Cecelia's 5th Birthday

Cece Bird is five! It doesn't even seem weird that she's getting that big, because it really feels like she's always been around! It's hard to remember life before Cece.

All she wanted for her birthday was Barbies... which is not my thing... but hey, it's her birthday, not mine, and she was thrilled to get her dolls.

We were planning Cece's party on a Saturday, so on her actual birthday we went out to eat and got cookies for dessert, and then went swimming at a friend's pool! It was a really fun day.

For her party, her grandparents were unable to make it so we got together with friends instead and Cece had a super fun day. She wanted a butterfly cake, so I Cece'd it up with loads of sprinkles.

What she's up to: 
-Cece is SUPER active and honestly never sits still. She is solid lean muscle and is so strong.
-She's very girly and loves all things sparkly... she likes unicorns, makeup, princesses, pink, and anything else "girl" that you could imagine.
-However, she's also a wild animal. She always has crazy hair because she's constantly rolling around on her head, she climbs on everything, and she's generally just kind of wild. She has definitely toned down a bit in the last year, but she's still a little wild creature.
-She loves to go outside, do crafts or paint, watch TV, do anything involving water, reading, helping.
-GUM. This child is seriously addicted to gum. 
-Eating all the time. She's never not hungry. She's also not picky which is super nice.
-She still likes to act/talk like a baby sometimes.
-Cece continues to be a very heavy sleeper and almost always sleeps all night without a peep.
-She's the tallest of all my kids for her age... I need to take her in for a checkup and am curious to see where she falls on the growth chart. (As of August, she's 44 lbs, 44", and 70th percentile in both!)
-She is a total Mama's girl and always wants to be close to me. She often wants help even with things she can do herself.
-Slowly learning letters and numbers (poor neglected third child). She'll be in kindergarten this fall!

Her interview: 
What's your name? Cece
Whatd dayis your birthday? I don't know
How old are you? 5 
What's your favorite color? Pink and purple  
Favorite number? 3
Favorite letter? I don't know what letters are
Favorite shape? Circles 
Favorite food? Cereal 
Favorite candy? Gum suckers 
Favorite game? Potion Explosion 
Favorite movie? The Last Unicorn 
Favorite TV show? Boss Baby 
Favorite book: The fox book  
What do you want to be when you grow up? A princess 
What is your Daddy's job? To work 
What is Mama's job? To make food 
Favorite place to go? Ra's and Papa's house for Easter  
Favorite restaurant? My favorite restaurant is Noodles and Company 
Favorite animal? Zebras.  I mean giraffes.
Do have any brothers or sisters? Desy and Orion and Hazel. And you, Mommy. You're a Mama sister. 
Any pets? Enzo  
Favorite song? Happy  
Favorite ice cream flavor? Strawberry and vanilla  
Who is your best friend? Nana and Papa  
Favorite cereal? Mini wheats  
Favorite thing to do outside? Play on the trampoline with sprinklers and the pool and the slippery slide  
Favorite drink? Pop  
What toys do you like to take to bed with you? My giant puppy 
What is your favorite holiday? Christmas. I love Christmas because we get to go on sleds.  
What are you good at? Playing princesses  
Who is the coolest person ever? You and Daddy and Papa and Ra and Nana and Papa and Ellie 
Favorite toy? My unicorn 
What makes you happy? Playing princesses with you. And playing with baiol polish to play princesses. 
What makes you sad? When people don't play with me  
What are you scared of? The dark  
What is your super power?  Laser eyes and ballerina

Cece's 3rd Birthday

May 25 has come and gone again! In some ways it's hard to believe that Cecelia is already three, and in others it's hard to believe that she's only three (because I can't remember life without her!). 

Cece is my wild animal and my princess. She is sweet and naughty. She is sensitive and defiant. She is cuddly and rough and tumble. She's beautiful and smart and we love her like crazy.

Things she's into:

-dressing up (in costumes or changing her clothes)

-reading books

-putting things in a backpack or box, carrying it to another part of the house, and emptying it on the floor

-talking to and touching her baby sister

-dragging blankets around the house

-going to Sunday School with "Mawy Oos" (Miss Mary Lou)

-TV (if I had to pick a favorite for her I'd say Team Umi Zoomie)

-coloring on things that shouldn't be colored (herself, walls, furniture, etc.)
-dancing
-Mama
-eating all the time
-breaking things
-baths
-climbing
-helping with things like laundry or cooking. I wish she loved to help with things like cleaning up her room...

