In exactly a month, Claire will be a year old! Can you believe it!?!? I know we can’t!

As each day passes, more of her personality comes out and she continually keeps us laughing. She is so much fun to be around!

Here’s a rundown of our adorable little 11-month-old:

• Weight: She’s a little over 18 pounds. She definitely went through a growth spurt over the last month or so and is looking so big and tall!

• Loves:
  • To point at everything! She loves to point at pictures of us, at things she wants, and basically everything. It’s so cute!
  • To talk – she has a lot to say and I want to squeal every time she starts chatting because her little voice is almost too adorable to handle.  It’s sounding a lot more like she’s trying to say words and sentences, even though it’s still her own little language.
  • To walk around furniture while holding onto it. She’s getting better at holding a toy with one hand and holding onto the furniture with the other hand.
  • To have Mommy and Daddy help her walk around.
  • We went to our family cabin for Easter weekend and Claire LOVED to use the high chair as a walker (it has wheels) and would push it around the cabin non-stop.
  • She loves to eat grapes, cheese, and spaghetti! Those are really the only true “solids” that she eats, all other solid food is pureed.
  • She loves drinking from her new water bottle and munching on Puff snacks.
  • To give kisses.
  • To flip through (and, unfortunately, eat) board books.
  • To snuggle.
  • Going on slides. We took her on her first one last weekend and she had the time of her life.
  • Zoe, duh! Zoe is turning a year old on April 23, by the way.

• Hates:
  • Diaper changes.
  • The nose frida. She HATES having her nose blown.
  • Being fed. She’s an independent woman and would prefer to serve herself.

• Talents:
  • She can say “Ut Oh” and loves dropping things on the floor and saying it. It’s absolutely adorable and I can’t get enough of it. She especially loves saying it in the bathtub when dropping toys outside the tub. Her little voice is soo cute!!
  • She can take a few steps! She’s definitely not walking yet but she can walk from one couch to another (about 2 steps to get there) and, the other evening, pulled herself up to stand on me, turned around, and took 4 steps. We were so surprised that we started cheering and she sat down, got the biggest smile on her face, and giggled. She only takes a few steps maybe once a day, if that. It hasn’t become a regular occurrence yet.
  • She can stand for longer periods of time – I’ve counted up to 45 seconds at one point!
  • She understands us more – I can say “Where’s Mickey?” or “Can you give Zoe a hug?” or sing the Winnie the Pooh song and she totally responds and points to, hugs, or goes to whatever I’m talking about. She definitely knows what Zoe, hugs, Mama, Dada, milk, come here, Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey means.
  • She loves to dance! She bounces up and down and shakes her little booty.

• Sleeping:
  • She’s still not sleeping through the night but she is doing well at going down for bed. We have a good bedtime routine that we start around 6:30ish and she’s normally asleep by 7pm. She typically wakes up around midnight and then around 5am. We’re hoping she starts sleeping through the night again but only time will tell!
  • She’s VERY particular about her sleeping arrangements. Last weekend, when we were at the family cabin, we barely got any sleep. Apparently, she doesn’t like sleeping anywhere but her own crib and does not enjoy having Mommy and Daddy sleep in the same room as her. Duly noted, little one.

• Other Random Facts:
  • She had an ear infection for a week or so last month and it was horrible. She was in so much pain and, for a weekend, she only wanted to be held and slept on us. It was so upsetting to see her in pain but not being able to do anything about it but I would be lying if I said I didn’t love all the snuggles. Those were definitely the silver lining in the dark clouds of her first ear infection.
  • We celebrated her first Easter last weekend and had so much fun at the brunch and Easter egg hunt. They had an egg hunt for the littlest ones but, unbeknownst to Claire, the first round was unsuccessful for her. CJ placed an egg right in front of her so she could grab it and a little boy ran up and stole it right in front of her. His dad told him to give it back but he didn’t! We even have a picture of the little bandit being caught red-handed but I won’t post it here because we didn’t ask for consent from his parents (and I’m all about getting explicit consent from people before posting pictures of them or their children). Anyway, we went over to the 9-12 year old section of the Easter egg hunt which hadn’t started yet and helped Claire find her first Easter egg. That one egg made the day for her. She threw it around, chased after it, and looked like the happiest little girl in the world. Success!

