Lucie's Church Dedication

December 14, 2008
Lucie was dedicated at my church today. I'm very excited that she will be brought up in such a good church - with good church family. Of course she wore a special dress for the occasion. I'm attaching a lot of pictures just because I think she is too cute in this dress. The first pics are getting ready and the ones after the ceremony are when we got back home. My church does the baby dedications twice a year, so Lucie was one of five or six babies being dedicated this time. She did her "Hulk" impression through the whole ceremony - even the preacher commented that no one was listening to him.

Exploring

December 13, 2008

Until now, Lucie would pretty much stay in whatever room I was in and in the area where I put a few toys. Now she is really starting to explore our house. She is a good (and fast!) crawler and has been going all over the place. She loves the plantation shutters - open, close, open, close, etc. for long periods. She has explored every inch of her room now. I'm seeing more and more things that need to be baby proofed or put away for a few years. I also see that she needs a play room where she can do what she wants without me chasing around keeping her out of danger, so I'm thinking about taking my exercise room and making it into her play room. Oh well, I didn't use the exercise room much anyway...... Just a few days before these pictures were taken, Lucie was deathly afraid of this wooden rocking horse - I never could figure out why. In exploring her room she finally decided she likes him, and now she really loves him!

Another Party Day

December 12 - Today Lucie and I went to my work group's end of year holiday lunch. I have not seen the group in six weeks (how odd!) so it was fun to see everyone. Unfortunately I only got pictures of her with one colleague. She had a good time (and did some of her "party tricks") but didn't want to leave me. Tonight we visited our next door neighbors to exchange Christmas gifts. Lucie really does like people - she is just too much fun.

This morning at breakfast - doing her funky crossed finger thing.

Getting ready for the party. Lucie LOVES bathtime now. Here she is waiting for me to put her in the tub.






















Lucie liked KC!

Lucie tells KC that she is ONE. Well we know she's not quite one yet, but we've been practicing.









































Exchanging Christmas gifts with our next door neighbors.











"Well of course I'm on the good list, what did you expect?"

"Yes Mama, I'm ONE, I'm ONE!"

Lucie's Visit to the Pediatrician

December 9th - We've been home five weeks now, and this was our 4th visit to see our favorite pediatrician Dr. L. We went to get Lucie's ears checked and to begin immunizations. Lucie's ears are still red, but not terribly infected like they were. We aren't going to give her more antibiotics and we're hoping they will continue to improve on their own. Lucie got five immunizations in three shots. It's interesting that they can combine some of them. I had a hard enough time keeping my emotions controlled when Lucie was screaming while having her ears examined, and then when she got her shots the floodgates opened. Whoo! I didn't expect that at all - it just happened. Those huge needles going into her little legs. I hated it. And then I kept crying all day whenever I thought about it again. We are also doing a complete blood workup on her, so that means another trip to the hospital and more needle sticks. I'm working up my nerve to get that done. I'm looking forward to getting all of this done so we can know exactly where Lucie is healthwise. From all appearances, she is a healthy baby and is adjusting well. She now weighs 16 pounds 7 ounces. She lost weight from our last visit three weeks ago - not much, but it concerns me more that she did not gain any weight. Dr. L said it was probably because she was so sick with her ear infections and upper respiratory infection. In the past few days since her immunizations she hasn't felt like eating much either. I hope to get her back on track with eating well soon! You can probably figure this out - the picture below is before the shots....

Lucie Meets Chuck E Cheese

Lucie's Cousin E invited us to her 4th birthday party today at ChuckECheese. I had never been before so I wasn't sure what Lucie would be able to do. She rode several rides and loved them. You can't really tell by the pictures, because I couldn't ever get one with her smiling, but she had a ball. She also enjoyed seeing all the other kids, and playing with the paper from E's presents :)

A Nice Quiet Day at Home - Mostly

Lucie and I had planned to go to Sunday School and Church today, but we got home so late last night, and it was such a big outing going to the party, that we were both exhausted. So, we stayed home for a quiet day. We played with Lucie's puzzles and interactive toys. I introduced her to flash cards for numbers, alphabet, animals, etc. She is more interested in playing with them than listening to what they are but maybe something will sink in. I changed the sheets on the bed I've been sleeping on in Lucie's room - first time in the month we've been home. Yuck! The clean sheets will feel good tonight. Anyway, while I was taking the sheets off the bed I put Lucie in her crib to play. She had the best time talking and singing to herself in the mirror, and then she started patting the mirror and kissing it. Too funny! The pictures aren't half as funny as actually seeing her do it. This afternoon we went for a walk in our neighborhood. The orphanage told us I needed to make sure Lucie got 15 minutes of filtered sunlight every day. Ha! Well it has been so cold that I haven't taken her out for walks like I thought I would be doing. So today I decided to bundle her up and take her out. I had her so bundled up that she was sweating when we got home. We had a nice walk and she had a nice nap on the way :) Auntie L and Cousin M surprised us and came for a visit this afternoon - and we had another photo shoot of Lucie with her Viet Namese hats on in front of our Christmas - and then we went out for Mexican. Yummy!