Hot (literally, we were sweating) Mamas

Last Thursday, my friend Lindsay and I, along with our kiddos, went on a fun hike in the Cascades up to Boardman Lake. It is a short hike but it was beautiful as always to be in the woods, smell fresh air, and see only a handful of people along the way. I wanted to just camp out there or at least keep hiking to yet another lake.

The kids are so cute together and they both did awesome. Jackson was a hiking pro even though it was his first time as was his mom who looks to be carrying twice her weight. :) We made the hike to the lake, ate lunch, played in the water, waited around for the occasional glorious sun break. It is so awesome to have a friend with a toddler the same age as Lucia. Lindsay's friendship is priceless. I don't know what I would do without her!!! God definitely brought us together at the right time!

All packed in the car with two car seats in the back.
Heading up the trail with the kids...kid #1
kid #2....
My little blonde explorer
Swedish Fish dance....such a cutie!

Lindsay, Jackson, me, and Lucia by the lake
The mamas!
Sleepy kid #1...
Sleepy kid #2

Lucia's First Kiss

Could this be any cuter? I think not! Our little buddy Jackson is so sweet with Lucia and gives her lots of hugs and kisses. This was definitely the best moment so far and Lindsay got it on camera! Two little sweeties!

Little Learner

It has been so much fun watching Lucia learn lately. It seems like she is learning constantly and hilarious things surface as she figures out her surroundings.

She has a few new words to add to the list:
"Highyaya"- Hyena (there is a hyena in the Goodnight Gorilla book that we read)
"Oiyon"- Onion
"wayway"- Raisin (She absolutely loves raisins and goes through handfuls every day)

We taught her to "wink" at us. She smooshes both of her eyes closed and scrunches up her nose.

She calls her belly button "baby". She made that one up completely on her own.

She likes to brush my teeth and, being the mom, I let her stick her slobbery toothbrush in my mouth.


Oh, and did I mention that she is just crazy cute!

Things I Love

Lucia's new words:
"babul"- bubble
"ousigh"- outside
"zee-zee"- Lindsey

Here are some of her words and sounds though it is hard to get her to repeat them while the camera is rolling. She is a busy baby.


She says "caw, caw" to the crows...and only specifically crows

In the morning when she is feeling especially cuddly, she will run full speed into me when I have my arms open and then bury her head into me.

She gives us tons of kisses and blows kisses as well. She blows me kisses when I put her down for her nap and when Pat puts her down for the evening.

She kisses the laptop screen when we skype with Grandma Janice or her Aunties Kaitlyn and Lindsey. Criag's beard has not received a kiss yet. We must work on that.

She carries one baby with her literally everywhere. She sleeps with her, the baby watches her eat from the table, she carries her around as she plays, the baby comes on all of our errands. She takes good care of her baby.

She feeds her bottle to all of her stuffed toys and makes and chomping/sucking sound as she is doing it. The other day we were reading a book that has one animal per page and she fed each animal including the snail and the starfish. I tried to capture it on video. This is the best that I got.


I was putting together her new table and chair set using an allen wrench. She watched intently. When I finished with the chair, she picked up the allen wrench and spent at least 10 minutes working on one of the screws.

She is a sorter. Yesterday, she played with a box of crayons for 30 minutes. She would take all of the crayons out and then put them all back in...over and over again.

If you ask her where her belly button is, she will lift up her shirt and push her fat baby belly around until she can point to her belly button.


I was outside playing "in" the baby pool with Lucia and had to run to the house and yell up the stair to Pat..."Grab a diaper quick. Lucy is trying to poop naked in the backyard." That was a nice little treat for the neighbors.

She tries to put our shoes on.

She did hose rock band with her buddy Jackson. And, yes, they were dancing while these pictures were taken.

Sisters weekend away

In addition to all the other fun that Kaitlyn and I had while she was up in Seattle, we were also able to get away for a weekend for a girl's trip. We headed out on Friday evening and drove up to Bellingham and camped at Larrabee State Park along Puget Sound.
The park is beautiful and the spot that we were able to get was a walk in site, so we were smooched in between a bunch of trailers. I haven't been camping in years and years and it was AWESOME! I really loved it. We set up our tent, made a fire, roasted hotdogs, ate baked beans, and made smores. It was classically wonderful. We did forget some critical things like...the hot dog buns...that was disappointing. We also forgot the can opener, so Kaitlyn used the foil cutter on the wine opener to destroy the top of the bean can so that we could enjoy our nasty baked beans. We stayed up well into the morning talking and enjoying the quite night air. Oh man, just writing about it makes me want to go back and do it again. I just love being outside so much. Sleeping in the tent was great though I did think that there was a bear outside waiting to eat up. Instead it was a raccoon eating our marshmallows...simple mistake. We survived.

