friends

We had such a lovely evening with some of our favorite girls, Crystal, Becca, Lexi, Addi, and Reagan.  Crystal and I grew up together and shared many things, ahem, (including using the potty... at the same time.  Not sure now how that's quite possible, but we did!).  I hope these little buddies have just as much fun as we did, playing house, barbies, more house, more barbies...


This may sound strange, but I never think about Lucy being black.  I LOVE her pretty brown skin (and we all know I'm drooling over her gorgeous hair!) but it's not something I'm consciously aware of--it's our normal.  I don't really think much about it at all, until I hold a little white baby, and then it really gets my attention how white this sweet child is!  That's what I feel a lot when I hold sweet Reagan.  I'm accostumed to a little more mocha with my Lucy!  They had a great time!

Good, clean fun!

 

Christmas and firsts

Christmas with a baby is FUN!  You're shocked, I'm sure :)  We had a wonderful Christmas, but I was totally lax about picture-taking.  I did take some video, so here are a few clips of fun times at Christmas.

This was Christmas Eve at my parent's house.  She LOVES her uncle John, and I think he was the smartest about Christmas of us all!  He wrapped up this baby, which she LOVES (and already had) and then gave Lucy some money for her savings account.  I think it was her favorite thing to open :)

This was Lucy rocking.  She has a rocking chair at home, too, and she loves to climb up in it with a baby and rock the baby and sing to her.  This is also the site of Lucy's first steps!  As we all were gathered around watching, she stood up out of the chair and walked to a table several feet away.  She looked kind of shocked and determined.  When she made it, we all cheered, and she was so tickled with herself.  I had wondered why she wasn't walking yet---we determined that she just needed a bigger audience for such a momentous occasion!

This is a baby bed that my aunt Bonnie found at my great grandmother's house and refinished for Lucy, including cute bedding that matches hers--isn't it adorable?  Lucy LOVES babies, so this was a big deal!  I grabbed the camera after she had leaned into the crib and gently picked up the baby and rocked/hugged her leaning over the crib.  So very sweet.  In this video she kind of tosses her aside, but it's still fun :)

So, we had a lovely Christmas.  I'm learning so much from Lucy. One thing I realized looking back at this Christmas is that she enjoyed her presents, but they were like the icing on the cake (a nice touch, but not essential.  I appreciate them because she'll enjoy them throughout the year!).  What she really enjoyed was interacting with her family.  I hope I can find a way to carry that on, even when she's older and knows to expect presents.  I want Christmas to be a meaningful time centered around the birth of the One who redeemed us from sin, who solved our biggest problem!  Now THAT'S a reason to celebrate!

this Christmas

last Christmas

 I got this picture of Lucy last Christmas.  It's usually a wonderful thing to receive new pictures of your child, who you can't wait to meet, but this one made me cry.  She just didn't look happy.  I was worried about my sweet baby and couldn't do anything about it!  Oh, how things have changed... Wait until you see sweet Lucy this Christmas!!

cozy little world

I LOVE my daughter.  If you don't want to hear me ramble on about this, just stop reading.  Because I just have to get this out:  Lucy is wonderful.  WONDERFUL, I say!  I've gotten to spend several whole (non-working) days in her sweet company, and I'm more smitten than before (although I'm not entirely sure how that's possible).  She has such a sweet personality, I want to remember what life is like with her RIGHT NOW.  (In fact, if I could freeze time, I'd be very tempted to stay in today :).  Some things I love seeing:

• She's saying "wow!" a lot.  It's SO fun, and sometimes surprising, to see what merits a "wow!"  (Today: new boots, a t.v. kiss, baby Jesus, a clementine, and a book, just to name a few).
• She touches the tops of bottles (lotions, shampoos), rubs her hands together, and then snaps them up to her hair.  It seems I put a lot of product in her hair :)
• She waves so her hand faces inward, waving at herself.
• She is sometimes in such a hurry crawling away that she has to wave behind her back.
• She says "bah-bye" really quietly when she can tell we're ready to leave (but before I've said it).
• She can go get a book or a baby when I ask her to.  It's so neat that we're communicating.  I love it!
• She climbs up into her little rocking chair, holds her baby tightly and pats her, rocks her, and sings to her. 
• I say "aww" when she holds a baby close or gives a hug sometimes, so now she says it for me.  It's so sweet to see her snuggle her baby and say "aww".
• She says "quack quack."  She makes the sound in the back of her throat and it kind of sounds like "cok cok" and it is SO cute.  She makes the sound whenever she sees a duck (and also for many other animals :)
• She is moving her hand back and forth as fast as she can.  It doesn't really seem very fast, but she kind of holds her head back and then is so thrilled with herself that you can tell she thinks it's out-of-control fast and pretty dang impressive!
• She says hi to everyone, and if they don't respond, they almost get a "hi" yelled at them, like, "Hey, what are you doing? I'm saying HI over here!"
• I pat my heart and say "mama" and then pat her heart and say "Lucy".  So now she (mimicking me) pats her heart and says "mama". 
• When she's really tired, she throws her body across my chest and puts her head on my shoulder and starts singing (as in, rock me and sing to me, I'm ready for bed).
• Her singing is mosly the syllable "ya", and is usually very soulful.  The eyebrows knit in, her head tilts back, her lips pucker out, and she croons a slow "ya ya yaaaa."  It's really funny when she  laughs at herself, and then switches back to the serious, soulful singing, and back.
• Sometimes when I tuck her in she has to take out her pacifier to sing with me a bit, then she pops it back in.
• She dances very happily.
• She bobs her head back and forth and says ba-ba-ba-baaa.
• She smiles at me every morning when I come in to get her, like, "Oh good!  There you are!"  Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a morning person, but that sure is nice way to start your day.

