defiant & testy

love a grammy... hug a grammy

In her party dress getting ready for her friend Declan's first birthday party! I gave her a choice between two dresses & she picked this one without hesitation.
tall girl....
her latest thing is hiding...she started out hiding in the curtains but she has since moved on to hiding underneath our chairs. please don't judge my dirty floor...cleaning happens every other friday & that is about it. also don't judge my too-short slip covers ;)

Grammy Rosonke was here this week to visit and we managed to have a great time despite Luci's less than stellar mood. Thanks Grammy! We miss you already...come back soon...and bring Granpy Rosonke too!

Luci's behavior of late has been not so great...she's been RIDICULOUSLY fussy this whole week. Granted, she's still not feeling 100%...but come on! Friday night she decided to stay awake from 12:30a to 3a. Then get up at 6a. Last night she decided to stay up from 2a to 4a. At 4a I sent Clay in & that was the last we heard from her...so tonight Dad will be the first line of response to the middle of the night wakings.

Before Clay & I went to Chicago she was very eager to please Mom & Dad. When you asked her to do something she did it & clapped for herself...delighted to oblige. Since we've gotten home, she does pretty much the opposite of what I ask, and then looks at me and grins or shakes her head no. My stern talking used to be effective...now when I get down on her level to use my stern tone she looks past my shoulder & melts into the ground...her whole body just goes limp & she lays on the floor...still not looking at me! It is funny & infuriating all at the same time...

a lil sick

Luci has been sick since Saturday. Friday was a rough, rough day for her...and I now know it was because she wasn't feeling well. On Saturday she woke up from her nap SCREAMING and no amount of rocking or singing or soothing I did calmed her down for almost 20 minutes. Same thing a few times that night, and on Sunday morning. Around 10a on Sunday I was getting her ready for church & she fell asleep after about 2 minutes in the rocker...which I was doing only to soothe her after she screamed during a diaper change (her bottom was still sore...all better now :). She slept until after 12p & woke with a 102 fever. boo. Later in the day she napped again, waking with a 102.5 fever. We had our share of Tylenol & fussies, and then her fever broke around 1a on Monday morning....which was good timing because Grammy Rosonke arrived on Sunday night!

Monday she seemed to be doing a bit better but I took her to the doctor regardless...I really, really thought she had her first ear infection (she had & still has been tugging on them a bit...but I think it is just sinus pressure back there). She did not. Her ears 'looked great', but the doctor was still worried about some sort of an infection so we did a urinalysis & a finger poke just to run some tests...which all came back normal. He was concerned because the fever started a few days after her fussiness/congestion...I guess that seemed strange and I love that he was so thorough.
She seems to be doing better today...still a little fussy & her nose is congested & driving her NUTSO. She rubs it & scowls & whines...the expressions on her face would be funny if I didn't know that she was so miserable.

I haven't taken any photos since Halloween...she's just not been in the mood. These are from Friday morning...you can see her eyes are a little 'off'...I should have known! The Elmo slippers are hers, but the PJs are her friend Caroline's...thanks Caroline!

A few funny things to note....poor sweet girl suffered her first blisters for fashionable footwear on Friday. Bad mama didn't notice till the bath on Friday.

She loves to shut things...doors, drawers, the dishwasher, caps on bottles...you name it, she wants to close it.

Tonight as I was putting her legs into her footy pjs she waved bye bye to her feet! Cracked me up!!

Happy Halloween

Miss Luci was a Sugar Plum Fairy this year for Halloween. In addition to Pea, we also call her Sugar Plum...so it felt right. Does it look familiar? (Thank you Clara). She likes to be 'so pretty' (that is what I say when I put bows in her hair...so if you say anything is so pretty she thinks it goes in her hair ;), but doesn't like to leave the 'so pretty' accessories alone.

Luci & Eleanor in the wagon...their favorite thing to do immediately upon hanging out is to switch sippy cups. Literally, EVERY TIME.

