Visit to Idaho

I know this is long overdue, especially since this took place in September and now we're in November. But here's the pictures from our trip to Idaho for my younger brother Stephen's wedding.

Our trip started at the airport. I wasn't sure how things were going to go, because it was the first time Lucy had ever been on a plane. She actually did better than I expected. I thought she would fuss about having to stay in her seat, but she didn't even try to get down. I wouldn't want to tempt her by taking her on a longer flight though.

Once in Idaho, Lucy reveled in the attention she received from her aunts and uncles. We were the first to arrive, so she got to enjoy being the only baby in the house for a couple of days.

I was glad Lucy got to explore the yard a little. She recently discovered that grass isn't her enemy, so she seemed to enjoy the freedom of going wherever she wanted.

 

Then it was wedding time. The colors were navy blue and coral pink. I could only find one dress that matched, so I bought it. I also crocheted a headband to go with it, and luckily Lucy didn't yank it off her head. I'm grateful that I don't have to spend a lot of time on Lucy's hair yet, but there are very few options when it comes to these kinds of events that I sometimes wish her hair would grow a little faster.

I somehow missed getting any shots of the happy couple, but I got snippets here and there of everyone else.

They took at least one picture of all the nieces and nephews with the newlyweds and Lucy was practically the only baby that refused to be in it. (Sigh.) Rather than having them take a picture of a squirming, screaming little girl among all the little smiling faces, I thought it best to not have her in the shot at all. On the side, I did manage to get some cute little moments here and there.

We had a luncheon with Stephen's in-laws, and then later was the reception, which was held outside. Unfortunately, the wind had picked up so much that the good weather that we had that morning disappeared, and we were left with a bitter cold wind storm.  Nevertheless, there was a pretty good turnout despite the harsh weather.

After all the celebrations, we spent some time with the family before everyone started their own long trips back home.

I know it kind of looks like Lucy sucking her thumb, but it is actually her cousin Cassidi.

Then there was just us. David had a conference to go to for work, so rather than head home to stay by myself for a week, I chose to stay with the fam. During that time, Lucy got to hang out with Everett, a cousin she had not met yet. I think he had a hard time with her messing up his neat car arrangements, though.

During that time, I decided to update the birthday plaque I had made for Mom by adding the new addition to the family. I'm really pleased with how the plaque turned out. Definitely quite the project.

Most of the time was spent relaxing. I kind of took advantage of the pampering and not having to watch Lucy all the time. That doesn't mean she didn't get into things, especially the kitchen cupboards which seemed to be her go-to.

For the most part, Lucy was content and I got to hang out with the family.

Soon it was time to head back. My parents were already driving to California to see my niece's baptism, so I just tagged along for the ride. Lucy was kind of cranky for the first half of the drive.

Once we made a rest stop, she seemed to calm down quite a bit.

Then the rest of drive was spent doing this, for four hours straight.

Overall, it was a really fun trip, but I was glad to be home. Even so, I look forward to the next visit.

Lucy's first birthday

I know everyone says it, but I can't believe it's already been a year since the first moment we held our baby girl. She has come a long way from the immobile, passive infant that she once was. Now she's full of energy, laughter, and personality. So we decided to throw a big birthday party for her.

We had fun making high heel shoe cupcakes. It's probably the most creative cake decorating I've done.

I had a little help from little Aunt Isabel in decorating them.

We invited all our family members that live close by, which included David's dad's family, his mom and grandma, and Irene and her family.

For lunch we let everyone make their own pizza on English muffins. After that, it was time to sing to the birthday girl. We provided her with her own cupcake with an unlit candle on top. It was obvious we hadn't had a lot of birthday cakes in our family because not only did I not remember to buy candles (the one I had I borrowed from my in-laws) but I forgot to buy matches. The reason we didn't have cakes is because David doesn't really like eating them, and I can't just pig out on one by myself. Luckily, Lucy complied with our lack of preparation and even blew an imaginary flame at one point. After that, we let her have it, but it took her a while to dig in. One thing to know about Lucy is she is very observational. She thoroughly examines almost everything for a long time before she puts them in her mouth. This works in my favor most of the time, but this time she needed a little coaxing from me to get on with it. After the first taste, it was over.

All those who came brought some lovely gifts for Lucy. So far she has enjoyed every single one.

Including a couple of musical birthday cards.

Apart from Lucy's birthday, I think I'll give an update on our dog, Reba. The two commands that she has down almost perfectly are "sit" and "kennel." The ones she does pretty well are "down" (as in lay down), "wait," "ok" (her release word), "do your business" (go potty), and "come." David even taught her some fun ones like "shake" (handshake), "high five," and he's currently teaching her "roll over." The ones she understands but doesn't necessarily want to obey all the time are "off" (as in off furniture and people), "no biting" (which she has made a lot of progress on but still does out of her cattle dog instinct and sometimes to get attention), "no jumping" (one of her worst habits when people come over), "leave it" (which is one of her better ones but still has room for improvement), and "drop it." These are usually problematic when she has a lot of energy but nothing stimulating to do. Other than that, she can be a pretty obedient dog. One problem though is that even though she listens when we tell her to go outside, we have still not been able to keep her from going inside. Her accidents are farther apart but they still happen, which really tries our patience at times. But my biggest priority is making sure Reba understands how to behave around Lucy. She has been gentler with her, but we still watch them both very closely whenever they're around each other. As far as Lucy is concerned, she is highly entertained by Reba even when I think she should be scared of her, but she doesn't even react when Reba is licking the back of her head for several seconds.

She even plays with her by taking Reba's toy and running off with it so that the dog will come take it back from her. We are in fact trying to train them both how to behave around each other.

In conclusion, Lucy had a very good first birthday. Since that day, the only other event that has occurred is our second anniversary. Life is good.

