Family Photos!

Nicole Pavey rocks!  She is a family photographer in Fairfax, VA who has done photos for us the last 2 years.  I hear you asking - "Jenny, why are you going all the way to Fairfax?".  Excellent question!  Last year I was looking for a photographer to do some newborn shots of Lucy.  We found Nicole on Craigslist.  She was advertising a special and I checked out her blog.  The photos were beautiful, she was offering an amazing price, AND she was moving her studio, so she would come to US!  We booked a session...and then we all ended up getting sick.  We sadly missed that glorious window for newborn photos where the baby will just sleep and let you dress them up as a bear or a bunny or Diana Ross, drape them in bows and put them in baskets with fresh market produce, all for the sake of a few photos.  We ended up booking a family session instead several weeks later and she was just wonderful!  We walked around outside and got some nice candid shots:

Went to her studio back to her studio:

Believe it or not, this wasn't posed!

We got some perfect Christmas card shots:

And 2 of my favorite photos of all time:

So when we decided to get more photos this year, we went right back to Nicole!  She has been super flexible about scheduling our shoot - our work schedule is always a little crazy, and this has been the cold season from hell.  She is closing in on the last month of her own pregnancy, but she gamely followed up around, set us up on bridges and rocks, posed and snapped, clicked and captured some really sweet moments.  The only thing we didn't like was our own choice of outfits:-)  I just love the fall colors, and Kevin finally has his long-desired family shot of us all under a bright fall-colored tree!

 

Nicole Pavey Photography 

Right now she is only newborn photos and a few high school senior shots.  We were her last family photo shoot before her maternity leave...something about not wanting to chase families around with a 37 week baby belly **shrug**, but I just love her work so much, so here's my shout out to Nicole Pavey Photography.

Such a big girl!

Lucy is growing up so fast!  Such a big girl I have now. 

She can take a few steps by herself now!  (I can't believe how exciting that development was to watch.  I mean MOST people can walk - what is so special about watching a drunken sailer-esque child learn to do what everyone does without thing?  I dunno, but it's awesome.) 

She can sign up a storm (I think she uses 20 or 25 different signs, in context and with intent).

All this signing hasn't hampered her vocabulary development.  She can say a ton of words in her adorable little baby voice (Mama, Dada, hat, up, no, yes, iPod, hot, ice, meow, ruff, down, apple, outside, all done, octopus, socks, switch sides (a nursing thing..:-), shoes, leaves, tree, cheese, keys...actually those last four might all be the same word...). 

She can take all her clothes off (this is not as exciting a development). 

She can drink out of a regular cup (uh...closely supervised and only containing water).

She can put her own hat on...

Zom-babEEE

Heheh.

A Few Pictures

I have been dreadful about updating here.  Things have been really busy, and everytime I am sitting still...I am knitting something instead of writing something.  I think I might have a problem.

We had a fun visit from our friends from North Carolina!  Here are some pics of the girls playing together.

Mind if I sit here?

Coffee Table Fun!

Try this puzzle piece - very tasty.

Baby K finds a comfy spot to sit and read.

Are you gonna eat these peaches?

What?

Shake that booty!

Just chillin' with Mama's iPod

Hi!

Blueberries at the park.

Notes from the Road

I meant to write this post a week ago when I actually was on the road...but life sort of got in the way and here I am a week later just now having the time to get my thoughts in order.

Oh well.

So I just took my first overnight Capitol Steps trip since before Lucy was born.  I was a little nervous about leaving her overnight - ALL ALONE (umm...you know, except her Daddy), without her MAMA!  What was she going to DO???  Well, she was going to be absolutely fine, that's what she was going to do.  So I may or may not have shed a tear or two as I kissed Lucy goodbye and gave Grandma and Grandpa some last minute (totally unnecessary, I am sure) instructions, locked the door behind me and got into my car.  So I'm a sap. 

But then a funny feeling overtook me.  I really couldn;t place it until I was at Starbucks 10 minutes later getting my Iced Chai Tea Crack and breakfast wrap for the road.  I gathered my food and beverage and was about the hightail it out and get back into the car to get on the road.  I stopped and thought "Wait a minute".  No one needed me ALL DAY.  I didn't have to be anywhere until 5:30 that evening.  My drive was only 3.5 hours.  I could sit and read the paper if I wanted to.  It was only 9:00 am!  It was then that I identified the feeling:

Autonomy. 

