Sushi and Chopsticks

We went out on a special family lunch together yesterday. Lucy was given her own custom chopsticks to use! She did well with them and ate almost all her potstickers and miso soup.

Sunshine and Lots of Love

       

A few weeks ago Lucy and I received a complimentary baby-wearing photo shoot from a friend who is starting up a photography business in Fairbanks. She shot many great photos. These are a few of my favorites. We lucked out and had a sunny day for the shoot!

We've actually had a sunny week which has brightened our days and reminded us that summer is still here. Lucy and I have been spending a lot of solo time together without Matt as he is working nights on a spec cabin. We missed him for dinner five nights this past week. We have visited with friends and enjoyed our usual quality time together. Here are some photos from the week.

Lucy got into box of bandaids while we drove to our friends' house the other day. She put a total of 8 bandaids on her legs and feet and with quite the precision!

This looks like a bridge but Lucy and Kaelin are hopping around on a trailer holding mushrooms that they found. It is pretty hard to get good photos of both these girls as they are always moving around excited when together.

Lucy and Kaelin eating broccoli out of Kaelin's grandma's garden. They ate quite a lot of side shoots !

Lucy picked her own bouquet of flowers the other day and arranged them while I worked on mine. The only thing I did to help was give her a vase. She filled it with water, broke off the extra stems, and arranged the flowers. She was right in the sun and squinting when I tried to get her photo but I love this one anyway.

Right before our mama and Lucy dinner. Happy about our centerpieces. 

Lucy showing me how delicious the first large ripe tomato from our greenhouse tastes. I found her on the steps eating it while I ran down to the garden to get some rosemary.

Sometimes Lucy's expressions just cannot be beat. By the way, Lucy has eaten about 80% of the ripe cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse so far. I think the tradition may continue with the big ones! I don't mind at all, however, I will have to try to protect my precious brandywine tomatoes we can all enjoy their flavor together.

We made fresh pizza dough and then toppings together. Lucy is using the ulu with confidence to chop some garlic for our fresh pesto. I had her put her opposite hand on her wrist so she wouldn't get hurt. The colander of basil next to her was all harvested by Lucy as well. She pulled all the leaves off the stems for me. My little helper!

I was going to simply take her photo with the fresh pesto but she snuck a bite right in front of me.  After her taste she said "Little bit hot". I explained that was the fresh raw garlic. She answered with "Tastes good mama!".

The Good Eater

Kasvinsky-raised chicken, cauliflower and broccoli from our garden, quinoa, and sweet potatoes.

Lucy loves to eat the food we give her. I've never made her "kid" food. This makes a mama who loves to cook and eat well feel quite satisfied. On the second day we went to the fair, Lucy asked for broccoli to eat. We couldn't find any so I made up for it for dinner last night. We also ate delicious purple cauliflower! She asked for seconds of sweet potato and broccoli after eating this entire plate.

Pasta Pasta!

One feels a certain sense of accomplishment when fresh pasta is made successfully with the help of a 2-year-old! Lucy helped me make the dough as well. She kneaded her own little ball of dough which she kept patting into a flat disk and calling it "Canute's bed"... I love the connections this girl makes.

Lucy showing dada the pasta dough.

Excited to be cranking the handle with mama.

I had a master flour sprinkler helping me...this was her favorite part.

Well, eating it raw sure was fun too. 

A Smaller Friend

Our friend Inari and her daughter Saana (16 months old), who now live in Juneau, were in town and came up for a visit. Lucy and Saana played really well together and enjoyed sharing food as well. It almost became a game that they were sharing cantaloupe - it was quite cute.

A Belated Happy Father's Day

Lucy watches Matt make some finishing touches on the stairs made from recycled gym flooring. 

We celebrated Father's Day mostly on Saturday night with a relaxing evening consisting of going out for sushi, an ice cream cone, and playing in the park. Lucy ate potstickers for dinner and loved the dipping sauce most of all.

