1st Bike Ride!

It was all fun and games until we put the helmet on her. Then it turned ugly. So, Lucca won and we broke the law, letting our most precious cargo ride without a helmet. Good thing I am such an amazing bike rider ;)

The progression...

"She may have won the battle, but she won't win the war." Just don't tell her that...

"Parkkkkkk"

If you have talked to Lucca in the past month, somewhere in the conversation she probably told you she wants to go to the PARKKKKKKKKKKKK. She wakes up and says "park(kkkkk)", she gets dressed and says "parkk", lunch and then parkkk...you get the idea. I really need to get a video of the way she emphasizes the "K" sound in this word. She would make our German and Russian ancestors very proud. I've started to drive out of the neighborhood a different way than usual, so we avoid seeing the park when we aren't headed there. She knows her park. And loves her park.

We spend many moments here. It's nothing fancy, but it's a sweet old neighborhood park with wooden climbing structures and metal slides. It's Lucca's park and she knows the entire thing, inside and out. She knows where she can play, where she can't play, how to climb the baby slide, how to ask for help to climb the big slide. We count the fish, she points to all the different colored fish, she points to the pelican that sits above the swings and says "tweet-tweet". We play basketball and soccer, dig in the sand and count rocks. We roll down the hills, stopping to pick flowers and toss blades of grass. These days are SWEET.

The best ball ever

Future athlete

Where's Lucca?

Collecting leaves

A little one-on-one basketball

The fish

Lucca's new favorite spot

15 months!

Lucca is 15 months old today! It's hard to imagine a love greater than the love you feel on the day of your child's birth...but someway, somehow, our hearts just keep getting bigger and bigger for this little lady. She is sweet, she is funny, she is smart, she is beautiful...

And she can run 10 times faster than any other tot at the park.

Lucca, you are full of life. You make the world smile. You still wave at every person who walks by and say bye-bye after they go. Trucks and buses are so cool right now. You don't like peanut butter, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, chicken, corn, and about a million other foods, but you love peas and avocados, cereal and bread.

You like wearing dresses and saying "Pretty" in the mirror after you get dressed. You love finding your belly button (and ours), dancing to music, stacking blocks, ripping pages out of books, rolling around in the grass, kicking your ball and swinging.

We often go to sleep at night with gigantic smiles on our faces as we recap the day we had with Lucca. I show videos and pictures I captured of her that day and we talk about new things she said or did. Her daddy's words every night..."she's just so sweet" and mine "my baby, i love that girl"

Cheers to 15 months, and to this love that just won't stop growing.

(Lucca's dress handmade by my mom, email me if interested)