Birthday weekend!

This video is of Claire "poofing" me with her wand, and then putting on her fancy shoes. I just thought it was funny how she was having a hard time balancing and putting them on, but remained determined to get them on.

Of course, I don't have any actual pictures of this weekend, because I'm lame like that. But I figure all you people really want is some quality footage of Claire, no matter when it took place. So, here you are, Claire-hogs. (This is also what Mom, Amanda, Kyle, and Tyler used to call each other when they fought over holding Claire. Those days are long gone.)

Anyway, this past weekend was Jay's big yearly fishing tournament. No, it wasn't Bassmasters or anything--Tyler saw Bassmasters on TV at our house this weekend, and asked, "Is Jay going to be on this?"--but it has been a very big deal in his group of eight friends for the past eight years. This year, the weather was awful--it was in the 60s and 70s all last week until Friday, when BAM, this arctic front came through and those poor guys were layered up in their Gore-Tex and long johns and getting rained on, but they soldiered through as a sacrifice to their love of fishing and competition. Jay came in second this year, alas. He and his partner's top five fish weighed about 26 lbs, and they caught about 20 fish on tournament day, so the fishing wasn't terrible. The man who lives on the lake came in dead last, so that shows you the weather made this a tough gig, with luck having a lot do with it! (Gotta stick up for my hub!)

I had a couple friends and fellow Twihards over Friday night to watch Twilight on DVD for the first time. Fun times! The movie can never be as good as the book; you can hardly compare the two, but it was a decent translation, and it's always fun to watch a film with people who are so familiar with the characters and complete arc of the story.

Saturday, Mom, Tyler, Claire and I went out to eat and shopping for my birthday. We were going to watch Monsters versus Aliens, but it was almost sold out, with the line to get in stretching all across the lobby, so we said forget it. Instead, Ty brought Bolt over to our house that night while Mom and Grant went to his sister's to eat dinner.

And today, we had a lovely birthday lunch at Paul and Diane's. The weather was great today (of course), so Ty and Claire got to do some four-wheeling and Jay and Seth got to hit some golf balls.

Claire's new thing is to pick up a purse or put on some shoes (mine or hers) and say, "Bye-bye, Mama!" And I say, "Where are you going?" And she always either says, "MamawPapaws" (It's all one word) or "Wal-Mart." And then, "Later!"


Here's some pics of Claire playing outside. I just realized that the last pictures I posted of her also included a mud-puddle pic. I guess we usually end up doing this on bright, sunny days, which is the only time my camera works, and is only a few steps away!