I could do whatever I pleased, without asking anyone if they needed me, if it was okay, if they had something to do that required me to be around.  I won't call it "freedom" because I don't actually feel "unfree" (enslaved?) in my everyday life.  I just feel - and with good reason - that I have to clear my schedule with others before I am can do what I want/need.  So this feeling of absolute autonomy was a revelation.  A really good one.

So I sat and read the paper.  Ate my food, drank my drank.  And when I was ready, I got back into my car and began my drive. 

So the ability to make unilateral decisions about where to eat my scone notwithstanding, I had a number of fairly ridiculous revelations on this brief 30 hour trip to Christopher Newport University.

One.  If you are at Starbucks, and your order starts with "I just want..." you CANNOT continue by saying "...a venti, quad, two pump vanilla, room for cream, no foam, extra hot cappuspresso in a personal cup."  This is not an exaggeration.  I may have gotten some of the components of this uber-drink wrong, but I swear the man went on ordering for 30 full seconds.  "I just want..." is reserved for "a small decaf" or "a medium peppermint tea".  You can't even say "I just want..." and use the official Starbucks lingo for drink sizes.  It just doesn't go.  This wasn't so much a revelation as the crystalization of a universal truth.

Two.  My car CD player has a shuffle setting.  For the last month I have been dealing with my CD player annoyingly going to from track 4 to, say, track 18 for no apparently good reason.  I first discovered it when my mom gave me an audiobook on CD to listen to.  I love a good audiobook.  This one was not really great, mostly because it was written about high tech stuff and the internet...in 1998.  So to say it was dated is an understatement.  Anyway, I pop the CD in and am dismayed to notice it skipping around randomly from track to track, making the already fairly dull story incomprehesible.  I couldn't figure it out, so I just manually moved the tracks forward and chalked it up to a faulty CD.  When I was driving to Newport News, it was happening again.  When I had heard the same song 4 times in an hour because the "CD was messed up", I happened to glance down at the display and saw the letters RAND underneath the track display.  It was highlighted.  "RAND?" I thought, "What does RAND...wait a minute..."  Random.  I pressed the button under the RAND and amazingly, the CD was no longer messed up.  I have had this car for 6 years.  My powers of observation are sharp as a tack.  Of course if you are under 25 you are probably thinking "Why didn't you just play your iPod?"

Three.  My phone takes video!  Kevin sent me a video of Lucy eating dinner (SO CUTE!).  I played it for everyone in the cast.  And at some point I said "I wish MY phone took video"!  T says "your phone plays video but doesn't take it?  Weird."  This gets me exploring a little.  In about 12 seconds I have found the menu that takes me to the video setting.  So yeah.  My phone takes video.  I have had this phone for 3 years.  And yes.  I have had the same phone for 3 years.  Don't judge. 

My laptop has an SD card reader.  My camera battery died.  I was irritated that I had to charge my the battery before uploading photos by using the apparently archaic and virutally barbaric method of a mini USB cable.  I did a little exploring...and wait!  Could this little slot on the front of my laptop - could that possibly be a card reader???  Why yes, it is!  An SD card reader! Right there!  I don't have to go looking for the USB cable?  What??!?  Too good to be true!  I have had this laptop for 2 years.

I did the show in Newport News.  I ordered a glass of wine.  I watched TV.  I slept for 10 hours.  I got room service for breakfast.  At 11 am I checked out of the hotel.  I stopped at Starbucks (I just want...), I sat and read the paper...but I was starting to feel the autonomy slipping away.  I missed my little girl.  I missed my hubby.  They were expecting me at home aometime around 3:00.

And you know what?  It was good to know.

I Have a Weird Baby

There are some things in life you just have to acknowledge.  My daughter is weird.  Not in a "poor-thing- have-you-seen-a-doctor" kind of way.  More like a "what-are-you-doing-now-you-little-goofus" kind of way.

For instance:

She likes to wrap things around her neck.  I have watched as she wraps her shirt around her neck.  I have watched as she wraps her socks around her neck...to the best of her ability, anyway, her socks being very short.  More things she wrapped around her neck:  my socks, Kevin's socks, her diapers, her diaper covers, random pieces of cloth, yarn, her jacket, spaghetti noodles, baby wipes, paper, magazines, and any number of floppy stuffed animals.  There are even more things she has attempted to wrap around her neck, but due to their blind obediance to the laws of physics, they have refused to be wrapped.  Such as: books, shoes, drumsticks (the ones used for playing drums, not chicken legs...though if she weren't vegetarian, I dare say she's have chicken grease on her neck), cups, various pieces of molded plastic (such as her driving toy,  her rain stick, and the Alphabet Snail), my cell phone, the remote control and my iPod.

