Christmas greetings

We had a wonderful Christmas, filled with good times with family. We went to my grandparents' for brunch with the Himmelberger clan (20 people!) and then returned in the evening for a smaller Christmas dinner with my grandparents, joined by our babysitter, Jamie. In between we spoke with Grandma Judy and "visited" (via webcam) Caitlin, John, Sam and Jeff in Malaysia (they were visiting John's family) and my parents in Morocco.

Lucy and her great-grandmother matched!

My cousin Julia is a natural with Lucy; here they are playing with the doll house.

Lucy really got excited about opening presents. After each one was open she said, "more presents!" In the picture below she's wearing new pjs- we plan to get her a new pair every Christmas eve, a fun tradition we picked up from a friend.

Our babysitter, Jamie, got Lucy a really fun present- a full train table and train set. Lucy loves playing with the "choo-choo"!

Praying, Talking, Reading

A narrative update, for a change, about our little Lucy. For awhile now we've prayed with Lucy before she goes to sleep, thanking God for things from the day and for our extended family and friends. Recently she started chiming in with her own suggestions for what she's thankful for. Mama, Papa, Jamie (our babysitter) and her baby doll and blankey get frequent mentions; also in there have been Mimi and Papa Jack, Grandma Judy, Auntie Caitlin and Sam. And then there are the more unique entries: books (she actually mentions these pretty often), chair, sound machine, moon. It's fun for me to remember that we can also be thankful for these small, inanimate things.

Lucy's language continues to develop and she's become quite talkative. She says "hold you" when she wants to be held, which is super cute. She's also saying 2-3 word sentences, like "Papa choo-choo go, big choo-choo", "shoes on, coat on, bye-bye", "mama do that", "Lucy hold that" and so on.

In October we got some refrigerator alphabet letters, and Lucy very quickly learned to identify M for Mama, P for Papa, and L for Lucy. J for Jamie soon followed, and since then she's learned to identify about 3/4 of the alphabet, as we've matched each letter with a word that it starts with. So she'll pick up a book now and will say "Papa, hair, ear, ear, toy, water, baby" (for the letters p, h, e, t, w, b). She loves "pretend" reading as well, where she'll pick up a book or magazine and "read" it aloud, with all the intonations and rhythms of speaking.

Lucy continues to be very cheerful, full of smiles and game-playing. She loves being chased around the house by us holding one of her stuffed animals, or playing hide and seek. She also enjoys coloring with markers or pens, reading books, and building towers with blocks or legos. When she colors, Lucy will often make long lines and say that she's making letters, like P or L or M. And if we give her something with writing on it, she'll carefully make marks on the letters- she seems very ready to write!

Finally, we're thrilled that Lucy is taking more interest in going potty. Over the last week she's gone potty pretty regularly before bath-time, and yesterday she went 3-4 times in the afternoon in the potty, hardly going in her diaper at all. In fact, the only way I could get her to stop sitting on the potty was to tell her we could try again in a half-hour. It'll probably be awhile still, but it's nice that she is genuinely excited about it.

Looking forward to baby Jesus

It's been a fun advent season with Lucy; I've enjoyed sharing her excitement and anticipation of celebrating baby Jesus coming. At dinner we light the candles in our advent wreath and sing a hymn or two (when I remember).

We've also been hanging an angel ornament every day (from a book my mom gave me) and opening a window on our advent calendar, as we look forward to baby Jesus coming. Lucy loves hanging the angels, and throughout the rest of the day she'll periodically ask, "more angels?". I can now ask her when she'll hang more and she says "morrow." She also loves the Playmobil nativity setmy mom got her. She mostly likes taking off all their robes and hats, but also likes giving the presents from the wise men to the baby Jesus, and bringing the angel to greet the angel ornaments we've hung on the bookshelf.


Another fun adventure was going to pick out the Christmas tree and decorating it. Lucy loved hanging up ornaments, as you can see in the second picture below.

Here is our beautiful tree with its motley crew of ornaments- I love all the history that they reflect (you can see a Dartmouth sweater ornament that one of my friends knit for me in the top middle, a bit down and to the right is our tagine pot favor from our wedding, and straight below the sweater farther down is a triangle-shaped painting of the church where we and my grandparents were married). Grandma Judy also bequeathed us a number of beautiful craft ornaments that she had made and collected over the years- lots of them are soft and are hung lower-down where Lucy can touch them.

We all had another bout of 2-week colds in December, and Lucy came down with another one last weekend (her worst ever- she slept for 1-2 hours on my lap in front of the tv each day, which she has never done). But in the midst of that we've been able to enjoy some snow! Lucy and I made an indoor snowman after the first storm.

