Family time

My mom gets to come see us a bit, but last week both my mom and dad were able to come and spend some time with us here in Columbus and it was so much fun!  We enjoyed the beginning of our beautiful fall weather by taking walks and going to the park.  We also enjoyed good food, including a little eating out, and just hanging out enjoying each other's company.  Also, surprisingly, Lucy did pretty well warming up to them and would often let them hold and play with her for a little bit at a time.  I wish they could come more often, but we'll take what we can get!

Little Bear and Big Bear

One day I was walking through TJ Maxx with Lucy and she started kicked her legs and going crazy in the cart.  When I saw what she was reaching for, it was a bear costume that was a mini version of Big Bear.  As soon as I picked it up and put it by her she got the biggest smile and snuggled it up to her face.  Funny, funny girl.  Given her obsession with Big Bear, Ryan and I thought it would be cute for Lucy to be Little Bear for Halloween and we could pull her in a wagon with Big Bear.  But then we found a different costume from Costco that everybody else probably has too, but it was still super cute, significantly cheaper, and has tights and a shirt that we could continue to use all winter long.  But before I returned Big Bear, I had to get some pictures of our little Lucy Bear playing with Big Bear. :)

This picture pretty much sums up Lucy's feelings about actually wearing the costume...haha!

She sure does make a pretty darn cute little bear though!

Just some pics of the cutest person in our house

This is what happens every time I try and take a picture of the little girlie...

Just sitting there in the morning with her awesome bed-head playing with (trying to eat) some toys:

"Oh, there you are!?!"

"And you have the CAMERA?!  That looks yummy."

"ATTACK!!"

Then, we avoid naps even though we're super tired.

 And climb up and over Big Bear so that we can climb up all the stairs 10 more times.

Yeah, we know how to have a good time around here.

10 months

The more Lucy is turning into a little kid and less of a baby, the more fun things are getting.  There's more excitement, more interaction, more laughing, etc.  It's great.  Here's Lucy at 10 months :

• Still teething, although she still just has the 4 on top, 2 on bottom.
• Gives lot's of hugs and kisses.... to Big Bear.  Just not mom and dad.  :)
• Has the best laugh when she really gets going.  One of our favorite things about Lucy is that she gets slap-happy when she's really tired but in a good mood and she will laugh hysterically at anything! (Wonder where she gets this one from....haha.)
• Still has major stranger/separation anxiety.
• Still sleeping all over the board.  She will have a night or two of sleeping straight through, or only waking up once, which is awesome.  But then she will have a few nights in a row where she is up quite a few times.  I think I figured out that it's her reflux.  I took her off her medicine in hopes that we wouldn't need it anymore, but as the meds have slowly worn off over the last few weeks, the reflux is back with a vengeance.  We started her back on her medication today.  I hate having to give her so much medication, but it works so well and she's actually able to eat and sleep.  Teething always makes reflux worse, so I'm hoping her reflux will go away when she's done teething.
• Lucy developed an allergy to oats.  We noticed awful rashes on her face a lot.  The doctors said to wash and lotion (aquaphor) it better and it should be gone in a few days.  So two weeks later, when it was even worse, I realized that it flared up at certain times and faded at others.  The only things that had changed were that I switched her to oatmeal from rice cereal, and to Cheerios from puffs.  So we stopped giving her anything with oats (and oat flour- like Life cereal and certain breads) and lo and behold, it went away.  The funny thing was that a few days later, she started getting a slight rash again that wouldn't go away for a week or so, and then I caught Ryan giving her cheerios!  Apparently I didn't tell him that I figured out the cause and he  had been giving her a few Cheerios here and there- he even had a secret stash hidden in his church suit coat that he had to keep Lucy happy during church. haha.  Now that we've stopped that, her face is back to normal.  So random, though. 
• LOVES being outside.  She will get so so so excited when I open the front door.  Anytime she is upset, we can take her outside and she's almost always immediately content.  She always finds something so interesting to her- usually the trees in our yard.
• Only interested in food if she can pick it up and feed herself (i.e. not baby food), and even then it's only a very slight interest.  I think she'd rather just always have a bottle.  She has seemed to really like many things she's actually tried though, including fruit (watermelon, grapes, blueberries, peaches), jam sandwiches, crackers, pasta, avacado, etc.
• Lucy loves other babies and children.  She will watch their every move and laugh and follow them. 

 Drool is the most convenient accessory these days. :)

Don't be too fooled by her super cute face in those pics, this is what most of Sunday looked like.  This was the first day ever where Lucy didn't take one single nap at all (thanks to reflux), but she was so exhausted!  She took a good "rest" though on the couch with dad while he napped.

Game day times two

Cleveland Indians by day, BYU Cougars at night.  I can't believe it's football season again.  My life now revolves around football, whether I like it or not. :)  But since the BYU game was super late out here (10:30ish pm!), this post will just cover the first item- the baseball game.

