Fun to be One!

Lucy Snow is finally one!

Lucy was so excited on her birthday!  She loved is when we sang to her.  It was a pretty mellow day.  She got muffins for her birthday and all the yogurt she wanted (she loves yogurt).  She kept clapping every time she saw her purple balloons.  Lucy is so full of life and her favorite words are 'dada' and 'hi.'
The weekend before the big birthday day which was June 10th, we threw Lucy a little birthday bash with some of our Morgantown friends.

 The party was at Cooper's Rock state park, one of our very favorite places.  Johnny, Lucy, and I got there a little earlier and did some rock climbing, then started to set up.  My friend helped me to make Lucy's 'smash cake.'  I used a chocolate candy shell to make the base of the cupcake look like the wrapper.  Again, she loved the 'Happy Birthday' song, but only put her hand in the cake for a second and licked some of the ice cream.  She initially circled the cake a couple times curious as to what it was.  We tried to give her a chunk of the cake in hopes she would then devour it....but the actually 'smashing' of the cake was very anti-climatic.

We ate lots of hotdogs and s'mores.  Everyone invited brought food too, so we had a delicious feast.  There was pasta salad, watermelon, cookies, chips, pop, veggies, cupcakes and salad.  The kids loved running around all over the place.  Lucy joined them for a while, but she started eating dirt and twigs and leaves, she had to enjoy the few from riding on her dad's back.  All in all it was a really fun party.  Lucy was all tuckered out afterwards and fell asleep about five minutes into the drive home.

 The next day after the party, we tried giving Lucy the 'smash cake' again.  I think it helped that she was in her high chair and there was not an audience watching her eating.  After several investigatory tastes and squishing a lot of frosting between her fingers, Lucy started to devour the cake.

Harper's Ferry

I have a bucket list of places to visit in and around WV before we leave.  Of course, the infamous Harper's Ferry was on the list.  The beautiful and lush landscape surrounding Harper's Ferry could only mean one thing....camping!  We brought Lucy's pack n' play and put it up in the ten.  She actually fell asleep on the drive to our camping site-Green State National Forest.  She had a smooth transition from the car and slept from 7:30 to 5:30 the next morning!!  I was astounded.   Of course, I kept worrying that she was getting cold or uncomfortable, but Johnny kept re-assuring me, she would let us know if she was.

 Five thirty was a little too early for me, so my darling husband took Lucy on a nature hike, started a fire and made delicious oatmeal for breakfast.  Obviously, five thirty was a little too early for Lucy too because she fell right back asleep once Johnny started hiking.  She looks so comfortable in her carrier.

I finally got up and helped take down camp.  Lucy loved watching us from her playpen.  She really likes nature, especially eating dirt.
I would take her camping again anytime!  I tent was a quite snug with the playpen, but we all stayed really warm.

After packing up camp, we drove onto Harper's Ferry.  Learned all about John Brown's raid.  We discovered Harper's Ferry was used as an artillery during the Revolutionary War by George Washington.  We stopped and at delicious fish n' chips and of course tried the egg custard.  Lucy could not stop pointing at my ice cream cone, motioning for more licks.

After lunch, we ventured out on a gorgeous 5 mile hike.  It was pretty busy all along the path, due to the Memorial Day holiday, but the striking green vegetation surrounding us made up for it.  John pointed out several poison ivy plants and Lucy slept most the the hike.  At the top, the reward was a gorgeous overlook of Harper's Ferry.  All in all a great trip and so fun to be outside and in the sunshine!

Lucy is walking!

Little Ms. Lucy is walking all around.  She started one day before her eleven month birthday.  Lucy is still doing somewhat of a 'zombie' walk, but really starting to understand how walking works. Her favorite thing is when John or I are sitting on the floor-she practically runs to us with her arms open wanting to be swooped up. 
Of course at this age, Lucy is into everything.

Today she climbed up on the dishwasher door and pulled out the top rack of the dishwasher.  Yesterday, she dive bombed off the couch.  She also found some old VHS tapes and pulled out all the tape.  She is full of surprises.

 I found this amazing binkie on-line.  I love that Lucy loves it and I can't help but laugh each time she puts it in her mouth.  She is such a little cutie even with extra large incisors.  Lucy finally started getting a tooth about two weeks ago.  I was getting nervous because normally the first tooth appears between 7 to 10 months.  Leave it to me to stress about my daughter not getting teeth.  Lucy loves to brush her teeth, well mostly suck on her toothbrush while I am brushing my teeth.  She is a dental hygienist in the making.

Baby Lucy is growing...