Family photo before Easter brunch!

Holding her precious Easter egg

And that is our beautiful, sweet, spunky, opinionated, PERFECT 11-month-old. Every moment may not be filled with giggles, but it is filled with love and awe for the beautiful gift that we have in a daughter. It’s amazing to think how much our lives have changed in the last 11 months and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in the future. One things for sure, it will definitely be an adventure!

Today Claire is officially 10 months old! The past month has been quite eventful for Claire – she now has 4 more teeth (for a total of 6), enjoys eating solid food (woohoo!), and laughs all the time (finally!!!!).

Here’s a summary of 10 month old Claire:

• Weight: We think she might be around 17 or 18 pounds. She’s been growing slowly the past few months because she’s so incredibly active and burns calories like it’s no one’s business. Now that she’s been more consistent with her solid food eating, we think she’s gained more weight. We’re going to schedule a nurse visit in the next couple of weeks to check in on her weight (suggested by the doctor at her 9 months visit – not because he was concerned but because he could tell we were interested in making sure she is gaining enough weight).

Hugs for Zoe

• Loves:
  • To give her stuffed animals and Zoe hugs. It’s sooooo adorable!
  • When we hold her like an airplane, and run around to chase Zoe. She giggles like crazy.
  • Being tickled. Well, I’m not positive she loves it but she does giggle!
  • A few of her stuffed animals:
    • A little pink bear that came with a bouquet of flowers from one of her aunties when she was born. This bear is her first love in the stuffed animal world. She grabs it, holds it up to her cheek like she’s hugging it, and scoots around in circles. It’s SO adorable.
    • She also loves her new Winnie the Pooh bear. She gives him bigs hugs and rolls around on the ground with him.
    • And lastly, a singing dog from her grandpa which, when the music comes on, she bounces up and down out of excitement and then gives her a hug.
  • Eating solid food now and she enjoys our homemade baby food now! Score! We were beginning to think there was something wrong with our cooking but, it turns out, she just has high standards. 🙂
  • Laughing and giggling all the time. Sometimes, she’ll just crawl around the house at warp speed and giggle non-stop.
  • A farm animal toy set. She loves shaking all the pieces out of the bucket and then putting them in her mouth. She also gets so excited when it starts playing music.
  • To drop things on the floor on purpose, especially when in her high chair. Zoe has learned that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. 😉
  • To sit on her knees. She’ll also lift up one leg to prop herself up (like she’s about to propose).
  • Pulling herself up to stand on Zoe’s food container and banging on it like it’s a drum set. She starts giggling and smiling huge. She’ll also, while standing, transfer herself over to the oven (which is right next to the food container) and slap both hands on the oven over and over again because she can see her reflection. For all you worrywarts out there, the oven is off when this happens.
  • Getting her teeth brushed!
  • Walking around with assistance (we hold her hands)

Hugs for Winnie the Pooh

• Hates:
  • When things are taken away from her. She screams REALLY loud, briefly, to let us know it’s not okay.

• Talents:
  • She finally thinks Mommy and Daddy are funny! We’re now in the cool kids club with Zoe, since Zoe was her only form of comedy for the past few months.
  • She babbles all the time now and is quite talkative. She can also say “Mama” and “Dada”. We swear that she’s close to saying “Duck” but we might be imagining it.
  • She can do the sign language for milk. It’s sooo awesome for her to have that talent because we now know exactly when she wants me to nurse her.
  • She understands what we’re saying more and more. When she picks something off of the floor, we’ll ask her what she has in her hands and she quickly crawls off so she can keep it. She’s a sneaky little one. She also knows when I say milk and does not appreciate it when I say it and do not immediately nurse.
  • She can stand on her own for 2, 3, maybe 4 seconds. Once she realizes she is, she lowers herself down and crawls off. We think she’s quite content with crawling everywhere for the time being.

