Eleven Months

My baby is growing up before my eyes! How is it possible she is already 11 months old? It breaks my heart that she is growing so quickly.

At 11 months Lucy:

• is still just the tiniest baby ever. She is light as a feather and still has a tiny little head, but is very tall.
• is the sweetest thing in the world right when she wakes up in the morning. She is all smiles and coos. I love it.
• is more social than ever and LOVES to get the attention of random people at restaurants, stores, wherever. She turns on the charm and sucks them right in. She still loves other babies and kids and is in Heaven when she gets to play with them.
• still has more energy than I do. We both are exhausted by the end of the day. She is too busy to sit and read with me anymore. She has been for a couple of months now. I have to sit on the floor and read to her. She comes and goes to look at a page every now and then. Texture books seem to keep her attention a little better than normal books.
• is the life of the party everywhere we go. Everyone wants to hold her and play with her. She loves it.
• loves her mama and it thrills me. She still wants me all the time and it's the best thing ever.
• knows when Josh comes home from work. She hears the keys turn in the door and lets out an excited shriek as she bolts to the front door to greet him.
• initiates kisses and it's the best thing ever!
• is still too busy to cuddle with us. I am reluctant to stop nursing her because that is the thing closest to cuddling that I get to do with her.
• still nurses throughout the day. We have cut out one feeding, but still nurse about 5 times a day. I will probably cut another one out in the next couple of weeks. I can't believe we are at this point already.
• loves to play with 'toys' that aren't toys at all. If it could potentially be dangerous, she's all over it!
• dances and it's the cutest thing ever!
• can pull herself up to stand and can walk while holding onto furniture. I think we are still a couple of months from real walking though.
• finally clapped, but has only done it a couple of times. She can point to things she wants and has been doing so for a little over a month.
• has a really cute wave.
  
• still eats fantastically well. She still has a vegan diet, only eating fruits, veggies, grains and legumes. I haven't seen the need for her to have anything else up to this point. She gets plenty of nutrient rich calories and is as healthy as can be. She still hasn't had sugar outside of the fruit she eats, or anything processed. I will probably introduce fish and some dairy in the next few weeks. I wouldn't give her dairy at all if I wasn't going to wean her. I want to get pregnant though, so nursing will slowly be coming to an end in the next few months, and she will switch to whole milk. Boo!
  
• doesn't nap quite as much as she used to. She naps on average 6 hours a day. A couple of months ago she would do up to 9 hours in a day. She still sleeps between 10 and 12 hours a night, usually 11 though.
  
• loves to be outside. I think she loves having freedom to crawl anywhere she wants. Our house is small and old so we don't have any huge empty play areas for her. You can tell how excited she gets to be in a big open space and it makes me sad that we don't really have that for her in our home. She loves to swing on the swing her daddy built for her last year. It's so cute!
• only has two teeth.
  
• still puts EVERYTHING in her mouth. I would have thought she would be less interested in this by now but I was wrong! She still puts every little thing she possibly can in there. Naughty pants.
• still loves the camera and totally poses for pictures.
• is the sunshine in our day. Lucy is the best thing that has ever happened to us. We couldn't be more in love with her. She makes us laugh all day long and is the greatest thing in the world. We are so proud to be her parents.
  

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Five Years

And every minute of it has been amazing. We are so blessed.

July

The month of July was insanely busy for us. I'm going to let the pictures do most of the explaining, but we spent more than half of it in CA, Josh was flying back and forth between UT and CA during that time, we went to the cabin, spent time with family and friends, went to two outdoor concerts and still took care of normal life stuff. We are happy to be home and get back in the swing of things. Here are pictures from the first half of July:

Fourth of July celebration in Utah, on the second.

The actual fourth was spent at my parents house.

Lucy cheesing it up with Aunt Lindsay.

Shopping with our lovely friend Whit. We love her.

