A Little Side-Trip

As soon as the trip to Nashville had been booked, I knew that I needed to find a way to see my sweet grandbabies while I was so close.  Close meaning only 3-1/2 hours away!   It was a lot of driving for only about 20 hours to spend there (including sleeping time), but it was worth every second and somehow I was able to talk my Mom and sister, Kristina, to join me as well!  

I may have been a little giddy while I was there...

I read as many books as I could, had many hilarious toddler conversations, snuggled Baby Oliver, and just enjoyed some bonus Gigi time...

And I didn't mind sharing them too much...especially since they seemed to be enjoying it almost as much as I was. 

Now only 34 more days until I see them again!  




 

Lucie Overload!

Hello friends!   Thanks for visiting my blog today.    Can you believe I've been keeping this up {with varying degrees of devotion} for 16 years now?  I blog for all sorts of reasons, but mostly I blog to capture the memories into one place...my online journal of sorts...and I love that my family uses this blog as a resource to look up old stories or to find that one picture.  I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the  Facebook and Instagram, so lately I've been trying to keep those at arm's length and embrace the details that are better captured in blog format anyway.   Plus I also really like not worrying about how many likes or comments I happen to get.   I figure if someone's reading my blog, that means they chose to read it and not just because it popped up in their social media algorithm that day.   So, thanks for being here!  I'm glad you care enough to read.  Send me a text sometime.  Or call me next time you come to town.  

Now onto the purpose of this blogpost...to inundate all of you,  my dear blog readers, with pictures of the sweetest little 18-month-old in the entire universe!  💗

  I just spent the last two-and-half  weeks hanging out with Lucie May--first in Alabama and then here at home in Utah--and I am more enamored than ever with grandparenthood!  Seriously, I loved {mostly} being a Mom, but being a Gigi is the best of all worlds.  I get to snuggle with, play with, read to, and just enjoy being with Lucie without the hard parts of parenting.   I read a quote that said that "Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for getting old," and it made me laugh and rang true.  😂  There's a lot not to like about having an aging body, but if getting old is what it takes to get to the grandbabies, I'll take it!  

So, let's get started on this Lucie overload.   As mentioned in a previous post, 24-hours after returning from spending 3 days at Trek, Ellie and I caught a plane to Alabama.  Cami was working some crazy hours and her sister-in-law was leaving town, so we came to help out with childcare for a bit.  It was the longest I've ever spent with Lucie all at once, so I feel like I got to know her personality more...and a delightful one it is!  

To keep this from being a 15-page blogpost (I print up my posts into books every so often) and to share as many pics as possible, I  decided to create a whole bunch of collages.  I'll write up a little blurb about each collage...

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 ALABAMA:   Cami and Garrett were both working long hours, so Ellie and I just hung out with Lucie, ran some errands, and made some meals.  We didn't do any sightseeing (not that Birmingham has that many fun places to sightsee anyway 😂).  In this collage you can see Lucie helping Cami bake something yummy {and try out some plain butter}, play at a great park in downtown B-ham, go on some walks (one of her favorite things to do), snuggle with Ellie, and just be her cute expressive self.

ALABAMA:   More walks, learning how to blow bubbles, a trip to the Birmingham Zoo {where she determined that elephants are stinky}, snuggling with her Dada, and reading books with Gigi! 

ALABAMA:  More walks, more helping Cami bake, and just chilling outside.  

AIRPLANE:   After about a week-and-a-few-days in Alabama, Ellie and I had to leave, so Ellie could get back for YW Camp.    Our flight was delayed, so we spent an extra night in Alabama, then woke up in the wee hours of the morning {we left the house at 4:00am} and took Lucie with us back to Utah.   She was clearly very tired, but she was quite the trouper and I was impressed at how well she held up with the long day of flying on such little sleep.  

UTAH/WALKS:  Being on Alabama time, meant she was waking up at 5:30am on the dot each morning.  My sister was also visiting with her 4 kids {who were on California time}, so I took her on  early morning walks most days to get her out of the house until a better time for K's kids to wake up.   She's not a super fan of being in the stroller these days, so Lucie logged a lot of her own steps  on our walks and kept our walks very much toddler-paced.  We looked at a lot of rocks, smelled (and picked 😬) a lot of flowers, and labeled every familiar sight she saw along the way.    We did get her out on a couple adult-paced stroller walks as well, but not as many as usual for sure!   

UTAH/PETS:   For months now, whenever Lucie and Cami Facetime, she asks to see the dogs, so it was with extra excitement that Lucie actually got to spend time with Denali.  She was a tad nervous about Denali's energy at first, but she  grew quite attached by the end and watching their interactions was very sweet.  Denali has the perfect temperament for small children (just as Rocky did)  and she seemed to rather enjoy the extra attention Lucie was eager to give.  She also enjoyed meeting my sister's cat.  We kept Spencer's dog, Kiwi, completely separate, because we were quite nervous about how she might react to a little person. 

UTAH/FAMILY:  As I mentioned previously, my sister, Kristina, and four of her kids were staying with us that week as well.  That meant our house was full of LOTS of noise, LOTS of mess, and LOTS of fun!  Lucie LOVED all the other little people around and all the extra people to beg food off of!   The boys were a little wary of Lucie, but they were also sweet and tolerant of her at least.   Isaiah decided that offering Lucie food and eagerly awaiting  her to sign "Thank you" was his love language.  Manuel would let Lucie hold his toys and hand them back to him.  Jesus wasn't sure about her at all, especially after she pinched him a few times, so he mostly kept his distance.   Kristina absolutely loved having a little one to dote on and my Mom, Nana (Lucie's great-great grandmother), and sister, Heather, loved spending time with her as well. 

