Cohens in Moscow

Our Son

2012-01-26T15:01:00.001-08:00

On January 25^th, 2012 our firstborn son, Christian Benedict, was born. He went to be with the Lord a few minutes later. I had been having chills and a bit of a fever for a few days before, which I thought were just flu symptoms but which I now know were signs of a septic abortion. I had an ultrasound that morning and everything looked wonderful. They saw that he was a boy and he kicked his feet and bounced his head around and I loved him.

But that afternoon I began having contractions, and they continued to get worse. Since nothing had been wrong that morning I didn’t go in to the doctor, and they just suggested pain medication and a warm bath. Soon they became so bad that I felt like I was in labor again, and it turns out that I was.

We knew something was seriously wrong, and Joel took Lucy over to a friend’s house so that we could go into the hospital. But it was right then, in the ten minutes that he was gone, that our son was born, with only me there to catch him on our bathroom floor.

When he came out he was still alive, just long enough for me to tell him that we loved him, and then our Heavenly Father took him out of my arms and gathered him into His infinitely more capable and tender arms.

This was a terrible, hard, painful experience, and one that we will never forget. But in the midst of our sorrows, we acknowledge that this hard providence was given to us for a reason by our God. And with this mindset we have come to take comfort in many things.

First, I know that we worship a living God, one who died and rose again. And because of that we have a son who died but lives on in heaven. He is absent from his body but he is present with the Lord. And while we may be grieving, he is not.

Second, I know that God works all things out for good for those who love Him. I had my hopes and plans for Christian as all mothers do: that he and Lucy would grow up thick as thieves, and that we could shower him with gifts and love. But even there God had better plans for him: And if we being sinful know how to give good gifts, how much more will our heavenly father give gifts to those who ask of him (Matt. 7:11). So I have asked, and I know Christian has already received more gifts and love than we could ever give Him.

Third, I know that God is not distant, and we are not alone. Even when I gave birth to Christian in the bathroom, my Father was with me, leading me through the valley of the shadow of death. His Spirit has brought Joel and I immense comfort in these past 24 hours, and confirmed for us that God will never give us more than we can handle.

So we named him Christian Benedict. He is our little Christian son who was blessed to go and be with the Lord straightaway, without the pain and trials of a life on this earth. He has traded corruptible flesh for incorruptible and sorrow for joy. We see what is to come through a mirror dimly, but he sees the glory face to face.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. (2 Cor. 4:17-18).”

15 Weeks

2012-01-23T09:54:00.001-08:00

Today I hit 15 weeks, and I thought I'd take a picture of the growing bump. Baby is now the size of an apple!

I only had a few seconds to snap it, so I didn't manage to get one with my face in it, but that's not really the point of a bump picture, is it? As you can see from Joel's two slippers and the doll scattered haphazardly around me, Lucy was running amok, and I had to go keep an eye on her.

And, if anyone cares, here I am at 14 weeks with Lucy. I'm even wearing the same shirt. It's deja vu!

Warm bread on a cold day

2012-01-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

I haven't made home-made bread in a long time. Partly because my artisan bread-making was put to a complete standstill when my dutch oven was recalled. That was a great tragedy. Hopefully Martha Stewart comes up with an inexpensive, non-exploding replacement soon.

In the meantime, I'm back to my very basic bread which Joel likes better anyway, and which freezes nicely and is about as easy to make as Kraft mac-n-cheese.

Especially if you have a Kitchenaid and don't have to do any kneading by hand.

I used to really enjoy hand-kneading the dough, but that was back in my pre-Lucy days when I had more time and wasn't chasing down a little mischief-maker while making bread. Ah, multi-tasking.

Here's the recipe:

3 cups all-purpose flour (I do half whole wheat so that it's healthier)

2 tsp. instant yeast

1 1/4 tsp. salt

3 T. sugar

4 T butter

1/4 cup nonfat dry milk

1/3 cup potato flakes

1 1/8 cupes lukewarm water

Combine all ingredients and mix and knead them together until you have a soft, smooth dough. Add more flour or water as needed (I usually have to add more flour). Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until puffy.

