Matching chairs

From June2010

A surprise package arrived this weekend - a special chair for Luci! Nana has ordered these chairs for each of her grandchildren, so we have a matching one for Brooke.

Luci has been pushing it around the living room and acts like a 'big girl' when she gets to sit in it. We got Luci in for a recent check-up last week and she's keeping up her steady growth at the 20th percentile (bigger than Brooke was!). She's 27.25 inches and 17 lbs 7 oz.

From June2010

From June2010

And here's a picture of Brooke the day her chair arrived. Hard to tell the girls apart without the names on the chairs!

From Brooke1

Luci at 10 months

Luci has been blossoming into such a little person. She gets everywhere now and is quite a chatterbox. She can crawl at light-speed and is cruising all over the house. She stands on her own and has taken a few steps, but is too wobbly to be a walker yet. Still, nothing is safe from Luci anymore. Brooke is constantly getting frustrated and picking up her toys or food and moving them to a new location. Her new mantra is "Mommy, get Luci!" It's also funny to hear my words echoed back (sometimes) to me. I try to stay out of Luci and Brooke's little squabbles, but will interject "Hands to yourself" to Brooke if I see any pushing or (my favorite) pinching. So now, Brooke has started bossing "Hands to yourself!" at Luci now whenever Luci tries to get to close.
Because of our crazy year and all our moves, we're a month behind on Luci's checkups. Even though she'll be 10 months old next week, she won't be going to her 9 month check-up until mid-June. Luci is taking after Brooke in the size arena - both are on the small side for their age. From my own estimates, she's close to 18 lbs now and I have finally retired (most of) her 3-6 mo clothes. I had forgotten how confusing the size ranges of infant clothes can be. My girls just never match the age ranges of the clothes and I'm constantly checking labels for weights and lengths. Right now, the closet is just a big mix of 6-9 and 9-12 mo clothes and I put Luci in whatever I think looks cutest.

We headed to the beach over the weekend and had a great time. Two of our very good friends from our Texas days came with us: Uncle Mike and Uncle Jay. The trip was a huge success due to some smart thinking and serious planning by Matt. We had toys, food, water, fishing poles, towels, clothes and most importantly - the hunting blind which served as a little tent for Luci and Brooke to get out of the sun. Luci took a long snooze in the blind after happily consuming a good deal of sand.

In the Jungle. . .

From Sarasota Jungle Gardens

We started our summer vacation about 2 weeks ago after our first year as college professors. I took a week off to decompress and now we've started our summer schedule. The girls are at home with one of us most of the week and at school one day a week to keep it familiar to them. I think Brooke wants to go more often since she is always talking about her friends. That's just one of the many good signs we've had about the day care we've chosen for them.
We have a lot of fun and adventures planned over the next few months. We started off with a mommy/daddy getaway when Nana and Grumpy Waggett came to visit. Of course, we forgot the camera so you'll have to take my word for it. Next, we took the girls to Sarasota Jungle Gardens. It was a fun place to visit and Brooke didn't want to leave because she met a friend at the playground.

Here are some of the highlights from our first week off!

More Palmtags. . .

One of the bonuses of living in Florida is that so many people come down here for vacation. We were lucky enough to see some more Palmtags last week. Matt's brother, Charlie, and his family vacation nearby every year. We were able to see them a few times while they were down here. It was great to visit with them and even better to see all our rugruts chase each other around. Charlie and Erika have 2 little kids the same ages as Brooke and Luci. Brooke and her cousin Max had crazy fun together and little Luci and Mya had baby fun crawling around and trading pacifiers. It was the first time we got to meet Miss Mya and the Palmtags hadn't met Luci yet either. Here are some pictures of their visit. I can only imagine how fun it will be to get all these kids together as they are growing up.

Easter 2010

Well, our Easter didn't quite go as expected. Last week, Luci came down with a mystery fever and cough, keeping her home from school one day. We thought it was just a baby thing - teething, who knows. Well, 2 days later, I figured out what it was when I came down with the aches and fever myself - just in time for the weekend. At least I had time to recover and rest. Unfortunately, Brooke spiked a fever on Saturday night and was up on and off all night. We tried bed hopping to get her to sleep. First she came in our room, then I headed to her room. In the mix of things, the child gate never went back up and at 4:30 AM (yes AM) Matt and I woke up from a dead sleep hearing Brooke screaming "Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!" It took a while (due to sleep exhaustion and semi-feverish state) for me to realize she had snuck out of her room and down to the living room. Before I had a chance to hop out of bed Brooke shouted "Mommy. The Easter bunny brought me UNDERPANTS!" Apparently, it was an exciting present. Matt and I ran downstairs to see Easter basket madness on the living room floor, chocolate smeared on Brooke's face and the presents opened. So, that was the major excitement for our Easter Sunday. We never made it to the church Easter egg hunt or to church that day. We didn't want to infect the masses with whatever virus we were carrying. I did put the girls in their Easter dresses, but Brooke had the chills so she wore a sweatsuit under the dress. On the bright side, we are all on the mend and feeling miles better now.

Check ups and catch up

From March

That picture pretty much sums it up. We are zooming along here. It's go, go, go all the time, but we sure are having fun. My new job has kept me too busy to update the blog, but here are a few albums to sum up the big events: Luci's first solid foods, trying to crawl, Brooke's second haircut and some fun trips to the aquarium and the science museum with Nana, Grumpy and cousin Gaius. The girls each just had doctor's visits while I was on spring break and they are doing great. Luci is weighing in at almost 16 lbs and is 25 3/4 in long. That's about 50th percentile for both height and weight. She also just got her first 2 teeth to break through last week. She is well on her way to crawling forward. She's great at going backwards, but just managed to go forward on all fours this weekend. It's just a matter of time now. Brooke is 27 lb and 35 in tall now. That's good progress for our girl. She's now in the 45th and 20th percentile for weight and height - up from 15th percentile 7 months ago. More updates to come once this summer comes and I have time to take a breath.