Updated photos/video

Some recent photos and videos for you!

Hanging out in the leaves:


Reading with mom:


A budding soccer star!


At the park:



Penguins!


My boots may be a little big, but my magnets are delicious:

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeen!

Sorry it's been so long, everyone... Here are a few photos of recent fun times with Lucy.

A very cute octopus! Here is Lucy with Aunt Patricia and then again with mom and dad.


A fun day in the park:

Touchdown, Bears!

Another day in the park with dad:

Enjoying a scrumptious red carrot from the back yard garden:

We will try to post more again soon!

Happy Birthday, Lucia!

Lucia turns ONE today (it's the 8th today, even though the post says it's the 7th)! Pretty exciting. We thought we'd post a couple videos to commemorate the occasion - the first one is what Lucy was doing last year around this time; the next is much more recent!



Click on this one to watch it on Picasa:

From 11 Months

And a couple photos for additional enjoyment:

I love grilled corn!


Thanks for the birthday cash, mom and dad.

thirtysomething...

Well, actually only thirty. We had a few people over a couple of weeks ago to celebrate a new decade of life for me (!) and our fabulous friend Daniel whipped out his fancy, 50-pound behemoth of a camera and got some great shots - thanks, D!

Future rocket scientist here loves the rind far better than the actual melon.


Wow do I see this face ALL the time - I'm glad to have it on film, thanks to Daniel's discerning eye.


Me and Colleen admiring the size of the butternut squash plant (aka JUNGLE).

Also, little naked boo is definitely a walking machine these days. She started taking a step here and there about a week ago and took off pretty immediately thereafter. She gets a little top heavy when she starts trucking but is highly skilled at catching the brunt of the falls on her padded diaper-bum. Such a talented girl. Shamefully, our camera got left at Patricia & Evan's house so we have yet to capture any video of the ambulatory queen, but rest assured, bloggable proof coming soon!

Naked Baby Alert!!!

Seems like when I'm on a bloggin' roll, I am on fire! And speaking of fire, it was in the high 90s in Chicago over the weekend (after a very cool past few months) and while Kyle and I were busy gardening on Saturday, Lucy got hot and started experimenting with the hose nozzle. The easiest thing to do was just to strip her down and let her get as wet as she liked, which of course warranted a capture on film. And a posting to the world wide web - do you think she'll ever forgive us when she's 16? But the video of her shrieking and chattering is too great not to share. The sound is a little crazy (our neighbor's air conditioning is ear splitting) but you can still catch the gist of the abounding joy!





Wet, naked and EXCITED about life!


And this one of Lucy at the pool with our friend Yoalix is just to prove that we do put her in a swimsuit on occasion!

Dirty laundry...

Here's attempt number 2 at the scampering laundry basket video... for explanation, see post below!

Manic Monday

Hey peeps! Just another manic Monday around here and we are woefully woefully behind on our blogging skills. But have no fear, there are a plethora of backlogged videos, photos and tales just waiting to be aired out here in the public sphere. First up is the video that prompted me to bust out my typing fingers and document some daily hilarity. Seems like so many days at home with Luce are a battle to get her to eat, a battle to get her to play by herself some of the time, a battle to get out the door to go anywhere. So it's always exceptionally pleasant and enjoyable when she discovers some new skill that is fascinating (to her) and delightful (to me!). Behold - the almost walker! Almost runner seems more like it - she found an immense amount of joy this morning in traipsing all around downstairs while pushing the laundry basket. The first time, she freaked herself out with her extreme speed, but after a brief respite, she decided to embrace the energy and toddled around for such a long time. The best moments of this are the first 10 seconds or so, but since Kyle, my video splicer/editor/documentarian is busy earning a paycheck, you are stuck with the whole thing and no fancy music running behind it.

Well NUTS, blogger is saying that this video is so deliciously yummy, they can't seem to upload it. Hold that thought, will try to post in another hour or so!

In the meantime, a selection of action & adventure photos from our last month or so of summertime fun...

YUM! A green pepper from Papa's garden, all for me???


At Millenium Park with Aunt Katy & Uncle Bryan (rocking out to Black Moth Super Rainbow!!!). Also, giving the stink-eye to the camera!


My first ever official soccer game (we went to see the Chicago Red Stars, the new pro women's team). It was HOT.


Reading with Dad. Breaking news - we now love books! Finally, after much gnashing of teeth (mostly gnashing of teeth ON the books).


And finally, modeling my roller derby gear. We have a feeling a rock star roller derby career just might be in this child's future after seeing her mow down (or climb on!) several other small children recently.

A few vacation photos

We're down south visiting family for a couple weeks. Lucy is enjoying spending lots of time with grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and other friends! Here are a few photos from our week in South Carolina (you can click on each photo to see a bigger version):

Sailing the high seas:

From 8 months

On the farm, eating a plum with Aunt Susy:

From 8 months

This rock is almost as good as that plum!

From Drop Box

Cute photo!

We just got this photo from the photographer who did Patricia and Evan's wedding. More to come soon, but we couldn't help but go on and post this one!