We spent a week and a half in Newport Beach. It was awesome. Lucy loved the water, and playing with her cousins, who aren't really cousins, that's just what we call them. We ate delicious food, played with family, Reesey and Ash came down for a sleepover, we shopped, swam, sunbathed, went for a boat ride, did a segway tour on Balboa Island, and had BBQs aroung the fire pit. It was perfect.

Lucy's 9 and 10 month updates

At 9 months Lucy:

• had been army crawling for 3 weeks. She is a little speed demon! She can find me anywhere in the house and loves being able to get around on her own.
• weighed 15 lbs (4%) and was 28.5 inches tall (80%) and still had a tiny 4% head. I'm really happy about that though because the 3-6 month hats that she couldn't fit into last winter will fit her this year. I tried them on her a couple of days ago and they are still a little big.
  
• still slept like a newborn and could only go 2 hours without taking a 2-3 hour nap.
  
• was the happiest baby ever. The girl seriously smiles all day long.
• was a great little eater. She eats EVERYTHING we give her and is the healthiest eater ever! She loves avocado, mangoes, asparagus, strawberries, broccoli, couscous, quinoa, blueberries, sweet potatoes, hummus, tomatoes, etc.
• still breast fed throughout the day.
• was very social. She would get so so excited anytime she would see another baby or little kid.
• got her first tooth!
• was always on the go and never stopped moving.
• loved to play her Uncle Luke's ukulele and drums.
  
• was the light in her mama and daddy's life.
  

At ten months Lucy:

• is the cutest, happiest, most energetic baby alive. She never stops moving-EVER!
• puts everything in her mouth. Seriously, EVERYTHING!
• prefers to play with things that aren't actual toys. Tupperware lids, lip gloss tubes, wisks, and cardboard boxes are magical to her.
  
• is still a tiny peanut. She is as light as a feather! She is now very much noticeably smaller than all of her friends who are the same age. Somehow she still dominates them, out of love of course.
  
• can crawl, but still prefers to army crawl. She is insanely fast too. She can climb stairs, although I've only let her go up two. I don't want her to get comfortable with that quite yet. Our house has officially been baby proofed, gate, electric covers and all.
  
• loves water. She loves to swim, dip her feet in the ocean, and take baths. She thinks splashing in a puddle is the best thing ever!
• can finally go a little longer without a nap. I'm actually kind of excited about this one. I'm starting to cut out one of her naps (the last and shortest of them all). It makes getting things done outside of the house much easier for me. She still naps for 7 hours a day.
  
• loves to drink mango puree and water out of a sippy cup.
• chows down at meal time. It's actually amazing how much the girl eats. It shocks people. She still has loved everything we have given her. She LOVES to feed herself and is really good at it. She chooses to eat her veggies before her grains, which I love.
  
• still breast feeds before each meal and in between meals- usually 7 times a day. She is starting to get more distracted during nursing time, but generally still does really well with it. I will probably start weaning her sometime next month and I'm really sad at the thought. I want to try for #2 soon though, so the time is coming. We'll go until she's at least one though.
  
• makes the Forest Gump heaving noise when she gets really excited. It's so weird, and really funny. Sometimes she is so strange, but I love it! She is a spaz like her mother.
• is loved by EVERYONE! Seriously. Our family and friends can't get enough of her. Even strangers melt over her. She just draws everyone in with her smile and warm personality. She loves people, and people love her back.
• got her second tooth.
  
