the holiday season

Holiday parties have been happening left and right. In the tinsel frenzy Lucy has been a champ. She had her first ear infection and first fever this month. Definitely not my favorite firsts,but we knew it was gonna happen. We're all looking forward to a little vacation and some time with Buzz and Nana

Santa came to Atlanta!

lucy wasn't afraid of the man in red. Yay for beards.

dots, hives and rashes: My polka dotted baby girl

Today we met Erythema multiforme minor. Blech. Poor little Lu had some little dots yesterday evening that began to look a lot more like hives by 3 am and had pretty much taken over her trunk with hot red welt-y things by 6am. The photos REALLY don't do it justice. Color me crazy terrified. Thank goodness for Nana on speed dial and the notoriously calm Mike.

As it turns out this malady looks a lot worse than it actually is. We got in to the Pediatrician and discovered that rather than a food allergy, as I had suspected with the hives, she has an odd infection. No fever so it's not contagious, just scary huge welts. She's happy and seems to not eve be itchy. I itch just looking at the welts. She such a cutie patootie, and a touch little one. These can last up to 2 weeks. I'm hoping we clear it up sooner. Adventures in parenting for sure!

And We're off.... It's the Holiday Season

Yay. It's the holiday season! So far Lucy is awash in 1sts. She rode the carousel at Piedmont Park on the opening day of Season of Magic. Aunt Audrey was the operator, so it was a fun family affair and she got the whole carousel to herself thanks to awesome timing. She also got to take her 1st horse drawn carriage ride through the Park. She slept through the whole thing, but who can blame her, she was pretty exhausted after all the excitement.

Then... We went to Alabama for Thanksgiving! You guessed it, Lucy's 1st. We celebrated cousin Molly's 2nd birthday, chilled with cousin Charlotte, and generally had a nice relaxing time with all the relatives. Lulu even rode along for this year's morning 5k.
Next on the list: Decorating the house for Christmas in a baby friendly way.

Exciting Stuff

love and happy holidays to all

Things we've been up to the last few months

Picture Time:


@ Cathy & Leeland's AWESOME beach house.

Mountain Baby in her sweet shades from GrandmaFamily Picture time in Edwards CO

Ruth & Luke's Rehersal Dinner
Pool time @ CO wedding. - We had so much fun. Grandma M. was a super star and
Ruth & Luke = Happily Ever After
Lucy having fun with Eli, Liza and a rouge snack
Competing in races. She totally ran my leg of the marathon :)


Lucy's 1'st Halloween. She was a treasure troll- hence the fluffy hair and gem on belly. 100% hand crafted!! We gave out candy to people who didn't understand what she was, but she had a great time at the Halloween Party. There she was pretty famous.
Showing off the pumpkin that she helped carve and even took a bite out of. That's my girl. Notice that the eyes are her hands.
Watching Daddy Play Music at the park.
With Auntie Ruth at 'Uncle' Shaan's Defense- Dr. Uncle Shaan that is :)



How do habitual bloggers keep up? Life is happening so fast the opportunity to slow down and write about it seems not to exist. Fall has happened. It's practically winter. Waking up to freezing temperatures this morning brought that into focus. So, I'm behind schedule. I intend to keep this updated. Yes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Lucy will get to piece together her first year with my ramshackle blog posts and annotated bits of notes on nursery school reports and other assortments of paper. That girl requires 110% of my attention. I have to be on alert and ready for her to throw me a curve ball. She's still breastfeeding- but now she seems to want to work out while eating. She pumps her legs and arms a la Jane Fonda. What can I say? The girl is into fitness. She comes by it honestly. Maybe she'll run like Mama some day. Hopefully she waits a little longer before she starts.

The pictures span the months. Lots of exciting stuff.

Beaches and Weddings

This past weekend, the first in a line of much traveling, was Lucy’s first trip to the beach. We went to Charleston SC for a wedding and were able to fit in an early morning trek to the beach. So lovely to have little Lu in the water! We just did some stomping about at the very edge of the water. She seemed pretty happy with it, and spent some time just checking out the waves from the beach chair.

Lucy was also pretty amazing at the wedding. It was a Catholic service, so slightly longer than the average event, but she hardly peeped. Lucky for us as the church’s amazing acoustics would have broadcast her dissent. I was so proud of her! Plus, she was an excellent party attendee at the reception and had lots of fun dancing with friends and putting on mustaches.

Next weekend it’s off to FL for a nice family visit with Grandma and Grandpa M. We’re looking forward to some more beach time! Trying to fit in all of our summer vacay at the end of the season.

