The Holiday Dress

This is Lucy's 8-month-old photo that we had taken earlier this month. Too bad she didn't smile the whole time! She was quite skeptical of the photographer who was making clicking sounds with her mouth and being over-the-top goofy to try to get her to smile. Lucy's too smart for that!

Lucy's First Christmas

We had a nice quiet Christmas Eve at home together eating a lot of delicious food and just relaxing.

Lucy was definitely a good girl this year! It was fun watching her test out each gift curiously and thoroughly. Here's a series of photos from Christmas showing just some of her loot.

Blueberries in a Bag

I tricked Lucy into trying some "solid" food yesterday by giving her three frozen blueberries in a mesh bag for her to gnaw on and relieve her teething pain. She had a blast as you can see from the photos. Dada came home just in time to give her a bath.

Just Hanging Out

Oops, I haven't posted in awhile again. I suppose we've been busy getting ready for Christmas and winding down from the end of the semester at UAF. Lucy has some new tricks: she now claps and sucks her lips in like a fish. She also is getting her second bottom tooth in this week. The clapping surprised both Matt and I and luckily we were both there to see her do it for the first time. Lucy's friend Kaelin came to visit the other day and they are exactly the same size and so cute together.

No Lucy, we don't grab at Kaelin's face...

My little helper crawls over enthusiastically every time I open the dishwasher to unload it or load it. I've given up on trying to stop her from putting her hands all over everything when it is dirty. We just head to the kitchen sink afterward and wash her arms and hands. I do however keep a close eye to make sure she doesn't crawl inside - which she has done a couple of times.

The other day Lucy was giggling over and over and I caught her passing her pacifier (which she only plays with and bites on) over to Canute and then pulling it away and then repeating this again and again. I pulled out the camera too late but caught the end of it on video. They are such good friends. She now offers him everything she plays with such as shiny gift ribbon, her sock monkey, and rattles. He politely declines but acknowledges her generosity.

This week was a big week: Matt and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary and there was a lunar eclipse on winter solstice. A beautiful week to celebrate our marriage. The eclipse was the first total lunar eclipse to occur on the day of the Northern Winter Solstice (Southern Summer Solstice) since 1638. The next lunar eclipse to occur on a Northern Winter Solstice will be on December 21, 2094. Lucy will be able to see it! We had a great view of the eclipse from inside our house while Lucy slept in what was left on the moonlight on our bed. On our drive home from our celebratory dinner last night we saw a huge red shooting star, part of the the peak of the December Ursids occurring on the eves of December 22 to Dec. 23.

photo credit

Eight Months Old for the Holidays

Happy 8 months to Lucy today! She now weighs about 15 pounds, has been crawling like a pro since the first week of November, pulling herself up to standing since the second week of November, has only one tooth (bottom left) and still doesn't like to eat solid food. We try about twice a week to get her to eat something yummy that she tried once and enjoyed, such as more avocado, carrots, or hard-cooked egg yolk but she refuses. Mama looks forward to being able to make Lucy delicious mashed food as soon as she asks for it!

Getting Ready for Christmas

We spent a really great day together putting up our Christmas tree and decorating it. It was only 6 below outside so we took a short walk, lit a fire and started. Lucy helped dada set up the tree and as you can see she was very into the process.

Lucy napped while we decorated the tree which worked out perfectly; there was no crawling baby getting into the boxes of glass ornaments on the floor. When she awoke we brought her upstairs to surprise her with the magical tree while dada shot a video of us.

Just because we are on the decorating topic I feel like I should include how I made some felted sweater stockings for everyone the other day. I picked out a bright pink striped sweater especially for Lucy's stocking, just because. From the left: Mama's, the animals', Lucy's, and Dada's

We are really looking forward to our first Christmas in Fairbanks together ever. Matt and I have always traveled during the holidays ever since I moved here. It sure is a good year to celebrate at home with our beautiful baby for her very first Christmas.

