The Johnny Cash Sing-along!

Change! That! Diaper!

Here is Lucy trying to copy Mommy's silly talking!

Lucy's Cruising!

What have I done?!?!?!?

Well, we all know that because of the ice and snow, Andrew has been taking my car to work because it has 4WD. I'm totally fine with this- I really have no plans and would just be out spending money if I had my car. Lucy and I are having a blast cleaning the house and organizing. 10 months after having her, I'm finally nesting!

Well, I've been far too ambitious, because today is a big snow day. We're supposed to get about 8 inches, and I have NOTHING left to clean! What was I thinking?!?! What do I have left that could use my attention?

• Bedroom closets - I'm sure there's something in there that could stand some help.
• Dressers- I know everything needs to be refolded, and I still have laundry from Sunday in piles.
• Office closet - needs the most attention, but Andrew requested I set aside an entire day.
• Scrub the shower- that's a definite.
• Vacuum office and bedroom. I vacuum the office every other day, but I could make it an every day kind of thing at this point.
• Clean out fridge - but I should really do that tonight so that I can put the bad food outside right away with tomorrow's trash.

I guess I do have things left to clean...especially my daughter, who is happily mashing chunks of banana into her sleeper. She's STILL sick and stuffy, but I'm thinking that maybe this cold is hanging on because of her probably teething. I loaded her up with ibuprofen, teething tablets and orajel when she woke up, so I'm hoping that by keep a little bit of pain reliever in her for the day, we can have a less cranky day than yesterday.

Well, it's time for the first bath of the day!

j

Tuesday Teething

I think she's finally teething! Oh my goodness was she fussy today! I did, however, get to clean the house top to bottom. I've completely run out of things to clean. 

Let's see...lots happening here. Lucy is keeping us very, very busy with her constant movement and almost-toddler love for breaking things. Today was typical. She ate a feather, a small piece of cardboard and some stale pancake from the floor. She slammed her hand in various places three times and watched 10 minutes of a Lifetime movie. She managed to pour her water out of her sippy cup and left a big puddle on the kitchen floor, so I walked around with a wet sock for two hours. She also licked the toilet tank. All in all, a very successful day. 

I got a wonderful surprise when Andrew got home. He brought me a gift from Bath and Body works! Hooray! I can't wait to use it all! He also mentioned taking Lucy off my hands for awhile on Saturday, so I'm very excited about that. He has been incredibly busy lately and is still managing to make things happen around here. I appreciate that a lot!

Pancake Tuesday

Well folks, Lucy will be 10 months old next week! Where did the year go? She's such a joy, and we have a blast with her. Here is a picture of her playing with Aunt Suz. She insisted on wearing two hats for the evening, and wore them right through dinner. She was so pleased that she thought of wearing them at the same time!

Lucy is having pancakes and milk for breakfast so I thought I'd take a minute to get some pictures up of our quiet morning. Andrew took the Escape to work this morning, so Lucy and I are going to be in the house for the most part. We do need to head to the Post Office to mail a couple of things, but that's the extent of our day! I hope to catch up on a little sleep, since we didn't get to bed until midnight last night. Ugh. I watched a movie until 11, and then we got working on the computer together. Tonight we're hoping to get to bed by 9 to REALLY catch up on our Z's.

Lucy's newest "trick" is singing along to Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." I'll have to post a video later. This kid is so funny.

I really need to take a shower...

...Lucy is napping and I should really take a shower before she wakes up, but I'm having fun playing with the new computer. It's hard to play around and get lost in it when Lucy's pulling on my leg. 

We don't really have any plans today. We're going to Goodwill and Walmart. Since I'm going to have Suz with me, I guess I should really pack up even MORE for Goodwill so that I can get rid of some stuff! Maybe Lucy and I will go through our "closet" after she wakes up. 

My iMac email isn't working and I don't know why. I'll have to have Andrew fix it when he gets home. He's been a little stressed out lately, but I think he'll pull through. 

Well, off to the shower, since I have NOTHING useful to blog about. 

BIG HAPPENINGS!