Every summer that Ryan and I have known each other, we have gone to a baseball game together (Indians-'08, Angels-'09, Diamondbacks-'10, Reds-'11).  We realized a few weeks ago that we hadn't gone to a game this year.  I just assumed it probably wasn't going to happen, but Ryan decided to take this last Thursday off of work so we could go up to Cleveland to an Indians game.  We were a divided household because I was a HUGE Indians fan growing up, and Ryan's 2nd favorite team are the A's, which is who they were playing.  Unfortunately for me, the Indians lost, but it was still a pretty fun, high-scoring game.  My mom was able to join us and it was absolutely beautiful weather, too!  It was pretty hot in the sun, but our seats were in the shade the whole time (I even got cold- surprise, surprise).

One of the coolest parts of the whole outing was that the Blue Angels were practicing during the entire game for the air show that weekend.  They were swooping down between buildings straight out from our view, flying right over the top of the stadium, doing loopty-loops, flying upside down, and all sort of tricks!  I watched them more than the game!  They were so loud, they shook everything and Lucy freaked out a little bit.  She figured out that those things were called "planes" and Ryan would say to Lucy "here comes another plane" and she would bury her head into him while he covered her ears.  She's a cute one! 

Speaking of Lucy, she was awesome this whole trip!  She slept most of the way up there, and was SO excited when we got to the stadium.  She was happy and excited to look around at everyone and everything.  I think the biggest miracle of the day was that she sat with my mom a lot!  After my mom offered her cheerios, pretzels, a ring pop, and oatmeal cookies, she was sold.  It was fun to be able to enjoy everything a little bit more since there were three adults to pass the wiggly baby around to.  All in all, it was a great day and a fun outing.

 Lucy's flashing all of her new teeth!  Four on top now.

All of the excitement and skipping her nap really pooped Lucy out.

 Blue Angels practicing:

 Seriously, it was right over us.  It took several tries to get a good pic since they go so darn fast!  Those suckers are crazy loud, too!  It doesn't make sense to me why the Blue Angels are part of the Navy and not the Air Force. 

Big Bear

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to Costco.  We went just to get diapers and wipes, and left with a 54 inch teddy bear as well.  Talk about an impulse buy!  We were walking by it, and as soon as Lucy saw it, she started kicking her legs and squealing and waving at it.  So we stopped and took her over to see it.  As soon as we picked it up and put it by her, she grabbed it and did not want to let it go.  It was way too cute to see, especially since Lucy has never really had a reaction like that to anything yet... so in the cart it went.

I assumed it would be fun for a day and wear off pretty quickly since that is how Lucy is with most of her toys and things, but let me tell you... I was completely wrong!  Words cannot describe this girl's love for Big Bear (that's his name).  As soon as she wakes up, we bring her downstairs and on our way down she is already kicking and squealing and laughing for Big Bear and then as we round the corner she is turning like crazy to reach him.  She will often wave at him as we get closer and closer.  Once he's in sight, she takes a big dive out of our arms straight for him.  She will just sit and cuddle with him, give him big hugs and kisses, but the cutest thing is that she has long, loud conversations with him frequently.  She will pull herself up against Big Bear, grab his face, and just babble for like 5 minutes straight.  Ha!  I wonder what she's telling him.

A fun thing we discovered is that Lucy is really catching on to things now.  One day I asked her, "Where's Big Bear?"  and she immediately turned around and headed for him, laughing.  Now whenever we ask her that, she looks around until she can find him and will often wave at him.

Long story short, it was the best $30 ever spent.  We just kind of wish it was appropriate to bring him to church with us as it might be the only thing that helps us make it through those 3 hours! :)

The ride home was pretty funny.  In this pic, Big Bear is partly out of the car, so once the door was shut, he took up every extra inch of the back seat.  Other cars we passed probably had a laugh.  This picture shows the love at first sight:

 I love this picture below because I feel like it shows how big Lucy is getting!

 Sometimes she pulls too hard on Big Bear and he topples over on her, which she thinks is pretty hilarious.

 He's the best listener.

Balloons and Tunes

Every year Grove City has an activity called "Balloons and Tunes" where a bunch of hot air balloons all blow up in Beulah Park.  They offer little rides up and back down for only $5 but unfortunately those rides sold out right before us in line! Darn.  It's a whole fair/carnival type of atmosphere with booths, games, bounce houses for kids, bands playing and cornhole (which I know is everywhere but it is definitely a major Ohio thing.  They even have it outside stores at the mall to make people go into those stores.  They're obsessed.  It's pretty fun though).  We rode over with our friends, the Madsen's, and met up with/ran into some ward friends (Gardner's, Elder's, & Beck's) and some of our neighbors.  Everyone sets up blankets and at the end of the night when it's dark all of the hot air balloons light up at the same time.  It was a beautiful night with perfect weather and it was free!