Transfer dough to a greased work surface and shape into an 8-inch log. Transfer log to a loaf pan, cover the pan, and let bread rise until the outer edge has risen about 1 inch over the rim, about 1 hour (or 2 hours if you forget about it like I did).

Preheat oven to 350. Uncover pan and bake for 35ish minutes, tent lightly with foil for the final 10-15 minutes if it looks like it's browning too fast.

I usually double that recipe and freeze one loaf for later in the week. This is great sandwich bread, but it also goes great with soup which is what we're doing tonight!

Bugaboo Giveaway

2012-01-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

So I don't usually use my blog for promotional purposes, but this one was too good to miss! Baby Gizmo is giving away a Bugaboo Donkey stroller (worth 1600 dollars) and I'm hoping to win it. :) And if you're like me and want to win it too, head on over to http://www.babygizmo.com/giveaways.php and enter!

What's the real reason I'm excited about this stroller? Well, because it converts into a double stroller, and I'm really going to need a double stroller come mid-July of this upcoming year! :)

Holiday Cheer

2011-12-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

One of Lucy's favorite things to do is sit in my lap or dada's lap and look at books. She has to be in control of the page turning and how long is spent examining each page, of course. She'll stare for a while in silence at a page and then point with one chubby finger at something on the page and exclaim "AH?" which we interpret as, "What is that?" Then we give her the word: "cat" or "banana" or "house." She takes a while to digest this word before moving on to another object on the page. "AH?"

For Christmas Joel and I got her this rocking horse:

It sings and rocks and she is slowly learning to love it. We decided to give it to her early since we're driving to Santa Cruz for Christmas this year and there's no way that was coming in the car with us.

I think she looks pretty adorable on it. Especially in her little girly outfit. So cute!

The Wild House

2011-12-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

I know that we only have one child, but even still, our house can get really wild. Crazy things happen around the Cohen casa, and I occasionally have the presence of mind to whip out my camera and try to document them.

Take, for instance, one of the biggest reasons Lucy is so excited for dada to get home in the evening and why she asks for him all day long. His seemingly boundless energy.

While by 5:30 I'm just about drained from a day with Lu, Joel walks in the door and within seconds Lucy is being swung around in his arms, wrestled with on the bed, or being give a ride in a plastic box.

Isn't she a lucky gal? She tries to imitate the fun with her stuffed animals, but really it's more fun when you're the pushee.

Also, there are the odd places that my child decides to plop her derriere when she's tired. (Lucy will probably kill me when she's older for posting such an unflattering picture. Or maybe she'll be able to recognize the humor in the situation? Let's hope for the latter).

And of course, there's your daily dose of kitty torture. Whether it's giving her gentle pat-pats:

Or attempting to balance plastic cups on her head:

This poor cat takes it well. Only the occasional scratch has happened, and it's definitely not enough to stop Lucy from playing with her beloved kitty.

And then, of course, there's reading time which, since there are no chairs Lucy's height, sometimes happens in the carseat when it's indoors:

And lastly there has been Lucy's favorite family tradition to date: Advent chocolate.

We're not sure how much made it in to her mouth, to be honest:

All these things and more make my day-to-day life very interesting and wild. And I love it! Bring on the wild house.

Walking in a winter wonderland

2011-12-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

What with the warmer Eugene climate, this year Joel, Lucy and I are just going to have to pretend we're living somewhere nice and snowy for those few weeks of the year that everyone wants snow in December.

And even though there are still some brilliantly fall-colored trees around Eugene, it's December and it's time for a Christmas post! So here's some decorations we've got around the Cohen casa.

We're still undecided on whether we'll do a tree this year since we won't be in Eugene on Christmas, but in the meantime I've put our fun white twiggy tree out with ornaments on it to festive up the place.

And here's our hearth (complete with Joel's nice fire). I strung the ornaments from yarn and I think it looks nice and cheery!

And lastly, this is how we spend our days when the weather is not nice enough to go outside. We lounge around in our pajamas at all hours of the day, snuggle up in a nice, festive blanket, and read books. Sounds about perfect!

