the beauty of ocracoke

the family spent a long Easter weekend on the lovely island of Ocracoke.

we all had an incredible time - Lucy spent many hours happily running on the beach, picking up shells, examining each grain of sand & playing in the surf.

Good Day Sunshine

Lucy putting her baby & herself 'night night' under the living room rug

Ahoy!

Making mud pies = making a major mess

Lucy loves to push George, her baby or Elmo in a stroller. She needs to have her purse with her when she does this.

Now that the weather has (finally!) turned into those gorgeous, sunny days that NC is famous for, Luciana has been spending most of her time outside. A couple of weeks ago, we bought a canoe and took it out on Jordan Lake for the first maiden voyage of the SS Monast. We look forward to many more boat rides this Spring & Summer. We also took a long bike ride this past weekend on the American Tobacco Trail, with a pit stop at a playground. But probably Lucy's favorite thing of all is to play with dirt - she loves getting filthy!

Snowed In

We got a whopping 6 inches of snow in Durham this past weekend - which is a big deal in this part of the country. On Lucy's 1st outing in the snow, she was a little hesitant - this may be because she could barely move as we had her bundled up so tight and even put plastic ziploc bags over her shoes. By her 2nd outing, she was much more into it. Daddy rigged a makeshift sled out of our old recycle bin and a piece of rope and took pulled Lucy down the mini-hills in our neighborhood. Since this town probably only has 1 snow plow, Lucy's school was closed on Monday, so Mommy had the privilege of spending the day with her lovely daughter - in the morning Lucy helped Mommy bake (and eat!) cookies. [pictures are out of order]

Here's a bonus clip of Lucy being pulled down our street:

Jingle Bells

happy holidays!!!

the latest adventures of luciana

Lucy has had a very busy fall. She spent a week in NY visiting Grandma & Poppy while her parents enjoyed a fabulous trip to Switzerland - click here to see pictures


Luciana on the phone with her parents telling us how much fun she was having in NY - we think the separation was harder on her parents than on her

Playing with her Princess table - one of her favorite things to do is to put stuff (sunglasses, brushes, keys, blocks, etc.) into one drawer and then move it all to another drawer and then back again and repeat - she can easily entertain herself moving things back & forth for hours

Grandma & Poppy took Lucy to the Children's Museum on Long Island. Here she is brushing her teeth, which has now become a critical part of her bedtime routine - she loves it.



Playing the organ with Poppy

After NY, Lucy took a trip to Cleveland where she visited with the Kohl family. Here she is playing with Ashley, who is just a couple of months older than her. The two girls were super cute together and now Lucy can say 'Ash-ley'.

On the way from Cleveland back to NC, we stopped in Cairo, West Virginia to spend some time with Kai's Aunt Dinah and to visit Aunt Dinah's awesome shop. We took a walk in the woods to stretch our legs before getting back in the car.



For Thanksgiving, we had a fantastic meal at Auntie Heather & Uncle Jeff's house. Here are Lucy and her cousin Emersyn sitting at the 'kid's table' getting ready to eat - the table & chairs are from Mamaw's house. We took almost 20 pictures - one of the girls was always doing something silly or looking away in 19 of them - this was the best we could get.


and here are some recent photos of Lucy around the house:

helping with the yard work

'cooking' in her kitchen

playing the keyboard & relaxing in her bunny slippers

digging for fossils in Durham's Museum of Life & Science - we recently became members of the museum, since it's such an excellent place for Lucy to play

taking her baby doll for a walk outside


Lucy is almost 17 months old - she loves to play outside and run all over the place. For the most part, she's very good-natured and happy. When she gives one of her parents a kiss, she has to go find the other one to give them a kiss too. and lately she then has to find Baby Doll, Curious George and her dog to give them all kisses as well. She can now say about 40 words, including 'goose', which makes her parents very proud. She started a new daycare after we got back from our trip and had adjusted very well - her nickname there is 'Dancing Queen'. She spends Tuesdays and Thursdays with her beloved Taty and cousin Emersyn. She is a very lucky little girl & we are so thankful to have so many people in our lives who love her as much as we do.


Here's a video of Lucy running around Dinah's shop playing with doggie sweaters

Buh-Bye Summer

There has been a serious lack of posting - mostly due to the fact that we went almost the entire summer without a camera. Even though there are no photos capturing it, we really enjoyed this summer - with many trips to the pool and down the water slide, hours spent playing in the splash water table, bike rides and grilling out. We had a blast in Virginia Beach, where Lucy ran in and out of the surf with her bucket and shovel in tow for hours on end. She really loved the water & playing in the sand.

Lucy has grown a lot this summer - mostly in terms of her belly ;) and not so much in inches - a growth spurt should be around the bend. Her vocabulary has also expanded (in addition to her belly) - her most frequently said words are shoe, sock, buh-bye (said just like it's said in the Saturday Night Live skit with stewardesses), more and book. She went from taking her 1st shaky steps in June to running around with confidence by August. She continues to do well at daycare where they've coined her the 'Gross Motor Wonder'. and her favorite food is blueberries, just like her daddy.

Here are some photos that we got towards the tail end of summer when both grandmothers, kai and i took Lucy to the NC museum of life & science, which she loved, and from our trip Labor Day weekend to Captain & Taty's river house.


The Chase


Lucy enjoyed her 1st kayak ride


Lucy and her cousin Eme 'hugging it out'


Just Jonas and his two nieces


Captain Luciana


Taty and her granddaughters



Lucy going down the slide in the awesome children's section of the museum


Digging for fossils at the new dinosaur trail


She bangs on the drum


Luciana, her mommy & 2 grandma's



and here are a couple of recent videos:

Mad Artist


The Dancing Queen