Happy 15 Months to Lucy!

Our little Lucy is growing so fast and bringing so much happiness to us every day!

Lucy weighs in at 18.6 pounds and she is 28 1/4 inches tall.

She knows a good number of words now so I will list as many as I can, including ones I have listed in the past:

mama

dada

baby

ball

bug

fish

peas

keys

leash

dog

peepees

whoa

go

oh

She signs for: milk, more, food, hot, plane, cat and dog. I am sure she'd know more if we actually taught her more! We got lazy I guess.

She eats like a champ now in terms of what she will try. The other night she ate salmon ceviche, she likes leeks, spicy food, refried beans, indian food. She's my daughter for sure!

Lucy has quite a personality but most of all she is very loving. She gives hugs often to all of us, including the pets and the chickens. She really enjoys feeding Matt and I real food with a fork or spoon. She knows where all of her facial features are as well as her belly button, hands, fingers, feet and toes. Lucy loves to sing along to music with adorable "ahs" and humming. She is definitely an explorer and we cannot keep up with her sometimes. She takes us for walks basically. Lucy loves to help out with things such as watering the garden (she holds the hose with me), throwing things in the garbage and putting things away. Every single day brings new things and we soak each one up in enjoyment.

Happy Father's Day!

Lucy is learning things so quickly these days...or perhaps it is more that she finally able to do things that she knew all along but didn't have the motor skills for. She is signing for phrases now such as "more milk", "more food" in addition to "cat". She is working on "all done". She says a couple of words now, pretty well! "Peas", "baby", "bug" and "fish". I think peas is easiest to understand and she doesn't always say words, they do not come easy to her right now.

Last night Lucy ate grilled wasabi/teriyaki salmon, braised mustard greens, and brown rice for dinner! While I was grilling the salmon and wearing her in the Ergo carrier, she looked at me and signed for "more"...which means she wants some. I thought, yeah right. Well, at dinner she had several bites of it along with the sauteed mustard greens. Really? Mustard greens over all the other cooked greens I have offered her and she refused?

Tonight we went to Mike and Jenny's house for a delicious Thai dinner and she enjoyed some yellow veggie curry and rice. We all were entertained as Lucy kept going over to the stereo which was playing music, slightly turning up the volume on it, and bouncing...all the while looking at us to make sure were paying attention and dancing too! She never ceases to amaze us.

I'm officially a toddler!

It's time to play catch-up in the blog now that there are some exciting things to report. Lucy started walking on Friday afternoon! This is great as she's been using Matt and I's fingers to guide and support her for the last few weeks obsessively and we can finally sit back and....not relax...as we watch her stumble, waddle and even attempt running already. Watch out world!

About half an hour before Lucy started walking I gave her a haircut, really her first change in hairstyle, her first "real" haircut. I attempted giving her bangs. I think they came out OK and they have definitely alleviated the constant wispy hairs that were in her eyes when she didn't want to wear a barrette anymore. When Matt came home from work he said he thought it was the magical bangs that made her look so grown up that gave her the courage to walk.

Lucy's friend Kaelin came over last week to play. They are about the same size so her mom, Carrie, and I really enjoy watching them play together. You can see them comparing sippy cups below.

We went to Kaelin's first birthday party yesterday and all Lucy was interested in doing was debuting her newly acquired skill of walking.

She cruised all around the party from room to room and definitely did not act shy! Please note that she STILL sticks her tongue out all the time.

She even found a cool keyboard to play. After she realized the sounds it made, she'd just bounce looking at it because she knew it made music.

We couldn't get her to wear the birthday cap but she loved holding it.

Matt took the last video the evening of the day she started walking. This is her AFTER I tried to put her down for the night. She was way too excited to walk some more to care about going to sleep. She decided it was time to play "steal the bone from Canute" again but this time she walks a bit to change things up.

Lucy now has another bottom tooth - her 7th tooth emerged this past week. She also signs for "more" when eating and breastfeeding now. Books are much more fun to read now and she wants to read the same one over and over. Lucy really wants to speak. We are working on totally random words that she has shown interest in learning by attempting to repeat them when we are speaking. These include: bug, birch, puppy, and baby. She seems to like the b's.

The Teaser

This girl is always on the move! Lucy seems to create her own agility tests and obstacle courses throughout the day.

She started at the end of the ladder and stepped out of one opening and into the next, and so on, going about halfway down before stopping to play with the rope.

Then there is the standing that she experiments with about 5 times an hour. She's definitely proud of herself and she can pretty much stand until she's not ready to anymore. We're just waiting for that first step! It must be near.

Lucy has recently been signing for "more" and eating VERY well. This has been quite noticeable just in the last two days. She now eats 3 tiny meals a day! She saw me take an orange out of the fridge for myself earlier and got so excited because she wanted some too! This was while she was eating bits of scrambled egg.