Walks with Papa

2011-11-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

I found these pictures on my camera from back in October when my parents came to visit. I love the sequence. Lucy was enjoying her outdoor walk with Papa on that beautiful fall day.

The dramatic point is Lucy's signature move.

Fall days

2011-11-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Have I already mentioned how beautiful Fall is here in Eugene? The trees really take their time turning red, yellow and orange, and the weather has very slowly become cooler, easing us into the darker days of Winter. It hasn't been very rainy yet either, although I think this week is going to be the begining of some cold, wet weather. But that just means more time inside making forts and pretend baking with my little cute friend, and that's alright with me!

Here's a picture of the bush outside our window.

And the view from my back porch:

With all this nice weather and a child who loves walking, we've spent a lot of time outside playing with leaves and exploring.

Lucy is not content to stay in our backyard for long, she wants to get out and see the big world.

So many new textures to learn about like leaves and pinecones, it's such an adventure!

I think she found a ladybug on the wall. (Also known as a "cat-cat").

Happy Fall everyone!

One year checkup

2011-11-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

Lucy had her one year checkup today, and she's right on schedule! She is now in the 77th percentile for height (30 1/4 inches) and the 40th for weight (20 lbs 14 oz). She had achieved all of the developmental milestones they asked about, and on top of that she's also exceptionally cute (not that we're biased).

Especially when she makes faces at herself in the mirror:

And waves for the paparazzi at the park:

Fallish Things

2011-11-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

Happy Late Halloween! Here's a picture of our little Lu enjoying herself some marionberry pie at our pumpkin carving event.

And here is the pumpkin we carved. (Mom, I know you're probably shuddering right now.)

And our adorable little Piglet! She actually did have a blast going around to some of the stores in the 5th street market and getting to pick out a candy from the different merchants.

Also, in other fall news, tonight I made something amazing, and I think you need to go out, buy the ingredients, and make it also.

Stat.

Bree calls it Sea Salt and Vanilla Bean Caramel Sauce. I call it nectar of the gods. So enraptured was I by this stuff that I didn't even pause to take a good picture. So here is the one she posted with the recipe. One thing you can do with this sauce is pour it over ice-cream. But I'm also envisioning it in coffee. And on these blondies I'm about to go make.

The best things in life

2011-10-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

I love baking. I also love eating what I bake, which can be dangerous, and which is why I don't bake all that often. I love excuses to bake for others (like our after-church social times), and since it was my turn to bring treats this week, I decided to make cinnamon rolls.

And it made me realize: is there much better in life than home-made dough coated in butter, sugar and cinnamon?

Here, let's lean in for a closer look:

And then after it's rolled up:

And cut into pieces:

It's baked and drizzled with more sugar. I mean, talk about blessing upon blessing.

I love to bake because it is therapeutic and rewarding: hard work that turns into glorious aromas spilling out of the oven and filling my house. Not all hard work reaps such immediate, tangible results. And in that sense, baking helps remind me of God's promise to bless all hard work that is done to His glory. Even if my work doesn't immediately show results like warm, doughy cinnamon rolls, I can rest in the fact that those blessings will come. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

1 Year Old

2011-10-16T17:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our sweet baby girl turned one. Nana and Papa Ditton were able to come visit, so we had a party-filled day, complete with a trip out to the Lone Pine Farms, cupcakes, singing, and presents.

Here's little Lu at the pumpkin patch:

Admiring one of her presents:

She was a little befuddled by the shoes, but I know she'll appreciate them even if she doesn't know it yet. :)

Mom and I decided to make pumpkin cupcakes for my fall baby:

And Lucy had a ball stuffing her cupcake into her mouth (after we removed the chokeable candy):

Later KeriAnn and her three kiddos were able to stop by for another round of singing and presents, Lucy was pleased as punch to be sung to twice, and she even got a second cupcake. How fun!

We love our little baby. Happy 1st birthday Lucy Rose!

