Claire's First Birthday party

We had a nice family party at our house on Saturday, Feb 25th to celebrate Claire's birthday.  The food and cakes I made turned out great, which made me very happy. (Although I later discovered the chips that never got put out.  Whoops!) The decorations came together nicely as well.  And we had great company!  Claire seemed to enjoy her day.  I know her Mommy and Daddy sure did.

All the photos are at this link.  Scroll down for the highlights.

ONE!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

At 5:38 this morning, Claire was officially one year old!
(Fortunately, we were all sleeping at the time)

One year ago today, we were at the hospital awaiting her dramatic arrival.  My how our lives have changed.

Pictures from Claire's "cake smash" photo session

11 months!

Claire turns one tomorrow!  Here's a look back at her 11 month old self.

Feeding: Nursing in the morning and 3 bottles during the day (6 oz).  3 meals a day.  She eats a lot of things including olives and pickles.  Pasta and peas are still favorites!  She makes a cute mmm noise when she's eating something yummy. 

Sleeping: She sleeps about 11-11.5 hours a night.  Most nights she sleeps through, but there are still plenty of late night wake-ups that are no fun.  Bedtime is between 7:30 and 8.  Wake-up is usually between 7 and 8.  She has just recently started transition to one nap.  When it was two naps, she'd go down around 11 and again around 3 or 4 and sleep 1 to 1.5 hours at a time.  We're still figuring out the one nap thing.  She seems ready to go down between 12:30 and 2:00.  On a good day she'll sleep 2 hours but usually it's more like 1-1.5, which doesn't seem to be enough.  We're dealing with a good bit of crankiness.

Development:

Motor - We are up to 5-6 steps at at time!  She prefers crawling to get around and is very speedy.  She also loves to climb up the stairs, but is no good at coming down!  

Communication - Definitely an increase in vocalizations.  She finally said ma ma!  It doesn't mean me yet, but at least she can say it.  Da da is old hat, but she doesn't seem to associate it with Jeff just yet.  She babbles with increasing inflection.  She has a lot of "sh" sounds in her vocabulary.  "She she" or "shish shish" are frequent sounds.  She can imitate the sign for "more" and is getting closer to using it appropriately.  Right now she is over using it but at least she'll make it independently.  She can also imitate the sign for milk, but not "all done" just yet.  She has mastered waving and clapping.  We tried working on blowing kisses. She doesn't do any motions, just make the mmwha kissing noise, which is totally adorable.  Especially when tucking her into bed at night.  She knows her name and understands the word no (not that she always listens to it!).  She loves peek a boo and the Itsy Bitsy Spider.  She'll even try to the hand motion for the spider.

Play - Her interests and skills are much the same.  She still loves to pull stuff apart - the ring stacker, a bin of toys, the tupperware in the cabinet - it all needs to become a jumbled mess.  Occasionally I'll call her Captain Destructo.  She loves her Fisher Price Learning Home and playing peek a boo with Mommy in the little window that goes up and down.  Or getting mail in the mailbox.  She is no longer afraid of the busy ball popper that her aunt and uncle got her for Christmas.  However, she'd rather just grab the balls instead of letting them cycle through the popper.  She likes balls of all sorts and will sit for a minute or two to roll a ball back and forth.  She will even attempt to roll it back a few times before she gets impatient and just comes at you to get it.  Something that is rather recent is an interest in books.  She loves to flip the pages.  Touch and feel books are a big hit.  Those actually allow us to get through a story, rather than just flipping through the pages quickly.

Playing "bongos" at the park

At the zoo with Mommy, Daddy, and Grandma Schulze

I like to climb in the toy basket

Help!  I'm stuck in this one!

Hanging with Uncle John and Auntie Jess

Mmm, Super Bowl snacks!

Go Patriots!

Who needs the sides on this thing?

Stole Mommy's ice cream cone!!

"Reading"

Happy Vaentine's Day!

I'm a big, standing girl!!

Honey, I'm home!

10 months

Claire turned 10 months on Christmas Eve.  We celebrated by opening presents! 