Well, after a week with serious illness and a lot of napping together, I think Lucy and I are starting to get a little better. I took her to the doctor yesterday and she is fine, and she gained a whole POUND! Wooooo! Here she is falling asleep in the middle of lunch the other day. SO cute!

Yesterday morning, Andrew really didn't want to leave his sick baby! He and Lucy took an extra long time to say goodbye before he was out the door.

Somebody was still a little sleepy!

She sure loves her daddy!

Lucy waving goodbye, thinking she's heading to work with Dad.

Lucy and Mama taking a little siesta.

This morning, we all piled in the car for a trip to Pittsburgh! Yay!

Yuck! Steeler country!

I liked this.

A snowy lion!

Two bridges.

A gorilla!

The REAL reason we went to Pittsburgh! Our gorgeous new iMac!

Andrew loving on the new computer.

Me and the Mac.

Being silly.

It's truly an amazing computer! We love it already!

A muttering, blubbering version of my former self.

Lucy is going to drive me over the edge. Mommy is about ready to snap.

You know those moms who always have that crazed "I have no idea what's going on" look? That's me. Lucy got up at 5:30. I gave her a bottle and stumbled back to bed. She got up at 6:30 and wanted breakfast at 7:15. I gave her a blueberry waffle. Not good enough. It wasn't a muffin. All this child wants is muffins, and she knows I have blueberry muffins in the fridge. But they're incredibly messy and I refuse to start my day with those crumbly, nasty things.
So she's inspecting each piece of waffle, just to make sure it's not a piece of muffin, and then winging it across the kitchen. As she does this, she screams to remind me that I've done her a terrible injustice serving her anything but muffins.
I finally got her out of her highchair and cleaned up the waffle pieces, and now she's standing next to me whining like a cocker spaniel who needs to potty. I think it's the cabin fever getting to her. I'm going to take her on a bus ride today so that she can enjoy looking out the big windows. Maybe we'll see if Aunt Suz can go. This means I will need $2 for bus fare. Ugh. I have no idea where I'm going to find $2. I'm going to have to go to the bank to withdraw $2. Maybe I'll withdraw a whole $20 and go on a shopping spree. Wild woman, right here!
Well, I have to go. Lucy is starting to chew through the linoleum.

Good Night!

Well, last night went swimmingly, and that was going to be the true test of how Lucy recovered from her very long weekend. She hopped into bed at 7:30pm and slept 100% uninterrupted until 5am, at which time I gave her a bottle and she dozed until 6:30. Good girl!
She just finished a big breakfast of bananas, blueberry waffles and grape juice and is cruising around the house, babbling at top volume. Her newest thing is to "talk" to me using variations of the word "Yeah." If I ask her a question she'll answer, "Yeah! Yeah yeah yeeeeeahhhhh, yeah yeah yeahyeahyeah yeah yeah...yeahyeahyeaaaaahhhhhh!" It's very cute. She gestures to various items around the house and says, "Yeah!" I think she's trying to name them for me. She's also really loving her little walking toy. I have a video I'll put up at naptime. She can really get around with that thing, and now she's learning to turn corners, so we have to keep her securely locked in the living room or she'll head into the office or the kitched and create a lot of problems.
Lucy is still sick, but her nose is running like crazy, so it looks like this is going to be a quick bug. We both woke up feeling awful yesterday and had a lazy sick day, but we both woke up feeling a lot better today, so I'm hoping we're over the worst of it. I had to go after Lucy with the blue snot sucker this morning, and she had a serious fit. She screamed her little head off!
Andrew is still in bed this morning. He said he hurts "from nose to toes" and is going in late. So I emailed his administrative assistant to let her know that he'll be in a little later than usual. It's snowing anyway- who wants to go out in that? Ick.
Well, I'm going to read the news before her highness realizes I'm enjoying myself without her.

Sick little Cookie!

We made it back!