Walk like a baby

2011-10-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

Yep folks, the rumors are true, Lucy Rose is walking! She took her first official steps about a week ago, and she just keeps getting better and better at moving those baby legs. Here's a little video as proof. We're so proud of you Lu lu!

Lone Pine Farms

2011-10-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

Today Joel and I decided it was time to do something Fallish. So after finding the website for Lone Pine Farms, we drove over to Junction City with the Lu-belle to see what they had to offer.

And it was fantastic. Seriously, Eugene locals, if you haven't been before you should check this farm out. There were tractor and horse-drawn rides, a huge corn maze, a magnificent farmer's market, a hay-bale maze for the little 'uns as well as a playground, goats to feed, and a huge pumpkin patch. Lucy had a great time and we came away with several different pumpkins, gourds, and some indian corn.

Lucy loves this little display of the old lady in the shoe:

She helped us pick out a pumpkin:

It had to pass the "can I whack it hard with my palms" test:

The chosen pumpkin:

Isn't that a fabulous display?

We tried to get Lucy to pose in their photo-op standups but she didn't really get what was happening.

So Joel tried to show her. Doesn't he make a splendid witch?

The horse-drawn ride (we didn't go on it, Lucy loved petting the horses but would have gotten bored quickly):

Off to pet the goats!

The over-exposed quality of this picture makes me laugh. Doesn't it look like a floating goat-head?

And here's the baby at home, thrilled with her outing and her new pumpkin friend!

It's October!

2011-10-01T09:45:00.000-07:00

When October 1st arrived last year, Joel and I were thinking, "We're going to have a baby this month!" It's crazy what a year does.

I've always loved Fall for its changing leaves, crisp weather, pumpkins, spiced smells, and holidays. And I keep finding more things to love about this season. Like festive, footie pajamas, for instance.

Happy October everyone!

A day in the life of...

2011-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

What goes on in the Cohen household on any given day? Well, let's just say that one of us specializes in destruction and another one in repairing. But for the purpose of fairness we won't say which one is which. We'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Any guesses? :)

11 Months

2011-09-15T20:06:00.000-07:00

Happy 11 Months Lucy Rose! We love our little girl so much more than we ever could have imagined. And she just keeps getting more wonderful and fun the older she gets. Her favorite words are "dada" and "cat" (go figure, since I think Whiskey is her favorite thing ever). Although we've discovered "cat" covers a wide range of animals.

She now stands on her own, although she isn't walking yet. But it'll be soon! And once Lucy's on the move, watch out world!

She's so quick at learning new things; right now her favorite hand motions are clapping, waving, pointing up to God when we ask her "who made you?" and throwing her arms out wide when we ask "how big is baby?" She also has some mad dance moves. Whenever music comes on, those hips start a movin'.

I can't believe she'll be a year old next month! This first year has flown, can't wait to see what the next one brings!

Vindicated!

2011-09-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, I may have been unable to make anything live in Moscow, but in Eugene, the garden of Eden, I have actually succeeded! Woo hoo! I couldn't plant much since we moved into this new place in mid-July, but I did manage some broccoli:

And two tomato plants that I transplanted from a friend's garden (thanks Tawny!)

I can't describe the pleasure I get when I walk out to our little garden patch and see these beauties ready to be picked:

Oh, and since I'm pretty sure the grandparents would be sad if I went an entire post without a picture of Lucy, here she is sporting some skinny jeans. :)

Moscow Visit

2011-09-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Well technically I've been out to Moscow twice now, but these pictures are all from my first trip when just Lu and I made the trek up. We saw a wonderful wedding in Spokane (congrats Bret and Katie!) and then headed up to Moscow to relax with Nana and Papa.

Relaxing activities included:

Playing piano with Papa (starting her young):

Snuggling with Nana:

Chillaxing at the park:

Throwing the ball around:

Playing in the pool:

Grinning in the pool:

Pointing in the pool:

Throwing the ball in the pool:

Watching Sammy sleep:

Admiring my mother's outdoor decorations (isn't it beautiful?):

More fun times with Papa:

Fun times with Papa in an even bigger pool:

Yes we love our pool time!