She likes the have wind blowing in her face.  She's like a puppy that way.  She has a little toy that blows air to rotate 3 levels of stacking donuts (its hard to describe baby toys sometimes...).  She prefers to take all the stackers off and hold the base up to her face to feel the faux breeze.  She gleefully signs "more" if I blow in her face. 

Speaking of being like a puppy...she loves to chew on my shoes.  I mean, could she pick anything more disgusting to chew on?  Ugh.  I suppose if she were chewing on her diapers.

She likes to make a funny little scrunched-up-nose face and puff and blow like she's trying to blow a booger out of her nose.  She finds this very VERY funny.  If you say "Lucy, what are you doing??", she'll stop, look at you, cock her head to the side and raise her palms up as if to say "I dunno, Mama!"

She doesn't mind being alone...unless I leave to go to the laundry room.  She SCREAMS with either fear or anger when I head down the hallway without her.  It's like she's afraid I'll get lost in the huge mountain of unwashed clothes and never come back.  Actually, I'm afraid of that, too.  So maybe it isn't that weird.

She likes to snuggle books.  Books.  Not stuffed animals or dolls.  Books.  I suppose I should be happya t her thirst for knowledge, but I am still not convinced you can learn the contents of a book through osmosis, despite my many attempts at this during college.  She likes to eat them, too, but that's pretty normal, I think.

Speaking of books, the enjoys "reading" them to herself.  She'll sit and turn the pages while animatedly talking (sometimes out and out screaming) and smacking the pages.  Now I read her books with many different voices.  And I also point out the different things on each page.  So I think that she is making fun of me.  Either that or I need to tone down my interpretation of Perfect Piggies by Sandra Boyton. 

She will spend a great deal of time throwing a toy over the baby gate and then picking it up through the bars.  Over and over and over and over again.  And over again.  And over.  And over.  Again. 

Right now, my weird little girl is shaking a jingling stuffed animal while yelling at the toy box.  Occasionally she'll giggle and do a little boogie woogie dance with her butt.  I am sure she has a good reason for it.  I am just sad that by the time she is old enough to articulate her reasoning, she won't remember why it was so much fun in the first place.

Lucy's Birthday Extravaganza Part I

We decided to have a small family party for Lucy this coming Saturday.  We thought the grandparents would have more fun if they had the baby mostly to themselves.  For that party we have my parents, Kevin's parents, my brother older Jason and his wife Nancy, their two girls Abby and Charlotte, my younger brother Jon and his girlfriend Nita.  Small, compared to say, Christmas, when we have our ENTIRE family together (1 daughter, 4 parents, 6 siblings, 3 spouses, 2 neices,  and any significant others that are brave enough to tag along). 

But, thought I in my ignorance, what about Lucy's little friends??  What about all my new mama friends?  Shouldn't we have a playdate or something on her actual birthday so she can celebrate with all her little friends and I can celebrate with all my friends?  I mean, we got through a WHOLE YEAR without inflicting any lasting damage on our baby!  Well, any that we know about, anyway.  So I decided to have a playdate on her birthday and invite some of my new mama friends and their little ones.  And some of my old friends with their older children.  And hey, why not open it up to their spouses if they are free on a random Wednesday afternoon?  And then there is that neighborhood mom I haven't met yet, but I am desperate to meet moms in my area, so I'll invite her too!

So we ended up with 19 people at our house.  We had Shannon and Liam (13 months), Corinne and Ethan (14 months), Kimberley and Simon (4 years), Edwin (2 years) and Aris (2 years), Lindsey and John with Cieran (4 years) and Ceinwyn (10 months), Adrianna and her mom with Natalia (15 months),  and Leslie and Lyla (16 months).  We were expecting 2 more, but they had a bad nap day and couldn't make it, and three others said they might be there.  It was a full house.  It was SO MUCH FUN!!!!!

Preparing for her guests...by brushing her teeth...

The birthday (cup)cake!

Eddy and Simon showing off their birthday present 

Sweet Baby Ceinwyn.

Backyard pool fun

Lyla in the water

Ethan on the run!  LOVE the wetsuit!

This is right before she gets sprayed in the face with the water spout:-)

Liam with his Cool Kids hat on!

Lucy had SO MUCH FUN getting thrown through the sprinkler!

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...okay, so did Mama:-)

WEEEEE!

Smiley baby!

The water table provided fun for the big kids...but Lucy wanted to get in on the act!

So serious...

Happy Corbetts

Lucy tearing it up

Birthdays are fun, Mama...but it is bedtime yet?