nora | life lately... 3 yrs + 2 mos

It still boggles my mind that I have a big T H R E E year old. Since she started school in the fall, she seems to be acting exponentially older. Nora is the sweetest, cuddliest little girl in the world. This month has been really fun, although we've been pretty couped up indoors. Luckily daddy is braver with regards to the weather, so Nora has still made it outside to ride her bike and to the park.

F A V O R I T E S

• Bubbles. Girl still LOVES bubbles. She could spend hours and hours outdoors blowing bubbles. We went to the park yesterday and she shared her bubbles with another little boy around her age. That was TRUE sharing. This is still definitely not easy for Nora.
• Eats. Nora LOVES oatmeal cookie Cliff Kids granola bars. Given a choice, she would pick to eat these for every meal (and snacks). She loves tomato soup and grilled cheese, bagels (with JUST butter), Graham cereal, pears, apples, grapes, "peas" (snap peas and edamame), beans, rotisserie chicken, oatmeal, macaroni and cheese. Foods she seems to no longer enjoy as much are yogurt (mommy is disappointed), cheese sticks, hummus, any mixed dishes.
• Painting nails. She doesn't sit as still as she once did, but really enjoys picking out her color (and mine). She begs to hold the bottle (which always makes me nervous). She usually picks a blue/gold sparkle polish ("Elsa" polish), purple, or pink. She is a TRUE girl.
• Dress up. Nora loves dressing up as a princess (crown, tutu, pink anna heels, pink gloves). When shes done she says she wants to be "just a girl." 
• Park. Nora LOVES going to the park and is getting increasingly brave. She climbs the ladders with ease and doesn't hesitate to go down any slides. She loves rolling down the hills. 
• Nicknames. Nora girl, mamasita, Nora bug. Nora has recently come home from school asking why we call her these. I've reassured her its a way of showing her how much we love her. 
• School. Nora LOVES school. It wasn't that way until recently. She used to drag her feet and complain she didn't want to go. Now, shes easy to get there and she even cried when I picked up her because she wanted to stay. She has her alphabet down and is working on identifying the little letters in addition  to the capital letters. She can easily count to 10 and can recognize all of the numbers. She can nearly get to 20 but misses a few along the way. 
• Friends. Her current best friend is an adorable little girl named Ryan. Those two. INSEPARABLE. Nora even changed her pants in the middle of the school morning because they were "wet" but the teacher said Ryan had on matching pants. Real reason identified.
• Clothes. Nora currently is OBESSESSED with her pink and grey sweatpants. She loves practicing with the buttons on the back pockets. Several days she stripped herself down so she could play with the buttons. We encouraged her to wear a pair and practice on the other. Now I'm constantly washing sweat pants. She also really likes wearing her red pants with gold dots. We are struggling a bit with matching. Right now, flowers go with flowers, red goes with red, stripes with stripes, etc. This usually makes for a really adorable [I definitely dressed myself] kind of look.  
• Singing. This girl constantly sings. She loves to make up her own songs.
• Reading. Her current favorites are Pinkalicious and Brownie and Pearl. She also loves Mix It Up, a book about colors/mixing colors. Old stand bys are still Clifford and Spot. Nora has the words perfectly memorized to most of her favorites. 
• Summer dreams. This girl has been wearing her swimsuit and goggles (from Santa) around the house despite the current weather outside (rain, snow, freezing temperatures). She even dressed up for the "beach" but it was going to be cold at the beach...
• Yoga girl. Nora loves Yoga. She takes out my yoga mat all the tumor and also has yoga Wednesday mornings at school. Favorite poses are butterfly and elephant. The songs that accompany are adorable. "Fly like a butterfly. Fly like a butterfly. Sleep like a butterfly. Sleep like a butterfly." And... "The elephant moves so slowly. Put your trunk up in the air and make a great big awooo!"