Pictures I love recently

2011-08-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

Friends:

First time eating an orange:

Posing:

Balancing (that's a cracker in her right hand):

Flowers from Farmer's Market bought for me by the best husband in the world:

New Place Pictures

2011-08-23T10:26:00.001-07:00

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of our new place! A month ago we moved into a little duplex not that far from our old apartments. It's really a great little place, and we're very grateful to not be on the second story of an apartment anymore (and to have a garage and backyard!). I took a bunch of pictures, some with my old camera since the lens is so much wider and some with the new camera since they look better. Here's a quick tour!

First is our massive hazelnut tree in the backyard. The squirrels have eaten pretty much all of them, but if there are any left we plan on roasting them in the fall.

Our little garden patch (now has broccoli and tomatoes, it was too late to plant anything else).

The dining area:

A view from the dining area into the kitchen (on the left of the washer/dryer is the door outside and on the right behind the fridge is the door to the garage):

Shot of dining room from the living room:

Living room:

Fireplace in living room (woohoo!)

Reading nook in living room:

Small child playing:

Lu's bedroom:

Our bedroom:

Bathroom:

Lucy's favorite toy in the bathroom:

I kept wanting to wait until my house was completely picked up to take pictures, and then I decided that that was not a very accurate picture of what our house looks like most of the time. We've got one active, curious child who loves nothing more than taking everything out of cabinets and bookshelves, and I love her for it! (Don't worry, grandparents, all chemicals are on high shelves in the garage).

Sunday evening photo shoot

2011-08-08T10:01:00.000-07:00

Living in the second story of an apartment for six months gave us a great appreciation for grass. Lucy loves to sit outside on the grass and watch the squirrels and try to eat discarded hazelnut shells.

I like to take pictures of Lucy. It's a bit of an obsession, and this is an entire post of pictures of her outside playing in the grass. I would say that this is for the grandparents, but really I just like to show off my adorable baby.

Her new favorite activity: pointing:

Multi-tasking:

The parents visit

2011-08-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

My parents came to visit for the weekend, and even though Lu and I both came down with colds (murphy's law for family get-togethers), we still had a great time.

Dad and Lu got along swimmingly (Lucy forgot she was terrified of his laugh):

If dad's hair looks a little....windswept, it's because it was! On Saturday we went to Florence for the day and it was very, very windy down by the seashore. But I'll take it. I love being just a little over an hour from the coast.

And it's such a neat little town! We wandered down on the docks and looked at the little boats:

Lucy learned about anchors:

We toured the shops (and I got some amazing fudge):

Lucy got loads of Papa time:

For which she was very grateful:

Joel and Lucy at Mo's (yummy clam chowder):

And of course Lucy soaked up lots of Nana time too:

Mom and dad spent most of the day on Friday helping me hang pictures and decorate around our new place. It was SO wonderful to have my mom give her fabulous decorating advice. Pictures of our little duplex coming shortly!

Lunch time!

2011-07-22T15:00:00.000-07:00

Lucy loves black beans. She loves to squish them between her fingers, rub them all over her scalp, shove them down her legs and, on occasion, eat them.

Which is why I decided not to bother putting clothes on her during lunch time today. I think it was a pretty good call.

This is called baby ganster face. I'm pretty sure she was thinking "What you lookin' at?":

And once she got all shiny and clean again, it was time for some tupperware-drawer playtime while I tried desparately to get the bean smears out of, well, everything.

Greer, Part 2

2011-07-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

Here we go, a barrage of pictures from our Arizona trip. Brace yourself!

Lucy thought Grandpa Howard was pretty hilarious:

This little gal looks more grown up every time I see her:

Sunny and Lucan and Dominoes:

Meris beat me twice in Scrabble. Good for nothing classical education...

(only joking of course, love you NSA!)

Girl cousins:

Name that bird. Now name the fish in its talons:

Pretty sister-in-law:

Feed the birds:

Yes, they knew us. And yes, they came quickly whenever they saw us:

Another impressive shot of the fire damage:

Adorable child:

Adorable child no. 2:

More of adorable child no.1:

Adorable child no. 3 with butterfly (next to her hand):

That's all folks!