I'll bet no one knew we were even gone! We went downstate Friday night to participate in Lilly's baptism weekend festivities. We spent most of Saturday working on the cake, which turned out beeeeeeyoooooooooteeeeeeful! Andrew and I were going to go out on Saturday night, but fell asleep at 9:30, which turned out to be a very good thing because Lucy ended up having a sick night and was up all night wanting to be held and walked. That was fine- we just traded off and tried to nap through it. She had a GREAT day on Sunday and made it through breakfast out, Mass, Lil's baptism, the reception and a family dinner without a substantial nap. She snoozed all the way home and hopped right into bed after the 2.5 hour drive. She didn't wake up until 3:30, when we did give her a bottle, since she really didn't get one before bed. She got up again at 5:30 and Andrew rescued me by handling that and let me sleep til 7. Nice boy! Today we have NO plans! I think we have one item on our list, and that's buying milk. Soooo...we're looking good!

The baptism was beautiful, even though poor Lillykins was sick and cranky. She was a champ, and now she's going to Heaven! Yay Lilly! It was a lot of fun. I have lots of pics, but I'm not posting anything until I send them all to Nina. My camera is charging right now, so I'll send them this afternoon.

Lucy just went down for a nap without a peep. With any luck we'll ease right back into our regular schedule. Weekends away are always a little rough on her, and I know she gets a little freaked when we disrupt our family of three quiet routine. The most excitement she gets is when Aunt Suz comes over to stir things up or when Uncle Brian and Aunt Clarissa see her, so going downstate always tends to make her a little dizzy. She always handles it so well, but I always feel a little sorry for her getting all confused.

And for the record, she was definitely sick on Saturday, because Mommy is now hefting a giant head cold around and feels like poopy. Ugh. I woke up and my throat was on fire, and my ears are killing me. At least we know she actually sick and wasn't playing the "but I'm away from my bed" routine!

Well, I'm going to lie down. It's my big stay-at-home-mom luxury. Normally I'd be cleaning right now, but we cleaned this place top to bottom before we left on Friday! It was so nice to come home to a spic-and-span apartment!

Lucy enjoying a little hip-hop.

And we thought she was too Irish to love T-Pain!

The Great Beyonce Discovery!

Lucy rubs her arms and Andrew & Laura think that she is "washing her hands and arms"... [[Introduction to "The Great Beyonce Discovery on Valentine's Day 2008]]



The Great Beyonce Discovery of Valentine's Day 2008!!!!! Laura discovers that Lucy is actually dancing to "Crazy" by Beyonce! [[Great Beyonce Discovery Part I]]



Now that we know what she's doing, here it is, just one more time!

Quick Update

We had three VERY successful nights of excellent sleep. Last night (night #4) was great and Lucy didn't make a peep until 5:30 am. Then she roared to life, screaming and wailing. We think it was nightmare, because it took almost an hour to calm her down. She sure didn't want to go down for her morning nap, but she did it pretty quickly regardless.

Let's see....updates:

• A giant rock hit our windshield and we filed a claim, and will be finding out tomorrow whether or not we need a new windshield. Of course, we haven't been outside since hte temp drop last night, so we may have the answer when we leave for church.
• I had a bra fitting. Imagine my surprise when I found out my post breast-feeding size is a 38D. Holy Moly! Needless to say, I bought new bras. And here I thought I was a B...
• We watched Sleeping With The Enemy last night. That movie gets me every time.
• Today we're going to Church, and then we're going to the Lang's to visit. They haven't seen Lucy in awhile, so I know we'll have lots of fun.

Ok, well, sleep when the baby sleeps, as they say. I'm going to try to snooze with hubbykins while the imp naps.

Lucy's Lenten Sacrifice

Well, we quit cold turkey last night. It was ROUGH, but really successful! I make the decision to let her cry when she woke up, but to go in if she couldn't settle down within 10 minutes. We haven't used the monitor in a week- I can hear her and wake up if she "really" needs me. She woke me up about 4 times, but may have been fussing a little more- I really only heard the "good ones." I only had to come in once, because she really only got worked up at 2:30 when she REALLY wanted a bottle. I put her back down and she was out within about 10 seconds. She slept a BIG stretch from 2:30-6.
Down at 6:45
Up at 8:30- I had to put her back down on this one.
Fussed at 11:30
Fussed at 1ish
Up at 2:30- Had to put her back down, out in 10 seconds after Mommy's assist.
Up for good at 6.
YAY LUCY! Jesus loves you!

