you ought to be in pictures

today, we took Luciana to get her picture taken at Portrait Innovations - we got lots of great shots making it difficult to narrow down which ones to get printed. here are a few of our favorites.

ONE!

what a difference a year makes!
happy birthday sweet Luciana :)

Beach Baby

the little bathing beauty


the looch loved getting dirty in the sand


i absolutely adore this photo


the Geese family in front of the Hatteras lighthouse

So we haven't updated the blog in awhile for a couple of different reasons - 1) kai and i both had to do some traveling for our jobs, then we went to New York and then we were at the lovely outerbanks for a week and 2) technical difficulties: our camera has gone on to camera heaven, so unfortunately we have very few photos from our very fun trip to Avon and my lap top is not cooperating so we are currently unable to upload the photos that we do have. I saved a few pics to my work computer, so I am able to post these.
Lucy is doing wonderfully - she took her 1st steps a week ago and is enjoying our membership to the neighborhood pool. We can't believe she is almost a year old!

1st Mother's Day

This post is dedicated to Lauren, Sarah, Heather, and Linda. Happy Mother's Day!!!!!


Looks like Happy Child's Day, too. Lauren and The Looch are sitting outside next to the swing.



I'd like to attribute this picture to her absolute delight in how daddy is swinging her. But, it is actually even better than that. She's delighted that her mom is walking up to join us.


Unfortunately, Kai's legs are too long to even go down this slide. It works out fine for Lauren, though. We rode bikes down to the neighborhood playground while the power was out for the 2nd time this weekend. The night before, we essentially camped out on the backporch playing Yahtzee.


This slide is made out of rollers. Incredibly fun, joy-inducing rollers. Fascinatingly bumpy, noisy, flashy rollers. You gotta check it out.



Prepping for the bike ride. Dad says it fits. Mom isn't so sure. Looch isn't so sure, either. Dad wins. On the ride to the playground (Looch's first real bike ride!), Dad shows how well it fits by constantly reaching back to pick the helmet off of her nose.


On Saturday before Mother's Day, we decided to pick strawberries and head to Jordan Lake. There were no strawberries, but the lake was still there. The babe loved the sand and the water. We first just dangled her above the water. She liked is so much that we had to strip her down, slather on the sunscreen, and dip her in for real.





Tami, Chris, Ashley, and Dallas from Ohio came to visit. We grilled and just hung out. This is a great picture to compare to the college roommate photos that Tami and Lauren have.


CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! I'm standing up! I can't believe it, either! Over the past few weeks, she's gone from being fairly immobile to climbing stairs, walking around holding onto furniture, and being a general pest- but a cute pest. We've had to move things up to higher shelves and think about our other babyproofing needs.


The Screaming Swinger.

Recent Videos

sorry i haven't posted in awhile - to make up for it, here are some fairly recent videos starring Lucy (& various other household members)!

Swinger

Luciana got a new swing this weekend. Daddy did a great job of rigging it up in our backyard.
I know some of these pics are out of focus (since I'm taking them while she is in motion), but I like them anyways - I think they capture how much she likes to swing.

.75 Bday!

Luciana is 9 months old today - in celebration here are 9 random facts about miss lucy

1. She quickly 'creeps' around (a tummy-style crawl), but hasn't fully learned to crawl on her knees yet and doesn't seem all that interested in it - it's amazing how fast she can 'creep' - and like most babies, she seems to have radar for heading towards the most dangerous thing (i.e. electrical cords) in the room
   
2. She loves to stand up (this is probably why she hasn't mastered crawling yet) - she can balance herself very well when holding on to something/someone, and can stand for a few seconds on her own. This past weekend she learned a new trick - standing up in her crib - it's quite the sight & reminded us that we needed to move the mattress to the lowest level, so she can't make an escape
   
3. Her favorite foods are peaches, pears, bananas, cheerios & sweet potatoes, but she has eaten everything we've given her
   
4. She can wave hi, but her hand waves towards herself. She can also clap hands. She likes to do both and bounce up and down when she's happy, which lucky for us is 90% of the time
   
5. We think her 1st real word is "ack" in reference to our beloved pooch, Jack (we call his name often enough that this isn't really a surprise) - she has started to say 'ack' when Jack walks into the room and she almost always squeals with delight when he is around
6. When we pick her up, she's started patting us on the back - it's really cute
7. She loves bath time, which is a good thing, because she also loves to make a mess
8. Recently she has indicated that she wants to feed herself - she insists on grabbing the spoon and putting it in her own mouth - she gets about 1/4 in her mouth & the rest on her face, hair, hands & bib
9. She still has no teeth! her dad is getting 2 teeth later this month - so maybe she's being nice and waiting for him to go 1st ;)....
   

We can't wait to see what's in store over the next few months!