A failed attempt at Christmas pictures

I decided to try and take some pictures of Lucy today for Christmas cards. Most mothers would agree that the idea of getting a toddler to sit still for some nicely posed pictures is just silly. However, my general enthusiasm for the season won out over logic in the end, and I tried anyway. This is how the “photo shoot” went:

Lucy actually sat still(ish) and held it together long enough for me to get a few redeemable shots:

She got restless, so I tried to distract her with a toy. That lasted about 30 seconds, during which time she managed to take off her bow and lose part of her shoe.
Soon, the temptation to climb the stairs become too great and she took off. I did, however, get her accessories back where they should be.

A few minutes later I tried to get her to sit still again and it ended like this:

Florida Girl

One of my best friends from high school got married a couple of weeks ago, so I took the opportunity to spend a long weekend in Vero with Lucy. It was a great trip. I was nervous about traveling alone from Virginia to Florida with 16 month old, but the trip went pretty smoothly. I consider it a success that we made it there alive and the rest of the passengers on the flight didn’t hate us. (At least I hope not...) Lucy had a lot of fun exploring a new house and playing with her Nana and Papa.

Scott survived on his own for a few days, spending most of his time working hard at the hospital. Before I left I made food for him to eat while I was gone. He ate most of what I left, but I teased him about the fact that the most of the dishes in the dishwasher when I got home were bowls. (Scott eats a lot of cereal when I am not around to cook.)

We are looking forward to our next to Florida in February when Scott finally has some time off!


Lucy and Nana with windblown hair at the beach
Sitting by the pool
Sadly, my camera died while I was in Florida, so I didn't take that many pictures. Here are a couple cute ones my dad took from his phone:


My parents got this play kitchen for free! Lucy loved it so much that she cried whenever she had to stop playing with it.

My parents watched Lucy on Saturday night while I was at the wedding, and they let her eat cheerios straight out of the box. She was is heaven.

The reluctant patient

Last week was an eventful one for Lucy, with multiple doctors appointments. Lucy is not generally a fan of strange people invading her personal space (or even looking at her the wrong way), so she was not particularly pleased with the course of events. However, the week ended quite well for all of us.

It started on Monday. Lucy had to go in for CT scan of her head because her doctors were concerned about the fact that her head is so much bigger than the rest of her body. That day she was allowed clear liquids after 7:30am, and nothing at all for the three hours before the scan. Once we got to the hospital the nurse appeased her grouchiness by letting her suck on a pacifier dipped in a sugar water solution. It was like magic.

Here she is with her diaper, socks, and magical sugar pacifier waiting for the procedure.


A little bit later they gave her some medicine to sedate her and she fell asleep like a newborn. We thoroughly enjoyed actually getting to hold her while she slept for the first time in so long!


The original results of the CT scan were not good. The initial report stated that three sutures in Lucy’s skull had fused prematurely. This is a condition called craniosynostosis, which almost always involves one or more surgeries to widen the sutures and reconstruct the skull. This was tough news. However, we met with two neurosurgeons over the next few days who confirmed that Lucy’s condition was actually milder that we originally thought and not worth the risks of surgery at this age. (Lucy’s diagnosis was much later than most.) This was a HUGE relief as you can probably imagine.

During one of the appointments, Scott and I had our heads measured too. It turns out that my head is in the 75th percentile and Scott’s is in the 98th!! Who knew?! So in addition to having some minor issues with her skull, Lucy also is just the product of her genes. We still think she is pretty cute though.

Party Girl

Truth be told, it has been almost been two months since Lucy's first birthday. However, since this blog is primarily about Lucy, I feel obligated to put up some first birthday pictures. Plus, they are just too cute not to post! Here she is in a truly blissful state, eating a cupcake and opening presents.

catching up

Once again I have managed to let weeks pass and many exciting things happen without posting even once! Here is a quick run through of the major highlights of the past two months:

1) Scott turned 30 on April 26th! We were in the process of packing up our apartment, so we kept things low key and had a fun day as a family. We had breakfast at Buzzy's, went to Agecroft in the afternoon (we are a little nerdy, I know), and had food from Europa for dinner. The birthday excitiment was exhausting for Lucy.

