The day before we drove back to Ohio, Lucy and I were at Dan and Erin's apartment and we had Erin take some beautiful Christmas pictures of Lucy. She is amazing and they turned out so good! Here's a few of my favorites!

We traveled to Virginia for Thanksgiving this year. We were lucky with good weather for the drive. It snowed a lot of the time we were there, but was warm and dry the days we were driving. With the struggles of the business this year, Ryan was blessed to be presented with the opportunity to work as a consultant at JP Morgan for the next year. It couldn't have come at a better time for us and we are so grateful. Since the project is just getting going and they are still waiting for access to information, he was able to take off a couple of days to make a longer vacation. We left after work on Tuesday and drove through the night, arriving at about 2 am. Wednesday it snowed hard for most of the day. I was so glad we came on Tuesday!

We had a great time hanging out with the family. I didn't get a picture of the whole spread, but our dinner was incredible. Stu did the turkey on the Traeger smoker outside. It was awesome and looks beautiful. (Although taste is really what counts when it comes to turkey--and it was delicious!)

Lucy loves Aunt Erin

 One evening we drove out to Old Town Winchester. We think it's a pretty cute little town. We went to their little bookstore and then went to get something for dinner. They have several good restaurants out there, but we ended up going to this little teeny tiny burger place where they just serve sliders. Ryan was so mad that we drove an hour out to Winchester and then just got sliders! It's funny because his dad was raving about how good the place was, but his family never eats that way. They usually like pretty healthy stuff and I've never once seen them eat fast food burgers, but that's where Stu insisted we go.

 After dinner we went to a Christmas light walk. It was fun, and would have been more fun if it wasn't SO cold outside. So we kind of ended up almost running through it to get through and get back in our warm cars. But they did have good hot chocolate. Really good hot chocolate.

No stats this time as there's no doctors appointment this month for Lucy. But, here are some of her developments.

• Lucy loves to laugh now! She started to laugh occasionally a few weeks ago, but now she definitely is a pro at those squeals of delight. We love the way she gets a big smile on her face and lets out a laugh. 
• She's starting to move more in her sleep, so I'm working on transitioning her to sleeping flat in the crib instead of her bouncy seat. She's still sleeping in that at night because she stays asleep longer in it, and I haven't been willing to sacrifice the nighttime sleep yet. So for now she's just taking her naps laying down flat.
• She has decided in the last week that she doesn't hate the pacifier. She always gave me an accusatory and disgusted look when I tried to give it to her before. There was no fooling that one. But recently she would not calm down to go to sleep, so I tried again and she took it like a charm. We are now using it for nap and bedtimes only, but it's been very helpful. 
• She's become much more adept at reaching and grabbing. It's fun to watch her do things intentionally as she's gaining some control over her body movements. 

Lucy is watching the campfire intently

Lucy currently sleeps in the bouncy seat, in the crib

Ryan loves trick or treating. He is beyond excited to have a child because it enables him to start going again for many many years to come. Lucy looked cute in her costume, but she wasn't so sure she loved wearing it. It was funny when we took her to the ward party--she looked at everyone else in their costumes. Then she looked down at herself and seemed to study her own costume with some thought.


On the 30th, (because for some reason our town trick or treats on the 30th) we joined another family in the ward and went trick or treating. I promised Ryan we'll get on the ball next year and we'll come up with awesome costumes. Of course, we did get called out a couple times for collecting candy for a baby. "Wait a minute. Who's going to eat this?" But isn't that one of the perks of parenthood? Eating your kid's candy after they go to bed?

Ryan and I decided to take a somewhat spur of the moment trip to Virginia. We'd been talking about driving back since Ryan's dad hadn't met Lucy yet, so we made quick plans and left a couple days later for the weekend.

I ALMOST got a good picture of Lucy's cute smile!

Lucy did surprisingly well on the car trip. We left late, around 6, with the idea that we'd drive, and hopefully Lucy would fall asleep for the night. We had to stop twice I think to feed her, and she didn't really fall asleep good until about 11, which was about 2 hours later than normal. So the next day she slept most of the day, just getting up to eat. Friday everyone was still pretty much working, but Ryan and I enjoyed being able to rest. Ryan's been sick so he pretty much slept a lot of the day too to get feeling better.

On Saturday we drove out to Great Country Farms which is out in Bluemont. It's so beautiful out there. That drive made me really, really miss living in Virginia. It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. We got out of the car and were about to put Lucy in the carrier, when we found she'd had a major diaper blowout... and I'd forgotten the diaper bag. We were trying to figure out where the closest store might be that we could go buy some diapers when Tina found a family that was just getting ready to leave who ALSO had a 2 month old baby, and they kindly gave us an extra diaper. She had no pants anymore, but we got her changed and bundled her up in a blanket and she was just fine. In fact, as is typical, she slept most of the outing.

