Claire Turns Seven!!

Seven years ago this little lady made me a mama for the first time, and she has been charming the world ever since.

A few things about Claire Bear - let's make it seven things:

1. Claire loves to read. She reads just about every night at bedtime, whether she is assigned to or not. Her favorite books are Junie B. Jones, Magic Treehouse, and Ivy and Bean. She reads mainly chapter books and is getting into the Bevery Cleary books, and has even read a few youth versions of the classics like Alice in Wonderland and Jungle Book.

2. Claire is independent and brave. She doesn't seem nervous to do new things, even though I know that she is sometimes. She will sing in front of a group at church or give a talk in primary at moment's notice. She doesn't seem nervous at all to go to talk to adults - we can ask her to go ask for a to-go box or something at a restaurant, or deliver some treats to the neighbors and she doesn't hesitate. I can remember doing things like that for my mom too.

3. Claire is competitive and loves sports - her playground game of choice is tether ball and if the other girls would rather do other (girly) things, she will play alone on the monkey bars or jump rope rather than change her plans. She loves soccer and really liked swimming lessons this summer - she asked to do swim team next year too.

4. Claire is a girly girl - she has been known to even put a bow in her hair after bath time because it matched her pajamas. She lets me do her hair every day and she is always accessorized - she is hard on her jewelry though and I hesitate to get her anything nice. I need to invent a very sturdy line of little girl's jewelry.

5. Claire loves to pretend. I hear her in her room making up stories and plays, dressing up in her costumes and even recording herself on my phone doing her version of a YouTube tutorial on one topic or another. We found a particularly hysterical one where she is sitting on the toilet, but we will save that to embarrass her another day.

6. Claire still loves singing and music - we do songs every night and sometimes she sings with me. It was kind of strange when I first realized it, but I think our voices sound a lot a like. She picks up on lyrics really quickly, which is good and bad depending on the song. There was maybe a 10 second clip of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce on the radio after the DJs were talking about Beyonce being one of the top singers, and Claire was singing it all day. Luckily she also decides to learn the words to hymns and the songs I am singing with the church choir, just because.

7. Claire is a great student - she loves to learn new things, no matter what the topic. I found her reading Genesis the other day in her bed and I asked her why she was reading - she said, "Because Aunt Becky gave these scriptures to me" in a tone that was like - duh! What other reason do I need? She wants to get good grades and gets very upset when she doesn't have straight As. She doesn't love math, but mainly because it hasn't come as easy to her as reading did. She lights up when she gets a math concept for the first time and I know she will work hard until she gets it.

Happy Birthday Claire Abigail Hiller! We love you and are so glad you are the oldest and an example to your brother and sister - you are meant for the role. I have answered the question so many times as to why Claire came first and not Miles - it was a sore subject for Miles for several months. I always said that they talked it over in Heaven and decided that Claire would come first to check out our family and make sure it was a good place before Miles would come. She was the independent and brave one who would risk it for Miles. It makes sense to me!