Merry Christmas

Eventually I will give a large discourse on the comings and goings of Christmas, but I think I will wait until the vacation is over and we are settling down again. For now here are a few pictures from Christmas day. Lucy had a ball, mostly because everything was wrapped in her favorite thing...PAPER!

I think this picture makes me laugh and cringe all at the same time. She is standing! But she is so incredibly cute I can hardly believe it sometimes. This was Lucy's Christmas outfit, with a hand made flower by aunt Andrea.

A hat that aunt Andrea made. Sorry, the hats are so cute I just couldn't resist a picture. Plus it is the only picture with both Lucy and I.

And here is Lucy in ANOTHER hat, that is so darn cute. It also includes Jimmy trying to coax a kiss out of our distracted little girl. I think she was staring at paper again.

Merry Christmas! May it be centered on Christ and the importance of families (and maybe a little bit of rest)!

It's not Christmas yet, but we sure are excited!

We are ready

Heck yes, I made this!

gearin' up for vacation

It is our last week here in Lexington before we head to the cold Northeast.  Everyone in this house is happy to get away from school for a while. Lucy is excited to be amongst many people who will entertain her. I am happy to get away from grading. Jimmy is overjoyed (understatement) to be done with another semester of Law school. Needless to say we are ready for a break.

But life has been going well. Lucy and I have been a little under the weather today. I have had a stomach ache most of the day and Lucy actually vomited just before we were planning to go on a walk with one of her church friends. It was sad. She wasn't even terribly crabby, which made it even harder when I had to cancel the playdate. Mean ol' mommy!

Besides a little sickness Lucy is getting to be a very big girl. She has two teeth, she talk/yells constantly, she gets up on all fours (only to fall on her tummy within seconds), she loves bananas, she climbs all over me, and she is insanely cute when she moves her mouth like she is talking but no noises come out (like a bad karate movie).

Gosh she is a cutie!

6 month-er

Yeah, that's right, Lucy is 6 months old, well she was was 6 months last week on the 23rd and now she is technically 6 months and a week old. But today she went to the doctor for her 6 month appointment. She was stuck with three needles and had to drink some syrupy drink (yuck!). She also would not let the doctor do the normal check because she wanted to twist and turn instead. She is so wiggly these days. But we survived the shots, meaning I survived, she just played with the back of my head and sucked her thumb. She looks so darn cute when she sucks her thumb.

So maybe you want to know where this little girl is, size-wise. She weighs 15.4 lbs (45%) 25 1/2 inches long (45%) and 17 inch head size (75%). She is growing, but not as fast as she was before. She is doing fantastic, and the doctor said so. I am convinced that in in a few weeks she will be moving from one side of the room to other, babbling and sucking her thumb at the same time. She is growing up so quickly I can barely believe it sometimes.

Speaking of being a wiggly girl, the other day I came home from teaching and Jimmy told me that Lucy tried to go swimming in the bath tub. She dove for the water and when Jimmy jumped to pull her out she was staring up at him through the water, with her big blue eyes. She didn't cry, she just looked surprised. And when he yanked her out she sputtered and then smiled. I think she is going to be a swimmer.

We love her.

Thankful

How could I not be thankful for these people. They are adorable...both of them!

we've crossed the threshold

I guess when I think something enough it is bound to come true.

Yesterday morning Lucy woke up around 6:30am and I reluctantly went to get her up. Her night sleeping habits are so difficult these days. She wakes up at least once, but it is normally 2 or 3 times a night. I used to think that maybe she was still hungry. But lately, if we let her whine for a few minutes or if we go in and turn on her music she will plop her thumb in her mouth and doze off to sleep again.

Well, my friends, after wondering if teething was not the reason for her complex sleeping habits, Lucy decided it was time to give us some evidence as to why she was so restless. She broke her first tooth yesterday. It is her bottom left front tooth and it is razor sharp. I mentioned in my last post that she likes to eat our faces, I mean really gnaw on our cheeks. Needless to say that is not a safe activity anymore. I am afraid I may be missing pieces of my face if I let her near my face, now that she has some new hardware.