Greer, Part 1

2011-07-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

We moved into our new place here in Eugene and just got internet up today, so I'm finally able to finish our Arizona trip pictures. The highlight of the trip was our four day vacation in Greer at these incredible cabins. We had such a great time relaxing with the family and enjoying the great outdoors. Here are the two adorable Schwager gals practicing their painting:

Joel kicked back and relaxed in the rocking chair (that's his pensive look):

But he was able to get up and pose for a photo with me:

Joel and Kusie, chatting it up:

Here's a shot from our cabin's deck out towards the general recreational area. Joel and I went kayaking on that pond to the left, and I caught a fish in the little pond on the right! You can really see how close that big fire came to destroying the area:

And here's a bunch of self-explanatory shots of the cabin. It was incredible. So luxurious, that's my type of camping!

Hanging out at the Grandparent's

2011-07-13T14:37:00.001-07:00

With so many of us staying at Mom and Dad's house in Phoenix, we spent a good deal of time just hanging around the house catching up.

Here's Lucy with her cousin Levi (I actually have no idea what the relationship is: Joel's cousin's son's son. Anyone? Anyone?)

Look at these two cuties:

Lucy learning a thing or two about begging from Buster Brown Dog while Daniel looks on:

Lucy with Uncle Daniel:

Lucy with Grandpa:

Lucy showing off her pretty blues:

Chasing after Buster (he learned to run away from her very quickly. But anytime she saw him she would still squeal with joy):

Eating while simultaneously doing the princess wave:

Lucy with Grandma:

That last picture is actually from Greer, which is what I'll hopefully get to in my next post!

Tabula Rasa

2011-07-12T08:56:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite things about moving is getting the chance to start over with decorating. It's so much fun to move into a clean, empty space and re-think how your furniture should go. Even if I don't have any money at the time to buy new items, sometimes rearranging my old stuff makes me feel like it's new.

Another favorite of moving for me is purging. We started our married lives in a house that was really too big for us (4 bed, 2bath), and over the years we've been moving into smaller and smaller spaces. I think our new duplex (2 bed/1 bath) is really a perfect size for the three of us. Easy to clean, plus it means I get to purge even more! Makes me feel so lightweight.

But what I'm most excited about with this new place is that it is all wood floors (minus linoleum-tile in the kitchen/bathroom). I think wood floors and white decor are my two favorite decorating schemes. So naturally the new move has me daydreaming about all sorts of lovely wood/white combinations:

Doesn't this look so clean and cheerful?

Sure it's not very practical to have white curtains that pool luxuriously on the floor when you have messy baby hands roaming through the the house, but I can always dream, right?

Oh yes, and did I mention that the new place has a white fireplace? I'm already getting giddy about Christmas decor!

So excited about this move!

Arizona Heat

2011-07-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

We just got back from Arizona yesterday and we're moving out of this apartment complex and into a great little duplex on Friday. Whoo! Talk about fast-paced. But while Lucy's sleeping and Joel's off playing basketball, I decided to kick back and relax, stop packing and write a little blog post about our time in AZ.

It was hot.

Seriously, all you people who live in Phoenix, you have my respect. I've never been to Phoenix in the summer before, but that was just intense. But besides the crazy heat (and we were in Greer for most of the trip so it wasn't really all that bad), we had a great time seeing our family again.

So I thought I'd kick off some Greer/Phoenix posts with a few shots of pool time. We spent a lot of time in the pool to escape the heat. Check out the two oldest Schwager kids:

And Lucy got her first experience in a real pool. Do I even need to say she enjoyed it?

The spectators:

And what could possibly be better after a swim in the pool than a nice, cold popsicle?

We miss our Phoenix (and Santa Cruz) fam already!

Signing Off!

2011-07-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Joel and I are headed to Arizona for the week to visit family, and we're leaving tomorrow! Today it's 114 in Phoenix, and tomorrow when we get there it will have cooled down to a chilly 109. Basically this is all I can think about bringing (minus the flowers):

The smaller hat is Lucy's, fyi.