A lot has happened since January...John and I are trying to decide what medical specialty to pursue.  John has enjoyed third year of medical school immensely.  He likes the rotations being in the hospital.  Granted there are some rotations which have bad hours and crazy schedules, but it is good he gets to experience everything.
I have just been enjoying this stage of Lucy's life.  Each stage has been fun, but since six months she is so much more active.  At about eight and a half months she started crawling.  At first, Lucy would expend a lot more energy moving horizontally, but she eventually made progress moving forward and now is extremely fast.  She can do the stairs in our apartment very quickly and doesn't realize that stopping and trying to sit equals falling.  Lately, she has been trying to stand up on about everything and walk around an entire room.  Lucy no longer enjoys sitting still.

Lucy LOVES her bookshelf.  I let her pull out all the books and she thinks she is very sneaky.  However, usually in the evening I will re-shelf the bookshelf (not sure why I do this because she just pulls them out the next morning).  Lucy also loves cards.  She loves to bend, fold, chew, tear and throw cards.  All in all she is an extremely happy baby with A LOT of energy, but I love that about her.

Lucy has come to enjoy eating as well...for about the first ten minutes.  After that, she gets bored and I have to entertain while trying to feed.  It is a process, but slowly feeding times are getting shorter.  Her favorite food is yogurt.  Our favorite activities together are running and reading.  Lucy is getting extremely fast at flipping the pages and can go through several board books in fifteen minutes.

Thankfully, spring has finally arrived in Morgantown and we are looking forward to days at the park, swimming, outdoor runs and picnics with dad!

Christmas in Utah! (a little belated)

Christmas was a delight in Utah.  Johnny had three entire weeks off of med school so this was our longest stay yet.  It was such a comfort to have Johnny flying with me to help with Lucy.  The first couple days were spent with my family.  Johnny's parents are still serving as the mission President in Ukraine, the L'viv mission.  My parents gave us an early Christmas present of tickets to the play 'Elf' and babysitting of the grandchildren.  We got to go watch the play with all of my siblings, it was a great treat. 
Since John and I don't get to visit Utah much, about twice yearly, we packed our days full of events.  I had my traditional 'Kneaders' breakfast with the Murray girls.  An outing with my two best buds, Mandy and Aubri.  John was in paradise skiing, especially with his brothers.  He and Pete had a couple of great powder days back-country skiing.  John and I had the chance to spend an afternoon skiing together at Alta- thanks to Pete for watching Lucy.  We also did a babysitting swap and were able to go ski at Alta after 3 with Pete, Gena, James, Lindsay, Paul, Kristene and some of the kiddos.  After Christmas was spent with the Lattin clan.  We ate a delicious dinner and had a white elephant gift exchange.  There was a girls lunch to Paradise bakery and lots of games in the evenings.  For New Year's Eve, John and I ventured up to Boise, Idaho, to see the Boettchers.  Amy and I went running together.   We had a morning of Monopoly, hiking, bowling, going to the movies, and eating lots of delicious food.  Amy created an array of appetizers for our New Year's Eve feast.  I got to see little Matthew since it has been over a year since our last meeting.
My sisters and I had a girls night of waxing, pedicures and eating Cafe Rio and lots of icecream.  Lucy had so much fun with her cousin Esther, who is only 10 weeks older.  As always it was sad to say goodbye, but it is true what they say babies thrive on a schedule.  Lucy had been waking about every three hours towards the end of our Utah trip and was ready for her own crib.  Luckily, there were no delays on the trip home and we made it safely back to the 10 degree Morgantown weather. 

Halloween and Turkey Day!

Little Lucy girl was an adorable strawberry for Halloween.  Johnny and I had high hopes of being a family of fruit, but in the end I was a gypsy and John was his typical skier:)  We had a ward 'trunk or treat.'  Lucy was still too small to enjoy the ward carnival, but Johnny and I had a lot of fun decorating and eating sugar cookies.

 On Halloween, we had about five trick or treaters come to our apartment.  Then off to a Halloween party where Lucy did a little trick or treating of her own.

We were so happy to hear that John was going to have Thanksgiving day off and Friday.  John began the day by playing football in the turkey bowl.  I baked a pumpkin pie and fudge for our Thanksgiving feast with friends.  John made a delicious apple pie as well.  We went on a family run to make sure we had plenty of room for our Thanksgiving feast.  Then, off to a good family in our ward, the Mahr's for dinner. 
Friday I did a little shopping and found a couple good deals.  We spent the afternoon decorating the Christmas tree and listening to Josh Grobin's Christmas album.  Saturday we took a day trip to Canaan Valley and hiked to Blackwater Falls.  It was cold and snowy, but luckily Johnny had purchased an incredible warm snowsuit for Lulu.  We ended the day by stopping off at the 'Purple Violin,' a listening to some incredible live bluegrass music while eating cranberry cheesecake.

