Lucy is 18 -- Months, that is!

I'm a little late in posting this, but my little lady is a full year and a half old now, with personality (read: sass) to match.

Stats:

Height: 32.5 inches
Weight: 23.25 pounds
Head: 19 inches

"Hey Lucy, look at mama"
Lucy: "no....no, no, no"
Sassafrass! 

Her dearest love and constant companion: "Daaaaa" aka Giraffe

We had her 18 month checkup and she's hitting all her milestones, like talking, pretending, coloring, following directions, and climbing.  She jabbers all day long and is very social.  She greets all our neighbors in the complex whenever she sees them, even if it's from our third story balcony.  She especially loves other kids, who she calls "bebe" without fail (we're working on them being "kids" since most of them are older than her).

Height: 32.5 inches (75th percentile)
Weight: 23.25 pounds (60th percentile)
Head: 19 inches (90-95th percentile) -- sorry kid, you got the McComb head!

Still my sweet baby.
I still find myself breathing in her sweet scented head everyday.
She fills me with such JOY.

Lucy is enthralled by shoes and can spend twenty minutes at a time, or more, putting them on and taking them off.  She doesn't like help, but given enough time, she can get most any shoe on her foot by herself.  So far she willingly accepts help if we tell her we're going somewhere (editor's note: that all came to an end July 3rd, but I'm dating this back to her half-birthday for record keeping).

Lucy has discovered the words "no" and "my" (mine), and uses them in heavy rotation in our house.  Often she gets ahead of herself and answers "no" before really thinking about what she really wants/doesn't want.  If I ask her to do anything, it's "no"; but if we ask her about anything it's "yeaaaah." "Are you pretty? Are you crazy? Are you blue?" "Yeah!"

She has 9 teeth; we're still waiting on her fourth molar and her lower side teeth, then hopefully we'll get a bit of a break before the canines make their appearance.

She has a need to be naked, and does really well with not having accidents in the house.  She will pee if there's water, though, so we have to watch her around the kiddie pool out on our deck and if we strip her down before she goes into the bathroom to take a bath.  We're introducing the ideas of potty training and making it a part of our conversation with her.  One of the benefits of cloth diapering is that we flush her poopies, so we've started letting her flush the toilet and talking about poopies belonging in the potty.  We're introducing these ideas slowly and will continue to follow her cues on advancing.  She's peed a couple of times on her diaper when it was laying open on the floor (she did the squat and piddle), and so we've been talking about pee pee going on the diaper if she's naked. She likes to try for us.

No diaper, no problem!  Running laps around the house.

This girl loves her accessories!

Cloth diaper and baby keens

Work those arms! Running, Lucy style

My baby got her first haircut! I have to admit, I was a little misty-eyed, but it was time.  I knew I could do it, but I decided to wait and let Nana trim it up just to be safe -- she's got a lot of experience and she wasn't afraid to cut off a good bit from the top. 

She can stack blocks and sort them now.  The stacking I'd seen, but the sorting caught me by surprise as I was filming her the other night.  My determined girl!  She has some of her daddy's and auntie's seriousness, but I'm afraid she has my flash temper: happy and busy, happy and busy, ANGRY, happy and busy, SAD.  Oh my, sweet girl, mama understands!  I wish I could share the video of her stacking and then sorting, but she was naked and I try to keep that stuff off of the web.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my love, Isaac McPhee! 

You teach me so much about our heavenly Father by your love, gentle discipline, and patience for our sweet Lucy! We love you so, so, SO much! Thanks for loving your girls well!

We spent the day together, serving at the church, then heading up to Franklin Falls for a family hike.  Note to Selves: Do NOT hike on a family-friendly weekend day, if possible. It was crowded!! We still had a ton of fun, though, once we found parking. ha! 

We weren't the only ones in this transportation situation!

 Denny Creek is beautiful!

Tree Love!

Franklin Falls is a great family hike near Snoqualmie Pass.  It's so refreshing on a hot day when you reach the falls and the breeze (or wind depending on the day!) blows a fine mist over you. The elevation gain is slight, so it's great for kiddos. I saw many kids not much older than Lucy walking the whole thing! Just take it from us: it's best on a weekday or it's suuuper busy!