• Sleeping:
  • She is a pro at sleeping now! She’ll go down to sleep for naps and for the night without a fight (okay, maybe once in a while she complains for a few minutes). We have the perfect routine for bedtime which I think has made things so much easier too. We feed her about 4 ounces of solid food, give her a bath, put her in her PJs and sleep sack, I nurse her, and then I put her down in her crib. Sometimes she’s awake, sometimes she’s already asleep, but either way she stays asleep until the morning… most of the time. There are a few occasions where she’s woken up in the middle of the night but it’s not too frequent.

• Other Random Facts:
  • When she’s focusing on something, she likes to stick out her tongue. It’s hilarious!
  • We took her in a shopping cart for the first time today in Costco and then in Safeway. She had a BLAST!!! She even bounced and danced a little in Costco because she was so excited.
  • She’s slowly growing more hair!
  • Her top two teeth came in a few weeks ago and they have a huge gap in between each other. It’s SO adorable when she smiles. The two bordering those teeth came in a week or so later. The first time she bit into one of her puffs and realized she has her top teeth, she looked so surprised.

And that’s a little bit about our adorable bundle of joy. She brings a smile to everyone’s face, especially ours. We love her so so much and are loving our moments shared together as a family.

If you made it to end of this post, I’m impressed! I clearly have a lot to say about Claire.

I can’t believe that Claire is going to be a year old in three months! It’s a very weird feeling – to feel like time is going by so quickly but, at the same time, like Claire has been here forever. We fall more in love with her every day and are so entertained by her silly personality.

Claire had her first cold right after she turned 8 months old for 3 weeks or so. She had a constant runny nose, big cough, and a fever. We even called the on-call doctor one evening because she had a 102.4 fever and we were freaking out after she threw up twice. She ended up being okay and we are so happy she’s feeling better.

Here’s a rundown of 9 month old Claire:

• Weight: We’ll find out on Friday! Last time she was weighed, which was about 2 weeks ago, she was 16 1/2 pounds. She is a petite little one!
• Loves:
  • Snuggling.
  • Exploring everywhere.
  • She’s going through a mommy phase, so she prefers that I hold her at all times.
  • Fruit purees.
  • To wave with her thumb – she holds her arm and hand up and just wiggles her thumb back and forth to wave. It’s hilarious.
  • Zoe! They’re best friends and are the cutest pair.
  • Playing with her wooden snail from Nana and Papa.

• Hates:
  • Vegetables… she gets so angry when we try to feed her any vegetables. She’s definitely a fan of the sweeter foods.
  • Being separated from Mommy and Daddy. She wants to be near us at all times. We would describe her as independent within a certain radius. As long as she can see us, she’s super independent. But we have to be within a comfortable distance for her.

• Talents:
  • Falling asleep while standing up. Sometimes she fights going to sleep so much that she’ll stand up holding onto the side of the crib and eventually, her exhaustion overcomes her and she falls asleep… literally standing up and resting her head on the side of the crib. Once she’s in a deeper sleep, she’ll slump down but it’s pretty hilarious to see on the baby monitor.
  • Once in a while, she’ll briefly let go of what she’s holding onto and can stand on her own for a couple of seconds. I suspect that she can stand on her own, she just chooses not to. She’s too interested in being mobile to focus on her balance so she’s not quite ready to walk on her own yet.
  • Can feed herself, on her own, from a bottle
  • Can drink from a straw! We bought a new cup for her that has a straw and she loves drinking water from it because she can get much more liquid at once.
  • She can play fetch with Zoe… sort of. She holds the ball up and drops it and Zoe will grab it when it rolls away. It’s so cute to see them playing together!

• Sleeping:
  • Now that she’s not sick anymore, she’s sleeping through the night again. Woohoo! She’s been going to sleep much earlier now that she’s down to 1-2 naps a day. She goes down around 6:30-7pm and normally wakes up between 5-6am.

• Other Random Facts:
  • Her two top teeth are coming in and we might see a third up there coming in too. I’m excited but sad because I’m going to miss her toothless grin. Or her two tooth grin. 🙂
  • Her hair is growing! We love seeing her bed head in the morning.

And there you have it! I really cannot get enough of her and miss her every moment that I’m not with her. We still can’t believe we made such a beautiful and perfect little girl.

