Bed head

Lucy's hair is finally long enough to sport some awesome bed head in the mornings and after naps.  I love it for now... until the knots start coming. :)

Eight months

Yesterday Lucy turned eight months!  I can hardly believe it.  This last month has been equally as awesome as the previous one.  She's a fun girl!  Here's a little bit about Lucy at eight months:

• Crawling!  She started this about a week ago but she has yet to figure out how to use her legs in this endeavor.  She will just have her legs stiff and straight out behind her and use her arms to pull her body everywhere.  She's been getting up on her knees and rocking a bit the last day or two so I think she's on the verge of really getting the hang of it.
• One of her favorite things to do now is pull herself through our living room over to where the kitchen floor starts and pat her hand on the floor.  She likes that it's a new feel and makes a loud noise. :)
• Her reflux flared up pretty bad again and I think it's from all of this crawling-without-legs business because her little tummy has so much pressure on it now.  The doctor just had me double her dosage of medicine to help (from 2.5ml to 5ml).  I hope she grows out of this soon- for both her health's sake and our budget- the meds aren't super cheap!
• Lucy loves to babble like crazy and I love it!  She will sit and "talk" to me for like 20 minutes every morning after I feed her.  Lately she's been exploring her super high-pitched voice but softly and it's so cute to hear.  She always looks so shocked and happy when she realized those noises came from her.  haha. 
• Struggling with naps these days.  They're not lasting very long, which is making her tired and a bit cranky in between.  Not sure what to do about it and not really worrying about it either... one less thing to stress about and I'm sure it will fix itself sometime.  As long as she's still sleeping through the night, which she is, I'm fine.
• When I read books to Lucy now, she actually listens and looks at each page instead of just trying to get the whole thing in her mouth at once.  We need more books now because I'm sick of the same 5 we always read.
• The nicknames that have really stuck are: The Gooster (if we're talking about her), or Gooser, Goosie Girl, and Loose-Goose.  It sounds weird, but seems totally normal to us now.  I actually called her 'Lucy' the other day and it seemed odd for a second.  haha.
• Lucy can finally eat more solids such as puffs and yogurt melts without choking and, as of the last couple days, can grab them from my hand and get them into her mouth most of the time.  She is also drinking water from a sippy cup at dinner time.  It keeps her thoroughly entertained while Ryan and I eat.
• Loves the pool, which is great since we go on an almost-daily basis.  The best part is that she grew into her floatie (that we're borrowing- thanks, Marci!) a little more and loves floating around the big pool so I don't have to stick to just the kiddie pool.  All three of us love going as a family on the weekends.
• Lucy is becoming a bit more cuddly these days and obviously I LOVE it!  Sometimes when she's sitting on my lap just reading or playing with toys, she will lean into me and just "hug" me for a minute.  Sometimes it's just because she's tired... but I'll take it anyway!
• She still doesn't like her car seat but she is getting so much better at putting up with being in it and tagging along for errands, which makes things a bit less stressful.
• I almost forgot- she waves hi and bye!  It's kind of the cutest thing ever.  She sticks out her arm straight and flicks her wrist up and down while her fingers form a fist.  Love it.
• Also, she totally just ate a corner of a cardboard box as I was writing this post.  Add that to her list of food.  And my mom-of-the-year credentials.  

I realize that to most people, these pictures are kind of all the same, but I liked them all because there are little things about each one that I, as her mom, love.  So, they all get posted!  I also realize that she is not wearing any head decor, which goes against everything I believe in as far as baby girls are concerned... unless it's a million degrees outside with a billion percent humidity, in which case all headbands go out the window because who has the energy to go back inside and get it?  Not I.

older and wiser, too

Ryan just turned the big three-two!  We celebrated by having a picnic at the pool, swimming, and relaxing... and then Ryan came home from work and joined the party (of course we wished he could have skipped work and joined us). :)  One of his coworkers made a fruit pizza for him, and then, per Ryan's request, we all went to Chipotle for dinner and went for Cherry and Raspberry Cheese Pies instead of a traditional cake.  He also got a few presents and cards, which is always a fun part of birthdays.  It was fun celebrating Ryan for the day because he sure is great and I'm convinced that he just gets better each year!  Happy Birthday Ry!

Jastal's visit

My sister and her family were able to stop in at our house in Columbus for a few nights during their trip to Ohio and we had a lot of fun with them.  They came Sunday afternoon and left today.  We played at the pool for a while, took lunches and ate them outside, sat outside in the evenings and talked, and relaxed a lot.  It was fun for Lucy to meet her cousin Ashlynn.  Also, my grandma and mom were able to come down on Monday, which happened to be Ryan's birthday.

Fourth of July

For this year's fourth of July, we rented a vacation home with two other families in our ward at the Red Fork Lake Farm out in Hillsboro, Ohio.  This could also be known as the vacation in which I gained 5 pounds in less than 24 hours.  True story.  Anyway, it was about an hour and a half away, and in the middle of nowehere/some small Amish community, but it was SO beautiful and right on a big lake.  The home was very spacious and decorated so cute but I forgot to take pictures inside.  We drove down the afternoon of the 3rd and came home the 4th.  The first night there, the men stayed at the house and hung out and prepared dinner while us women took the kids to the beach.  That's my kind of set-up! :)  After our BBQ, we played a lot cornhole and other games, did sparklers, ate junk food like it was my job, and laughed so hard our stomaches hurt.  The next morning, we made a huge pancake/bacon/sausage/eggs/fruit breakfast, then left the house for the beach.  It was a fun because we actually felt like we left Ohio and got away for a little bit.  

Rasmussen/Martin Vist

As mentioned in the previous post, we had some of Ryan's family here visiting for two days.  Besides the zoo and waterpark, we did a lot of hanging out in the evenings outside when the kids were in bed, eating Graeter's ice cream, and celebrating Mark's 60th birthday.  We had a big storm literally two minutes after they arrived that knocked our power out for 5 hours.  Thankfully it came back on because there are still people today that don't have it back yet!  The weather was really nice on Saturday though when we went to the zoo.  On Sunday evening, we also took a nice walk along the riverfront down the Scioto Mile and enjoyed the swings and fountains there.  While we were there, we could see a storm rolling in, but it didn't look like it was going to be right over us or hit within the next few minutes... but we were wrong!  As soon as we started walking back to our cars a couple blocks away, big gushes of wind started blowing everything all over the place.  It was tornado-like wind.  We were waiting for the sirens to go off!  The wind even blew over one of our strollers and into a car and it took two of us to pull it back upright (luckily we had just taken Lucy out). It was scary seeing signs, debris, and other things being swept away and flying through the air, as well as not being able to hardly take a step without being blown over!  Thankfully we made it to our cars before the downpour started!  It was quite an adventure.  We had so much fun and wish they could have stayed longer than two days!

Columbus Zoo & Zoombezi Bay

Ryan's sister, Michelle, and her family just moved from California to Florida.  Mark and Janae traveled with them as they did the long drive and we were lucky enough to have them stop here for a couple of days.  One of the days they were here, Ryan's work did a company day/lunch at the Columbus zoo and Zoombezi Bay (the big waterpark at the zoo), so we all went together and had so much fun.  We spent the morning at the zoo, then had lunch, and moved over to the waterpark in the afternoon.