What she's up to:

-She's completely potty trained! We finished our last package of pull-ups for night time a couple weeks ago and she has done great! She's had a few accidents here and there, but overall she has been doing really well and I'm quite pleased.
-She is not a picky eater and likes most foods. She'll say she doesn't like things sometimes, but it's usually just a matter of not wanting to eat that thing at that time. I'm happy she's a good eater. She devours baby carrots like her mama. She wants to eat all day long, also like her mama.
-Cece is extremely expressive with her face and voice. I think she has a great vocabulary and has some pretty complex things to say! I love her excited reactions. ...not so much the end of the world when she doesn't get her way.
-This is definitely not a super obedient child, and she has no qualms with deliberately disobeying. She has a very strong will and is very stubborn. But she's so cute and charming about it that she probably gets away with more than she should. Uh oh.
-Cece is a very heavy sleeper and is on a great schedule. Very occasionally she wakes up during the night, but usually she falls asleep within minutes and doesn't move til morning. She should probably still take a nap, but I don't make her unless she's having serious meltdowns. She often falls asleep in the car and sometimes I can move her to her bed.
-She knows her colors pretty well and knows some shapes. She can count to ten and sing her alphabet, but I haven't really started working with her on letters and numbers yet.

Here are the stats:
Height: (will add when I locate a tape measure)
Weight: 31 lbs

Cece wanted a princess birthday party, of course. She wore her princess dress and received so many nice gifts from her grandparents. I made lasagna and bought a gorgeous cake from Dorothy Lane Market (it was so. good.) because it was too perfect to resist. It was a really nice party, and our first at our new house.

Yesterday was her actual birthday and I wanted to do something fun, so we went strawberry and cherry picking at Tuken's, our favorite local farm (we have been there for apple picking the last couple years). Picking the cherries was much more fun and easy than the strawberries! I hope Cece has good memories of things like this. We picked up McDonald's on the way home and had a "movie picnic" at home watching Moana. Then she got to watch TV on the tablet while I worked on school with the boys. Cece fell asleep on the way to Tae Kwon Do, so she was too cranky to participate until the end, but the teacher LOVES her and it was nice to be there on her birthday. We got "worms" (lo mein) for dinner on the way home, followed it up with ice cream, and then she got to take a bath before bed. I think it was a pretty good day for the birthday girl. :)

Per tradition, I asked Cecelia a series of questions on her birthday and her answers were pretty entertaining!! It's tempting to correct her, but I just wrote down her actual responses. She's hilarious.

What's your name? Cece
What day is your birthday? 3
How old are you? 2
What's your favorite color? Pink
Favorite number? 5
Favorite letter? 6
Favorite shape? A triangle
Favorite food? Snakes (lo mein noodles)
Favorite candy? cereal
Favorite game? Hoot Owl Hoot
Favorite movie? Bubble Guppies
Favorite TV show? Bubble Guppies
Favorite book: Dragon
What do you want to be when you grow up? Play
What is your Daddy's job? To work
What is Mama's job? To measure
Favorite place to go? To McDonald's
Favorite restaurant? Bubble Guppies
Favorite animal? A zebra
Do have brothers or sisters? Brothers
Any pets? No
Favorite song? *starts singing a gibberish song of her own invention*
Favorite ice cream flavor? Chocolate
Who is your best friend? Allie
Favorite cereal? Cheerios
Favorite thing to do outside? Play on the trampoline
Favorite drink? Chocolate milk
What toys do you like to take to bed with you? A bunny
What's your favorite holiday? A birthday party
What are you good at? Jumping on the trampoline
Who is the coolest person ever? Papa
Favorite toy? a bunny
What makes you happy? Papa
What makes you sad? A monster
What are you scared of? A monster!
What's your super power? *hisses like a snake*

Cecelia's 2nd birthday

Can you believe that Cece baby is two years old?! She is getting to be so grown up... in so many ways she's just not a baby any more.

Here are the stats:
Weight: 26 lbs (35%)
Height: 2' 9.5" (38%)
Head: 18.9" (60%)
BMI: 16.29 (49%)

Here's what she's up to:

-She's a pretty big talker! She's stringing together more and more words. Today she said, "I swimmin! You swimmin too, Mama?" I love how well she can communicate!!

-Cecelia is not a picky eater! Yaaay! She doesn't like everything, but she does like more things than not. She likes to steal bites of what the adults are eating (even if she has the same thing on her own plate).

-She and Desy are finally starting to play nicely together! Hallelujah! Until now Desy has been the thorn in Cece's side, constantly irritating her. Now she talks about him all the time and loves to imitate him. Yes!

-Cece can count... I'm not sure how she learned that.

-She loves to dance! This girl can groove. It's so fun.

-She is getting her 2 year molars right now, and I'm hoping that's the cause of her cranky cranky crankiness.

-Cece sleeps from about 8:00pm-9:00am these days, which is faaaabulous. I'm not a morning person, so it's pretty great to be able to just chill in bed that late if I want to (and of course I want to).

-We took away her pacifier a couple months ago and it went great! Only a couple rough nights and a few more rough naps and she's over it.

-Favorites:
Book: Home for a Bunny
TV: Bubble Guppies, Tumbleleaf, Creative Galaxy
Activity: reading, swinging, trampoline, eating ALL THE TIME

We celebrated her birthday on our Lambes family vacation to Cedar Point, so we just brought some cupcakes, candles, and a few gifts. She was plenty happy with that!