Next up, we’ll be focusing on planning her birthday party in May. 🙂

With how fast time is flying by, I have a feeling that in the blink of an eye, Claire will be turning 1. I wish there was some way to slow down time and to keep her little for just a bit longer. Every morning when she wakes up, I feel like she visibly looks older and I’m reminded how important it is to be present in every moment with her because before I know it, we’ll be looking at colleges. Okay, maybe I’m being a little dramatic. 🙂

This past month was really a whirlwind of events, traveling, holidays, and really seeing Claire’s personality come out in full force. She is definitely a girl who knows what she wants and is so incredibly active. She’s so happy, sassy, and full of energy . I really have no idea where she could have gotten her opinionated personality from! 😉

Here’s the rundown of Claire at 8 months old:

• Weight: No idea… but I definitely know she’s growing!
• Loves:
  • To chew on pillow corners.
  • To babble and talk. It’s the cutest noise in the whole world.
  • To eat any remote control in sight.
  • To scream at the top of her lungs. It’s a happy scream but it’s quite loud. She definitely has mastered the range of noises that her vocal chords can make.
  • To flap her arms when she gets excited. It almost looks like she’s going to take off.
  • To walk around with mommy and daddy’s help. She gets the biggest smile on her face.
  • To crawl all over. She’s quite the active little one and definitely keeps us busy!
  • Her Papa (my dad). She is absolutely mesmerized by him and has a huge smile whenever he’s around.
  • To stand up on anything and everything. When she gets excited (for example, when we “teach her how to drive”), she stiffens her entire body and grunts. It’s too funny to watch.
  • To stick out her tongue.
  • When we give her hugs.

• Hates:
  • Diaper changes. She tries to roll over the entire time we’re doing it.
  • When we take things away with her that she wanted to play with – Zoe’s toys… cords… remotes… you know, all the fun stuff in her mind.
  • She’s not the biggest fan of the car anymore. She’ll still fall asleep pretty quickly but she’s more likely to fight being in the car lately.

• Talents:
  • For a week or two, I could say “1…2…3…say cheese!!” and she would turn and give me a big chessy grin. She would only do it for me but I think once people got wind of this talent and they tried it for themselves with Claire, it lost it’s novelty for her and so she’s stopped doing it. We’re back to square one with trying everything possible to get her to smile for a photo.

• Sleeping:
  • She’s down to 1 or 2 naps a day. It happened all of a sudden on New Years Eve and she’s been doing it ever since. It’s amazing how quickly the routine can change!

• Other Random Facts:
  • She’s getting more hair!! Now, she can legitimately have bed head when she wakes up in the morning.
  • She’s been on a total of 8 planes in her lifetime now – so basically she’s a pro at traveling. The last plane we were on had the worst turbulence I’ve ever been experienced in my life (I flew up an inch or two in my seat at one point and, yes, I was buckled in just loosely) but, Claire, no big deal for her. She didn’t seem phased at all.
  • She’s very independent but wants mommy or daddy nearby at all times.
  • She is more willing to eat food and we got a baby food maker for Christmas! Our first batch wasn’t the biggest hit with her but we are going to keep trying. We are SO excited to make food for her. As far as what foods she loves at this point – pears, apples, strawberries, bananas, spinach, and she loves this pear, cinnamon, and oatmeal mixture as well as a strawberry, bananas and peaches mixture. We’ve fed her more than just those foods but those ones she seems to get excited about.
  • She has the best giggle in the entire world, just saying.

And to close out this post, here are a few of my favorite photos of her from the past few days.

Her ultimate cheesy grin

Yet again, the last month has flown by. We love watching her grow and develop and can honestly say we are loving this stage. It kills us how cute she is and we can’t stop saying “she’s SO cute” and “she’s SO adorable” all the time.

From Day 1, we’ve been able to see little bits of her personality come out and now it’s becoming even more apparent. She’s definitely an easygoing and happy baby (when people watch her they tell us how easy she is) but she is also opinionated. She knows exactly what she wants and will let us know right away. Whether that’s wanting to stand up (being held by us, of course), get a change of scenery (sometimes hanging out in one room all day is too boring for her), or hang out on the playmat – she’s willing and able to let us know what that is (in her own adorable language).