And here we are outside, before making snow angels.

We just got more snow on Sunday, so it's quite beautiful outside. There's a large heap of snow accumulating at the edge of our condo parking lot, which should be perfect for sledding with Lucy, once she's back to her usual self.

Mimi and Papa Jack's visit: Part II

Here we are again, with the second "catch-up" post from my parents' visit. Once of Lucy's favorite places is the site of Thoreau's house at Walden Pond. Over the years visitors have stacked up rocks; a dream come true for ambitious toddlers!

One of the highlights of our time with Mimi and Papa Jack was our visit to the swan boats and the Boston Gardens. Here is a view of another boat.

And a very creative shot from my mom of our own boat.

Lucy enjoyed looking at the ducks and the other boats.

On the common afterwards, Lucy discovered the joys of chasing pigeons.

And we had a lovely picnic.In the afternoon Papa Jack and Matt took Lucy home, and mom and I went to the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum, one of my favorite museums. Visiting it with my mom is becoming a special tradition.

Another day we went on an adventure to Harvard Sq. Lucy loves going "wheee" (as she calls it) with her Mama and Papa.

Papa and Lucy bouncing on the trampoline.

On a hike in woods near us. Papa Jack and Lucy kept hiding and then jumping out and surprising us. And Lucy learned a lot about the woods from her Papa Jack.

Lucy loves playing the piano at my grandparents' house, and has started to play with one finger at a time.

Grandma, me and Lucy, Grandpa, and Mimi!

Intermission: He Came With the Couch

More pictures of our visit with Mimi and Papa Jack to come. As an interlude, I wanted to share about some fun new members of our family (don't worry, they're stuffed).

We recently got some new couches (thanks to the generousity of Grandma Judy- thank you, thank you!). We also got two boxes in the mail from Grandma Judy, each arrived at the same time as a couch, and they each contained a new friend for Lucy- we've been calling them monsters, and they're amazing replicas of the creatures from this book, "He Came With the Couch" (http://www.davidslonim.com/page145.html).

Here are some pictures of Lucy enjoying her monster friends- and our new couch!

Looking back at the summer: Part I

Well, long time, no see, blog-friends. We were waylaid by a series of 2-week colds in October (me, Lucy, then Matt). And then Lucy and I just were out in San Diego last week for a work conference.

I have a lot of catching-up to do here. The summer seems like ages ago (snow is predicted for tonight), but here are pictures from late August/early September, when my parents visited.

Here they are, with one of our delicious pasta primavera creations. We had a wonderful, full visit with Mimi and Papa Jack, replete with a few swims in Walden Pond, a visit to the Boston Gardens and swan boats, a great family dinner at Grandma & Grandpas, and lots of fun hanging out time in between.

Papa Jack and Mimi brought some fun presents too. Here, Lucy is trying on a scarf and shoes from Morocco.

Papa Jack brought a real tea set for Lucy, with cups and plates and spoons and a tea pot, of course. She loves serving tea to us and her dolls.

And here is Mimi with Lucy as she explores her new castle. Her favorite thing is to take the different people and have them say "hi" to each other. I've noticed that Lucy has very social play-imaginings- her dolls are always giving each other kisses or saying hi. And she gets really excited when we're in big groups of people (like the family gathering). I'm wondering if she might be an extrovert...we'll see!

Lucy and I at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Our chirpy bird.

Four generations of Himmelberger/Wald/Frank women!

Papa Jack and Lucy at one of our Walden outings.

Lucy really loved swimming this summer- I can't wait until it gets warm again!

Fall harvest and daily life

I've been a neglectful blogger of late, alas. But having lots of fun on the home front! I'm still going through the hundreds of pictures (I'm not exaggerating) my mom took when they visited, and will post on that soon. We had a blast with them, and have many wonderful memories of their visit. In the meantime, below are some recent pictures of our fall and life around the house.

Salads! Every part is from Grandma's garden, except the tomatos which are from mine.


We went apple picking with our friends recently. The trees were dwarf apple trees, so Lucy could pick too.


She loves wandering off (though I always keep a close watch, of course).


Lucy's getting to be quite the big girl. She's given up the high chair for a booster seat for meals. And at other times, she loves sitting in the stool at the kitchen counter.

Lucy shows an organizational streak, putting the blue cars next to each other.

Lucy usually has milk and cheerios for breakfast. She likes to drink all her milk, straight from the bowl if necessary.

Baby Annie is increasingly a favorite, and goes most everywhere with us. Here she is sitting in Lucy's booster seat.

And one from today. Lucy often hugs as many stuffed animals at once as possible. She had brought baby, dog and bear from her room to the living room this time.