"Peeno"

So, Craig and Renee sent Lucia a piano or "peeno" as it is known to Lucia for her birthday. She LOVES it and loves music in general. The morning that I took this video I had been in the other room and heard "peeno" music and Lucia singing "Twinkle Twinkle". She sang the entire song while pounding on the piano. I then tried to get her to repeat it for the camera. Of course she would not. She wanted to "see, see, see" the video. I don't think that she quite gets that she needs to perform and THEN see. Anyway, it is still cute and you get the idea. Also, her smashing her face into the camera is her doing not mine. :)

Spaz Attack

Lucy LOVES Dora and she LOVES her Dora diapers. Just in case you don't believe me, I have included some proof.

Please note that she added the pee guard to the potty chair.

You may wonder why Lucy's mouth is hanging open. It was because she was screaming "Dora" with great glee!
This was ALL at her request. It takes no prompting from us. She says "LuLu hat, LuLu hat", then she carries a diaper to Pat and I and says "Mommy hat, Daddy hat".
Fixing Daddy's diaper hat

Thanksgiving...um...2 months late!

Ok, ok, I give in! I'll start posting again. :) I haven't posted since mid November, so I have some catching up to do. I'll try to stick with the highlights and make these somewhat short so that I don't get overwhelmed by the backlog!

So, we spent Thanksgiving with the Murphy side of the family over in Silverdale. It is getting more and more fun to see the little cousins together and Lucia gets overjoyed to see the family. Here are some pictures.

Lucia and Allistaire sorting cups.
Seriously...I could kiss that face right off! I guess both of them, but I am referring specifically to Allistaire. Is she not the cutest baby!!!
Another one of the cutie. She is such a happy and smiley baby.
Cousin Solveig sweetly reading to Luc
Sorry for the blury picture, but this was too cute. Lucia dancing with her Papa! She wants to dance on our feet all the time now. She LOVES her Papa and Nana and asks about them constantly and I do mean constantly. Not a single day goes by without their names being mentioned. She'll also tell us things about Nana and Papa like where they sat in the house the last time they babysat. :)
More reading with Lucia. The girl LOVES to read. I spend literally hours reading to her every day at her request. I love it too though.
And a cousin dancing video...


Ok, so we all decided the day after Thanksgiving to go get our Christmas trees at this great tree farm by the Murphy's house. It was a terrible idea! ;) It was pooring down rain and cold out. Ah, I am not doing that again. I will wait for a day when I am getting totally soaked! Anyway, we did get a tree out of the deal and we look happy about it at least....except for Solveig and Lucia. You can't get everyone smiling at one time!

Word Videos

Lucia is talking up a storm these days. It is funny now because she knows what she is saying but we often can't understand her tiny baby voice. She gets all frustrated with us because she is being "clear" and we just don't get it. She will say just about anything that you ask her to and has quite a few two word combinations that she uses regularly. A few are:

"coco bed"- coco bread
"bye bye side"- bye bye slide
"apple jew"- apple juice
"a side dow"- upside down
"air cip"- hair clip

Two of my favorites right now are "tada" and "okie dokie". Here are two video's where I tried to capture some of the new word combos. Don't mind her crashing off of Pat's legs at the end of the second video. That is usually a fun and safe trick. :)

Halloween Fairy Girl

The little miss was a fairy girl this year for Halloween. We told her that her outfit was her "costume" and she has been talking about her "costume" ever since. She is the cutest fairy to ever grace halloween! We started out the festivities on Friday by going to visit Pat at his office. She passed out candy to Pat's co-workers. We were two proud parents just following our girl around handing out "cocos".
Working hard...

On Halloween, Pat took her outside to get a few pictures and they turned out so well! Here are a few of my favorites!





Then we took her down to U-Village to walk around the shops and see other kids in their costumes, but apparently we were off by a few hours. We were too early for the festivities so instead we just let her play around on the slide in her costume. She loved it. :)

Lindsay and Jackson came over later that night and we let them run around the house together in their costumes. They are so cute...the two of them! There was a pretty hilarious attempt at a picture of Lindsay, me, Lucia, and Jackson. I am just staring at the camera smiling and hoping something will work out while each pictures gets progressively more hilarious. Oh, and Lindsay is much more festive than I am. :) Please also notice that both kids have fists full of snack sized candy bars.


And finally....we are all looking at the camera this time with decent expressions!
The cute little buddies!

Countless Reasons to Love Fall in the NW

I know that fall is on its way out up here given the weather report for snow this weekend, but I still have relish the fall moments. Fall is a blessed relief, ironically, from the business of summer. Of course, the down side is that it welcomes in winter which is more often wet than snowy around here. Nonetheless, I still love fall for all of the colors, sights, and smells. And now Pat and I have a new little person to share the fun with. Life is full of blessings!

This was a great fall. It was quite busy but Pat and I made it to the pumpkin patch a few times as did my friend Lindsay and I. It is such a great place for the kids to run around, slap some pumpkins, and check out the farm animals. For the adults, we get roasted corn and spiced cider.

Pat and I took Lu to the pumpkin patch on a beautiful sunny day! It was so wonderfully muddy out in the pumpkin patch. Lucia was just off and running...and covered in mud. I told her this was a "baby pumpkin". She was thrilled to see any kind of a baby and carried it with her the entire time that Pat and I were there.



Lindsay and I took Lucia and Jackson the next day and, of course, our cameras both died before we got too many pictures in, but here is one good one from the day. It was foggy to begin with but totally cleared off.

Okay, this one is just random. I told Lucy to "smile" and this is what I got. :)


Dad's partially carved pumpkin. The man carves a mean pumpkin people! Lucy is feeding the pumpkin with the measuring cup. Of course!
The fall colors are amazing around here. This is a picture of our "birthday" tree. Pat got it for me a few years back and it is my favorite fall time tree.
There were a few beautiful sunny fall days this year and we enjoyed every moment of those crisp fall days outside. Lucy loves to run around in the backyard from spot to spot, smelling plants, "hiding" under the Japanese Maple, and climbing around on the rocks in our patio.

Tickle Attack

Lucy loves to get tickled by Pat. She is hilarious. It is like she is waiting around for it all day and knows that it will happen right after dinner or at bed time. Last night she was sitting at the dinner table and started to say "tickle, tickle" and then would laugh and laugh and start to fall over in her high chair. Then she started lifting up her shirt, tickling her belly, and saying "tickle, tickle". It was awesome. Clearly she doesn't mind the tickle attacks.

Here is proof from Halloween (thus the costume)