August: 5 months

Finally August is here and camp is OVER for the year. I will be responsible for 80 less children on Monday than I have been for the last 10 weeks. Down to just one, mine. The whole family has had a nice chill weekend in celebration of easier schedules. Lucy and I got to be Lazy while Mike was on chicken house duty (his choice). Lucy seems to be pretty into the 2 new chicks who are joining Tallulah on the Moerlins chicken farm. We now have Bama and Agnes. The chickens have all been given names that Mike vetoed when we were on the name hunt for baby Lu. Sadly Dixie the chicken did not make it a full year. She has mysteriously disappeared and the streets of East Atlanta are not as friendly as Key West to stray chickens. I’m hoping Lucy will enjoy learning about where her food comes from and I have my fingers crossed that she won’t have an egg allergy!

We’ve been spending time with dear friends and are gearing up for a month with a lot of action. After today the next 4 weekends are going to be full of travel. Lucy seems to be having a nice time, the picture is of her at brunch this morning. She was on excellent behavior.

Okay, I know it’s been a while.

I’ve been chasing other people’s children around for more than 8 hours a day, pumping my brains out (well it’s milk actually but it feels less extreme to say that) and trying to both exercise have a healthy social life with Lucy and Mike. I don’t want to raise a shut in, or become one. In the mess of summer I TOTALLY fell down on my blogging duties.

Don’t despair. I will resurface again soon.

Here are a few shots from this magical summer in the interim.

Lucy is growing like crazy and being hilarious. We more than passed all the 4 month benchmarks at her check up. She’s got a little personality and has a hilarious laugh. Our house is so full of happiness and I’m so gosh darn thrilled that this whole Mom thing hasn’t caused my brain to explode that I’ve been pretty low key on the old internerd.

Happy Day.

M

2 months and Mother's Day

Today Lucy is 2 months!!

We had a magical 1st Mother's day. Lucy came home from daycare Friday with a fun card that she "made" with her teacher's help. Her involvement was pretty much just sitting still while her picture was taken, but I was pretty darn excited. As a person who often works with children for a living I'm amazed that I am just as susceptible to crafts with my kid's picture and/or name on them. Yes, I too am a gushy mom ha ha.

This weekend Green Market opened at Piedmont Park so Lucy got to see her Dad's band play live for the first time. She was excellent at the park and got to meet tons of my favorite people from work as well as some of Atlanta's best farmers (I may be biased but they're awesome folks). She even got to spend some quality time with her Aunt Audrey, Auntie Ruth, Unc Luke and Momma & Papa Ubel. Lucy may have the most honorary relatives of any baby around in addition to her huge genetically related family. She's pretty adored everywhere she goes. We're feeling awfully lucky.

Sunday Mike gave me a framed photo of Lucy and I that is very reminiscent of another picture of my mother and I that mike framed for me as a gift a few years back. Lucy, Mike and I then headed off to the Fernbank Forest for a nature walk led by every one's favorite naturalist, Eli. She was really engaged with the tree canopy. It might have gotten even more smiles and stares than her best friend the ceiling fan. We're branching out these days. Then, we hopped over to Ruth and Luke's for a magical dinner with Lucy's furriest cousin, Bo.

Altogether it was a great weekend, and we're so lucky to have so many wonderful friends and our fabulous families. Happy Monday to all.

p.s. I plan to be a little better with this blog. I am way too delinquent!

Good Morning

It's been a pretty busy 1st month. Since Lucy was born she has had tons of visitors, traveled all over town, and even come with mom to work for a bit. Grandma Debbie came for a whole week to play with her so that I could go back to work for the week of Spring Break Camp. It was so nice to have her here so that I could work without being in mad panic.
This weekend Mike decided to paint the door. I'm calling the shade "Lucille Kelly Green" technically I think it's actually called Asparagus by the folks at Valspar, but I like my name better. The weather is also turning around making time outdoors a lot more pleasant.

We went on our second family picnic, this time we met up with some friends and had a really great afternoon. Lucy wore her new dress from my Uncle Walt and Aunt Amy. I can't yet tie my head around calling my aunts and uncles 'great.' Everyone is still pretty young :).

Better late than never

I have been horribly delinquent in keeping up the blog. While I knew that a baby would definitely take up my time, I didn’t also count on how awesome she was going to be. In short, Lucy is spectacular and Mike and I are thrilled- even when she decides to scream at extreme volume while riding in the car and manages to poop out of her diaper. She can do both with such a cute little face that you can’t hold it against her. Plus she’s got my eyes and her father’s mouth making most of her expressions ones we’re both quite familiar with. Everything is cuter in miniature. Here are some photos of her life thus far. I plan to get back on board with the blog as my maternity leave comes to an end.