She is making great strides (pun intended!) in her move toward walking. She received a Radio Flyer walker wagon for Christmas.  She was able to take maybe a step or two with it.  Two weeks later she was able to push it from one end of house to the other.  In early January she began standing on her own, unsupported.  Shortly thereafter she was able to push herself to a standing position without holding on to anything.

In late December we worked once again on sleeping through the night.  We had a few fits and starts with teething and a cold.  We had 3 good nights in a row and then New Year's Eve came.  We had a lot of crying around 2 or 3 that night/morning, just when my parent's happened to be staying over.  But finally from the 5th to the 12th we had a whole week of sleeping through the night!  Fingers crossed that this is the new normal!!

Eating wise, Claire is starting to exercise her right of refusal!  She is pushing away foods she once liked - bananas, avocados, fish, cottage cheese.  Sometimes she just seems to get tired of a food for a little while.  Guess she doesn't like too many days of leftovers.  She loves peas and pasta. 

January 20-22nd we took a trip down to Savannah.  It was Claire's second visit.  We were there before on Mother's day.  Grammi and Aunt Jamie babysat Saturday so Jeff and I could go to Jekyll Island. We had a nice day out.

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island

Sunday we helped Jamie load up some things to come back to my parent's house in preparation for moving out of her apartment at the end of February.  Fortunately, Claire and I had to go with my mom to buy some tarps, missing out on the hauling of stuff down 3 stories.  Claire has her 3rd and worst cold of her short little life.  So it probably wasn't her favorite trip ever.

And finally, here are some photos.  They are from my phone since I've finally figured out a good way to get them on here.  The ones on the real camera will sit there til Jeff gets around to them.

HI!

What do you mean I'm supposed to push it, not sit in it?

Ready to go out with the recycling

Got my car seat strap to play with, all is good

Jammie time

WARNING: Baby nudity!

Yay, KEYS!!

Who doesn't love a baby in overalls??

Claire meets Santa

Jeff and I took Claire to see Santa the week after Thanksgiving.  We just went to the local mall, which has a pretty nice set up.  One definite plus of Jeff's job is that he has random week days off, so we didn't have brave weekend crowds.  There was no one in line when we arrived.  But we had to change Claire into her dress first and a few people showed up in those couple of minutes.  But still pretty painless!



The first shot we got was the best.  Nice big grin at Daddy.  It went a little downhill after that.  It picked back up at the end when a female worker came over and started making faces, but those pictures didn't seem to make it online.  So here's what we got.

The winner!

See how the savvy Santa quickly grabbed her hand to prevent the glasses or beard grab.

Daddy? I see you over there.  Come get me!

Why am I still sitting here?  *sigh*

9 months

Claire shared her 9 month birthday with Thanksgiving and my parents anniversary.  Big day!

Much is the same as last month with her sleeping.

Eating is much the same except we introduced some formula.  November 29th was the big day for Claire's first 2 ounces of formula.  So we made it to 9 months and 5 days old with exclusive breastfeeding.  Now it's nice to be able to give her a bottle when we are out and about and to not worry about my supply.

We are moving along multiple areas of development.
-She is waving at everyone!  She's definitely mastered that skill.  Sometimes she makes a noise that sounds like hi or hey.  First word potential?? 
 -By the end of the month she started clapping.  She also seemed to make the sign for "more" a few times, which I've been showing her at meal time.  But then she started confusing the sign and clapping, as they are similar.  So who knows if she really gets it.
-The big news was in gross motor development.  She started standing up holding on with one hand.  Then she started cruising a little bit along the couch.  And eventually she was transitioning between pieces of furniture.
-She's making a wider variety of sounds and putting more sounds together.  Jeff is convinced she'll be quite the talker.
-She learned how to shake her head no.  This may have coincided with our Christmas tree going up and being told no, not to touch it.  Or when she discovered the electronics cabinet and lots of fun cords!  She heard/saw no quite a few times with that one.  It's hilarious to try to sternly tell her no and have her shake her head at you while grinning about her skill.  Pretty impossible to keep a straight face!

And squeaking in at the very end: TEETH!  After 4 months of no tooth activity, Claire's top two teeth decided to come in at the same time.  Once again they were discovered by my mom, on December 20th or 21st.  Four months after her first one was discovered.  So we can say Claire got her two front teeth for Christmas!