Claire Bear is THREE!

Claire Bear turned THREE this year! I suppose it's a tradition to post about my baby's birthday a few months late. Oh well, she knows I love her.

Claire celebrated her birthday while we were on our family vacation in St. Louis. I'll talk about our amazing vacation in another post (possibly). To celebrate her birthday, we started out with breakfast of pancakes, pancakes, and more pancakes. Afterwards we went to Grant's Farm to visit the Budweiser Clydesdales. This was a really cool place! Not only were the Clydesdales awesome but they also "let" you take a souvenir photo with one and you "get" to buy some pricey prints of the photo. Well, our photo was nothing short of hilarious. See for yourself:

After visiting the horsies, we went to the other part of Grant's Farm and took a trolley tour. The Busch family bought the property many many moons ago from the family of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant's home is still on the property. The not-so-cool part of Grant's Farm were the goats. You could pay a few dollars to go into a pen with about one hundred goats and feed them milk from a giant baby bottle. Sounds like a good plan, right? Not so much. Those goats were aggressive. They attacked anyone with a bottle of milk and practically knocked Claire to the ground. One of them jumped up and kicked Lyla in the teeth! We got out of there as soon as we could!

Later that night, we ate at a place in STL that appeared on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: Anthonino's Taverna.

Oh my goodness - it was so delicious. Claire agreed! Perfect birthday dinner for my baby.

Isn't she pretty?

At 3, Claire really is growing up to be quite the young lady. Of course she wants to do what her sissies are doing from time-to-time, but other times, she's marching to the beat of her own drum, doing her thing. In case you were wondering, she is still the best baby ever. Except, now she says "I not a baby, momma, I a big girl!" To which I reply, "You'll always be my baby, Claire Bear." Claire: "O-tay mommy, I be your baby." Isn't she the sweetest?

After we returned from vacation, we went to the pediatrician for her annual check-up. Big girl is growing!

At three years she weighed in at 36 pounds (90th percentile) - up 5.5 pounds from year 2. She is 40 inches tall (97th percentile) - up 2.75 inches from her 2nd birthday. She is definitely a big girl and is very tall!

We continue to be blessed by this sweet girl. I don't know what I did to deserve her as my daughter. I couldn't ask for a better baby girl. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, BABY!