S L E E P

This girl used to be a piece of cake with sleep. Now, she doesn't nap (although she really needs a cat nap at least...). If she takes a ride in a car late morning/early afternoon, she typically falls asleep HARD. This makes errands really hard carrying a sleeping toddler and a baby. At night, she has started coming in our bed around 4 am consistently. Most mornings I don't even remember when/how she got there... Work. In. Progress.

C O N V E R S A T I O N

One of my favorite things about Nora getting older is her speech. She is always trying out new phrases she has heard at school, from her friends, or her favorite TV shows. 

Some of my favorites...

• "Thomas from Special Agent Oso showed me how to blow my nose. First, you cover one nostrist [nostril] and blow then you cover the other  nostrist [nostril] and blow again."
• "Seeks" (sequins).
• She came home from school so excited that they played "Mango." Turns out the played BINGO. 
• "Doos" (does)

More pictures! 

Xo,

Caity 

clara | 7 months

Clara girl. This little lady gets me. She is full of smiles and silly dances. She wakes up so  happy in the morning (and in the middle of the night). The past month has gone so quickly. She is now incredibly mobile, rolling all over our living room. She loves to play and LOVES to watch her sister. Shes developed such a little personality. Too much of the past month was spent sick with the respiratory flu. We are so in love with our sweet baby and SO grateful she is on the mend.

D E V E L O P M E N T

Clara is becoming increasingly mobile. She can sit very well, unassisted. She has practiced and perfected the transition from sitting to all fours. She rocks like a crazy woman and moves her arms/hands forward, as if shes crawling (but not going anywhere). She is trying so hard to move forward. When shes on the hard wood floors, she can scoot herself backwards (although still more accidental then intentional). She recently has started rolling to get herself from place to place.

Clara LOVES to stand and can pull herself up onto her knees. She often does this in her crib. We've been meaning to move it to a lower position, so if she does pull to standing she does not fall out! She can also (very proudly) get herself into a plank position. The only time she has pulled herself entirely to standing is using the laundry basket. She loves reaching into her boxes of toys, proudly even knocking the whole thing over.

Facial expressions are endless. She makes the best pouty, sad face, but her grin lights up the room. She cries when we leave the room and stares intensely at me when shes hungry. Clara has very recently begun to babble, mostly saying "ma-ma-ma" and "ga-ga."

Clara LOVES her sister more than words. Its unbelievable how bonded these two are already. Nora loves to help feed her sister and bring her toys (the ones Nora usually doesn't want...). She is very, very helpful. However, when Clara can keep up with Nora (in the near future), let the battles begin! 

S L E E P

Sleep has been a challenge still this month. We have tried to let her "cry it out." At least, a slightly more gentle version (or your parents are WEAK version...). We haven't had much success. Thankfully, we have a sleep expert seminar coming up! She currently wakes up 2-4 times per night and usually doesn't nap more than 30 min-1 hour at a time. Our routine is bath time, lotion, sleep machine (rain sounds), rock for a few minutes and lay her down. She usually fusses for 5-10 minutes. She wakes up the second we lay her down (HUGE BROWN EYES staring up at you...). She usually rolls to her side, but ultimately sleeps on both her back and her tummy. She sleeps longer stretches when she ends up on her stomach.

Clara's ideal schedule (if we are LUCKY):
7 am: wake
8 am: solids
9 am: nap
11 am: nurse
noon: solids
1:30 pm nap
3 pm nurse
4 pm (sometimes nap)
5:30 pm solids
7 pm bed
(she wakes 2-3 times to nurse typically overnight). 

This is a work in progress and I've been reading a fun blog recently with a baby born the same day...she has some ideas worth trying...