And now we begin a new chapter of Lucy -- biting, but with severe consequences (for me mostly..). I am afraid she will be very good at it, seeing as how, even her toothless mouth sometimes hurt significantly. We will have to work on it...

But at least I feel like talking about her teething wasn't lying or something that seemed like an excuse for my non-compliant sleeper. We love her, and hope that breaking this first one will help ease her back into a good sleeping schedule. But goodness gracious, who really knows...

Sometimes I forget to write

I realized the other day that I count posting as putting up pictures. But for those of you who really want to know about our lives, I probably should be a little more descriptive and maybe write a word or two sometime.

We have been doing well here in the state of Virginia. About 2 weeks ago, it dawned on Jimmy that the semester was actually coming to a close. He only has a few weeks left, and if you know anything about law school you know those weeks are the hardest. It is when all those ugly finals come and rear their mighty heads to belittle what most think they know. Jimmy seems in better spirits than previous semesters. As he would say, it is because he doesn't care as much. I think it is because he is not as bothered by not being in the top 10% of the class. Maybe it is the same thing.

He is also quite involved in the mock trial competitions. Today he is "arguing" in court about a mock murder case. He LOVES it! In fact he says that he has to pull himself away from preparations for this case to do his actual course work. Do you know how great that it?! Last year he threatened, almost daily, to be done with the law school thing. And there were times I wanted to give up with him. But now he is actually enjoying something about the law school experience. Sure, it has nothing to do with the classes, but thank goodness it is something to do with law. He will actually like what he wants to do in the end. Hallelujah!

Lucy is in that transition phase between being a blob on the floor to a scooting/crawling monster. I must admit, something I try to help her learn to sit on her knees and propel forward. I am sure I will regret it later. Especially when she is eating something disgusting out the trash. But by darn it is adorable to see her try to reach for things that are just far enough away that she has to scoot forward. She doesn't quite move, but I know we are within weeks of having to seriously consider and implement baby proofing. She does sit up quite independently. Although if she is a little too excited she will fling herself forward which has introduced a few bruises to her face.

Still no teeth, but sometimes I think she is just about to rupture with 2 or 3. She gnaws on EVERYTHING, including my face. One can only hope this teething phase will end, so she can get back into a "normal" sleeping schedule. We have had a few 8-9 hour stretches of sleep, but they are not consistent. Someday I will get a full night of sleep.

Everything on my end is going fine. I am finishing up the semester without much trouble. My classes are quite manageable. Next semester I have opted to only teach one night class (unless they really need me for a second) and the one day class Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

I am "training" for a thanksgiving run. It has given me just enough motivation to run a little more frequently. Plus, Lucy really enjoys being outside and tolerates the stroller a lot more than she used to. There only a few weeks left of this nice weather, I must take advantage of it when I can.

Next weekend we head up to New England. Everyone in our family is excited. Good food, good company, and a little break from the norm. It should give us just the amount of energy needed to finish the semester.

Some more good ones

Today we got the rest of the pictures from our photoshoot. They came out pretty awesome. I wanted to show off a few more good ones.

Smiles and such...

Just so you can relate to our astonishment of just how much she has grown, here are a few videos of Lucy giggling and smiling and doing all sorts of big girl things....including trying to eat the camera at the end of the second video. My favorite is the growl as she pulls it to her face. Enjoy.

Happy cuteness day!

Here are our costumes. Did you figure it out? Jimmy and I are chefs and Lucy is Remy from the Disney movie Ratatouille. We thought it would be appropriate given our love for cooking and Disney movies. And turns out, it is not that difficult to sew a rat-looking costume. And now Lucy has an apron to cook with. I bet we paid about $5.00 for her costume, and we still have a lot of fabric leftover. She sure is a cute little rat!

what we have been up to...without many words

 Lucy likes to sit outside...

 And she likes her spoon...mostly to chew on.

Ahhh happiness

 Tummy time is becoming more frequent

 Sometimes Lucy likes to play in her sleep. She is good at multi-tasking.

 Does this scare anyone else?!

And the halloween preview. I will give you a guess, it is from a Disney movie that includes one of our favorite past times. It is not perfectly accurate, but it is pretty darn cute.