Amélie's 3rd Birthday Fun

We opted not to have a big birthday party for Amélie this year, mainly since I know she'll be asking for one with all of her friends in the coming years. I thought we should keep it small with just family and it was a perfect way to celebrate this year. We headed up to Nonno & Nonna's house and luckily had sunny weather for a really lovely Sunday lunch ending with lots of birthday presents. 

Menu

Strawberry Lemonade 

(made with just blended strawberries, lemon juice, honey & water) 

Grilled Herb Shrimp Skewers

Grilled Steak 

Grilled Chicken with Barbecue Sauce 

Vegetable Skewers

Caprese

Zucchini and Spring Onion Orzo 

Assorted Berries 

Homemade Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Whipped Cream Icing* and Chocolate Sprinkles

*this is my new favorite - just some heavy or double cream whipped up with powdered sugar, vanilla extract & cocoa powder

Amélie was the cutest when we sang happy birthday to her. She had the sweetest expression on her face and you could tell the pure joy she was feeling. I still can't believe my baby girl is already three years old. Here are some pictures from the past weekend and another post dedicated to Amélie will follow soon too! 

Clara Nine Months

Sweet baby Clara is nine months old! She's going through a particularly tough stage right now (actually, both girls are) and hasn't been herself the past few days. I see her bottom left tooth just starting to poke through her gums and she is not happy about it. The poor baby has been grumpy needing cuddles constantly and I can't even think about leaving the room without her in my arms (i.e. taking a minute to go to the bathroom is a struggle).

Clara moved out of our room and into her shared room with Amelie a couple of weeks ago. We had a couple of tough nights getting her adjusted, but it wasn't too bad. She then started sleeping through the night until the teething started and now usually wakes up once or twice. I've stopped breastfeeding her during the night as well, which seemed like such a big deal with Amelie, but Clara doesn't seem to mind. Side note - Amelie is also sleeping in her big girl bed and most nights wakes up a couple of times as well. We're back to getting very intermittent sleep followed by wake ups between 5-6am which makes for a very tired household. Nap times are either one long morning and afternoon naps or three short half an hour naps.

Food wise, Clara continues to enjoy mostly all foods I give her. She was a fan of oatmeal with almond butter, but won't really open her mouth for it anymore. She loves strawberries, blueberries and bananas. Scrambled eggs, meatballs and roasted chicken are her favorite proteins. Fusilli pasta is her favorite grain. She loves greek yogurt for dessert. She mainly feeds herself with exception of the more messy stuff. Also, she's graduated fully from stick shapes to cubes too as her pincer grip is on point.

I'm still breastfeeding Clara four times a day and plan to gradually decrease this to just a morning and bedtime feed by the time she's about 11 months. When she's about one, I'm planning to stop breastfeeding to finally gain some freedom back and give her cow's milk as a drink. Speaking of drinks, she's really into drinking water too and gets so excited when I show her her cup.

This weekend, Clara learned how to clap and just the day after, she did it when I asked without showing her what to do! I can't wait for more of these moments as she is learning and growing into a cute little girl.

^middle pic: see what I mean about going to the bathroom? 

Clara Eight Months

My baby Clara or chicken nugget as we call her turned 8 months old this week. I always get comments on how she's so petite and though she is just under the 50th percentile in weight now, she's a strong little baby. She started crawling at 7.5 months and is constantly pulling herself up on anything she can find. I'm pretty sure she'll start walking before she turns one. The problem with crawling is that she now wants to destroy all of Amelie's toys that she lays out nicely. Amelie is always playing with her kitchen, baking birthday cakes with icing and rainbow sprinkles or making strawberry lemonade. When she sets all her plates down, Clara just goes for them (no matter how many toys she has for herself) and destroys it. This has turned into a constant battle between the two. Since one major meltdown one day from both of them, it's become much better, but still, it's a struggle for everyone. 

During the day I breastfeed Clara right when she wakes up, an hour before lunch, the late afternoon plus right before bed around 7ish. I plan to breastfeed until she turns one, but the sessions are getting shorter and shorter now as she's much more interested in playing. 

Clara loves food though I am starting to see a hint of picky-ness shining through. Her favorites are mango, strawberries, baked sweet potato fries, broccoli, fusilli pasta, and meatballs. She's starting to master picking up Cheerios and blueberries too. I started spoon feeding her a little bit more these days since a lot of her food ends up on the floor with baby-led weaning. She especially likes oatmeal with almond butter, turkey chili, or a good soup. After I spoon feed her, I always give her pieces of her own food to eat. 

I had a blissful 2 weeks+ of Clara sleeping through the night from 7pm-7am though in the past week or so she's been waking up once or twice a night. I'll shush her if it's early on then only give her one feed during the night. She's still in the bedside cot though I know she's pretty much outgrown it. We are going to start the transition (for both girls) out of our room to their own rooms after Easter. I'm excited, scared and nervous for this and not looking forward to the many middle of the night wakeups (probably due to Amelie more than Clara). I've loved having Amelie co-sleep with us so far, but it's time for her to move to her own bed! 

The weather has been sunny and warmer lately so we've been taking lots of trips to the playgrounds in our neighborhood. Clara loves to go on the swings and giggles so much when I push her. I can't wait for warmer weather so we can go to the beach, make popsicles and have picnics.