One thing after another

I planned to post more often than I have, but just like my journal, I tend to procrastinate and several events, alas, are never recorded. But today, I am compelled to use the free time available to me now to sum up as much as possible. The English graduate in me likes to go into the details, but I have to squash that inclination so that I can get it all posted before I am distracted.

We've been enjoying our new home for several months now, making improvements such as ceiling fans in all the bedrooms upstairs, spraying insulation in the attic, a ceiling fan downstairs (which also takes care of the lighting problem. Why do home builders think it's ok to leave large rooms in the dark?) and a general house fan that reduces our need for air conditioning and ultimately uses less electricity. We have gone at least two weeks without using the air conditioner in the middle of July, so I think we made a good investment.

David after spraying insulation in the attic.

A lot of events have occurred apart from moving in and fixing up our house. Way back in March, we had family visit to see our new house. We enjoyed filling up the place and doing things like going to the beach, and later attending a hockey game. Somehow I missed getting any pictures of Irene's family, but I did manage to get some video, which I won't be posting since it has had issues in the past.

Out of all the teams Stockton Thunder would be playing against that weekend, it had to be Boise Steelheads.

After everyone left and the house was empty, Lucy decided to show some new tricks.

She had already been a master roller up to this point. But after watching her younger cousin crawl circles around her, she realized she was capable of more.

 

Thus the crawler was born. Naturally, other developments followed, such as eating solid foods.

 

 

Sitting up.

 

Picking things up with her fingers.

 

Scaling along furniture and such.

 

And climbing the stairs.

 

She even found a way to get on the couch by climbing the stairs and crawling over the armrest. Smart cookie!

 

In May, we received the news of Wise Granny Jo's passing. So we began the long trek from California to Utah to attend her funeral. Along the way, Lucy went to bizarre lengths to entertain herself. She has always had a fascination with tags, such as those you'd find sewn on clothes, toys, blankets, etc. We didn't realize how determined she could be until we caught her with her arm stuck in the hole of the headrest strapped to her carseat. She had found a tag behind her head!

 

In Utah, we stayed with David's grandparents. We attended Amy's and Lee's ward, and we also got to hang out with Mom, Ani, and Carson.

 

 

We had family home evening with David's extended family, and we visited his sister and her husband, who are currently expecting! Then, of course, there was the funeral, where almost the entire family had shown up, minus one brother on a mission. And we also got to see some extended family that I had not seen in a long time. It was good to recall memories of Grandma Jo, and I was glad I could be there. Later, we went to the burial site.

 

 

David and I decided to go visit some grave sites from his side of the family as well. 

 

 When we went back to the church, Grandma's teddy bear collection was divied up among her posterity. We each picked one that had the most sentimental value to us.

 

I picked one of her black bears for me and a tiny stuffed owl for Lucy.

 

When all was said and done, some of the siblings decided to hang out some more by going to temple square. And of course we had to get a picture in front of the temple in which David and I were sealed almost two years ago.

 

Ahh, the lovely temple.

 

We also visited other popular sites such as the exhibit focusing on the temple, the christus statue, and the church history museum, ultimately ending in the kiddie section.

 

 

David built Lucy a padded castle while in the kiddie section. 

 

Apparently, she doesn't understand that a toy fish does not need mouth-to-mouth when it is pulled from the water.

 

Sadly, our Utah trip had to come to an end. Soon we were back home, and Lucy was hitching to show us some more things up her sleeve.

 

She had now become a proficient climber of stairs, enough to handle climbing the big stairs while clutching a light-weight hose. 

 

Long before this point, Lucy had developed a sleep schedule, to which she was pretty consistent. This made me a happy momma, who no longer has to lose more sleep at night and who accomplishes more during the day.

 

This is where I usually find Lucy while her daddy is working outside.

 

Our next big adventure was getting a visit from Amy, Lee, Anine, and Carson, who all stayed at our house for a few days. I couldn't get enough pictures of Lucy and Carson together. It was too cute.

 

Then once again we were back to life as usual.

 

For July 4th, we spent the morning attending a ward breakfast which was followed by retiring some flags that were pretty worn.

 

 Later, we went to David's mom's where we lit some fireworks. I keep waiting for Lucy to make an emotional response to things that you'd think would startle her, excite her, or even scare her. For all of them, nothing. My girl remains merely interested, but it almost seems passive. Such was the case when she saw fireworks for the first time. But she at least had enough facial expression when we took the opportunity that weekend to snap a family photo.

 

Considering our other attempts, . . . we'll just say we were lucky to get the shot we did. 

 

For the most recent events, Lucy went swimming for the first time, and she started walking just before 11 months. It's getting better every day, but she still relies more on crawling. Not for long though.

  So now that I have everything updated . . . at least, I think it's all up to date . . . what am I missing? . . . oh yeah.

 

 

Yes, it's true. We have a puppy. Her name is Reba and she's about 3 months old. It hasn't been a piece of cake, but we're surviving. To help with the adjustment, we are currently taking dog training classes that have so far proven to be the smartest thing we've done. Now she's on her way to becoming a well-behaved dog, and I hope it's not a long trip. We'll see I guess, but on the plus side, she is teaching me a lot of patience. I say that with as little sarcasm as the sentence will allow, because it is a much desired attribute that I have striven for, and nothing has been more effective in helping me obtain it than this puppy. And in retrospect, she was the mildest puppy we saw when we met her for the first time. Out of all the dogs, she was the only one who didn't bark at us; she just whined. And we felt good about her, so I keep reminding myself of that. In the classes, she has a head start on the other dogs, which seem to cause their owners more problems, and they are older than her. So even though it isn't easy, it could be worse. 

So as I said before, we're surviving and we're going on with our lives. Just goes to show how much can happen in less than a year.