Holiday Fun

More and more, Lucy has been unveiling her personality to us. One thing to note is she is very happy and giggly. And more often than not, her giggles turn to squeals. Sometimes I wonder how our dog's ears handle it when it is already too high-pitched for us humans.

Another thing is she has gotten to be very clingy to her mommy. It's usually not a problem except for when I go to mutual on Wednesdays, or when its daddy's turn to put her to bed, or when I'm trying to practice the piano for church, or when I'm cooking in the kitchen, or when my arms are full, or...okay you get it. But who can complain about being loved too much. Better enjoy it while it lasts, or so I am told.

She also has a thing for books. Reading time is her favorite thing at bedtime. We let her pick the book and she seems to know what she wants read to her. Oftentimes during the day, she'll be content to just sit down and turn the pages, whether they have pictures or not.

These days, she watches tv with us and will pretend to laugh whenever we find something funny. Sometimes it will just be because it's a sitcom and people are laughing on the show.

She's grown a liking to climbing on things. Usually not a good thing on our step ladder to have her climbing after me so that I can't get back down without worrying about knocking her over. But she seems to have pretty good balance most of the time.

Pretending to talk on the phone is one of her favorite things to imitate. But she doesn't deal with the fake phones. Nothing but the real deal for her, which is what we usually try to keep away from her.

Another thing is she has a knack for laying on top of things, sometimes in bizarre positions that don't look very comfortable. Usually, it involves a dog. Observe the following examples.

Sometimes it seems she's intent on making the subject uncomfortable based on the positions she chooses.

Among some of her other abilities, she is able to sign for food and milk, as well as wave bye bye and night night. She folds her arms for prayer, but she likes to laugh when the prayer ends, usually when we're in group gatherings. But she is very good at it when it's just us. 

Now I think I'll mention the last few holidays we celebrated. For thanksgiving we played games and went to the jelly belly factory the day after.

 There were a lot of images made up of thousands of jelly beans.

Then at the beginning of December we went to see the Oakland temple lights go on and also attended a musical performance at the same location.

Then we decorated our tree by applying fake snow (laundry detergent and water).

We won't talk about Santa at the ward party. The picture says enough.

Christmas morning, daddy made us a yummy breakfast.

We had a small pile of presents to open, but only one took up Lucy's attention. I had picked out a cone for stacking. Turns out it was perfect for her. She still has fun with it.

We were glad to hold Christmas for the first time in our home since purchasing our house. However, after a while, it got to be too quiet. I was glad to head over to the in-laws where there was more noise. We also talked to David's brother on the phone who is serving a mission in Alabama.

For New Year's Eve, David fulfilled his promise to the youth for keeping their commitments in his class by making them dinner, specifically Chinese. The fact that it was done on New Year's Eve was their choice. We made tons of food and ended up with lots of leftovers. I think we were expecting teenage kids to have appetites the same as the missionaries we usually eat with on Sundays. Nevertheless the house was filled and full of noise. We played games and it was such a great way to celebrate the new year. I had a lot of fun and would love to do it again, but we'll see what happens.

So that leaves the present. Like everyone else, we've made resolutions to make things better and we are doing very well on those.

 We're pretty happy.

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.