Every year on Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday/Marti Gras our church hosts a Pancake Supper.
I arrived early with the girls to help decorate, and then Bryan joined us from work when it started.
The adults had regular pancakes, and the kids received yellow, green and purple pancakes (pretty fun, actually!). But Clara decided she didn't dig colored pancakes, so we swapped.
Sissy offering little sister a pancake :)
They had lots of fun crafts for the kiddos to do!!
Trying on the mask she made - it never came off, until she was physically put into bed
:)
Decorating a crown
my pretty girl
Putting all the pretty shapes and colors on her crown
Pastor Carrie got on the microphone about midway through to let everyone know how the parade was going to go, but Clara thought we were praying for the second time. I love this girl so much.
Sweet prayer hands :)
Mommy & Clara post crafts
Back to the pancakes, mmmm
Emma crawling around keeping an eye on the crafting
Coloring
Blowing her little horn :)
Returning home to decorate the puppy with the beads :)
Two very sleepy children were ready for bed. Happy Fat Tuesday!
Valentine's Day started a day early for us. Friday brought with it class parties for the girls so we dressed them up to enhance their adorableness-factor.
These girls adore each other
Clara's class party:
with a guest appearance by little sister
Emma mostly crawled around while Clara enjoyed "tuptakes" and pretzels :)
Not the best video, but Emma has really been enjoying holding onto fingers while walking around.
Clara'n'Mommy
After the party, we stopped by Lulu & Papa's house. The Talbot's Family had swung by to see my parents so it was a double bonus to get to catch up with them.
Clara really liked the hat Lulu got her :)
Emma was given a hat too, but the little bit needed to tighten it made Emma look like a Shrek, hehe
happy elephant squeezes
Then on Valentine's Day Bryan made the EXTREMELY romanic and generous gesture to allow me sleep in while he took care of the girls for a while on his own (yes, he does get major brownie points for that!)
Once Emma went down for her nap, I took Clara on a mommy/daughter date to the Children's Museum, where we found out it was also a Chinese New Year celebration.
There were these giant Chinese dragon things (with 3 different people making up the head and body) that danced around to loud drums and cymbals. Pretty crazy. Clara thought it was pretty cool until the dragon got right up into her face and opened it's mouth --- yeah, then she was ALL done. I didn't blame her in the slightest.
We retreated to the safety of the playhouse, where Clara cooked up and served me a delicious lunch.
We also ran into a few little friends! One of which is Miss Peyton.
One of Clara's favorite things to do at the Museum is to dress up in their little costume closet thing, and it's like pulling teeth to pry them off at the end of our visits. She found a fun pink "ballerina" dress this particular time and made sure to show LOTS of strangers how pretty it was :)
We played a toddler round of Chinese checkers:
Such intense concentratin
Clara and Babydoll with a train
Crafting:
Then we got to watch real ballerinas dance!!!
So pitty, Mommy!
We had been there a solid 2 hours when it was time to leave so that this little one could eat and nap. But taking off the dress and getting to the car resulted in an epic meltdown.
It happens. Big emotions and not a lot of coping techniques yet. She had a wonderful time and so did I :)
Then late afternoon/evening my parents came to babysit the girls so that Bryan and I could go see the movie The Imitation Game. SO GOOD! Thanks Mom and Dad :)