• is getting really good at playing on her own. Sometimes she prefers a little time by herself to crawl around and play with her toys. She will fake cough every few minutes to make sure I know she's still there, and then she gives me a huge smile when I glance her way and then she goes right back to playing.
• loves the camera and poses for it. She knows to smile when I pull it out and she'll even kind of flirt with me when I'm taking her picture.
• loves playing with the iPad. She likes Fruit Ninja, and Paint Sparkles. She also likes to watch short videos of animals, and look at pictures.
• loves her flash cards, counting, singing, and doing ABC's. She still just laughs when I try to get her to do signs. She thinks it's hilarious and doesn't get that I'm trying to teach her to communicate.
• is totally uninterested in walking. It's quite amusing to watch because she just so does not want to do it. She'll definitely be a late walker.
• still loves her bink but doesn't rely on it quite as much as she used to. We play a new binki game with her where we bite the plastic end of it and she has to come get it from us with her mouth. She thinks it's the greatest thing ever.
• can wave, but still no clapping.
• makes tons of different consonant/vowel combination sounds, and jibber jabbers all day long.
• is the busiest, craziest, most entertaining child ever. I miss her when she naps. She keeps me laughing and busy all day long, and I love every second of it.

Lucy Lu, you are the greatest joy in our lives. You make our hearts burst with happiness and you are the best thing that has ever happened to our family. We are so grateful we have been blessed enough to raise you. You are the perfect match for us and we couldn't love you more. You are completely adored by everyone who knows you. You are a dream come true and we love you more than you'll ever understand.

Love,
Mama and Daddy

First boating trip of the season

This past weekend we took the boat out for the first time this year! Josh was in Heaven. Boating is seriously his favorite thing ever. Lucy is probably the only thing that makes him happier. He loves everything from preparing the boat, to getting behind it on his board.

Lucy and Finn did fabulously. They couldn't have been better, which was such a relief for me. Lucy still relies on her naps so much, that I was worried we would have a tired and cranky baby who just wanted to sleep all day. She did awesome though and was such a champ. Neither she or Finner were fans of their life jackets. They couldn't move in them! Lucy just sat perfectly still (for the first time in her life) for the first two hours, sulking because we were making her wear it. I've never seen her so calm, it was amazing. Maybe I'll just have to pull that life vest out when I get tired from chasing her around, at the end of the day.

She fell over when we first put it on and was just stuck like this for a few minutes. She couldn't get herself back up and we of course all thought it was hilarious. She didn't seem to mind!

She loved playing with her Aunty Tiff and Uncle Jared.

Finny kept trying to eat the wind. It was hilarious.

Joshy doing his favorite thing!

Our sulker.

She loved playing in the water with her daddy.

Our little boating family.

I would say the first boating trip of the season was a success! The boat worked perfectly, the baby was happy and we had a perfect day with some of our closest friends.

Lucy Lu

I had the fantastic Jen Herem take pictures of L for Josh and my dad for Father's Day. They turned out amazing, beautiful, magnificent! Jen is seriously talented, I definitely recommend her. I'm going to have her photograph my next birth, she does the most incredible birth stories. Anyway, Lucy was a dream for this session. I love that we have been able to capture so much of her life in photographs. She is growing up so quickly and I love to go back and look at her sweet little life and remember how things used to be. We are so blessed to have a healthy, happy baby. We love her so dearly.

Our Spring CA Trip

We spent almost a week in CA this past month, and it was wonderful as always. We had at trip packed with good friends, family time, swimming, a day trip to Santa Barbara, the zoo, a child-less date night with Joe and Tori, pilates, walks around the lake, shopping, and Lucy was finally able to 'meet' her Uncle Patrick.

Lucy was a champ pretty much the whole trip. She had a little melt down around nap time one of the days we spent at the pool, and got antsy at a restaurant one of the nights, but other than that she was awesome. She LOVED the flamingos at the zoo, and really enjoyed seeing all of the animals for that matter. We were able to Skype with my brother, Patrick, who is serving a mission in Argentina, on Mother's Day. It was so good to see him in action, happy and doing well. I love and miss that kid.

Lucy fell in love with a mylar balloon when we were at Walgreens one evening, so of course it came home with us. She thought it was the coolest and funniest thing ever. She loved playing with her friends. We were able to see Finn, Luke and Reese while we were there.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. We always love being able to spend time with my family, and love soaking up that California sun.