There was this moment today while she was drinking her bottle, and she took it out and we both ended up with milk splattered in our faces, and I wiped us off and we both just cracked up--really laughing, over something so silly.  It just made me so happy.

There is a book we read (Personal Penguin) where it says, "If I could be yours and you could be mine, our cozy little world would be twice as nice."  I feel like we have a very nice, cozy little world together, and I know this is just the beginning.  I am so blessed. 

Thank you Lord for bringing Lucy into my life.  Thank you for making that step of your plan clear and for this resulting joy.  Thank you for answering so very many prayers--a healthy baby, good bonding, laughter, financial peace, great support, and overwhelming love for my daughter!  AMEN.

snug and warm

This sweet baby from Africa is ready for her first Kentucky winter!

princess on the job

I officially have the best job ever!  I work with students who are still struggling with mastering the English language, and (being the complete language geek I am) I LOVE it!

Most days are pretty great, but today takes the cake!  I had a little group of 3 kindergarteners, who were telling me all kinds of silly stories, but they kept mixing up their subject pronouns (switching he and she, mostly).  To practice, we said sentences about the little girl (she's smart, she's fun, she's pretty) and the boys.  To get some more "she" sentences, I had them make sentences about me. 

Here's what I got:
"She is pretty." 
"She is... cute."
 And, finally, from a little boy covering his face because he was shy, "She is a princess."

That sweet boy made my day!  Now that he mentions it, I do feel a little... princess-y today!

1 year ago

One year ago I saw this sweet face in my inbox.

I was so very happy, but I had no idea what a joy she would be.  Thank you, Lord!  You are so good to me!           

Talkin' to Jesus

After breakfast, Lucy noticed our nativity scene and said a perky, "Hi!" to baby Jesus. 

She sang to him, too!  Prayer and worship this morning :)

happy baby

I talk to so many strangers now... Lucy makes them friends by peeking at them and saying "hi" (rather insistently if they don't answer).  So many people comment on what a happy baby she is.  I just think about how smiles were slow to come and I didn't hear her laugh for a good two months after she came home.  I am so thankful that she is, indeed, a happy baby! :)

(She sure has made her family happy!)

Sunday

Orphan Sunday 2011 from Christian Alliance for Orphans on Vimeo.

Sunday was "orphan Sunday" and many of my favorite blogs have made mention of this fact. But I just titled my post "Sunday" because every Sunday there are millions of children waking up without a happy greeting, going all day without being loved on, and going to sleep without being tucked in because they have no one to take care of them.

And a thought-provoking fact: 

                    If 6% of everyone who claims Christ adopted a child, there wouldn't be any orphans.

Lucy's plans

I generally think that Lucy just kind of reacts to what is around her.  If we're in the kitchen, she's thinking... wow, drawers!  If we're in the living room, she's thinking... maybe I can pull everything off of these shelves.  You get the idea.  But I realized that this little girl's brain is working in ways I didn't expect!  We were at my parent's house the other day, and she yelled, "Ja!  Ja!" (John) and looked around.  I was carrying her to "our" room there to change her and she yelled "Ja!" right at his door as we passed, so we peeked in.  She wasn't one foot in the door before she started making her MMMwah! (kissing) sound!  She wasn't just going where I took her.  She had PLANS!  She wanted to go see Uncle John and get a KISS!  I thought that was precious!

 What is she thinking now?

I'm not sure, but all of this is just re-inforcing the sneaking suspicion I have that she's brilliant.  Just saying.

Happy Halloween

\

chaos theory

Lucy is ADORABLE.  And very active and curious.

(This look might be similar to the one on some of your faces when you see this next pic.)  Due to my sweet daughters curiosity and mobility, my house sometimes looks like this...

