2013 Holiday Season, Meeting Baby Friends and Beyond

 The above photo may be blurry but it pretty accurately shows Lucia's state during the holidays...happy and crazed with buzzing energy. Christmas is a favorite in the Wallgren family. Filled with gatherings, fun, food and the amazing realization over and over again that no matter how much time we spend together, we just don't seem to get sick of each other. What a great thing. 

We spent Christmas Eve in our new tradition of hanging with the whole Wallgren fam at my aunt and uncle's house. This event is made crazier by the growing number of children always entering the family but then made more controllable by the fact that my aunt runs a home day care and has everything a child could ask for. Then its on to spend the night at my parents with all my siblings and their families, following by lots of gifts, brunch, and then dinner with the other side of the family, more gifts, etc. It was a great holiday season and I tried to enjoy the little moments without letting it all rush by in a blur.

This is the best photo I could of us get while Lucia was squirming around.

 Again, blurry but the best I could get.

 GG and great grandpa Ray checking out baby Renee.

 Opening presents on Christmas morning.

 Of all the stuff Lucia received, she became most obsessed with the hats that Addison and Caroline got.

 Trying to calm baby Renee

 Lighting the real candles on the tree at Marcia's house

 As I look back from the pictures this past month, I realize how many great friends we got to see. I am so thankful. Here we are with Molly, Mike and Luke for a night we like to call 'Ron Meier'....we missed you Jaime and Ryan!

 For our Christmas gift to Gwen, we gave her a chance to get her American Girl doll's hair done at the store. Man, is that place a trip! It was fun to spend some special time with Gwen. She seems to be growing up so fast.

 Here we are at the...are you ready for this...doll salon. Yes, those are doll salon chairs and stylists.

 The 'before' picture

 And 'after'. I mean, they do a great job, right? I hope Lucia never gets into that whole world...here's hoping (I fear I don't have much of a chance).

 So here is some of Lucia's recent accomplishments. I was washing dishes for a few minutes and when I went to go check on Lucia, this is what I saw. She had taken a black washable marker and drenched her eyes with it. From what I can tell, she was very proud of her work, showing it off by batting her eyes in the mirror saying "eyes". And although I sternly talked to her about not doing the same in the future, I was also pretty proud. I mean, do you see how symmetrical she did it?

 Here she was crying cause she wanted to go see "Yurts". This was the made of name she made for our friend, Dave, when he was last visiting. I have no idea where she got that from, but it's pretty great and we hope it sticks.

 A big part of our lives lately has been watching Seahawks games with our friends Noah and Corrie. Above was one of my favorite game day creations that I made. Can you tell it's a Seahawk?

 Zeke and Lucia playing together during one of the games.

 Obviously we make them hug cause we're their parents and we can.

 Lucia watching the game with her daddy.

 Ben toting around the 12th man flag as a cape. Obviously this is why they won.

 We had the chance to hang out with some great friends from our Bolivia days. Katie was actually in town from Bolivia, our other friends and their husbands live in the area. It does my soul some good to reunite with these guys.

 Here we are testing the smile timer feature on my camera...it just keeps taking photos when it detects a smile which makes for some good ones.

 Lucia and Naomi playing their new favorite game, horsey. Notice that Lucia holds on by grabbing Naomi's hair.

 We had so much fun meeting my cousin's baby, Sommar. She is so cute and it's always fun to see Anne and Pete since they live far away.

 She got a lot of attention from her second cousins.

 Here are GG and great grandpa Ray with all 10 of their great-grandkids for the first time. Eight girls and two boys.

 And then all Lucia wanted to do was hold Sommar.

 THEN, we got to meet baby Ellie. Austin and Ashley also live far away so it was so great to see them and meet their sweet little Ellie. Lucia loved all the baby holding time.

 So cute!

And here's our crazy little girl. As you can see, she usually finds a purse to tote around like this one. I'm loving the stage she is in as she learns better and better how to communicate. We have daily giggles about new words or phrases she's picked up. I guess I'll have to write some down some favorites as I start to think about her 2nd birthday...

Lucia Lately (22 Months)

 The thought just occurred to me that Lucia is almost 2...whoa. But not so fast, we still have a few more months with our little one year old. My favorite thing right now is watching her language blossom. She says absolutely everything and puts together 2, 3 and 4 word sentences incorporating new learned words all the time. Some of my favorite sentances are "don't doooo dat" (don't do that), "No-mi, mere" (Naomi, come here) and of course "I love you Mommy". 

She loves to sing along with songs, learn new songs, go on 'bear hunts', play with her cousins, take care of her babies, color, make funny faces and noises to make others laugh, take bubble baths, read books and she still loves her 'pater' (pacifier, we'll work on that at some point). After forever calling Linnea and Cam 'mommy' and 'daddy', it is so cute to hear say "Hey, Nay-ya" and "Hey, Cam".

Lucia is a fiesty little one, always ready with a smile or a scream. She's showing stronger personality traits and it makes me curious to see how they will play out and develop as she grows up. Like when she decides that she wants to be held by someone (usually one of my sisters) and will stay with them and only them for a while. She is a people person, intent on mastering names and using them when she says hi, even her identical twin cousins Addison and Caroline. She used to call them "Addison" and "another one" but now she is starting to get their names down.

She's still a great eater and great sleeper meaning she eats almost everything put in front of her and would eat all day long if we let her and she usually sleeps around 13 hours a night. She likes to play with her stuffed animals and babies when she wakes up until she decides she wants to get out and yells until someone comes to get her. And I love that she is becoming more snugly at bedtime and beyond.

Here are a bunch of pics from the last few months...

 Naomi and Lucia playing in the leaves.

 Doing a tap dance show on the coffee table.

 Hanging out with Caroline and Addison on Thanksgiving.

 She likes to squeeze into this little spot and burst out.

 We had some fun in a HUGE leaf pile we made in the front yard.

 Caroline and Addison turned 4!

 Lucia loves her cousin Renee.

Lucia celebrating Lucia day.

 She was not so happy about wearing the crown.

 But she did pretend to pour some coffee.

 We got to celebrate early Christmas with grandma and grandpa.

Ring around the rosie.

 Playing babies with grandpa.

 Playing with her new easel with grandma.

We had great fun at our ugly sweater family Christmas party.

 There were some great outfits.

 But Cousin Eddie took the prize. You serious, Clark?

 Aw, so sweet. Even when she tried to wear something ugly, grandma still looks great.

 Here is Lucia and I on the same stairs at church where I walked down to marry Matt 7 years ago.

 Lucia and Naomi had fun making and decorating edible Christmas trees.

Lucia really liked the edible part of the project.