A Very Merry Christmas...

We had a wonderful Christmas with family. It was fun first Christmas for our little lady; she was her usual happy self and enjoyed being part of the day's activities! We were able to spend Christmas eve with family, as well, so Lucille had a two days of Christmas fun!

Family picture in our jammies! And Lucille's silly bow. I love it!

It was fun to get up in the morning with little Lucille, so she could go through her stocking and unwrap her presents.  My mom made blueberry cream cheese baked french toast for Christmas morning. Yum-oh.

Later, we got out of our pj's and some of our favorite people came over to join us! We had dinner and opened more presents.

She got to play with her new presents later. How cool is this toy from her grandma and grandpa?

 

We (Michael, Lucille, and I) had a lazy day today to recover from the holiday fun. I can't believe it is almost 2013!  



The Seventh Month

Lucille is seven months old, just in time for Christmas! She had her sixth month appointment a week ago, three weeks late this time around because we wanted her to see a doctor on this side of the mountains and had to wait until winter break. It went wonderfully! We love her new doctor! She is now...

26 inches tall and 14 pounds 9 ounces!

 

Baby girl is healthy and the doctor was excited to see all new things she has been doing lately. She said Lucille was doing everything a nine month old should, which was exciting to hear. :)

She is crawling fast these days and working on standing.

I was away from her for the first time this weekend (for six whole hours) because Michael took me on a date. I sure missed her, but she had a lot of fun with grandma and grandpa.

We're still following the baby led feeding and enjoying it. Lucille has tried avocado, broccoli, butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots, apple, pear, cauliflower, kiwi, cucumber, zucchini, oatmeal, green beans, chicken, and beef. And probably some other things that I can't think of! We're also working on taking sips of water. :)

What does seven month old Lucille enjoy?

Throwing her food on the floor for Annabelle

Crawling all over the place

Making her duck face (and spitting on everything... ha.)

Playing with her toys

Trying to play with the dog toys

Cuddling with her blanket that grandma made her

Pulling herself up to stand (she prefers to be standing)

Slapping her hand on the coffee table (or hitting it with toys)

Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. She loves them.

Riding around on daddy's shoulders!

 

 

Probably no blogging until after Christmas for me, so Merry Christmas all! (And if you were wondering, no Christmas cards from us this year, I forgot the addresses at home and decided to just  take the year off!)

 

End of Semester Surprise

Michael completed his first semester of college yesterday. We were planning on being back in O-town by now, but a tiny little administrative error in a letter sent to Michael meant we had to stay another day. Seattle and Spokane are not the same city. Just for future reference.

Anyways, Michael had his last final yesterday -- a two hour trigonometry final. And during that final baby girl did this:

So, I had time to do this...

... because I love to surprise Michael. It is one of my favorite things.

I also made a bunch of bows using this tutorial. I put the tester one on Michael's surprise. I cut the strips of papers an inch shorter for the rest of the bows and liked how they turned out much better. They're pretty fun to make!

Baby girl woke up and checked things out.

That peachy mood of hers quickly deteriorated when she started doing the splits due to lack of traction. Fun stuff. That is okay though because daddy got home just in time to cheer her up and open his gift.

Ah,  I love this time of year.

Cruising and Christmas

Lucille is learning new skills and I've been very busy trying to keep her safe in our unsafe house! Whenever I've gotten any downtime, dishes have won over fishing out the decorations, especially when we only would be able to enjoy them for such a short period of time. So, our wreath on the door is as cheery as it is going to get this year.

Lucille is mobile folks. It all happened very quickly. She can crawl, sit up, and pull herself to a stand. Just yesterday she started walking along the sofa, aka cruising. She stands on her knees unassisted, which means she can reach things that are higher up with those unoccupied hands of hers. Once she gets herself in a standing position, she only needs one hand and my brave little baby has started to let go with both on occasion. Which is scary.

We mainly need to gate the stairs off. And put outlet covers on the outlets, she has already tried to put her fingers in them. No, no, no, no, sweetheart, we can't do that! Other than that, I'm considering a playard, I think that might be a good investment with all the travelling we do.

Lucille went to her first tree farm a couple weeks ago, to help pick out grandma and grandpa's Christmas tree. It is now decorated and awaiting our arrival! I'm sure Lucille will love it.

Here is the afternoon summarized in pictures, enjoy!

 

Riding around in the Ergo!

Teamwork!



Eating my camera case. Yummy.

Grandma gave her a candy cane. With the wrapper still on... because mommy said so. 

Thankful

Here is my slightly late Thanksgiving post! Our Thanksgiving week was wonderful! I'm so thankful for the extra family time I got this week because the number one thing I'm thankful for this year is the people in my life. Especially these two:

I'm thankful for my husband. I can't even describe how much I love him. He is more amazing with Lucille than I ever could imagine. He knows just when to surprise me with flowers. He is easygoing when I don't know how to be. His desire to learn is inspiring.

I'm thankful for my baby girl. She's teaching me about life and love and patience. She is the best baby. She is sleeping so good in her big girl crib at grandma and grandpa's house this week. She is learning and growing so fast; it is exciting to watch her explore the world. Michael and I have so much love for her, it almost hurts.