The next morning we packed up the campsite and headed north to Whistler. Pat and I had just been to Whistler the weekend before, so I was excited for Kaitlyn to experience it too. The drive up the Sea to Sky highway is amazing. It is just what is sounds like, a road that takes you from sea level just north of Vancouver, BC up into the mountains. The day was clear and you could see all of the mountain peaks. When we got up to Whistler, we headed out to the mountain biking trails and biked around for a bit. We did the non-lift version of mountain biking this time around which didn't require renting a bike or paying for a lift ticket. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work having to power up the hills on our own. Kaitlyn did awesome on the trails and we were definitely worn out by the end.
After biking, we headed back to the hotel room and had a luxury meal of microwave mac & cheese and spinach lasagna purchased earlier at the local grocery store...tasty! We spent our cash on Albino Rhino beer later in the evening and watched the Whistler craziness unfold.
and took a picture by the Olympic rings...
The next morning, we went out for crepes and cinnamon rolls at the greatest breakfast spot, Hot Buns and walked around the village for a bit before heading home. We stopped at a few spots on the way down the Sea to Sky highway to take pictures of the mountains.


It was a great trip. Can't wait for our next one! Props to Pat for watching the little lady while we were gone!

10 days with a sister

So, I have or will have separate posts for my birthday and my trip to Whistler with Kaitlyn, but this post captures everything in between. We packed a whole lot of fun and activity into 10 short days. At some point, I am going to fly myself down to Tally and kidnap Kaitlyn and make her move up to Seattle. While I'm at it, I'll nab Lindsey. Neither of them will be able to escape my evil plot for sister togetherness. It is taunting to be able to spend 10 days with Kaitlyn and then have her fly back to FL. We all definitely need to at least live in the same state.

Anyway, here are a million pictures from our fun adventures as jobless and free sisters...the jobless really only applies to me full time but Kaitlyn was jobless for 10 days or so she pretended.

On her first full day in the sunny northwest, we didn't have too much time (we had a show downtown in the evening) but we managed to fit in a trip out to the Mt. Baker National Forest for a 2 mile "hike"/walk. Lucy, true to her baby form, lead Kaitlyn all over the place by the hand...nearly breaking Kaitlyn's back for sure from all the leading over.

mid swing with mom
heading up to the ice caves
Lucy walking Kaitlyn all over the place
On Wednesday, we headed to Greenlake for a chill day in the NW sun. Again, Lucia pulled Kaitlyn around by her arm as she showed her every weed in the park. This was the same evening that Lucia started walking!
Thursday we headed out for a full day hike up to Lake 22 in the North Cascades. This hike is not messing around. It is only 5.4 miles but it is steep and rocky and sort of challenging while carrying a toddler on your back! It was beautiful though. The hike goes through old growth forest, then out to a bit of a bowl and back into forest before you pop out at a stunning lake. The weather was perfect and the views were amazing. As usual, Lucia was a total trooper and loved it. She fell asleep on the way back down.

view from the top

that is Kaitlyn up there
Lucia dragging Kaitlyn around as usual
Playing with sticks and weeds. I could have stayed in this field all day long.
This way mom!

Old growth forest
near the beginning of the hike at a waterfall. Lucy points out every trickle of water by hollering "wawa, wawa, wawa"
Friday through Sunday, Kaitlyn and I took off and went camping and up to Whistler. I'll post about that trip later or this post will never end.

On Monday, the big event was the zoo which Lucia loved. We'll be back there many times this summer, I am sure. This picture does not show her enthusiasm very well. Perhaps she was more interested in walking than the bears.
Checking out the bunnies
On Tuesday, we visited with Great Grandma Shirley. She made the trip across the water to our place and we sat outside in the sun.
Wednesday was Kaitlyn's last day in town, so we headed up to Capitol Hill, went to Volunteer Park, played in the grass, and had lunch at Joe Bar then came back to the house and played with Lucia in the backyard. I think that the highlight for Lucia was playing with a cup of ice. That evening Kaitlyn and I went out for Ethiopian food for dinner...our favorite!

highlighting Kaitlyn's tatoo and Lucia's baby neck
messing around at Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill
picking "flowers"

My Baby Walks!

Well, Lucia is now a walking little lady! I guess it has been a few weeks now, she started on July 14th, but she already walks like a pro. It is almost like she has been scoping out the walking scene and just know decided that she is down with it. Kailyn was here the day that she started walking and we had been encouraging her during the day and she had made it 4 or 5 steps in the afternoon. I wanted to show Pat that evening, so I set Lu up to take her 4 or 5 steps and she just kept going. It was amazing to see. Her little pudgy arms were stuck out trying to balance and she was concentrating on the process but she walked all over the backyard being encouraged by the promise of chips. She just kept going and going and hasn't stopped. She is now a fearless walker.

Here are a few video clips of her walking on July 14th