Sunday brought more work for Matt. He pretty much goes non-stop these days but so lovingly takes the time when he can to include Lucy and tell her what he's doing. If there's one thing Lucy is really into, it's helping her dada with projects and learning about tools. She can't seem to get enough of it!

She's just an interested person in general. Today we worked in the garden together tweaking the drip irrigation that seemed to be loose and had lots of leaks. She went around helping me fix all the connections saying "There, works now" or "All better" or "Drip there". Lucy just rocks our world.

So that's how you do it Dada?

A Birthday Brunch Party for Bug

Salted-caramel chocolate layer cake.

We had an extraordinarily fun day celebrating Lucy's birthday with friends yesterday. Lucy had four friends over (and their parents) and we ate, hung out in the warm sunshine, and chatted for hours and hours. It was perfect. This kids had a great time and there wasn't even one tantrum!

Serving Lucy her plate first.

Our spread minus the home fries.

The birthday girl.

I do believe Lucy liked this cake!

Blowing the first candle out.

Trying to blow out that second candle.

Lucy singed her eyelashes on one of her eyes as she was getting close to blow the candles out.  Here I am checking to make sure she's OK.  It didn't even faze her!

Tired Lucy noshing on some cake.

She's rapidly becoming more awake with every bite.

I just love this view. Happy girl sitting on her tree stump seat carved out by dada.

Our friends :)

Fabulous nursing mamas. Maya has a 3 year old, Keet, and Carrie has a 4 month old, Ana.

Hanging out. Lucy claimed this chair as her own.

A gloriously warm and sunny day on our deck with friends in honor of Lucy.

Lucy also had her 2-year check-up at the doctor's on Friday and she now weighs 22.4 pounds and is 32" tall. I can't believe my two year old is already more than half my own height! 

Friday Family Night

Friday night we had a very relaxing evening together. We went swimming at the pool, went out for pizza (pza-pza) for the first time in a year and a half (due to Lucy's issue with dairy for so long), and then mama got some time in printing at the studio while dada and Lucy watched for a bit.

Lucy was intrigued watching me screenprint. She kept wanting to touch what I was using so we gave her a roll of tape to distract her.

I love Lucy's hairdo here.

The sweet little 19-Month-Old

I am a little late this week in honoring Lucy turning 19-months-old but I sure haven't forgotten! I've just been rather busy since all my time these days is jam-packed with chasing after Lucy, playing games with her, reading to her, feeding her, cooking, cleaning, prepping for teaching, and somehow making as much work as possible for my upcoming show in January. Matt has been so supportive and my time in the studio has doubled this month so I can actually get my printing done.

The day Lucy turned 19 months old Matt took her on their first ski of the season. He created his own "bundle cover" for Lucy to ride in on his back within the backpack. It is an old down coat that he modified. Considering that temperatures have reached -15 at our house, this seems like the perfect creation.

Way to go dada! She looks as snug as a bug...sleepy...but happy.

Lucy's vocabulary has expanded so much recently it is impossible to keep up. Every day she says at least 10 new words. She amazes us. A toddler's memory is simply incredible. Some of my favorite words she says are: acooo (avocado), aht-brow (eyebrow), purple, sa-mn (salmon), and dute (Canute). Recent new words that I can recall from the past week are hand, coffee, beer, snow, stars, sun, knee, spoon, and fork. Lucy has taken to playing with adult-size gloves all the time. I'm talking about work gloves, rubber cleaning gloves, you name it. She puts them on and pushes her cars around, plays with her stuffed animals and even brings them to bed with her. Silly. Lucy is super independent. Today I watched her put on her winter boots by herself for the first time. They were on the wrong feet so I tried to help her fix them. This upset her quite a bit but she got over it and I think she felt more comfortable once they were corrected! They are the first pair of hard-soled shoes/boots she's actually wanted to wear. Her favorite things to do are play with water, as in pouring water from one container to the other, feed the animals and torture them by pouring food from one container to the other, and color or draw. Her favorite foods are salmon, eggs, avocado, fruit/berries, kalamata olives, kamut puffs, white potatoes/sweet potatoes, and meat.