Thankfully, Cece doesn't have terrible separation anxiety like she did when she was very little (leaving her in the church nursery was almost impossible for a while), but she is still SUCH a mama's girl. Most of the time she just wants me (aaaall the time), and has a highly developed sense of stranger danger! I'm always surprised when she's friendly to people outside of our family...

Besides her fear of people, this girl is fearless! She is such a wild child and is constantly climbing something or getting into trouble. She loves the water (I call her my water baby since she was born in the water), be it a pool, lake, river, creek, puddle, or sink. She is, however, scared of bugs.

...except worms.

Happy birthday, not-so-baby girl!

Cecelia: 1 year old!

Cecelia is a year old! Well, actually, she's 13 months old... but this last month has been CRAZY so I haven't been able to write about her birthday until now. 

We celebrated Cece's birthday with a ladybug themed party (a theme which Orion helped me pick). I think our decorations looked so cute! 

Our cupcakes. Hobby Lobby made the little bugs, not me ;)

Happy birthday to you!

Caaaaake!

After she ate all the frosting she stuffed her face. That's my girl.

Cake face!

Present time!

Cece was very excited to get her new Wubinub pacifier!

Here are the stats:
Weight: 17 lbs 3 oz (12th percentile)
Height: 27.75 inches (7th percentile)
Head: 17.32 inches (24th percentile)

This girl LOVES to eat and gets hangry if we wait too long to feed her. She's not very picky and will eat most things. Including Sam's Club hot dogs, of course. Her favorite foods are meat and fruit.

She also loves the water! I mean, she was born in the water, so no surprise there :P Whether it's the tub, a pool, or a lake, she wants in!!

Cece has a lot of fun with her brothers. I can usually leave her in the living room with them while I'm cooking in the kitchen and she'll play alongside them for a long time.

This girl is WILD. She likes to climb everything, screech like a pterodactyl, bang on things, dance, and streak away when getting her diaper changed. Above you see her sitting on a table, covered with dirt and leaves, and with sidewalk chalk all over her face.

What else she's up to:
- Sleeping better at night, but still getting up once or twice. Napping twice a day.
- Working on getting her molars, which is grumpy business.
- Nursing 5ish times a day (including once at night).
- Still using her pacifier to sleep, but never out of bed.
- At 13 months, she has taken about 5 steps at once and is getting bolder about taking steps on her own here and there. She can stand up in the middle of a room on her own. She'll likely be walking "full time" within the next week or two.
- Cece nods or shakes her head for yes and no (which is adorable and helpful).
- She doesn't speak a whole lot yet, but will say: hi/hey, Dada, Mama, iis (this), na-na (night night). She mimics other things sometimes.
- Cece loves music and will dance and "sing" along.
- She still hates going to the nursery at church. Which is not ideal. She's doing better, but still starts crying as soon as we get to the nursery hallway because she knows I'm going to leave her. What a mama's girl.
- Giving snuggles and kisses. She's crazy, but she's also very sweet.

Happy birthday, Cece bird!!

Cecelia: 11 months

11 months! That one year mark is fast approaching, and this girl is certainly acting the part!

This picture is of the first time Cece was standing up in her bed when I got her up from a nap. She can stand up holding on to things, is starting to cruise, and she even let go and stood up for a second unsupported the other day! And she can crawl fast!

Cece's first trip to the zoo. She had a fun day! The matinee room (above) was her favorite because she got to crawl around on the carpet :)

She is eating mostly finger foods. Her favorite thing is probably crackers, but she's not very picky. She loves chicken, fruit, cheese, and yogurt. In this picture you can see her eating the cookie she stole from Desy. Unsurprisingly, she loved it.

We Lambeses lick our plates!

Getting table scraps from her brothers. She's better than a puppy!

Cece has six teeth, and #7 is working its way out right now! She has been very cranky this week, so I'm hoping she gets a break from teething soon.

Just because this picture is adorable :)

Cece still wakes up to eat during the night, usually between one and three times. Obviously I'm looking forward to more uninterrupted sleep! ...but at least she generally goes back to sleep without a fight.

Sometimes she sleeps with her bum in the air :)

It is getting very warm around here! Cecelia loves splashing in the water! She loves playing with her brothers and is much happier if they're around to entertain her. She also crawls around all over the yard and gets FILTHY. Sometimes she crawls on her toes to give her knees a break; it's so cute and funny!

Lots of baths these days to deal with those dirty knees!

We celebrated Cece's first Easter a few weeks ago! I just love this picture Robin took of the kids on Easter morning. Those are some stinkin' cute kids...

The boys like to pick dandelions for me, and I always put them behind my ear. Cece sees it and smiles, and then steals it and tries to put it behind her own ear! I'll help her put it there and she actually leaves it there. I think it's so sweet.

Next up: her first birthday! Aaah!