Even though it's supposed to be incredibly hot, we're all very excited to see our family again and spend some time up in Greer together (it will be considerably cooler there).

See you in a week! Lucy is already packed and ready to go.

She takes her eating seriously

2011-06-29T10:33:00.000-07:00

Lucy prefers to feed herself, which means that mealtimes frequently end up looking like this:

Never one to waste food (we do live in Eugene, after all), if Lucy doesn't have space for it in her mouth then she makes sure it finds a nice home somewhere else on her face.

It's hard work, but somebaby has to do it. Lucy feels she's up for the task.

And in other news, my dining room table has turned into a veritable garden. With nowhere else to put my plants, they usually end up sitting on our table until it's sunny enough to put them outside. That's Thyme and Oregano in front, sunflowers from Rachel in the middle, and Basil in the back. I love the colors of summer!

Girls' Weekend

2011-06-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

Lydia, Rachel and Hope came to visit us this past weekend and we had a blast showing them around Eugene. We went to the usual spots: 5th street market, shopping, Trader Joes, plus we got to try out a few new places which is always fun. We went to the Wandering Goat coffee shop for the first time which had amazing coffee, and we went for a walk down to the beautiful Rose Gardens (how did I not know those were there??). Plus we went out to eat at Belly restaurant (DELICIOUS) and on our last night Joel kindly stayed at home with the sleeping kiddos while us girls went out to The Rabbit for drinks and then over to Market of Choice for dessert. I was too busy having a ball with the girls to take many pictures, but here are a few....

Lydia wandering around Market of Choice

and Rachel:

Pretty Rachel out on the town:

Hope hiding behind her own Nikon

The four of us at the Rabbit:

Lydia and I:

Rachel and Hope:

We also spent a fair bit of time at our apartment hanging out with the babies. Here's Hope's kiddo, Brody (isn't he a cutie?):

Brody and Lucy had a hard time sharing. If one of them had a bottle (or a paci or a toy) then the other would work hard to take it from them. There were quite a few tug of war sessions which were hilarious to watch.

Brody got a rice cracker which Lucy succeeded in yanking away from him. Naturally it crumbled all over the floor and the two of them had at it trying to get as much of it off the floor and into their mouths as possible.

I miss those girls already, but it was so much fun getting to catch up and show them Eugene!

Unrequited Love

2011-06-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

Whiskey never had much interest in Lucy. But now that our baby crawls, kitty's attitude toward her has gone from vague disinterest to utter loathing.

When Lucy sees Whiskey, her first response is to squeal in delight. If she's in my arms, she starts kicking her legs and flapping her arms in an attempt to project herself onto Whiskey. If Lucy's on the floor, she makes a beeline for the cat.

Her petting is not gentle. It also doesn't help that the most coveted portion of kitty kitty is her whiskers. Whiskey rues the day God made her whiskers so irresistible to infant fingers.

So now the only time that Whiskey lets Lucy within three feet of her is when a wall of glass separates them. Even then, she likes to pretend like Lucy isn't there.

Lucy starts off with a wave. Usually in the grocery store this attracts anyone in the near vicinity to her like a magnet. But with Whiskey? Nothing.

Then Lucy crawls up to Whiskey and taps on the glass. Kitty kitty? Whiskey pretends there is something infinitely interesting on the floor.

Lastly Lucy pulls out all the stops. She gets up onto her knees. It's a big accomplishment for her and one that usually evokes oohs and aahs from her audience.

But Whiskey will have none of it. Maybe she thinks that if she ignores the problem then it will just disappear. Maybe she's plotting a great revenge (probably not). Maybe she's just bitter. Will we ever know? Probably not.

Hysterical Laughter

2011-06-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Lucy loves to laugh at me. I guess I do a lot of silly things throughout the day that she finds comical. But for some reason tonight I was particularly hysterical. Here she is laughing at my crazy dance moves (which, to spare you all, I did not include in the video).

Thing One and Thing Two

2011-06-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

Take a close look at that first picture. See that white speck on her bottom gum?? Yep, that's tooth number one! (If you look even closer you can see the very beginnings of tooth number two to the left of number one).

