I seriously cannot keep up with my blog, and I know why. It's because of my darn iphone. Instead of just uploading all of the new pictures from my camera onto my computer and then blogging away in the order of which I took them, I have to get pictures from my phone and email them to myself, download them to my computer, do the same with my dslr and then try and narrow them down, put them in order, find them all, etc. One of these days I will get back on track, but I figure that a bunch of really big photo-dumps with some explanations and stories is better than nothing at all. So, here's photo-dump #328ish of the year.
Justin and Ashleigh Smith came to visit me in Columbus! Ashleigh was one of my favorite roommates at BYU. We had some crazy, fun times together! When we first met, she was a freshman and had just recently joined the church. No one else in her family joined. In fact, they were Baptist and her mom was even against her becoming Mormon. Fast forward to now, and her mom was baptized back in November and now her brother's wife just got baptized. Her brother's family lives in West Virginia, and so they flew into Columbus and drove down for the baptism. They had a few hours to spare before needing to head back to the airport, so they came over for lunch and to visit! I felt so lucky! They said it's only a matter of time until her brother joins as well, so hopefully I will be seeing them again soon.
I don't know if you can really tell in this picture, but Lucy is asleep with her pajama pants down around her knees. Not sure how comfortable that would be...
Last Sunday, history was made. Thanks to some patient and creative nursery leaders, Lucy went to nursery and stayed the whole time by herself without any crying- and liked it! Truly, a Sunday miracle. I was hoping she would do two weeks in a row, but sadly we had to keep her home today due to a cold. I think the reason she did so well last Sunday was because she walked into a room where they were doing an activity already (playing with playdough at a table), so everything was organized instead of walking into a room filled with screaming, chaos, and fighting over toys.
We finally had decent enough weather to go to a park and so we went with Marci and her kids. It only lasted approximately a few hours for one day, and it was way too windy for the babies. So basically Marci and I kept our shouting babies covered up in the strollers while the bigger kids ran around and got all their wiggles out on the playground. Lucy and Ty were playing hide and seek and this was Lucy hiding under a big ship.
That same day, we went for a quick walk when we got home. This was the nearest stroller, so I grabbed it and Lucy wanted to ride up on the handle. Unfortunately, I hit a bump wrong and Lucy went flying face first into the street. By the looks of it, I was expecting a few missing teeth, but thankfully she just had a cut, puffy lip for a few days. I felt so bad! Not doing that again.
Claire typically hates her car seat, but even she was happy to be outside on such a great afternoon! She probably didn't know what was going on and what the sun really even was. ;)
Lucy loves driving still. Once in a while, I give in and let her drive for a minute or two when get home from errands.
Ryan called to say he was on his way home from work and the day was getting really long at that point, so we hopped in a stroller and went "searching the neighborhood" for daddy until we saw him driving down the street to home. Lucy really wanted to hold hands with Claire.
This was the view of Claire's cheeks that I got on that walk. Pretty amazing, right?
We had a little crafternoon and painted some fake Easter eggs. Lucy loved it, but as it is with coloring and most craft things, it only lasts a short while and she's done with it. She loves playing with the finished eggs she painted though and asks everyday to paint more.
I had a rare moment alone with Claire Bear. Ryan took Lucy on a special outing to the store when he got home from work one day. Mostly she just needed to get out and he had to grab something at the store, so he took Lucy and let her wander all over Wal-Mart for fun and not in a cart. She loved it. But in the meantime, I got to give Claire her bath, just me and her, and feed her her bottle and put her to sleep- usually Ryan does all of this every night (I acknowledge that I am a lucky lady to get so much help from Ryan every night, even after a long day at work. I just really don't love doing bath time, usually.)
Claire loves when I lay on my back and put her up on my knees like this. She must think it's cool to be above me or something.
We rarely splurge on brand-name treats, but we were craving some good ice cream this last weekend, so we got some. Unfortunately, it wasn't that good! Oh well. But I thought it was pretty funny that Lucy insisted on carrying the ice cream, but it got so heavy and cold and awkward to hold, so her solution was to put it on her head and carry it that way through the whole store. People were cracking up.
And just a random picture of Lucy at dinnertime.
That's the end of this monstrous post and I am now caught up from pictures on my phone. Now I just need to get the ones from my regular camera and that's it!