Here is the family on Thanksgiving day:

Baby girl got to share some new "firsts" with her grandparent. She started reaching with both hands towards us when she wanted to be picked up. So cute! She rode in a shopping cart for the first time and loved it. On Thanksgiving day she went from laying down on the ground to sitting up all on her own, and now a couple days later, she's already a pro at it. This kid is amazing. They also got to watch her experience solid foods for the first time. Her favorite food so far has been butternut squash and her least favorite was definitely banana.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

The Sixth Month

The little lady is half a year old now. It is hard to believe that it has been six whole months since she has joined our family. We had some family pictures/ Lucille's six month pictures done over the weekend. We have a few sneak peeks and they're turning out pretty cute!

See baby girl's new teeth? She got them nine days apart earlier this month. :)

We're staying at grandma and grandpa's house for Thanksgiving break this week. So they're catching up on their Lucille time.

In other exciting news, since Lucille is six months old now we're introducing her to solids. She has been exclusively breastfed her whole little life and she isn't so sure about real food yet. She hasn't actually eaten anything that we've given her, but she is tasting it and playing with it. We're doing baby led feeding (also know as baby led weaning - but I'm not weaning her - you can read more about the method here.)

She has tried avocado, apple, and banana so far.

Her first taste! The experience became pretty messy shortly after this.

She is getting pretty spoiled at grandma and grandpa's house. I think she is averaging one new toy a day here. Ha.

She also got to meet Miss Katy yesterday, who made her this beautiful new quilt:

I can't get over how lovely it is!

What does six month old Lucille enjoy?

Smashing food

Feeding the dogs things they shouldn't have (avocado)

Throwing toys

Sitting up like a big girl

Teething (Just kidding - teething is not fun.)

Sleeping most of the night in her crib

Cuddling with mommy and daddy

Playing with Grrrma and Grrrpa

Riding in the car

Crawling backwards (forward it too much work)

Teething

Lucille has a tooth! It popped up out of nowhere.

 

We didn't even know she was actively teething! I guess we just figured that teething would be a  miserable/ fussy time for the little lady... but she has been acting pretty normal. Maybe we won't be so lucky later, only time will tell.

 

We brushed her tooth tonight.

 

 

I think she liked it. She mostly just wanted to lick the toothbrush. :)

Happy Halloween!

It is starting to get dark outside here, so I better hurry up and get this posted before trick-or-treaters start showing up. We're handing out snack-sized bags of Teddy Grahams instead of candy this year. Hopefully that isn't too disappointing for the little kids! Ha.

We carved out pumpkins over the weekend. Well, we drilled holes in them. :)

I think they turned out to be pretty cute!

Talking about cute -- we have a little Yoda at the house today.

I tried to be thrifty and made her costume myself. Her hat and feet were an old sweater of mine that I had thrown in the Goodwill box!

Jedi robe used to be a pillowcase.

The belt is cut from an old T-shirt.

Happy Halloween everyone! Be safe and have fun!

The Fifth Month

Our sweet pea is five months old now! We had so much fun at the park for her four month birthday that we went back. This time we hit up the swings...

We had to bundle up because it was a chilly 49 degrees outside. That's pretty cold after getting used to NC temps. It was her first time in a swing! She decided it was fun!

We also spent a little bit of time at the big-kid swing set. I haven't been on a swing in forever. I forgot how much fun they were. :)

In the past month, Lucille has learned some new things. She figured out how to blow raspberries about three weeks ago and hasn't stopped since. It is pretty cute. She constantly plays with her feet if she is laying on her back and pulls her socks off, then proceeds to chew on her feet. Yum! She's been drooling like crazy, but still no teeth. :)

We've been placing toys out of her reach during floor time to watch her wiggle her way over to them. She hasn't quite figure out the perfect-form for crawling yet. She gets into a crawl like position and then plants her face on the ground for support while she brings her knees forward. Sounds entertaining, right?

She laughs for me everyday now, but refuses to laugh for daddy. No matter how silly he acts. I love it. :) She has spent one full night unswaddled and last night she spent half the night unswaddled. I think she is finally outgrowing her love of the swaddle. Ha. She is also getting really good at sitting, but you have to keep a close eye on her. She'll correct herself if she starts to fall over, but sometimes it comes too late. She is getting so strong! She do a sit-up if you hold her legs down. Ha.

What does five month old Lucille enjoy?

Playing peek-a-boo

Listening to daddy trying to get her to say da-da

Singing songs

Chewing on her toys, fingers, paci, and toes

Hanging out in the Ergo

Floor time and exersaucer time

Baths, she had her first bath in the big tub last week!

 

Loving the Season!

I was pretty convinced that winter was my favorite season, but now I'm not so sure. Fall is really setting a high standard for season awesome-ness right now. It never rains. The temperature is perfect. The leaves have changed color, which makes for beautiful scenery. I'm enjoying it.

Baby girl and I just got back from a walk. She's still sleeping in the Ergo. Such a sweetie pie! We walked with Michael to aeronautical engineering club. I think. :)

Michael is really enjoying school by the way. Midterm grades just came out and I'm super proud of him. He's working really hard and it is paying off.

And can you believe how big baby girl is getting?! She's just over four and half months now. Love her.