Claire turned 8 in February!
Oh my word HOW?? I remember her birth so vividly that it seems impossible that 8 years have elapsed. Having said that...what a lot of life she has lived!
For this birthday, which was still solidly a pandemic-era birthday, I rented a movie theater just for us! I'd seen a few other people do that near the end of 2020/beginning of 2021 and decided that it would be such a fun novelty birthday activity. And it really was!
When you rent a movie screen at the theaters that offer this option, there is a somewhat limited list of movies to choose from...and most of them weren't really movies that were appropriate for my children or anything they'd be interested in. I- semi-blindly- chose the movie Abominable and prayed that it would work out. And it did!
So confused...but she slept for most of the movie and seemed to enjoy the parts she was awake for. Sweetie baby.
Bill and Barbara were able to come over for the weekend to celebrate with us and got here in time to join for the movie. We ordered popcorn (with extra butter), thoroughly enjoyed the movie (it is SO cute), and the girls loved dancing and running all over the empty theater (and all the grown-ups enjoyed the heated, reclining seats).
Claire's birthday was on a school day, and it would have landed on a co-op day, had it not been the week we took off for Spring Break. She was bummed not to be able to see her friends on her birthday. We did our best to make it as special as possible, anyway! For school that day, we did fun projects and learning activities (which was something I started doing last year. Now they're going to expect it every birthday...). Family members made lists of 8 things that we love about Claire and read them to her/wrote them for her to read, which filled her love bucket all the way up (she tucked the lists away in her treasure box). She had presents from friends and family ALL OVER to open, we got take out pizza on the way home from the movie, and I made her an ice cream cake. She went to bed a very happy girl!
Because four kids is hard sometimes, I completely failed to have them open their Christmas presents from my aunt at Christmas time. In a fortunate turn of events, I was able to assuage the 4-yo and 2-yo feelings of present-opening fomo by bringing out their Christmas presents to open alongside Claire!
She got puzzles in her gift and got to work IMMEDIATELY. She is the puzzle-iest one out there.
Sunday morning was pandemic-style, of course. I've mentioned many times that we've kept our habit of getting ready every Sunday morning, as if we were going to church. We then watch the recorded children's Sunday school lesson and join in with a small group over Zoom to go through the liturgy and watch the service.
And sometimes we do puzzles.
Barbara and I have managed to get a picture of her with each of the girls, "dipping" them, in someone's kitchen (mine or hers). I don't know what made us think of doing this particular re-creation out of all the pictures we have, but this is the one! We grabbed one with Hallie over Claire's birthday weekend.
Hallie 2021
Brynnie 2019
Claire 2013
We also got a normal picture.
Claire had such a great birthday weekend; she told me so several times. I'm so sad at how big she has gotten, but I'm so thankful for the sweet and kind soul that she is. She makes our lives better just by being in them.
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