First time hitting the slopes!

Hmm...I have a bit of updating to do regarding our galavanting over the last couple of months and that will happen in another post. Our move to VT has gone very well and we are so happy to be here together. It's been wonderful being close to our families.

Today Matt took Lucy to Bolton Valley Ski Resort for her first time downhill skiing. It was a great success! Lucy had a blast and smiled the whole time until she had to stop skiing because her legs were tired...but she didn't really want to stop so she cried and then plopped down on the ground.

Lucy loved being on the chair lift.

The skiers.

Homemade chocolate chip cookie snack on the slopes.

Lucy did so well skiing but mot importantly she had fun and wants to do it again! Little kids are such naturals. If only all of us can have that balance back again.

Doo-Wap-Doop!

Last night at dinner Lucy was singing away as she usually does but this time she made up a song that she sang over and over. Matt asked her if he could record it and she said "Yeah!"

And then she was interviewed but Matt's phone ran out of space so it got cut off.



Her responses to his first two questions are "about 7 weeks ago" and "This winter".

Lucy has so many fabulous personality traits at 2 1/2 and I am going to try to jot a few things down though it is impossible to remember all the wonderful things that come out of her mouth.

One of her favorite activities is wrapping up all her animals and her doll, Baka, in her own clothes and blankets and making them nests. She also builds "beds" out of her legos and little hand towels. While doing this you can hear her saying "Aw, it's OK Baka, it's OK, you're alright," over and over.  If only I could put a mini mic on her and record her every word because she goes on and on with words and stories about so may things to herself and her toys. It's really great.

Last night Lucy learned how to do a somersault, or as she calls the "summer-castles." This was right before Matt came home from work so when he walked in the door he had to "flip-over", as she called it, with her. She was SO excited and we had a hard time getting her to the dinner table. Needless to say his neck hurt late last night.

Lucy is stubborn and very independent. Neither Matt or I know where this comes from! For instance, we always hear "Let me do it!!!" with a strained shrieking voice or a more subtle shaking of the hands and head (like she is shivering) while watching us do something that she wants to do very badly. Every day at least several times this happens: I tell Lucy not to do something because it is not safe. Her response "It IS safe." I remind her it is not. She says "I don't want you to talk!" with a quivering voice. Usually we can just drop it there but I have to admit, it is pretty amusing. She's the contrarian about everything. "Lucy, I am going to eat some food because I am hungry," I say. "You're NOT hungry, mama, you're not!" she replies. You can apply this response to most anything during the day for us. I like to say she is passionate!

Lucy is also very very sweet. She shares all her food and water with us. She offers us both her sippy cup from the window sill in the morning. She gives tremendously loving hugs, kisses, bonks, nose rubs, and butterfly kisses multiple times a day. Her crinkle-nose smile is truly the best thing I have ever seen. We'll keep her!

The Little Farmer

Every single day Lucy goes to the garden with me to pick carrots while I tend to vegetables and harvest others. She usually picks about 4 or 5. Sometimes she'll keep going and I have to distract her so she doesn't pick them all. Sometimes she also picks beets. It's such an adorable activity to watch as she picks them and knocks the dirt off on the side of the garden bed, and then goes to sit on our stairs to take the greens off for the chickens. I never direct her. She does this all on her own and enjoys it after watching me do it one day and lending her tiny hand. It's so wonderful having a little helper around here, especially a super cute one.

Lucy Runs

This video just completely captures Lucy's energy and chit-chattiness. I love it. Lucy woke up really early last weekend and I was just exhausted so Matt whisked her out of our bedroom while I slept, put some clothes on her and took her for a walk down the road...barefoot and all. Apparently, she was actually taking her dada on a walk. At the end of the video she says she is smelling the grass like Canute.  

Lucy Grooves to Dim Dim's Music

Lucy greeted her dada with a little dancing gig when he just walked in the door after getting home from work. She is always so so excited to see him. She agreed to shoot a video with him and danced some more!

Snapshots of our days

Lucy gives me so many hugs and kisses when I carry her this way. We vacuumed the whole house together just prior to this shot.  A good workout for me!

I've been so busy having fun with Lucy spending time outdoors for the majority of our days that I haven't been on the computer much this month. Here is an overview of some activities from the last few weeks. We're so happy the sun has been out and winter coats are put away for good! The snow you see in the first photos is long gone and the roads are dry. Seeing as it is Mother's Day it is so wonderful to reflect on all the photos I recently took of our little Lucy. It was hard to choose which ones to post.

The evening after Lucy's birthday party last month we went for a wet walk. She was so excited about her new gardening bag from Keet.

Dada ended up carrying the new garden bag for most of the walk.

We just added water to the dried peat to start sowing some seeds that Lucy received in her gardening bag from Keet for her birthday.

Very excited to plant some seeds.

Simply happy.

Adding sunflower seeds to the wet soil in excitement.  I helped her move them to the pots.

Lucy amuses herself while I cook dinner. Looking good!

Lucy and I transplanted vegetable seedlings at the kitchen table. She is always so focused and interested.

She was supplied with her own water, soil, a spoon, and dried chickpeas so I could get my work done.

The aftermath of the two-year-old's gardening project area. It was worth the mess. You should've seen the floor!

