Claire's Cut

So posts about my sweet Claire's hair are becoming regular on here. You may remember this one which actually has links to several other posts about her hair. In re-reading that post, I saw a phrase at the bottom that made me laugh. I said, "I am really looking forward to the day when all her locks are long enough to accomplish the basic pony tail. Oh won't that day be nice?" Well, folks, that day came. And it was nice . . . . for me. I could sweep her hair back into a pony tail and it would make the cutest little ringlets. I loved it. However, when her hair was left down, it would friz out and stand on end. I would comb it down all nice and neat and I kid you not that within 2 minutes, it would look like she just crawled out of bed. So the pony tail was the perfect solution for me.

The problem? Claire HATED it. With a passion. It got to the point where Claire would see me coming toward her with comb and detangling spray in hand and would say, "No pony tail!" Often I would swallow my pride and accommodate her. After all, it was her hair wasn't it? But I have to be honest and say that there were some days where I forced the pony tail position just so that I wouldn't look like a mother who never combed her child's hair.

While in Houston, I decided to do a little experiment with her hair. One day we were having a playdate at a dear friend's house. I intentionally left Claire's hair down so that my friend could see my predicament. She and I both agreed that as beautiful as Claire is, her hair needed some help. Here are a few pics of my sweet beautiful girl with her hair down.

So I finally decided to cut her hair off short. After all the waiting to get it long enough for a pony tail, I never thought I'd take her back to short. But I am tired of fighting the battle with her. So I took her to my sweet friend, Renee and she did an amazing job. Here are a few shots of the final result:

And a blurry shot of the back of the hair . . . 

I don't know how long we will keep the short, sassy do, but I love it for now. And so does Claire. She is finally getting her wish. No more pony tails!!

Happy Birthday My Precious Claire!!!

Claire turned 4 on Sunday. And Claire was clueless. We didn't tell her that it was her birthday because we already had her big birthday party a week ago when we were in Houston. Originally I planned to make it clear to her that she was just having an early party and that her real birthday wouldn't happen until we were back in Alaska. Then I looked at the calendar. I realized that this year, Claire's birthday fell on Easter Sunday. I couldn't imagine trying to incorporate all the festivities of Resurrection Day with all the festivities of a birthday. So whenever Claire said her birthday was going to happen in Houston, we just went with it. It did make my Mommy's heart ache a bit to know it was her birthday and not be able to make a big deal of it with her on the actual day.

But we had an amazing party filled with lots of friends in Houston. Claire was on cloud nine! I wouldn't trade the joy she had during that party for anything.

Greeting her sweet friend who she hasn't seen in months.

Another sweet friend reunion!

About a month ago, Claire came to me and requested a rainbow cake. She loves Cheer Bear (from the Care Bears) who has a rainbow belly badge. When she asked for a rainbow cake, I knew what I wanted to do. I saw an amazing rainbow cake on another blog and badly wanted to try my hand at making it. But that just wasn't going to happen from our hotel room. So instead, I enlisted the help of my good friend Kristi and she came through BIG TIME!!! She made the outside look like a cloud and even put a Cheer Bear on top.

What an amazing job!!!

Claire even danced a little birthday jig with Chuck.

While we didn't party on the actual day, I can't think of any better way to celebrate my precious 4 year old than surrounded by our dear friends back in Houston. Claire has been missing her friends so much and talking about them almost daily. What a treat to get to spend this precious time with them. 

Happy birthday my sweet and precious Claire. You are such a blessing to us. You make your Mommy and Daddy very proud and we love you more than words can say!!!

Packing, Packing, Packing

The time is here. We are finally headed back to Houston for some much missed sunshine and warmth!! We are so excited to see all our friends and to attend church at "home" again! Claire is more excited than any of us I think. She has really missed all her friends. We have chosen to celebrate her birthday several weeks early so that we can have a party at Chuck-E-Cheese with all her Houston friends. She is pumped beyond pumped. And she isn't afraid to share her enthusiasm with everyone we meet. Seriously. Her Sunday school teacher, the check out girl at the grocery store, the nice neighbor walking her dog and many other random people have heard this same run-on sentence spew forth from Claire's mouth at breakneck speed:

"We are getting ready to get on a plane to fly to Houston so I can have my birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese and eat my rainbow birthday cake with all my friends and my Nana is coming and is going to bring me a Jasmine doll if she can find it!!!!!!"

I almost typed that entire sentence without spaces so that you could experience just how fast she blurts out that entire ramble.

I've had to remind Claire multiple times that we are NOT going to be staying in our old house. She had convinced herself that not only would we be staying in our former home, but that all our stuff was going to magically appear there so that she would be able to sleep in her own bed the entire time we were there. Poor pumpkin. She really misses "home".

So we will be gone for a solid week. I am sure I will return with many grumbling posts about our insane 12 hour flight (Which, by the way starts at midnight. Yep.) And I will hopefully return with several fun pictures of us all enjoying one of the 3 weeks a year that Houston weather is comfortable.

Now I am off to pack some more. As I type this, my To Do list is smacking me in the back of the head and asking me why I am blogging when there are so many things that still need to be accomplished before we leave.

Cheers!!