2nd Grade for Claire!

My sweet, sensitive, kind little baby is a baby no longer. I've watched such a distinct evolution in her the past year, from being a "little kid" to reallllly wanting to be a "big kid." So, we are treating her like a young lady and she loves it and has responded well to more independence.

The morning of each first day of school, I have her fill out a little interview sheet for me to save and see how she changes from year to year. Read for yourself to learn about our little sweetie...

Proudly dressed and ready for the first day of second grade!

I feel so grateful that she loves school as much as she does - that makes it a million times easier to send her off every day. She has a wonderful teacher and has lots of familiar friends in her class this year and some new faces - opportunities to make new friends also.

Space helmets out of underwear. Resourceful if you ask me...

Before school started, I gave her a special back to school manicure that was carefully crafted to match her outfit. She wore a shirt with a horse on it (like last year, of course.) Horses remain her true love and dogs are a very close second. Art is tied, or maybe in third place.  She is wonderful to the twins and loves to teach them things. She is fun and silly with them, and also serious and making sure they behave. Claire used to put underwear on her head to be an astronaut and that was her helmet. She has passed down the tradition and brought August down the stairs in a real NASA replica spacesuit and "helmet."  

Reading to the twins

I adore painting these little hands that still have baby dimples. 

 

 

 

 

 

The night before school started we went out for family snow cones to celebrate the "end" of summer. Claire ran into several friends there from school and was giggling and excited. I sat back with the twins and just watched her talk and giggle and be social and wondered what this will continue to look like as she gets older. It was darling. We loosened the reigns and let her do her thing - didn't make her come back and "sit with the family" - just let her be her and feel cool and old. She adored it. We did force her to sit for a family picture... duh. 

 

 

Every night she carefully lays out an outfit for the next day, and she gets started on her homework right away  - yesterday without even being asked she almost finished the whole packet.

She still loves art and in most of her spare time you will find her drawing all kinds of animals - realistic and imaginary. I love watching her art evolve and am so proud of her talent.

We are in the midst of determining what her activity will be this year - she has expressed a lot of interest in tumbling so I think we'll give that a try  - something a little different.

She's boy crazy still... the boys don't seem to mind (not to my knowledge...) but it's going to be an interesting road to navigate.

When Matt is out of town, she gets to sleep in my bed once or twice, and we have popcorn and watch movies. These nights are precious to me. 

Old enough for a leopard sleepmask, young enough to squeeze her favorite stuffed animal. Perfection.

We love walking her to school every day - it's generally my favorite part of the day.  I get to see our beautiful neighborhood, and say hi to the sweet families at the school. The twins love being out for a bit, and always have plenty to talk about. I squeeze and kiss her before she goes into school... but just recently for the first time, she said it was "embarrassing" because one of her male friends was watching. Oh boy... we're getting to that phase!