Lucy found dada's hat and wore it outside to get chicken eggs with me one day.  She didn't want to take it off until we ate dinner. This water spray bottle is one of her favorite toys.

Testing out our new 6-person tent for our trip to McCarthy with Grandma Nono.  Lucy LOVES being in a tent.

Lucy wanted to make a nest in the laundry basket one afternoon right after lunch. It's too bad she wouldn't just nap there...I would!

Wide open grass to run and run and run! We met Matt at Creamer's field for lunch on Wednesday.

Hanging out with "wolfy" in her arms. Enjoying the beautiful day and open space.

Lucy and Beckett (he's about 15 months old) who came over to play this week...I am amused that they are similar in size. Lucy is such a peanut!

Lucy's First Art Installations

Lucy has been creating window art lately. First, she created some drawings using a cheese stick on our sliding doors out to our deck. I never knew one could obtain such fine lines using cheese! She titled two of them "Big Rock" and "Little Rock".

Next, she has taken to using these Wikki Stix things that we had bought for our trip on the airplane in February. They stick to one another so you can make objects out of them. Lucy found another use for them...and you can hear her working really hard at it too.

Is it surprising that both of these window art projects occurred within one week of Matt doing a major window-cleaning for the first time in a long while? Ha ha.

The birthday girl!

Lucy turns two today! 

What a perfect age to be. 

It has been more fun than we ever could have imagined...our time with Lucy so far has been incredible and our days are forever brightened by her perfect little presence. Our little crinkly-nosed daughter is as happy as can be and we couldn't feel more fulfilled.

More milk please.

Well, it's no wonder Lucy loves breastfeeding so much!
Apparently my milk tastes like maple syrup.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Last weekend we went up the road to search for our early Christmas tree for this year. Since we won't be home for the holidays we thought it would still be fun and cheery to have a tree in the house for all of us to enjoy.

Lucy is amazed by the tree every day and loves all the ball ornaments especially, which are glass of course! She enjoyed helping us decorate the tree.

Lucy staring the tree the next morning....

...and then learning she can hide behind it!

Lucy and I enjoyed cooking together twice this past week. They are the first two times that I have given her her own bowl with ingredients or dough, for example, to make something with. She cut out her own little biscuits the other day!

Rock Star Lucy

What goes on while mama is away in the evening teaching and working in the studio...

Hanging out with Dada

Lucy has been spending a lot of time with her dada the last couple of weeks because mama has been in the studio so much to prepare for her show. He's shot some great videos and I am sharing two of my favorites:

Lucy's Evening Walk with Dada

Each of these videos that Matt shot during their walk a couple of nights ago are so cute in their own way so I thought I would post all three! Be sure to have your volume up so you can hear her adorable breathing sounds and sweet excitement babbles. They are finally caught on camera. I thought those both near and far would enjoy seeing her cruising around some more.

I shot this video of Lucy showcasing one of her new moves in dancing...spinning in circles and holding an onion bag, of course!

The Party Girl

We got dressed up and headed to a friend's wedding last night. It was a great time and we definitely know for sure that Lucy is NOT a shy toddler. She partied the entire time, dancing, exploring, and climbing around...getting into everything.

Matt and I took turns following her around all night! She never stopped except at the big bin full of ice and drinks. Water is always a good distraction.

Lucy and Siobhan play with ice.

We had a really good time. Many good friends were there as well as their kids. It was nice to be able to see so many of them in one spot and let our kids romp around together.

Keet and Lucy at the outdoor changing area.

Lucy has a real love for music and she digs a live band.

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.

Family Weekend in Talkeetna and Denali

Matt and I decided to take a drive down to Talkeetna for the weekend to celebrate Lucy's first year with us. We had really beautiful sunny weather all weekend so the drive was great.

We spent Saturday afternoon walking around Talkeetna, checking out the Susitna River and settling on dinner at Wildflower Cafe. Matt indulged in some Kodiak sea scallops. I opted for the Misty Farms organic beef burger and fries over any of the entrees in order to avoid the inevitable inclusion of butter and cream. Lucy tummy still doesn't agree with dairy. She happily ate a few bites of spring pea soup that Matt and I both ate for an appetizer.

Sunday afternoon we decided on a ski on the frozen Savage River in Denali - a perfect choice because the sun was shining warmth down on us and the skies were clear. Mount Deborah was even out for us to enjoy and Matt says this is a rarity.

We skied over both ice and snow, passing babbling water holes that were exposed from the recent days of warm weather. Lucy wanted a mid-ski snack in the middle of the park so we took a break and soaked up the rays.

Then we let her crawl around for a bit since she'd spent the day in the car seat and riding on Matt in the Ergo during our ski. She cried when we picked her up to get going back to the car! I was happy to be skijoring with Canute for the first time ever. He was really gentle with me and we had a fabulous time!

At some point during the drive either to or from Talkeetna we took a long break to feed Lucy and she got really into checking out the truck's gadgets. I shot a little video of her interactions with the windshield wipers.

As I write this post I think about one year ago tonight, when 15 minutes from now, I officially began my labor for Lucy's birth. It's such a sweet time to remember even though I had a very intense and rough labor that last more than a day! She is now sleeping in bed, resting up for her first birthday, it is a very special night.