Lil Luc had kind of a rough Halloween. She woke up at 6a with a monster poopy diaper that had adhered itself to her bottom :( It was all red & broken out...not sure if it had just been there too long or if it was because she had a bit of a strawberry yesterday. We gave her strawberries at 9mo and they resulted in a ROUGH diaper rash so we hadn't given them to her again...until yesterday. So it is back to no more strawberries for awhile. Then she had a rough time at playgroup (just generally fussy...we left early), and then woke up from her nap sobbing...which didn't stop, even when I picked her up & rocked her. We looked at books....still crying. Ugh. 20 minutes & some Tylenol later she seemed a bit better. We played until 5p when we walked down to Clara's on the way to the park. She did all right at the park, but was fading fast by 6:10p or so when we started the trick or treating. She rode in Eleanor & Caroline's wagon with Eleanor...when she started to fuss I decided that having a lollipop for the first time ever might make for more fun & pleasant times. It may have, but after a few minutes Trina noticed the lolli part had come off of the stick! I had to dig it out of her mouth & she was NOT happy about it...she was certain it was the best thing she'd ever had. We replaced it with another lollipop...but by that time she had totally melted down. We hit the second house & she decided she wanted out of the wagon...and she wanted to walk up to the door like all of the other kids, but she had no idea what to do when she got there! There were lots of big kids all around so I kind of scooped her up & took her back to the sidewalk. And at that time, she wrapped her tiny hand around my finger & started pulling me home...so off we went.

It was kind of a rough day, but she sure looked cute :)

My only real complaints for the day were the mosquitoes & the heat. And the heat really wasn't bad, but I did sweat (ew, I know) carrying my heavy child all over the 'hood. Compared to cold rainy Halloween memories of my childhood, I guess it shouldn't seem so bad.

bloody lip

If you click on this & blow it up you might see a bit of a fat lip...but it really wasn't nearly as bad as I was afraid it might be.

This cat has an UNBELIEVABLE tolerance for our child. See the blood on Lil Luc's pant leg? poor sweet baby...

Ugh...Lil Luc got her first bloody lip today. She was playing on her little directors chair in the kitchen (hardwood floors), and all of the sudden I heard crying/screaming. I hung up on Clay & dashed over to find my baby face down on the hardwood floor...and I saw blood. I scooped her up & saw blood coming from her mouth...I put a wet cool paper towel on it...but it kept bleeding. I was terrified her tooth went through the lip...and I couldn't really see it because she was crying so hard...

So what did I do, you ask? Why, I ran down the street to Amanda's for help, of course! As soon as we got outside Luci stopped crying and started making her dog noise (there was a dog barking somewhere near-by) so that made me feel better immediately. And once we got to the Lawrences, Luci was so excited to see them that she was totally fine. Expect for the blood...which ended up all over Amanda's cream sweater (so sorry). Luckily Amanda had a 'boo boo buddy - jungle' that Luci was delighted to chew on, and sweet sweet Clara shared one of her favorite bears, Pink Bear, and the paci baby twins. We are SO lucky to have such great friends.

15 months!

my first attempt in the chair with the bear...

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take two...after her nap...a happy pea waving to you!

that sweet baby was 15 months old on Saturday the 25th...can you believe it? man, time is flying.


just a few notes tonight...I'm sure I'll add more over the last few days as they come to me...
-she's working VERY hard on using her fork & spoon
-she's very into feeding her baby dolls & the cats a toy bottle...always upside down!
-she's a babbling FOOL these days..mamamadaaaadmom & dadadadadmom are a few of her favorites
-she's still drooling like crazy. like soaking her shirts crazy.
-she's in some 12-18mo clothes, and some 24mo clothes
-she will wake up around 4am or 5am if she is cold...and won't go back to sleep until the heat is turned on
-if you ask her to put her paci in the box on her dresser after a changing or her nap she will! we now try to limit the paci to nap time, night time, changing time, or carseat time. it doesn't always work out that way, but we try!
-she is SUPER into buu..buu....which depending on the moment could mean books or balls...she is crazy about both of them!
-she's also all about 'cuu, cuu'...aka...her cup

aaaaaand - we're back!

the reason for the season...the jobeknutson wedding!

this would have been a great photo if not for that annoying professional photographer's light in the middle...stupid professional photographer...ruining MY shot! the nerve! ;) me & liz. doesn't she look stunning? me & schmol

me & Jen me & Clay...despite the appearance of a forced smile, he really was having a good time ;)

and on Sunday...SO happy to be home with our pea!! check out her Colts gear...can you tell Grandma Pierse was in charge of getting her dressed?


