Happy 1st Birthday Lucy!

Two birthdays and a vacation in one month is...insanely busy!  We have had a great month, and between our Lucy's first birthday, Maddie's third birthday (it truly is crazy how fast the time flies), and a trip to the mountains with Sue and Dave, it has flown by.  We're also gearing up to do some renovations on our bathrooms and kitchen, and since we're doing all the work ourselves (and because I am chronically indecisive when it comes to major home purchases) that is taking a lot of time.  

Both girls are just growing and growing. I bought Maddie some summer clothes for her birthday and half of them were 5T's.  She is SO tall.  Lucy is off the bottle (nightmare), pulling up and cruising all over the place, waving bye bye, saying "baby" (Lucy version= "a-BAE!"), and pursuing some research in recurrent ear infections.  Poor Lucy just had her third infection in as many months, and I am beginning to wonder if she is going to need tubes.  Maddie has not really had this issue, so I am just learning the maternal joys of this medical wonder.  The good thing is that the antibiotics work *so* fast, so as soon as we figure out that the ears are the problem, we have her feeling better in about 12 hours.  Despite the pesky ears, Lucy continues to be the funniest, most boisterous little baby you ever saw.  She never.  Stops.  Babbling.  You can always hear Lucy chattering about something, sometimes getting very loud and bossy about things.  She watches Maddie's every move and is seriously considering a career in professional wrestling with her dad.  Lucy really likes to roughhouse with Luke.  It has gotten to the point that he walks in the room and she starts wiggling, turning herself upside down, and yelling at the top of her lungs.  I truly am not even exaggerating the situation.  The Moose is LOOSE! (that's going to be her wrestling tag line.)

We celebrated Lucy's birthday the Saturday after her big day.  Lucy's first year was tough in a lot of ways, with the colic and all the GI stuff, and just adjusting to having a baby and a two year old, but in most of the ways that are important, it was our best year yet.  I never get over the fun of watching our kids play with each other, and watching their funny little relationship develop.  Lucy takes a backseat to Maddie quite a bit, and we were so excited to just celebrate our Moose for the whole day.  We tend to do the one year birthday pretty quietly, though Maddie made sure it was, er, not quiet.  We made Lucy her favorite foods for dinner...I made a big tray of homemade mac n cheese, and we made her a pizza (Lucy's going to absolutely love college.).  After she ate her dinner with Maddie, we busted out a very, very large cupcake for both girls, sang to Lucy, and let them go at it.  Dawn  came over for dinner and cake (and Top Chef after the kids were in bed, of course!), and we had such a nice night.  Lucy was so, so tired by the time she went to bed!  Here are the photos from her big night.  

Dawn came over for cake and fun, despite her evil torn ACL!  Tearing your ACL is not cool.  Take it from Dawn.

And here we see Lucy trying to wrestle with Dawn, the closest available human (Lucy's only requirement for wrestling is that you be both close and human.  Notice Lucy's cute new birthday outfit!

Have we mentioned how much we love Dawn?  She comes and hangs out with us every weekend when we are stuck at home once the kids are in bed.  When her dumb ACL isn't torn she helps us with all kinds of stuff.  

Our best attempt at a family photo.

Maddie's starting to get pretty excited because she knows that soon she's going to be stealing all of Lucy's presents.

Singing happy birthday to our sweet Lucy. 

Here come the cupcake shots.  She was so, so funny.  Lucy really doesn't like sweets (weird!) other than ice cream, and, well, cupcakes.

My favorite.  She did this in slow motion, practically.  She didn't really "dive in" to the cupcake...it was more like she was slowly, magnetically drawn to it against her will.

Once she realized she had to hold the whole cupcake for full control of the situation.

She never got very messy!

Lucy's loot.  She opened one or two before Maddie just went ahead and took over the whole operation.

Lucy was more into eating the presents than opening them.

Lucy, AGAIN with the baby modeling!  She's such a beautiful baby!  (Maddie...AGAIN with the present stealing...)

In all fairness, Lucy was way more into watching Maddie open her stuff for her than she was into doing it herself.

Hey Jeni!  Maddie really wants to thank you for this awesome present you got Lucy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY!  We can't wait to see what crazy things you do in your second year.  We can't remember what things were like before you came along, but we're pretty sure they were way too quiet for us!  We're sorry for all of your nicknames, but we love you, Moose!