YIKES!

Is she worth a little chaos?

Yep.

hair HELP!

My Lucy has great hair.  Anyone who knows me knows that big hair is a huge (alas, unattainable, despite many hair products) dream of mine, and I'm so happy for Lucy that she has such beautiful hair!

But let's get down to the nitty gritty.  It's HARD to detangle and take care of!  It wasn't at first, but I'm at the point where I need help!  Tonight, we detangled and she cried pitifully and then angrily and I cried desperately and then chopped off some tangled curls.  It's true.  I have no idea how it will look when it dries.

I'll tell you what I do now and PLEASE give suggestions... methods, products, tranquilizers.  I'll take all advice under consideration.  If you don't want to comment it here, please email me at kristy.northcutt@gmail.com.

Okay, we wash and detangle once a week.  I spray down her hair, put her in a bumbo, put a snack on the tray, toys within reach, and Dora on TV.  I'm really trying to keep her happy!  Then I spray down her hair and put in TONS of conditioner.  I start working through it with my hands, finger detangling.  Usually when that's done, I go through it with a comb (this illicits many tears).  This takes a half-hour or so.  Then we take a bath.  Where there are many more tears.  This girl can't STAND water in her face.  She screams like I'm abusing her when I lean her back on a little foam wedge to rinse her hair (and I'm careful to have very shallow water (not near her face) AND to rinse it away from her face so she doesn't get wet).  Just the act of reclining in the tub is treason and when she's that upset, I'm upset, too! (So bath-time tips are appreciated as well).

During the week, I just use one a Just for Me (Walmart) hair conditioning lotion and spray conditioner, I kind of alternate.  But her hair felt really dry today, so I'm totally open for product suggestions, too.

It seems like a little thing, but it's SO hard to gear up to actually work on her hair because I know it hurts her and I hate that!  Poor thing--she's too young to be paying the price for her rockin' hair!  Thanks for listening and for ADVICE!

Happy 1st Birthday!

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Lucy Joy, I am SO blessed to know you as a 1 year old and to get to be your mama!  I have loved you well before I knew you, and spent ages looking at your pictures before I "met" you, and I loved you so much, even then.  Your twinkly smiling eyes and funny laugh are now a part of my world forever and I'm so thankful for that!  I'm thankful that you're here and that you're healthy--God has really taken care of us.  I'm thankful that you seem quite happy and that you make your family so very happy too!  

I think you're just about the most perfect one year old.  You're pulling up and feeling sassy about it.  You think it's funny when we make faces or silly sounds.  You're working at being independent, but you often reach up for mama to hold you.  You crawl around and get wherever you want to go, and you settle in for books.  You think doors are really cool.  You think rolls of toilet paper are handy snack dispensers.  You really like your clothes.  You and I snuggle when I tuck you in and I LOVE it--I hope you do too.  You and I sing together, and sometimes we dance.  (You're especially fond of a move known as booty-slappin').  You're really smart--you surprise me every day by interacting in some new way.  You're so curious.  You're so cheerful.  You're ever so sweet.  Every day is better because you're in it with me.  I thank God for my sweet Lucy!

Destruction of Flower--starring Lucy Northcutt, curious Birthday Girl

Foiling of Birthday Girl's plans to eat Flower Petals--starring Uncle John

Birthday Girl's Smiles in First Birthday Photot Shoot--courtesy of Uncle John  :)

Birthday Celebration

My sweet Lucy is turning 1 year old on Tuesday!  I've really enjoyed celebrating it... I think she has too!

Aunt Ann really outdid herself!  This was Lucy's cake with a duck, and all the little guests got a little duckie cake, too!  Adorable!  Lucy LOVES her duckies!

Lucy got the hang of digging in... but she took her time.  (And we both got pretty sticky!)

Lucy after cake--this is the first outfit I bought her.  August 2010, when I decided I was going to adopt, I bought this little dress, hardly daring to hope I'd have a little girl to wear it.  It fits Lucy perfectly now!  (And she's been home right at 6 months--in addition to the birthday celebration!)

Lucy got lots of goodies, and had some good friends who were kind enough to test drive them for her :)  What a handsome cowbow Cooper makes!

Surrounded by people who love us! 
I hope that's the impression she got of today!
I'm pretty sure she couldn't have missed it--it was pretty obvious!
Thanks friends and family!!  We're so thankful for you!

 Lucy had a great time with the balloons!  And the party didn't stop there.  Much later that evening, as we were cleaning up, John Walker said, "Hey, check out your baby!"
I snapped the video camera on to catch this:  (No baby was harmed in the making of this video :) )

                                                                          Seriously, how blessed am I?

exploration

Hi friends!  It's been a long time (I've been reminded) since I updated you on how we're doing.  So I wanted to share with you some of the pictures I just downloaded from my camera.  I think we can safely call this latest phase "exploration." 