The last week has been busy busy busy for Clay & me. On Tuesday Grandma Pierse arrived to hang with Luci so that on Wednesday Clay & I could head up to Chicago. On Wednesday & Thursday we did a crazy 350 mile tour of the Chicagoland & Rockford areas to see if we could find a suitable place to live should we decide to head back that way. Don't get me wrong...we'd LOVE to live in the city again, but it just isn't feasible for us now with Lil Luc & our budget. So we set off for some 'burb shopping...because my previous lives were spent in the city...like any respectable urban dweller I avoided the 'burbs like the plague. Turns out there are suitable places outside of the city...we did indeed find two places we really liked...(Crystal Lake & Plainfield), a few we liked & may like even more in years to come as they develop their downtown (Cary, Oswego & Yorkville), and pretty much ruled out several others that we thought might be appealing but were not (Woodstock, Huntley, Rockford, Roscoe, MacHensey Park, Minooka & Channahon...although Clay fell in LOVE with a 'ready to build' lot there). All in, it was a very successful two days of 'burb shopping.

And to top it off we lunched with our friends the Nielsens, spent 2 nights with the Determans, an afternoon with the Tankborns, and a great day of wedded bliss with the newly married Knutsons. It was a fabulous, fabulous trip. I must say the dance party that followed the wedding was my favorite, as Schmol had the guns blazing in a way I haven't seen in more years than I'd like to admit, and Jen somehow managed to cut up the dance floor despite having a teeny weeny newborn at home.

i have great friends. thank you great friends.

and i have a great mother-in-law who took wonderful care of my baby...the special kind of care that only a grandma can give that brings peace of mind to baby's mama...so that baby's mama can enjoy said great friends who live too far away.

thank you mother-in-law.

i love you all :)

a few firsts re: play

we've had a couple of firsts in 'play' arena in the last few days!

luci has lots & lots of play dates, but the play is usually just two or more kiddos each doing their own thing in the same room, with the extent of interaction being occasionally going after the same toy followed by one or more kiddos in tears.

but...on thursday luci actually played WITH clara! clara wanted to roll a ball back & forth...i told her i thought luci might like to do that with her. so i sat on the floor with luci, and helped her roll the ball back to clara. after maybe 10 rolls, luci decided she wanted to sit on her chair to play roll the ball. so clara would roll the ball to me, i'd pick it up & give it to luci, and luci would actually roll the ball to clara. all by herself. she was SO excited she turned into a goofy giggle monster...eagerly anticipating the ball coming back & then pushing it away back to clara in delight. it was super fun to see :-)! she did not repeat today at her friend eleanor's birthday party...luci was very much back to doin her own thing...often heading to where no one else was (outside if everyone was inside, or inside if everyone was outside)...which i think is totally normal for her age. but man, it was sure fun to see her little eyes light up & delight in playing WITH clara.

luci also colored for the first time this week. we sent baby asher his blanket yesterday & luci helped me make his card. she scribbled on it & put a few pumpkin stickers on the front just to spruce it up a bit. after the successful card making venture, i decided it might be time to start regularly playing with crayons....here are some photos from our first attempt!

how exciting! VERY proud of herself!
double fisting some crayons...i think she is right handed, but i'm not 100% sure yet
putting the crayons back in the box...this seemed to be a more familiar type of task
and then throwing them all at once...so we are now working on how we treat our crayons...

(ie we don't eat them, we use one at a time, we put them in the box when we are done, etc.)

she's also become a babbling fool in the last few days. damom, dad, dad, dad, daaaaaaadmom, mom, mom, momdaaa, dadmom....all in a row...all day long. duuwwwuuuu was a new one as of this morning. seems she's just bursting with sound lately...it is lovely to hear her sweet (very deep ;) voice. i wonder if it will stay this deep?!?!?!?

random videos & a blankey for asher

well i had hoped to make it to tucson this week to give baby asher his blankey myself...but apparently all of those snowbirds are headed back to AZ cuz flights were full all week. boohoo. hopefully we'll make it over soon...i can't wait to see that baby! in the meantime, lil luc has been lovin on his blankey...

pointing to her eye... trying to find mr. snail's eye...

and some random bits...

here is an example of the touching both sides thing I was talkin about...

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Pumpkin Patch

picking out a pumpkin...



running through the maze chasing her dad


and after the maze she just kept runnin...right to the swings!


luci on her first hayride...we got VERY up close & personal with several large cows!

brave girl touched a goat!

and rode a pony!
luci also took her first train ride...we saw lots of ducks, swans, cows, horses & goats.

and one pig.