Lucy's travels

I have been extremely bad at keeping up our blog the last few months.  I will try to re-cap what has been going on.

University of Virginia football stadium

Labor Day weekend, we took Lucy on her first road trip to Charlottsville, Virginia.  It was a four hour drive and she slept the whole way like a champ.  The game was extremely hot and muggy and Lucy was very uncomfortable so we walked around the stadium a couple of times. Then, a lightening warning was issued and the game was delayed about 2 hours.
After the rain, the weather was perfect.  Lucy was snuggled in the Baby Bjourn and was very content.  After seven hours of BYU football (due to the delay) the Cougars ended up losing a game which should have been easily won.

Monticello

The next day, Sunday, was spent touring the home of Thomas Jefferson.  John Hill, one of Johnny's good friends, accompanied us.  Monticello is comprised of lush green gardens and a very intriguing home.  Besides the intense humidity, it was a great day for sight-seeing.  Later in the afternoon, we attended church and ran into a good friend of mine, Jenni.  All in all, a successful trip.


In September I had the opportunity to go home for about 2 1/2 weeks to visit my family in Utah.  Johnny had to stay in West Virginia and keep doing rotations at the hospital.  It was Lucy's first time flying and she did wonderfully.  She mostly slept, but cried a little with the air pressure change.  We had a three hour lay-over in Chicago, which made our travel time almost 7 hours.  Upon arriving to Salt Lake, Lizzy, my sis, picked us up.  Traveling is really hard on children.  There is a two hour time difference between West Virginia so Lucy fell asleep about 6pm and woke up the next morning with a terrible cold. 
Besides her little cold, everyone was excited to meet Ms. Lucy.  My mom was the only one in my family to have met her, so needless to say everyone wanted to hold her. 
We were able to attend my cousins wedding dinner and ceremony the following day.  It was wonderful seeing all my extended family.  Lucy had the chance to meet several of my friends with quite a few lunch dates.
I had made a list of the delicious restaurants I wanted to visit while in Utah.  Zupas was on the list, so I ate there with my Murray girlfriends.  I also had to get Nielson's Frozen yogurt with Aubri.  And of course Cafe Rio was a stop that I needed to make.  Sarah, my sister was recently spin certified, so I had a private spin class with her and Lizzy.

One weekend we headed up to the cabin.  Lucy had her first encounter with snow.  We took she and Esther on a little hike, it was pretty cold, but very beautiful.  Lucy and Esther were bundled and warm.  I miss seeing the beauty of the Rocky Mountains and the fresh, dry, air. 

Lucy and Esther are 10 weeks apart.  It was the first time they met and I think are going to be best friends.  Luckily, for me, I have a sister I adore so our girls with hopefully be just as close.

Lucy, Esther, Sarah, mom, dad and I arrived at the cabin first and played cards.  Once, the rest of the family arrived we ate delicious shish-ca-bobs (spelling), played more games, told stories and laughed a lot.  The cabin was a little chilly, but I had Lucy in about 13 layers of clothing to the point she woke up sweating.  I have been told the paranoia of being a parent wears off with each child.  Poor Lucy has been my little guinea pig. 





Lucy got to meet her great-grandparents in Ogden.  It was a delightful afternoon of just talking and watching our little girls play.

The last weekend in Utah was spend down in St. George.  Lucy and I were so excited to see John because it had been two whole weeks without him.  He rode down with Taylor and Lizzie.  My sister Sarah drove me down.  The following morning at 4am, we caught the buses up Snow Canyon.  The wind at the top of the canyon was biting.  We stood around bonfires waiting for the beginning of the race to happen.  John and Ben took off running about 7 minute miles.  I just wanted to finish the race (since my training was not the best due to just having had a baby). 

I started running 10 minute miles and gradually increased to a 9 minute pace.  Lucy was about 11 weeks old when I ran the race.  Overall, the weather could not have been better, my body cooperated, and it was pretty fun.  My favorite part of running is the race atmosphere.  Runners are so positive and enthusiastic and motivational to other runners.  The idea of seeing Lucy at the finish line kept me going.  I ran it in 4:05 and Johnny did it almost an hour faster with a pace of 3:15.  One day we will qualify for the Boston Marathon, but it felt good just to complete another marathon.  Another great thing about running marathons is the amount of delicious food awaiting you at the finish line.  Also, food is much more satisfying after running such a long and exhausting race.  Cafe Rio had never tasted so good.