UTAH/FOOD:  Lucie is a very food oriented girl, which isn't much of a surprise considering how strongly the genes for that trait run on our side of the family.  She loves her meal-times, figured out quickly where the popsicles were kept, and would eagerly steal food from whomever happened to be eating at that moment.   She even ate dirt from a plant once!  

UTAH/LEGO HAIR:  With 3 Lego loving boys in our home, our house literally looked like a Lego bomb had gone off while they were here.  Luckily Lucie is mostly past the stage of putting everything in her mouth (though we definitely had to watch her still).  Here's a funny little story:     She was sitting in her highchair waiting while I got her food and was playing with a Lego guy.   She pulled the hair off and handed it to me to fix.  I said, "Oh, did the hair come off?  Let's put that hair back on," then I gave it back.  She heard me say, "HAIR," so she promptly began brush her hair with the Lego guy.    You do have  to admit that Lego hair doesn't look much like real hair, so I can see her confusion! 😂

UTAH/PAPA/ELLIE/EMMA/SPENCE:   Ellie was heading off to YW Camp, so they had to say their goodbyes pretty soon after arriving back home.  Glen was taking off for work in Saint George, so he also had to say his goodbyes after only a day.   Spence just started a new job, so we got to see him in the evenings.  Emma came to visit when she could.  We all loved our Lucie time!

UTAH/MISCELLANEOUS:   Here are some more random Lucie moments I captured.  Lucie following in Uncle Adam's footsteps and trying to figure out the Rubik's cube, pretending the calculator was a phone, stopping to see the garden orbs we have hanging near our front door, finding a gallon of vinegar to tote around at Great-Grandma's house, emptying out the cupboard (and putting everything in the dryer), reading books, and trying to color sort with Gigi. 

UTAH/LARA/GIGI:  And finally, here's the last collage--pics with Lucie and me!  I love this little girl and I love being her Gigi.   💗💗💗 

 

 Now that Lucie's back with her Mama and Dada, our house feels empty and I am very much missing her {and her parents}.

Thank goodness for Facetime to tide me over until the next trip! 
 

PS  Who am I kidding?  Even with the collages, this probably still a 15-page blogpost!   😁

We Love Lucie!

I started this blog back in 2007, which means I've been keeping this up for  FIFTEEN YEARS now!   Wow, that seems like a long time.  I haven't been that great at it over the last few years, but, whenever I think about giving it up altogether, I remember what a treasure this photo-journal has been for our family.  My kids will still go back and look up stories they kind of remember, so they can refresh their memories.   I will use it when I write talks and sometimes I just like to reminisce back on simpler times when the kids were young.   Now 4 of the 5 kids are high school graduates and off having their own adventures, which weirdly don't usually include me. 😂😂 With a much emptier house and kids that do way less cute things I want to document, sometimes I don't feel like I have that much to write about.  Then I remember something....  

Now I am a grandma!   

Sweet Lucie is 3-1/2 months old now and I've decided that this blog needs waaaaaaaaaaay more pictures of her, so this post is an effort to get that started! 

Lucie still lives in Austin, so we don't get to see as much of her as we'd prefer, but Cami is good at sending pictures our way.  This post is a mix of shots that I've saved from our family group text and ones I took when I visited in person last month.   

She is getting so smiley and interactive now. 😍

 Most of Cami's pictures are taken in the "live" mode, so sometimes I'll watch them again and again and again to watch her in action and feel more connected to her. 

I visited Austin in mid-February to help them with childcare while they finish school.

I really, really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with Lucie...

And I had fun pulling out old outfits my kids had worn when they were babies and trying them on Lucie. I don't know where any pictures of my kids wearing these plaid overalls are, but I have very sweet memories in my head of them wearing them! 

This picture of Cami (on the left) was in her baby book, so that was an easy find.  

We did lots of snuggling...

...as much snuggling as possible! 

And we played lots too, so I could eat up that sweet smile...

This girl is so loved...

And I can't wait for my next visit....

In the spirit of this being a photo-journal of our lives, here are a few tidbits about Lucie, so we don't forget: 

1.  She is a good eater and is quickly growing chunkier by the day
2. Her body doesn't seem to like it when Cami eats dairy products, so she's cut them out of her diet completely while she's breastfeeding
3. Cami and Garrett are back to school this semester.  This is Garrett's final semester of med school, so his schedule is very light.  Cami has one more semester after this, so she's been very busy. 
4. She is a great sleeper--waking up just a couple times a night to eat, then going back to sleep.  I hardly ever noticed her in the middle of the night, even when sleeping in the next room.
5. She is just barely beginning to figure out how to use her hands.  She swats at things and loves to suck on her fist.
6.  She doesn't love her tummy-time. 
7. She LOVES being outside.   It's an instant soother for her when she's fussy. 
8.  She also loves being naked, which is a little funny considering this little blurb Cami wrote (at the end of the blogpost) when she was young.  
9. She is starting to grow attached to her special blanky and will hold onto it when she's stressed or upset. 
10. She's got a pretty easy-going personality.  Basically, if she's crying, then she needs something.  



Stay tuned for more Lucie updates in the future!