Finding the "perfect" Christmas tree

This afternoon we went out to hunt for our Christmas tree on Old Murphy Dome Rd. before the sun went down for the day. We started the venture with sledding down the first hill. With only 4+ hours of daylight these days, we hoped to find one within a mile of our house. We did!

I spotted one covered in snow and ice and Matt approved. He chopped it down, stuck it on the sled and strapped it on. Canute was extremely excited about it!

Lucy was red-nosed but pleased with our chosen tree.

Matt and I both took turns pulling the tree home...well, he did most of the work but I helped. Our reward at home was a nice hot cup of drinking chocolate made with our Guelaguetza chocolate that we bought in Oaxaca 2 years ago. Yum!

A Walk in the Snow After Ice

Last week brought us very unusual weather for November in Fairbanks. On Monday we had rain and then freezing rain so we woke up Tuesday to no power due to all the ice that had frozen overnight. All our birch trees were bent over or broken and the roads were a mess so we stayed put that day. However, Thanksgiving grocery shopping needing to be done so on Tuesday Matt chained up the tires on the truck and we made the SLOW trek to town. The entire trip took us 4 hours! Well worth it though because we needed to get the shopping done.

Luckily it snowed a little every day after that and the landscape became a beautiful and surreal one. We went for a walk on Murphy Dome over the weekend to enjoy the sunshine and the wintery views. We think we have a good "backyard" to play in around here!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and invited over good friends to enjoy our 28 pound turkey that we raised just for this meal. The turkey weighed twice what Lucy weighs! I suppose you can tell from the photo how massive it was. Lucy slept through most of her first Thanksgiving dinner which made it a real treat for mama to make it through a meal without nursing!

Lucy's New Sound Effects

The Week of Many Firsts Ends with "Mama!"

I love this photo of Lucy because it reminds me that she does actually sleep sometimes!

Oliver is a good kitty and really tolerates a lot from Lucy.

On Monday, Lucy's first tooth started emerging. This is after 3 months of drooling, sticking her hands in her mouth, and clamping down on things.

On Tuesday, Lucy reached for the first person besides myself or Matt to snuggle on. It was our friend Michele, mother of handsome little Cord who is 6 weeks older than Lucy. She was flattered. This happened as we were leaving a 2-year-old's birthday party.

On Wednesday, Lucy climbed into the dishwasher. Her first climbing success. I turned around after washing a pot in the sink and there she was, kneeling inside the machine on the door holding a dirty spoon and waving it around. She moves fast!

On Thursday Lucy bumped her head hard for the first time. She pulled herself up to say hi to me while I was sitting on the futon. She was smiling, wavering and then clunk, she fell forward and hit her forehead on the metal bar. She had a small round red mark a bit larger than the size of a pea and only a little raised. I put arnica on it and it never bruised. It was gone by Friday morning.

On Friday (today), Lucy said "mama" for the first time, very distinctly, while Matt and I were at our lesson for our new Janome sewing machine . Needless to say, I had tears in my eyes - so did Matt. She was looking right at me and had her arms out. So sweet. She continued to say "mama" all night and leaned toward me and waved her arms when she said it.

Here is a little video that Matt shot on Wednesday night while I was teaching, mistakingly without sound, but cute nonetheless.

Chris and Martha's Visit

Chris and Martha visited us for eight days from the east coast and we had a super fun week hanging out on the dome, going for sunny and snowy walks, soaking at Chena Hot Springs, and jigging at the Athabascan Fiddler's Festival. Martha took many beautiful photos - we felt like we had a family photographer!

Lucy received an immense amount of attention and since she started crawling last week, she had quite a lot of inspiration to get around even faster on hands and knees in order to greet everyone. There has been a lot of growing and developing this week: Lucy now pulls herself up to standing using the railings around the stairway, she climbs up onto people's laps if they are sitting on the floor, and she is enjoying drumming on things such as her new glockenspiel and anything she can tap with a stick.

Lucy Turns 7 Months Old!

Matt and I are so thankful for our beautiful Lucy who never ceases to amaze us with her cheery personality, bringing a lot of good laughter to our home every single day.