This game went on for about 30 minutes, back and forth "sharing" of the bone. She cracks me up! Poor Canute.

Playing Outside

We were all hard at work on Friday, enjoying the 50+ temperatures, minus the sun. I cleaned out the perennial bed, the freezer, and did a few other chores while Lucy played nicely with the animals and interesting objects that she discovered along the way. Mud was eaten, small rocks were sampled, and sticks were bitten - all making for a good full afternoon in the life of a toddler!

Saturday morning Lucy was given her first pancake, whole grain of course! Well, she didn't like it at all. She ate strawberries instead.

She offered pieces to dada and then to Canute who ended up eating the whole thing out of her hand. He's learned very fast that he can get good treats from Lucy. She loves feeding him!

She has also been signing for "dog". The baby sign for dog is simply "panting". I was reading a book to Lucy on Friday and when I turned to a page with a dog on it she made the sign! This was pretty cool to see her make the association and not only know to sign for our dog. She really enjoys learning so we've been working on a few more signs.

Then Lucy got to open a gift from Uncle Chris in the mail. It arrived at the perfect time as Lucy has just taken to filling containers and then pulling things out again...the exact idea of this fish bowl! She loved it. The weekend was spent putting lots of things into the bowl and pulling them out, then filling it again.

There was more exploring outside throughout the weekend as the sun was shining and the temperatures felt like summer to us! We watched the snow melt, Lucy crawled around on the wet ground, and Matt baby-proofed the deck. This afternoon I thought Lucy was going to take her first step but she tricked me....soon we think. I also can't help but think what a much better weekend this was than last year's Earth Day weekend when I broke my ankle. There will be many walks each and every day this Springtime to make up for last year! I can even pull out the jogging stroller as soon as the road dries up.

Baby in a Pot!

I was cooking dinner tonight and turned my back to Lucy as she pushed the stock pot across the floor that she loves to play with. This is what I found when I turned my back! She knew she was being silly because she kept posing for the camera. The surprises are endless with little Lucy. She also waves goodbye enthusiastically now as she had stopped that for some time. When saying goodbye myself to Grandma Nancy on the phone this week (whom Matt and I call Nana to Lucy), she waved goodbye herself, unprompted by me. This was a first so clearly she understands a great deal of words!

There are a few random fun things to report. Lucy has been signing for "fan" all this past week. She has begun to sign for "milk" again. She had stopped for awhile and replaced it with squealing, so I prefer this. Also, when asked for a kiss, Lucy leans forward and touches her forehead to yours. Very sweet. She continues to love going up and down and up and down the stairs, then sliding down and testing her limits...ahem.

Food has been fun! She's into salad greens and she actually asks for them. So far she's had raw spinach, lettuce, and arugula. Kiwi was a first today and she was totally into it. Beets, cucumber, celery, and red pepper are some others from this week.

Playtime

This past week Lucy's soft cork floor play area arrived. As you can see, the animals think we bought it for them...not surprising. Anyway, we hope it keeps her from knocking her little head on the concrete floor (as much) while she learns to get around.

We'll see if she actually stays on it because she has been "creeping" around everywhere and surprising us! There is no crawling yet but she slithers across the floor on her belly with ease now in addition to showing us the classic "rocking" which we hear is the precursor to crawling. Uh oh! I will try to get a video of this action soon.

So yesterday we went to town together to buy some little treats for Lucy. We wanted to get her a new toy and we went to our favorite toy store here that has nice wooden toys, Enchanted Forest Toys, to let her actually pick something out. It was really fun! She tested about 10 toys and kept going back to the the one "grabbing toy" that we came home with.

Second, we went to Gulliver's Bookstore to get her some used children's books since we seem to have endless used book credit there from all the books we trade in. We came home with a pile of good ones, including some classics such as "The Snowy Day" and Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhymes. It was a fun day that ended with a bonfire party at a neighbor's house down the street.

Other exciting things that I want to take note of:

Lucy has been signing A LOT for milk. Suddenly she just does it all the time! She also ate some winter squash this week with better results, however, her favorite food remains avocado. She's had a little teeny bite of applesauce and banana as well. Yummy.

Heat Wave

With today's high temperature reaching 91º we decided to meet up with friends again at Chena Lakes and have a day at the beach enjoying the warmth and sunshine while we still have it! Lucy went in the water again, just a little, and spent the rest of her time sitting (assisted) in the sand wiggling her toes and bouncing up and down, loving every minute. We brought along her bouncy seat so she could nap as well. It was a perfect day.

A very exciting thing happened and Lucy made her first "sign" today for milk! We all looked at her with our mouths wide open. So cool. She did it twice so it definitely wasn't just a coincidence. Matt signed for milk asking her if she wanted some because she was fussing a little and she did it back!!! Yes, I want milk...she smiled.