Winding Down from Whirlwindy Holidays

Well, it's been over a month since I last posted which seems unbelievable. Our little Bean has turned 21 months old in the last week and we are hunkering down in the -20º to -40º weather to reflect on the good times we had visiting friends and family on the east coast. The trip was of course too fast and time with grandparents was too short, but Lucy blossomed during our travels and she returned home an even more confident and sassy almost-2-year-old who makes me laugh more than anyone each and every day. I'll add some fun info on Lucy after all the photos I want to share from our trip...

The Kasvinsky Clan in VT

At Grandpa Jim and Grandma Nancy's house in CT

Enjoying the warmer day outside in CT.

Lucy in the backyard in Litchfield.

Watching the Bantam River with Grandma Nancy 

Lucy's favorite place to be.

Making a sandwich with Grandpa Jim

Already loves to put on her skis!

Working hard in her kitchen.

Cooking away!

Reading a book in her special chair.

Snuggling with Uncle Chris.

Pulling carrots at KidCity in Middletown, CT

Meeting Great Grandpa Sam, 91 years old!

A chilly day outside with Uncle Chris.

Already climbing trees!

Cooking dinner for the guys.

Hanging out with Grandma Lyn and coveting her scarf.

Saying goodbye at the airport in Boston.

At Seattle Art Museum.

So much to look at!

Cruising by the gum wall in Seattle.

OK, so Lucy is pure fun. I am playing catch up so I will have to ramble on...
The little cutie comes up with things every few minutes during the day that just crack me up, amaze me, and make me so proud and lucky to be her mama. Her vocabulary is just sky-rocketing. She's quite the talker now. She says everything now, in her own way, but she gives every word her best shot. She says all the numbers from 1-20 really well and will continue on past that but it gets a little mixed up. On her own, she'll count to 10 perfectly. She also says the alphabet while following along but does know them on her own as she will say the next letter for you as you recite it. She's using the potty and is diaper-less in the house most of the time during the day now. Trips to town and visits to friends houses, excluded...we're not ready for that yet.
One thing she says now that is hilariously cute: "in-there"- she says this all the time, like it is one word. She says it about the bath when she wants to get in, for example: mama, in-there!
Oh, how about size? Lucy is 31 and 1/16" tall (her carpenter dad wanted to make sure I accounted for the 1/16th). I haven't weighed her recently but she is getting heavy to carry on one arm for an extended period of time, that's for sure.
The other day our windows were frosty while I was getting Lucy dressed on the changing table. She made her grrr sound for an airplane and then drew a jig-jagged line back and forth on the window. I asked, "Did you draw an airplane?". "Yep" she said. Now, this has repeated each day. I think it is amazing.
Other favorite Lucy activities: feeding the animals every night, pulling up a chair to help in all kitchen activities, changing Baka's (her bath baby that she named!) diaper and giving her a bath, pulling out the yoga mats to work on with mama or dada, and climbing up the stairs unassisted with ease (and even carrying things in her arms) without using the railings. She's a mighty-might!

20-months and loving it!

Sassy Lucy sits for her 20-month-old holiday photo.

Lucy now weighs 20 pounds, is 30" tall and still has an 18"-round head. 

What can I say? Lucy is AWESOME. We keep thinking..."is she for real"?

Every morning starts with Lucy requesting to listen to music: "ah-bum, ah-bum"...meaning album.

Her favorite album is the Beatles. Favorite song: "She Loves You". She sings the yeah, yeah, yeahs from this song during it and throughout the day whenever she is thinking about her song. Other music she particularly rocks out to (dancing): Primus, The Fresh Prince, and Louis Armstrong.

A new activity is that Lucy likes to decorate Canute with things. He is very tolerant. She tears up pieces of tinfoil and lays them on him. She lays diapers on him while I am folding the laundry. She puts napkins on him. Anything she finds suitable. He just lays there and gets up when he's had enough.

Lucy can count to 6! She did it for the first time today with me and then tonight with Matt, she counted to 4. She can also say the alphabet very well with help along the way. Smarty-pants!

She loves to strike poses all the time and enjoys pushing her limits.

Lucy also thinks the animals love her to practically sit on them throughout the day.

Last week we had a good amount of blowing snow. It was quite a storm. Toward the end we went out and built a snowman. Then Lucy and Matt went for a walk afterward (while I gave the snowman some clothes) and came home to find the decorated snowman. Here is a little video Matt shot when they got home:

Lucy meets the snowman.

Playing in the fresh snow.

Walking in last week's blizzard.

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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Matt and I hosted Thanksgiving again this year for a handful of our friends. We had a really great time and the collaborative effort for the food was tasty indeed. Where's Lucy you might ask? She is running around playing during these photos. I think she lasted about 2 minutes at the dinner table and decided she had other more important things to do.

Lucy had a fun night playing with Keet, now 3, and Cord, now 20 months. She received much attention from everyone, as did all the kids. We really had a lovely evening with everyone!

After dinner, Matt and Lucy hung out at the dessert table together while Lucy washed up in his water glass. She dipped her hand in his glass over and over and then rubbed it on her face and hair. Silly girl! Her latest discovery is that she can smear food into her hair, maybe this interest in washing herself will help this issue?

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.

Rock Star Lucy

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

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.

Happy Birthday Dada!

Happy 43rd birthday to Matt!

At first Lucy appears uninterested in the cake, or perhaps just mesmerized by the candle. Notice Matt got a 1-year-old candle for his cake!

Then, Lucy suddenyl realized she has a chance to blow out a candle...

...stick her finger in some chocolate frosting...

...and eat it too! Yum.

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: