Point Reyes

For those of you who have never been or ever heard of Point Reyes it is a beautiful little coastal community north of Sausalito/San Francisco. It is most known for its oysters and oyster farming. A few days ago the 6 of us piled in our cars and drove up the coast through miles and miles of twists and turns. Gorgeous scenery if you can stomach through the treacherous drive. We drove past Muir Woods, Muir Beach, Stinson Beach and several dairy communities before we reached our destination. It was an overcast day, and although not the most ideal conditions the beauty of this place was still clearly visible.

Lacy was not too thrilled with our trek to get there, however, once we stopped for lunch at Nick's Cove for some local fare she was all smiles again. We cozied up next to the fire and enjoyed oysters on the half shell, clam chowder, crab cakes, and dungeness crab. Afterwards we toured the grounds of the cove and took advantage of the great light and scenery for picture taking opportunities. Here are some of our efforts:

First Xmas

At 10 months Lacy celebrated her first Christmas and boy was Santa and her family good to her. I think Mom and Dad realized that they went overboard and next Xmas we will definitely scale back a bit considering Lacy found the wrapping paper and boxes much more entertaining.

We had a wonderful Christmas and there were so many gifts to open that Lacy had to take a nap in between and start again two hours later! It was such a treat to spend Christmas with my CO family. It has been a long time since we have spent a Christmas together and we had a day of enjoying each others company, sharing in the season, and eating way to much food.

Christmas coincided with Lacy learning to pull herself up on anything and everything which has shown to bring more bumps and bruises and a few more tears. She is non-stop all the time. Our daughter is not one to sit still and take it all in. She would much prefer to explore and learn on her own terms. I don't think we are too far away from seeing her 'cruise' with confidence around the furniture and toys.

More posts to come on the adventures of the Lacy's in Sausalito. Happy New Year to all!

Ode to All The Mommies

To the stay at home or working mom (or both) readers---this article should make you smile! If you can't read you can click on the picture for an enlargement.

Christmas Card Outcasts

Thought you might enjoy some of our Xmas card outtakes. We didn't go with any of them, but they sure were fun to set up and take. If you know my husband at all you will know that this was his idea. Harley was not nearly as thrilled with the photo op as we were.

Butts

Can there be anything cuter than baby butts? Perhaps this....(our little plumber to be):

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

This year I have felt overwhelmed by the thought of Christmas and all that it entails. I have been caught completely unprepared and have, for the first time in my life, felt the stress of the holidays. Thank goodness for weekends! I finally found some free time and some spare energy reserves and have started the whole Christmas process.

Yesterday, I attempted (with the help of my mom and sister) to bake Christmas cookies and share the fun with Lacy. While Ryan had previously committed to helping our friends move to their first home, we girls put our domestic skills to good use. Three packages of sugar cookies, 2 large packages of confectioners sugar, 6 holiday cookie cutters, 10 food coloring packages, thousands of sprinkles and a whole lot of love and goodness were put into our cookies. As you can see it was quite a mess, but a good time nonetheless AND Lacy was able to enjoy her first taste of cookies and icing.


While we waited for cookies to bake and to cool, Mom and G'ma were able to get some of the Christmas wrapping done. Wrapping isn't as easy as it used to be with a 9 month old crawling and exploring, but it is WAY more fun! Lacy enjoyed her first experience helping 'the girls' wrap.

When Ryan returned it was time to get our first Christmas tree as a family. For the last 4 years that Ryan and I have been together we have either been traveling or apart for Christmas and this was the first time that we would be home for the holidays. It was off to our local Christmas tree farm to find the perfect tree for the perfect space in our home. Believe it or not, it was a cold day here in San Fran and hats, gloves, and fuzzy jackets were required. It felt a lot like we were back home in DC. Lacy enjoyed her trip and spent much of the time admiring the balloons and pennant flags flying at the farm. She enjoyed watching the men at the farm use their chainsaws and rope to cut and anchor the tree to our car. Lacy seemed to really enjoy her time there and the cold weather. Perhaps we have a cold weather baby on our hands.

Later on Lacy enjoyed watching Dad put the tree into the stand and string the lights. As soon as it was up it was time to explore this new sparkly monstrosity in our living room. It didn't take her long to realize that she was not 'allowed' to touch the lights or the cord that we have wrapping halfway across our living room. I think we are going to have to find some sort of remedy to that. Lacy even helped us decorate with an ornament or two until she got bored.

Before:


After:

To top off the night, Sausalito hosts a lighted boat parade with a fireworks show as the finale. All of us gathered in our bedroom to watch the fireworks show. Lacy LOVED the fireworks display. She oooed and ahhhed along with the rest of us and got very excited by the grand finale. All in all, it was a perfect way to start of the holiday season for us and I am now gung ho and on a mission to get all my holiday shopping and decorating done by Monday.

9 Month Stats

From Lacy's check up at 40 weeks:

Height: 28 inches
Weight: 18 lbs 7.5 oz.

For those of you who track by percentile she is in the 25th-50th percentile for both height and weight. She is a small bean with a big belly. She definitely enjoys meal time. We don't really have a problem there. She is currently enjoying chicken mango risotto. Yes, she has gourmet tastes.

Similarities? Absolutely.