Lucy is totally out, and slept through our farm adventure.

There was this display about different kinds of gourds and squashes and I learned that there are a lot of other squashes that make good pies other than just pumpkin. She we decided to get a few varieties of squashes and make a homemade pie. (More on that pie later...)

Hayride back from the pumpkin patch

We rode a hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch and picked out some things to take home. There were some really funny looking gourds that I've never seen anything like before! Once we got our pumpkins and put them in the car we started to explore the farm. There was so much to do there and I'd love to take Lucy back again when she's a little older and can play on some of the things they have there.


One of the most fun things there was the pumpkin cannon. They had some old junker cars out in the field as targets. They were pretty beat up--I guess fast flying pumpkins can do a fair amount of damage.

Michael, Parker, and Ryan atop the firetruck with the pumpkin cannon.

Ok, so the pie. We took the gourds home and cut them open and baked them. Then when we were scooping out the flesh, I found that one of the types of gourd was REALLY bitter. It was terrible, and really difficult to get the taste out of my mouth. So, we ended up having to throw it away. Luckily we had picked out a few different types and the other kinds were good. We didn't have any evaporated milk though, so we ended up making it with cream. I would say that was too rich and too heavy. After one slice I felt like it sat too heavy in my stomach.

On Sunday we went to our old ward in Sterling and had a fun time seeing friends! I didn't take any pictures there, but some of our friends have had babies since we left and we got to meet the new little ones. I went to Young Women's to see all the girls and Ryan went to the Deacon's quorum.

Lucy looking cute with Tina after church

We loved our visit and are so glad that we were able to spend time with Ryan's family and Dan and Erin!

Height: 23 in. - 76 percentile
Weight: 10.1 lbs - 31 percentile

Favorite thing: The blue bird. We have a toy that she can lay under and there are lots of things she could interact with, but her only interest right now is the blue bird. She just stares at him, and when she starts getting tired, she starts to yell at the bird.

Lucy has become a really good sleeper and often goes the whole night (9:30-6 or so) without waking up. It's a huge blessing. I tell people she's a good sleeper because Ryan is teaching seminary. I do believe that's true though actually. I think we were blessed with a baby who will sleep so that Ryan can fulfill his calling.

Lucy is really good at smiling now, but it's REALLY hard to actually get a picture of her doing it. I hold up the camera to take a photo and she stares at it and studies it instead of playing with me and smiling.

Lucy wore this cute dress to church.

I don't really intend for this blog to turn into ONLY posts about Lucy, but she's the most wonderful thing in our lives and so fun to take pictures of as she's constantly changing and learning new things. Plus she's SO cute!

Even at 2 months old, Lucy LOVES "Frozen"and other Disney Princesses. She watches videos of the princess songs with Dad on his laptop. Totally enthralled, while Ryan takes a nap.

We went for a walk one evening and bundled her up since it was cold. She fell asleep and the hat overtook her face.

The swing was a wonderful gift from Ryan's Grandma Martha. Lucy likes watching me make dinner, but sometimes falls asleep doing it.

One thing I've learned about having a newborn is that it is virtually impossible to get anywhere on time. For some reason, church especially. So it comes as no surprise that we were late to church the day of Lucy's baby blessing. The baby blessing of your first child is a momentous occasion. All of my family came into town for the event. (We had everyone there except Hilary, Jason, and Seneca.) Since there were so many, they stayed at a hotel and we met them at church.

When we walked into the building it was really quiet. We knew we were a few minutes late, but we wondered if they had started the sacrament. We weren't sure if we should walk in or not, so I just cracked the door to see what was going on and someone motioned us in. "It's your turn to bless the baby, right now!" There was one other baby being blessed that Sunday and they'd just finished that one. So we walked in, got Lucy out of her car seat and Ryan took her up to the stand before he even had a chance to sit down!

Despite not having the chance to collect his thoughts as he'd hoped before giving the blessing, he did a great job and gave her a beautiful blessing. Among other things, he blessed her to grow and learn, receive answers to her prayers and serve the Lord, and make righteous decisions and share her love and light with others. In fact, part of the reason we fell in love with her name was because of the meaning behind each name. Lucy means light, and Celeste means heaven, and our little girl really is a heavenly light in our lives. We are so grateful to be blessed with such a beautiful, perfect little girl.

After church, Erin got some great photos for us. I'd been dying to get our family pictures taken with Lucy! (We blessed Lucy on Sept. 7, 2014)