Onto the usual course of business, here’s a rundown of her basic facts:

• Weight: As of right now, this is a mystery. We need to figure out a way to weigh her. She seems so much bigger!
• Loves:
  • Sophie la girafe.
  • Tummy time.
  • Eating her toes (this just started a few days ago) and sucking on her fingers. She also enjoys sucking on her thumb with the rest of her fingers pointing straight out instead of in a fist, it’s so cute!
  • On the theme of eating fingers and toes, she loves grabbing our fingers and putting them in her mouth. Apparently, they taste quite delicious!
  • This has been true for the past several months but I keep forgetting to mention it – she loves the noise of a hairdryer. If she’s having a particularly difficult time, we’ll turn on a hairdryer noise (I have an app on my phone) and it will instantly calm her down. Magic!
  • She also loves her glowing seahorse sooo much. We’ll put her down in her crib to go to sleep for the night and turn that on and she’ll watch it until it turns off. Once it’s off, she goes to sleep. It can also calm her down if the hairdryer noise isn’t doing the trick.
  • Her mommy and daddy. She’s started to notice when we leave the room and gets upset. She has also started reaching up when she’s in her bouncy chair and wants to be held. And lastly, she smiles when either me or CJ walks in the room. I can’t even explain how happy that makes me when it happens.
• Hates:
  • Being put to bed in the crib awake. We’re working on teaching her to fall asleep on her own so it’s been difficult but she’s getting more used to it.

Deep concentration

• Talents:
  • Last week she started to get up on her knees and, by the end of the week, she was able to get up on her elbows and knees. Over the weekend, it was hands and knees and now she sways forward and backward trying to figure out how to crawl. She hasn’t quite figured it out yet but she is getting soooo close. It’s so adorable to watch! We’ve been told that everything changes once they’re mobile and to soak up this time as much as possible but we can’t help but be excited for this new development!
  • I’m not sure if this qualifies as a talent but, hey, why not! Claire sprouted her first tooth last Friday! She wasn’t acting any different than normal so we’re grateful that it wasn’t too painful for her. That doesn’t mean future teeth will be as easy as #1 was. And I just discovered tonight that tooth #2 came in as well! She was a bit fussy last night so I’m pretty sure it was due to the pain.
• Sleeping:
  • She’s still a great sleeper (knock on wood). We put her down to sleep between 8-9pm and typically wakes up between 6-7am. Once we started getting on that schedule of always putting her down between 8 and 9pm, things have fallen into place really nicely. She sleeps better, we get some nice couple time before going to bed, and everyone’s happy. 🙂
• Other Random Facts:
  • We have solved the bathtub mystery! It wasn’t that she hated baths. She just hated the bathtub we had for her. It was cold, hard and uncomfortable. So, we bought the Luxury Spa Bath that I originally wanted to register for on our baby registry that has a fabric sling for her to lay in and a shower head to spray water on her and she LOVES it. We also got a bath time Sophie which she enjoys too. Now she just hangs in the fabric sling while CJ washes her and she enjoys herself the whole time. We’re SO glad we figured out that mystery.
  • People tell us quite frequently that Claire has the perfect head shape. It’s funny what comments you hear once you become a parent. We are quite flattered that people are impressed by her head shape but it is a funny thing to notice about a baby. We also get told all the time (from day 1) that she’s very alert. What does a child that’s not alert look like? I mean, if she’s awake, she’s awake… am I right?
  • I need to be better about taking pictures of Claire with family and friends when they visit. I tend to get so excited about someone visiting that I blank on the whole camera thing. This is my official request for any future visitors – please make sure I take photos!
  • We fed her rice cereal for the first time a couple weeks ago. She probably ended up with half a spoonful…the rest got all over her face. She wasn’t quite sure what to think about it. We still haven’t gotten around to feeding her again but we will soon! Things have been SO busy around here.

I think I might do a Baby Essentials Part 2 post with new items that we’ve fallen in love with. They also might be items we’ve had since Day 1 but have just recently become helpful or I may have just forgotten to include them in the first post. 🙂

If you made it to the end of this post, wow! I know it was long but I love writing these. It’s fun to see how she’s changed from month to month. I highly recommend it to any other mommas out there!