 Lucy is speed-crawling--she is everywhere I go, which is SO cute.  I put her down and popped back to the car to bring something else in, and she was sitting about 4 inches in front of the front door when I came back in... she just wanted to see where I had gone!  She crawls through the house and gets into things.  And at my parent's house, she makes the journey down a hall, sharp left turn, past the door to "our" room there and straight to Uncle John's room.  She crawls on in, says hi and waves, and heads back out again.  The other day his door was closed, so she just pounded on it.  She KNEW he was in there and she WANTED to see him!

She is pulling up to standing now.  She stands at the coffee table and bangs her hands and gives a proud wiggle, like "check me out".  She's SO proud of herself (and she looks at each person around to see if they've noticed and are appropriately proud as well).

And, last night in the back yard, she stood by herself for a few seconds here and there.  When she did it she kind of froze, and slid her eyes to the side, like, "Can you believe this!?  (But I can't turn my head)".  It was precious.  She's such a sweet girl.

She found the kitchen... and the cabinets.

She found the drawers at Nana's house, too (she's mid-clap--I think she's proud of her accomplishment).

Tonight she wasn't quite ready to sleep, so she decided to read a bit.  Perusing the book selection (STANDING up!)

This little Spanish book is one of our favorites
 (about a clumsy cow whose antics save the day... wonder why I'd be in favor of a clumsy (if bovine) heroine?)

Please note that the clumsy cow heroine book was on the third shelf up (with a few books beside those boxes, where I put the non-board books so that she couldn't get them.)  And I looked over, and she was stretching past all the other books to get that one from the third shelf!  What determination my little explorer has! 

reading

Trying to get the camera  :)

 

joy

Lucy is such a joy.

I had a superfun shopping trip today... we picked out our Halloween costume and our birthday outfit (at a second hand store, of course!).  I felt like such a MAMA.  It was pretty great.

And, I have to share about last weekend.  Thursday started out with a crazy poopy diaper that took a quick morning bath to totally clean up from (clean up the BABY, the changing pad was still quite... stinky, but we were running late, so I left it!).  Lucy then sneezed during a mouthful of applesause.  Which sprayed it all over me.  We were running late (did I mention that already?) but I had to go address the applesause situation.  Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because if I hadn't had to look in a mirror again before work, I wouldn't have discovered the lil' bit of poop ON MY NOSE!  Yowza!  What a morning. 

That evening, I wasn't feeling so hot.  Then (sorry to be so frank) I puked myself silly.  My sweet friends brought me diet 7up, which was delicious (but also didn't stay down).   And I fell asleep, and woke up with my heart pounding like it was going to jump out of my chest.  I felt so weird, I called in the calvary (my mom and aunt Bonnie).  Bonnie stayed with Lucy, and mom drove me to the ER.  Where I had an EKG, which showed everything was fine (but I obviously wasn't fine, because a guy had his hands all over my chest and I didn't even enjoy it.)  They said I probably had food poisoning and was dehydrated, gave me some iv fluids, and sent me home. 

Home sick with a baby was hard to imagine.  But I didn't have to!  My family is really wonderfully awesome.  My aunt stayed with Lucy and cleaned my house (remember the sintky Lucy mess and add the pukey bathroom mess and realize the huge amount of love she must have for us!).  Then my mama, who had stayed up all night with me in the er, drove me home and went to work, and my dad  got me medicine and more sprite, and my brother woke me up to drink every 2 hours and fixed me broth, and dad and JW took care of Lucy all afternoon.  I am SO blessed!!

I couldn't do this alone, and I'm SO thankful that I don't have to.  I'm thanking God for the good family and friends he's blessed us with!

on the move

Hola amigos!

I've been rather lapse in my photography, despite having such a wonderful subject.

She looked ADORABLE today, so I thought it was time to have a little photo shoot during play time.  Then I realized why I've not taken many pictures lately... she's hard to catch!  She's on the move constantly!  There is a lot of climbing and crawling and twisting.  I'd have a beautiful smile, click the button, and end up with something like this:

So, her face is blurry (she's on the move) but check out those cute shoes!

I caught this one mid-roll--check out the gravity defying (cute) shoes.  :)

  

We took a time out for some clapping.  We do a LOT of clapping!

My little mover gave me a sweet smile over her shoulder on her quest to reach the window,
beautifully displaying her heart jean pocket.  She's a sweetie!

Climbing on my leg... this little model really can't be bothered to look at the camera for too long :)

SO, here is the recap.  We climb, we clap, we crawl a lot, we roll.  It's good times!