For the love of a duck...

Dance dance revolution, anyone? Lucia is a dancing queen but she definitely has her own style going. The video below doesn't even begin to do it justice, but it's a brief peek at the life and times of Lucy the rock star. The musical duck making its video debut was a springtime gift from my Nebraskan grandparents. When we first got it, it scared the daylights out of Lucia, and as the loving parent that I am, I got a ridiculous amount of pleasure out of making it play and watching her eyes grow bigger and bigger until the full-out wails began. Kyle would often berate me, but it was really too hilarious not to do on occasion. And all of my conditioning paid off!!! Now the duck is by far and away her favorite toy in the universe. We often have very long sessions of making it play over and over and over and over again. As you can see, it's worth the cost of batteries.

Thanks for the duck, Grand-Jane and Grandaddy!

Hooray for Dad!!!!!!!!!

Lucy insisted that we make sure to create a special post for Father's Day. She's pretty persuasive, so I decided to oblige.

Happy Father's Day, Kyle. Lucia and I are so fortunate to have you around to be our pillar of patience, creator of culinary crafts and stalwart of soccer skills. Among many many many many many other great things. Thanks for being you. We love you (I am pretty sure I can speak for Lucy on this one)!

Love, Melissa & Lucia

Two posts in one day!

Another post! Below are links to some more photos and videos of what Lucy has been up to recently if you're interested... And don't forget to keep scrolling down to see today's first post.

My Videos

8 months

Photos from recent visitors / festivities

The past month has been a bit crazy with lots of visitors and festivities going on. Here are just a few recent photos. If Lucia takes a long nap this afternoon, I may be able to post a video as well!

Here I am, reading with mom. I finally like books!


At Aunt Patricia and Uncle Evan's wedding, with Grammy:


Outside on the deck with dad:

New Videos

Hi all,

Sorry for the lapse since our last post! We have been busy moving into our new place, but now we're feeling mostly settled and at home. I wanted to post a couple of short videos so that you all can see all the fun things that Lucia has been learning recently.

Here we are, eating the floor and playing in a box!


And just so you can all see how close I am to moving a lot more than my parents are ready for:

The Bunny Hop

I'm fairly certain that these awesome bunny ears (thanks, Aunt Susy!) are far more hilarious to me and Kyle than to Lucia (although she does enjoy eating them), but we think our little stinker is eggs-ellent. She does love carrots... and jumping... and plastic eggs. Maybe we've solved the mystery of the Easter bunny?

Lucia the brilliant has discovered the wonderment of pulling herself up to standing in the crib, a trick which she has now demonstrated to us a minimum of 500 times in the last 4 days. The joys of repetition!

in case the public was wondering

how solid food was going... it's a go! So far green veggies are a big fat blech and everything else is absolutely delicious. Rice cereal? Check. Prunes? Check. Sweet potatoes, apricots, apples, pears, squash? Check, check, check, check and check. Sip of mom's coffee? Delicious. Maybe she is my child after all despite the lack of resemblance!

here we are up to our eyebrows in oatmeal and prunes. What a delectable combo!

While Kyle and I are packing up our things in preparation for the upcoming move, we've found a great spot for Lucia. We'll just tape her up and throw her in the moving van.

in addition to baby food, Dad's head is always a tasty afternoon treat!

irish eyes are...

a) smiling

b) staring vacantly into space

c) a little heavy on the st. paddy's day sauce! yum!

Happy St. Patrick's Day (belatedly)... love, Kyle, Melissa & Lucia (with a special shout-out to my friend Meredith for the festive headgear)

Laughter, The Best Medicine

Two posts in one day! Spring is in the air and I am on a roll. Apologies for the blurry quality of this video - we were in our living room and it was not very light, so it's hard to see, but the magical part is in the audio anyhow so turn up the volume. That laugh! Grammy (Kyle's mom, Patti) was here a few weeks ago and she is apparently the most hilarious person in the universe according to Lucia. It didn't seem to matter what Grammy said or did, it was worthy of a great big belly laugh. Here they are just hanging out on the couch and this baby laughter is pretty priceless.

sitting and swinging

Munchkin central is officially over 6 months old! She is sitting up like a champion and can mostly hold her balance... except when she sees something far away that she wants. In which cases, she reaches, reaches, reaches a bit more... and face plants. But she's enjoying toys which are a little more complicated (blocks, nesting cups, stackables, etc), and her all time fave, cereal boxes and crinkled up paper. Oh, and the shrieking, have we mentioned the shrieking? Her new favorite excited noise... and not a cute, short shriek, but more like shriek "sessions" if you will. We have some evidence on video that I'll post at some point. For now, though, enjoy the new pictures of her showing off her sitting skills. You can also see that the weather is FINALLY turning more spring-like up here so we've had a few park expeditions at which Lucy has discovered her love of swings. And sunshine. And other children. Hooray!

GUYS, I CAN SIT UP!!!!!!!

Swinging at Harrison Park... still a bit nippy, but we didn't mind!

Not only can I sit up, but I can hold things while doing it! What coordination.