Daddy and Lucy throwing rocks

She loves her dada! 

Let's pretend she's a budding lefty, even though she's 95% righty! 

Dada, Mmmmm!
Translation: Dada, come get in on this kissin' action! 

High Five! "Bye?!"

Mama love

Photo Credit: Isaac McPhee
Love the angle on this one! A perfect day! 

I love that it looks like we're alone! 

Signing water and saying "wawa"

This little profile! 

 We ended the day with a wonderful home cooked meal: steak and potatoes -- elevated! (We're big Masterchef fans!)  This was the least we could do to show our appreciation for such a wonderful father!

The "We" on the card is Lucy and Mama -- Let's not go starting any rumors!  ;)

Daddy's Girl - Upcycled T-shirts

We're still in quarantine here in Poxland, so I did some quick sewing to beat away the boredom.  Isaac had a shirt that we both loved, but that was never quite long enough for him.  He finally decided to put it in the donate pile.  I saw it and quickly snatched it up to surprise him with a nightgown for his biggest little fan!  Lucy's becoming quite a daddy's girl -- and why not -- she's got him completely wrapped around that cute little finger with her "dadaaa?" 

When you've got the 'pox and you can't leave the house, you spend a lot of time reading and contemplating life.  I love this series!  She was reading quietly in the "ra-ra" (rock-rock), when she heard some kids playing outside on their way to the bus stop. 

There was a mix-up with Isaac's softball jersey, so Lucy benefited.  A snip here, a stitch there, and she's ready to cheer on daddy at his next Unicorn Squadron game!  And no, we had no say in the name...one of us (or maybe two) love the name....one of us is not so excited about it.  Three guesses who that might be. 

And because she's such a daddy's girl, of COURSE she had to steal his hat and wear it proudly around the house: 

Kitchen Remodel!

We're done!  If you were to tell me that I couldn't renovate a single thing more in the condo while we live here, I'd willingly comply.  I'm sure there will be little things here and there that we find to change, but the list is complete and we are basking in the glow of a completed home!

The last thing to be completed was the kitchen counters.  The counter itself was decent laminate, but the backsplash was hideous.  It was the same terrible backsplash we replaced in the bathrooms.  After pricing it out, we realized it would end up costing so much to replace just the backsplash that it would cost the same as replacing the entire counter with new laminate with a built-in backsplash.  We ended up contracting out the demo/install.  (Best decision ever! So much less stress!) 

The other fun detail about the backsplash -- it had delaminated from the wall before I moved in. I propped it against the wall with a cutting board, then added a lovely layer of silicone caulk to hold it in place and make it water-tight so the sheetrock wouldn't get damaged.  A permanent solution was needed (or at least strongly, strongly desired). 

Here's the before right after I moved in (and after paint): 

My first two renovations: paint and having Papa build me a little shelf over my sink.  It still reminds me of him and makes me smile.  And it's darn useful!! Thankfully the bright peach paint (yeah, didn't look like that on the swatch -- sigh) has mellowed to a nice neutral. 

This backsplash: WHO thought metal stripping looked classy? Who? It doesn't. It makes decent laminate look like trash. Boo!!! 

Our new backsplash was going to be shorter than our old one (of COURSE), so we had to sand, texture, paint (repeat).  

Demo done! 

And the final kitchen: I can't believe how much better I like it now.  I never minded the old counters, just the backsplash, but the new laminate makes the whole kitchen feel brand new!  It's just so clean and fresh!  Isaac previously installed the tile floor.  It all matches so well! I'm in love!

Happy sink! I seriously smiled all through dinner clean up tonight. It's going to take a while for the novelty to wear off, I think. ;) 

Seriously, this makes me SO happy!

Daddy had to reinstall the sink. As with any project, he had a very involved little "helper".  I love how she loves him, and how he, in turn, loves her and is patient with her when she slows his work down exponentially by climbing on him and stealing his tools.