine!" Here are a few of the kids having a tea party.

After Ava's birthday in March, I asked Claire what kind of cake she would like (Ava had a Dora cake). Claire quickly replied "spies", which is what she calls the Backyardigans. Luckily I got a bunch of Backyardigan decorations on sale but I soon learned that none of the grocery stores make Backyardigan character cakes. I wasn't ambitious enough to make my own so I had to come up with a solution: we sat down Claire with all her "spies", took some pictures and then had a picture cake made. It reads: "Claire is 2! She certainly is!" In case you're not a Backyardigan fan, the "certainly" is from Tyrone.

Claire had no trouble blowing out one candle but the second one - a musical one - was very stubborn. It took several tries! Beside her, one of her buddies (S.) was blowing as hard as can be to help her. We're still smiling about it.

A huge thank you to all our friends who attended Claire's party! I'll follow this post with a few more, including one featuring Claire's cutie-pie friends.