And not ONLY that, but we just woke up from a 1.5 hour nap- in our own beds! What a nice Thursday!

Repent!

It's Ash Wednesday, y'all! Lucy and I got out the door at 7am this morning, so that we could sneak over to the Princess for a pancake breakfast before Mass. Lucy loves pancakes and we had lots of fun being silly together. I think we're going to make that our Holy Day tradition.

Lucy with her ashes! This time last year, she was flipping around inside me! Lucy loved Mass this morning, and had the whole congregation laughing with her nonstop singing. Once that organ started, she was howling at the top of her lungs. Just full of the Holy Spirit, I guess!

I'm trying to convince her to give up night feedings for Lent. It's what Jesus would want.

She sings!

Look What Lucy Can Do!

Once Again...

...things are put into perspective. Here I'm whining about Lucy, who can't stand to see me leave the room. She just wails and screams until I pick her up. It's very aggravating.

I finally got her down for a nap and I'm sitting here sewing and watching Regis and Kelly. They started to read a story about a family who is still trying to come through a horrible tragedy.

"Dear Regis and Kelly, my name is Kim, and I'm writing on behalf of Kacy Hardenbrook and Jordan Edsall, they got engaged last Valentine's Day and were planning to get married, unfortunately, their plans for a beautiful wedding came to a crashing halt when their tragedy occurred on August 20th 2007," states a letter addressed to the famous morning show. An explosion at the home of Hardenbrook's mother, Deb, left Kacy, and her two young daughters fighting for their lives with third degree burns covering their bodies. "Due to the severity of the burns, none of the three girls look the way they used to. They've been in and out of hospitals for the last few months, traveling every week to Cincinatti to visit 2-year old Hanna, where she's still receiving special care for her burns, because of it all, a wedding for Kacy and Jordan was put on hold," states the letter. The couple was picked out of thousands to win the 2008 Live Wedding with Regis and Kelly. "Their story of love and courage moved us all," said Kelly Ripa. "We had Reg on there and he's smiling big," says Jordan Edsall, the groom-to-be. "And, he said, Casey and Jordan,and I said 'huh?', what in the world, ya know, from then on, I just started to cry," says Kacy Hardenbrook, the bride-to-be. "They've showed an enormous amount of courage," says Richard Mathys, Hardenbrook's grandfather. While most of the family is now in New York getting ready for the big wedding, Friday, Kacy's grandfather, Richard ,stayed back in Garrett because of health problems. He says the whole town's happy for the strong couple. "I think it's the greatest thing that can happen to a wife and husband, a man and woman to be married," says Mathys. The world will meet Jordan and Kacy Tuesday, live on the show. Regis and Kelly airs on NBC 33 at 9am. "Things are only going to get better from now on, we have so much to look forward to," says Hardenbrook.

And I'm concerned about Lucy's naps?

How messy IS an exploding head?

Lucy will not let me leave the living room. Her trip to Grandma's was a HUGE success, but she has decided that I am not to leave the room she is in, because I might leave her for another 3 days. Fine, fine, whatever. We had a great weekend- I'll make the sacrifice.
So, we are camped out in the living room. She comes to the bathroom with me, I pull food from the cabinet with one hand. She's eating standing up- little cubes of pumpkin bread. This isso she can hold onto my leg.
How do I use the computer, you ask? Well, I have to keep the laptop AND the cord far away from her quick, sticky fingers. So I have constructed a giant platform to hold all of Mommy's items that she needs to camp in the living room for the day. I put two giant Rubbermaid containers and an ottoman together in a big square. It seems to be working ok.
I have no idea what we're going to do today. I have to wait for Mr. DHL to arrive, and then we're going to take Andrew's accounting book to his office and go walking at the mall. But that's not til this afternoon. So...pray for me. I have a lot of sewing to do, but Lucy loves felt, so I have to sew above my head. No joke. I'm getting REALLY good at it.

A Wonderful Aniversary Weekend!

Andrew and I are having a great weekend. We went out Friday night to have drinks and fun with Brian and Montana, and then Saturday was "our" day to spend together. We drove up to Deep Creek to see Swallow Falls - it was gorgeous! We went to dinner and a movie after our hike, and it was a perfect day.