Tricksies

Pigtails

So we experienced our first attempt with pigtails. This was a meaningful moment because I had pigtails in almost every picture of me when I was between the ages of one to seven. I remember that my father used to put the pigtails in my hair before I went to school in the morning. If I had something more fancy like a french braid, my mom would then be on hair duty for the morning. In fact, I wore pigtails so frequently as a child that I still have the remnants of the part down the middle of my head.

She sure does look cute in her pigtails, even if they are lopsided.

So they are cute while they are in, but man does she look rough around the edges when those little piggies come out!

Playing in the Pool

Lucy has really enjoyed splashing away her days in the pool. Her first experience with the baby pool was when we were in Chicago. My mom bought a little inflatable pool that we set up in my parent's yard. My mom had lots of fun pool toys, but of course Lucy's favorite were the free plastic cups. Here she is just laughing her little head off as she perfects her "backstroke."

This past weekend we had fun BBQing with our new friends, Chris, Katie, and Maria from our neighborhood. Here Lucy and Maria are "swimming" (and I use that term loosely). They really spent more time climbing in and out of the water than they did playing in it.

You gotta love the side sweep hair-do.

Since Lucy was having so much fun in the pool, I went out and bought one for our upper deck. On Saturday, we had some friends, Erika, Brent, and their daughter, Sophia, over for grilling. Sophia is so cute! She is four months older than Lucy and is very proficient at walking. Maybe she taught Lucy a thing or two! Lucy likes to hang with the big girls.

Meeting Milo

Below is a picture of Lucy when we were trying to get her to notice her new little cousin. She was more content just rolling on the couch giggling her little head off. She didn't give him the time of day. Hopefully that is not a pattern that continues as she gets older!
I love the expression on my dad 's face when he saw his new grandson for the first time. You can see the look of total joy exuding from his eyes. Could the child look anymore precious? He barely had any blemishes or other battle wounds from the delivery. He was just perfect. Now I know that everyone says that, but he really is.
Don is a proud uncle!

Don and I had fun decorating Kristin and Eric's condo for them on the day that they came home from the hospital. After watching tons of Bringing Home Baby episodes, we just had to bust out the decorations for the big homecoming.

So Big!

We spent lots of time doing fun activites before Kristin had Baby Milo to help keep her mind off being so completely preggers. I actually was in town a whole 5 days before he was born, so we had lots of time to kill. We went to breakfast, lunch, and did errands and other fun sisterly outings. Here we are below with Lucy at breakfast. Lucy is becoming such a handful when we go out. She loves to practice all her vocalizations and babbling in as loud a voice as possible. We try to find noisy restaurants, so she won't disturb other patrons. Most of the time she likes to stare at other people when we are out. She is such a people-watcher, just like her mom. Although I try to be more subtle about it, but as many of you know subtlety is not my strong suit.










Here Lucy is practicing the new game we play. When we say, "How big is Lucy?" She raises her arms for "So Big!" She gets such a kick out of herself when she does this.



I was actually able to capture on video the first time Lucy identified a word with an object without being prompted first. So I guess this counts as starting to speak independently?

He's Here!!

Sorry it has been so long since I have blogged. I have been kind of occupied these days with my new little nephew!! Milo Jude was born on Sunday, June 8, 2008 at 7:41 PM. He was 7 lbs 13 oz and 19 1/2 inches. I was in town and in the room when my sister delivered. It was truly an amazing experience to be able to witness the birth, but it was also quite disconcerting to see my sister in so much pain. She pushed for 2 and 1/2 hours and had a very hard delivery due in large part to the fact that baby Milo was facing up, so she had a lot of back labor. I am so excited to be an aunt and share many new memories with my nephew .

She Looks Just Like...

OK - so at least every other day, someone tells me that Lucy looks just like Kim. Then, two seconds later, someone else says Lucy looks just like me. What gives? Do Kim and I look that much alike? I hope not, for Kim's sake...

Anyway, I dug up some old baby pictures of Kim and I (one of which includes my older brother, Doug). You be the judge.

Afternoon at the Zoo

Lucy went to the Zoo on Sunday afternoon for the first time. We figured she is at the age where she can start to appreciate the whole zoo experience. We were a little worried that she would be cranky since she missed her afternoon nap, but she was a trooper. She seemed to really enjoy herself. It was a lovely day in Baltimore and it was great to be outside.
Maybe I just haven't been to a zoo in a long time, but it seemed like we could get closer to the animals than I remembered. My favorite were the elephants. There was a baby elephant that was born a couple months ago, but we didn't get to see him. We did get to see an elephant trying to cool off by spraying himself with water.

Don carried Lucy around in the Bjorn so she got a good view of the animals. By the way, I am almost embarrassed to put a picture of the Bjorn on the blog since you can see all the spit up on it. Of course I had to point it out just in case anyone noticed. For the record I put it in the wash when we got home!

It was so neat when the giraffe turned and looked at the camera. I kept thinking of my new nephew (who should be here any day now) when I saw the giraffe since there are touches of giraffes in his nursery. But then again his impending arrival has been consuming my thoughts these days, so it doesn't take much to bring him to mind.

Lucy's favorite exhibit was the aquarium filled with fish, turtles, and an alligator. It is hard to see in the picture but she has her hands on the glass, which gave her a good view of the aquarium contents. Also this was the first time that she could wear the dress pictured below, which I have had since before she was born. I remember when I bought it, I was thinking about how old she would have to be to wear it. It made me a little sad to think of how my little girl is getting to be such a big girl. But on the other hand, I was also happy that she could finally wear the dress :)