2) On May 2nd we moved out of our apartment in Richmond and into our townhouse in Charlottesville! Almost 2 months later we are still not all the way unpacked or set up, but we love Charlottesville and our new home. Here are some pictures of the house, taken the week we moved in. 3) A couple of weeks after moving in, we went back to Richmond for Scott's medical school graduation! Not only did Scott make it through medical school, but he also survived sitting through two graduation ceremonies in two days (the rest of us only went to one...). We celebrated by eating delicious food with our family. Lucy stayed up way past her bedtime. She had a blast, but we payed dearly that night and the next day.4) Also in May, I celebrated my first Mother's Day! I slept in, went to brunch at Hotcakes, and perhaps best of all, Lucy took a two and a half hour nap! If you know Lucy, you know that this almost never happens, so you can understand my excitement.
If you are still reading this post, you are a very patient person and you are probably related to us. Check back tomorrow for updates on Lucy's first birthday and Scott's first day of residency!

Two years have past since the shootings at Virginia Tech. To say the least, today is a difficult day for many people, here in Virginia and across the country. One of those people is my sweet friend Alicia, who lost her brother, Jarrett, two years ago today.

This year, in just a few weeks, there will be a golf tournament in Jarrett's honor. If you are interested in learning more about this event, here are the details:

Castle Rock Golf and Recreation of Pembroke, VA will host a golf tournament in honor of Jarrett Lane, one of the 32 students killed at VA Tech on April 16^th, 2007. All proceeds will benefit the Jarrett Lane Memorial Fund and its mission to better the future of deserving youth in Giles Country.

The tournament will be held on Saturday May 9th, with a tee time of 9:00am. Teams of four will play on one of the area’s most beautiful and challenging golf courses. The registration fee is $300 per team, and teams can register by calling the golf course before May 8^th at (540) 626-7276.

Just to let you know, the Jarrett Lane Memorial Fund is used to provide college scholarships to Narrows High Grad. We have a vision of expanding this to provide financial assistance to deserving youth in Giles County who wish to participate in various academic, athletic and leadership development programs.

On a side note, Alicia and her husband Dan are also great babysitters. In fact, they are the only non relative babysitters Lucy has ever had! She loves them, and so do I.

Who needs toys...

when you have ribbon, fabric, and cardboard boxes to play with??

9 months old

Lucy turned 9 months old a couple of weeks ago! We learned at her check-up that she is 16 pounds, 13 ounces, and a towering 26.75 inches tall. (That puts her at about the 10th percentile for height. Clearly, Lucy will not be getting any basketball scholarships.) We are so grateful that she is healthy and growing well! She continues to be very, very clingy to me, but at the same time quite social, as long as I am holding her. As you can see from these pictures, some of her favorite things these days are waving hi and going through my purse.

new pictures

Drumroll please...

Match Day is here, and I am coming through on my promise to blog the result today! For those of you who don't already know, (we actually found out 2 days ago) Scott matched to an intern year at UVA and an anesthesia residency at Georgetown! This means we will be moving to Charlottesville for one year, and then moving to Northern Virginia for the next three years. We are thrilled. It is hard to go into all the details without making this post entirely too lengthy, but I will say that we strongly feel God's hand on this. Here are just a few reasons we are excited about this news:
1) We get to stay in Virginia.
2) We don't have to go too far from our friends in Richmond.
3) We have friends and family both in Charlottesville and in Northern VA.
4) Scott has heard great things about the training at both programs and the people he will be working with.
5) Lucy gets to live near her cousins for a year!

We will, of course, miss Richmond. Over the past four years it has been home to us, and our friends here have become our family. We do, however, have so much peace about this, and luckily, as mentioned in #2, we will not be far away.

For now, we are Charlottesville bound, and we are bringing our Tribe Pride with us! :)

Lucy's first snow

Lucy saw her first real snow last Monday! It was the most snow we have had since moving to Richmond 3 and a half years ago. We took Lucy on a short walk around the block and took pictures to capture the memories. She wasn't quite sure about the snow, but just a few days later, when we had highs in the 70s, she was happy as a clam outside. Perhaps she is a Florida girl at heart.

Here is the evidence of Lucy's unenthusiastic response to the winter weather. Isn't Shockoe Slip pretty in the snow??