E A T S

We are struggling a bit in this department. Clara always struggled to breastfeed well. Once we really had the hang of it and growth had improved, it was time to start solids. Little lady LOVED solids. SO much so, that she began to nurse poorly hoping for something better (sounds a little like her older sister...). Since she has been sick, she gags on all solid foods. We are having to slowly integrate them back into her diet. Her favorite food by a mile is still oat cereal. She still HATES carrots (...at least she got something from me :-))

I am a skeptic with regards to baby led weaning (BLW) because there is limited research related to oral motor development with baby led weaning versus traditional introduction. Also, there is an increased risk of choking. That being said, there are many positives. The one I love the most is the baby being in control of how much/if they are interested in eating. With purees, it requires parents to feed the baby. Unless cues are carefully observed, force feeding can happen. Once  Clara starts to eat solids better again, I think I'm ready to try a more modified BLW approach... I'll keep you posted!

F A V O R I T E S

Clara's favorite game is peek-a-boo. Nora plays it with her endlessly. Clara's favorite place is to sleep is still Daddy's chest. While she was sick, she was a permanent fixture there. She still LOVES her bath and sucks away on her wash cloth. Nora has decided she loves to take baths with Clara also. Nora enjoys helping to wash Clara, but typically requires some gentle reminding NOT to pour water over her face. Clara has gotten really good at holding toys with both hands, so small balls have become favorite toys. She also loves to teethe on Nora's foam bath toys. She still loves her sit/stand play area from Santa the MOST. She pulls up to her knees and rocks back and forth to the music. She bangs to make it light up. We place all of her toys in the middle of it, which makes for a nice play area in the living room. She also loves to stand up against the couch (she still needs help getting there). She looks over the edge proudly (usually at her sister). 

And a shot with her boyfriend (of course...) 

T H E  S T A T S
Clara had the respiratory flu for over a week and lost a significant amount of weight. At the doctor she was 14 lb 8 oz with clothes on...(last month was 14 lb 3 oz)

We love you Clara girl, more than the moon and stars. You are so special, even more amazing than we could have ever dreamed. How are you already closer to one year than you are to your birth? Before we know it you are going to be a toddler. This momma isn't ready yet! Slow down baby girl.

XO,

Caity

nora | trip to the dentist

Nora was due for a dentist visit as a big T H R E E year old. She has been going every 6 months since she was a year old (given her previous thumb sucking status). She has never loved the dentist, but its never been a negative experience. However, as a big T H R E E year old, things that were never challenges are now brought to the battle field.

Enter the D E N T I S T visit. I tried to get Nora excited about the dentist via story books, dentist episodes of her favorite shows, talking about the dentist, the prizes she would get, etc...

Regardless of how hard I tried, the dentist was going to be what this independent, fiesty little three year old was going to make of it. Nora wanted NOTHING to do with it. After lots of sad faces, tears...and SCREAMING. Nora won. The hygienist didn't want to scare the other children. Here are some pictures of the experience. I am SO hoping 6 months will make the dentist drama fade and a happy experience on the horizon...

This isn't so bad...

I'm definitely NOT going to sit in that seat...

Prizes anyways... Still definitely NOT happy.

Hoping next time goes better... And now that we are T H R E E we are supposed to start flossing....wish us luck!

Xo,

Caity

grandma's birthday visit

We L O V E when family visits us, as we terribly miss being surrounded by them as we were in Arizona. We are so lucky to have had our families make trips to visit us regularly since the move.

We were recently spoiled when Grandma received a birthday surprise from Papa, a weekend trip to St. Louis! While the weather wasn't permitting of outings, Nora and Clara showed Grandma an amazing time (at least we think so!). Here are some fun pictures from here visit!

Grandma and Nora shared plenty of cuddles...

And Nora's favorite...they baked Valentine's Day heart cookies (with L O T S of sprinkles)...

We even had a day nice enough to go for a walk to the park (although Grandma may debate that it was "nice" out)...

Clara even enjoyed the swings for the first time with her big sister...

 

The girls played so hard, they both fell asleep...

We are so glad Grandma comes back (with Papa) in a few weeks!

Xo,

Caity