There is always a constant debate between Ryan and myself over who Lacy looks most like, although the general consensus is she looks most like me, but does have Ryan's toes, and some of his facial expressions. There are also certain things that Ryan does that remind me so much of Lacy or vice versa. They can even look like twins when they are sleeping--is it possible to have a sleep expression? Oh, and have I mentioned her hair? She gets that from her dad FOR SURE! But, overall her facial features and her small stature (the polite way of saying short with even shorter legs) are all her momma's.

Here are a few comparisons around the 10 month mark. Thanks to my Dad for forwarding these OLD photos on to me.

Rub a Dub Dub

If there is one thing that is guaranteed to bring a smile to our little girls face it is bath time. It does not matter if she is in a good mood, bad mood, or indifferent. A bath brings about the smiles, the laughs, and when its time to get out she fights it all the way. We have a water baby on our hands folks. During her darkest hour, her sickness over Thanksgiving, when she could barely lift her head, she played in the bath as though all was right. She likes to splash and kick. She doesn't seem to mind if water goes down her face and into her eyes. She smiles and laughs and watches her feet underwater. Bath time is also a bonding time for Lacy and her Daddy. That is their time and it is so precious to watch the two of them together. So sweet. Enjoy just a few of our bath time moments.

Thanks and Giving 2008

Well, although not the most ideal vacation a family could ask for, we arrived safely back to San Francisco after our 5 day trip to San Diego for Thanksgiving. The plan was supposed to be that we would relax, enjoy Thanksgiving with my Dad, stepmom, Jane, and my brother, Sean, catch several soccer games, enjoy the warmer weather, the beach and being with family. Alas, that was not what happened.

After more hours in the car then we had ever intended, due to a 3 hour Thanksgiving Day traffic jam from LA to San Diego, we headed to T-day dinner with the Lacy family. It was a wonderful meal, Lacy was in good spirits, and the company couldn't be beat. We had a lot to be thankful for and we enjoyed that night immensely (also thanks to the amazing desserts offered by the restaurant!). Some of our photos from the night (pre-incident):

We returned home to our hotel room that night and put Lacy down as usual only to wake up about an hour later to her crying. When we went to check on her we had found that she had thrown up all of her dinner and what looked like might also be her lunch too! Poor girl was covered almost from head to toe and had no idea what had just happened to her. This occurred several times throughout the night and each time we bathed her, dressed her and found some article in the hotel room to act as her sheet. We can be pretty resourceful when we have to be.

The next day she was seemingly in good spirits, a little cranky, but we kept her on a strict diet of Pedialyte and she seemed to be doing well. After a full day of the electrolyte diet, we decided to slowly add formula back in to give her some comfort at night and a little more nourishment. Bad idea first time parents. Shortly after we put her down for the night she woke up covered again from head to toe. Long story short, back to square one. And back to Pedialyte. The next morning, Lacy was in sad shape. She was very tired, had a fever, and did not want to smile, laugh or play. As if all this was not enough, she had 4 of her top teeth coming in all at once. She spent almost a whole day sleeping and when she wasn't sleeping she was crying. From there on out we had shifts, we barely went outside, and we spent most of the rest of the vacation exploring our hotel for snacks, soda machines, restaurants, and more and more towels.

On the bright side, Ryan was able to check out one of Sean's soccer games and I was lucky enough to see two out of the three. Granted, not one of them was a win, but it was nice to be out and about and with our family, as we didn't see much of them during the time we were there due to little Lacy's illness. Below are some of the pics from Sean's 2nd game that all three of us were able to attend before Lacy became 'officially' sick:


We left early Sunday morning to beat the EXTREME traffic that we encountered coming down to San Diego and coasted quickly into Santa Barbara for our first stop. Lacy slept for the remainder of the day and night, so we did not get to see Santa Barbara other than the hotel lobby and surrounding courtyards. Below pictures pretty much sum up Lacy's trip to San Diego:

Monday was our last day on the road and Lacy slept most of the trip back to San Fran. We got in around 1pm and immediately went to the pediatrician for Lacy's 9 month check up and, of course, to assure us that this was just a bug. The doctor said she was fine, checked out normal, and told us to go back to our normal feeding routine. Great news! Thought we were in the clear.

Not to be, the next morning we started Lacy on her regular diet of formula and oatmeal in the morning. Not more than 5 minutes after we finished breakfast it was all on the living room floor. Well, here we go again. The doctor was called and we were told to go to small formula and snack meals throughout the day and see if she kept that down. Every day has gotten better since then, although now, she is very irritable and not our normal, smiley, happy, sleep through the night baby. I am convinced it is her teeth. She has been waking up sporadically throughout the night crying with more velocity than I have ever heard from her. She is clingy and can normally settle down once I rock her, however, this process continues on and on throughout the night. Normally, this would not be too rough as Ryan and I would take shifts, but Ryan has been away on business for the past 4 days. I am on a solo mission.

Last night was MUCH better. I gave her infant Tylenol before bed and this seemed to do the trick. She slept until 8:30 with a little bit of a wake-up at 7:30. Not too bad. She at least gave me a chance to catch a few more zzz's then I have had over the past week. Thanks to Lacy for that! She is still a bit of a grump and naps are few and far between, but she is back completely to her normal diet and starting to leave my side and go back to exploring our house little by little. Check out Lacy exploring as far as she has been away from me in a week:

Even though our trip to San Diego didn't work out as planned, we are fortunate that my family will again be visiting with us for Christmas in just a few weeks. We are hoping that Lacy will get more quality time with her Bumpa, Nana and Uncle Sean (and overcome her shyness!).

Lastly, here is a movie we spliced together with some images from the holiday.

Love to all!