Lucy is pretty proud of herself. She's also proud of the fact that she figured out how to rest her head on her highchair.

5 minute makeover

2011-06-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

When I was in Moscow a few weeks ago I picked up this painting at the Salvation Army for 50 cents.

It's a replica of an 18th century painting by Canaletto. And it was so cheap that I just had to grab it. When I got home I went to our nearby Goodwill (it's actually titled a Goodwill Superstore, and for good reason, the place is MASSIVE) and found this framed painting.

Sorry, my computer refused to rotate the picture. The artwork is kinda dated, but the frame was perfect, and it was a mere $6.99.

So I brought it home, took out the old artwork, popped in my Canaletto painting, sanded the edges to make it more shabby chic (and remove some ugly yellow paint stains), and voila!

We now have a new piece of artwork for our bedroom. And I had just the wall to put it on.

Gotta love $7.50 art!

(PS- I'm pretty sure that painting was once in a calendar or art book or something because the back of it had a whole spiel about the author. Just goes to show you can make art from pretty much anything!)

4 Years

2011-06-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today marks four years of marriage to the love of my life, Joel. Four crazy, incredible, blessed years. We've come so far together and I can't wait to see what lies ahead. Here's to forty more.

Astoria

2011-06-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

Okay we're almost completely caught up with pictures and posts of where we've been this past month! After Lucy and my fun trip to Moscow we flew to Portland where Joel picked us up and we drove to the seaside town of Astoria. Joel had an audit in a neighboring town and Moss Adams kindly put us up at the Hotel Elliott in downtown Astoria. Can I just say, if you're visiting Astoria you have to stay there? It was plush. Everything was fabulous: from the warming floor tiles in the bathroom (oh, and the jacuzzi bathtub) to the cushy robes and slippers, the massive tv in the bedroom (which I watched a fair bit of while Lucy napped during the day) and a yummy complimentary breakfast.

During the days Joel headed off to work and Lucy and I wandered around downtown Astoria and had a great time browsing stores, walking along the wharf, and trying out different restaurants.

Okay I have to jump in here and say that the restaurant below (yes it's a walk-up fish and chips stand), was INCREDIBLE. It may even have beat steelhead brewery with their fish and chips (and it certainly was a good deal less expensive). It was a pretty long line to get my food but oh so worth it. They only serve one thing, but they serve it well.

The Hotel Elliott had a cute little rooftop garden that I took these next two pictures from:

Lucy was a trooper in the stroller while I walked around town:

The rooftop garden:

Lucy Crawls

2011-06-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Look out world, our baby is crawling!

Moscow in May

2011-06-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Lucy and I took a trip up to Moscow a few weeks ago to see my parents and sister and nephew. Despite a rather nasty (but thankfully quick) round of the stomach flu, we had a fantastic time. Unfortunately I didn't think to bring my camera's battery charger so I only have a few pictures from the first few days we were there. But it was SO much fun to see my family again!

David's impish smile:

Papa and Nana:

This, I believe, is called cousins learning to share:

Lucy had a great time with Nana and Papa's toys:

My beautiful sister and the cute nephew:

David got some fabulous early birthday presents!

Some of which Lucy enjoyed as well:

I miss this cute face (and exclamations of "Nini!" whenever I walked in the room):

Joint feeding times:

Inquisitive Lucy

2011-05-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

She's just starting to figure out how to pull herself up, but with a little help from me she'll happily stand and survey her domain for a few minutes!

The parents come to visit

2011-05-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Shortly after Grandma Sunny's visit, we got to host my parents for a few days before they took me back to Moscow! The weather wasn't as nice as it had been in weeks prior, but we still got outside a bit. Here's a paparazzi shot of Papa and Lucy enjoying the warmth.

And a close-up. Check out Lu's thighs. Epic.

Papa and Lucy share an inside joke:

My parents being fish-and-chips lovers, we naturally had to go out to Steelhead Brewery for dinner. We sat inside this time, and my mom noticed this sign hanging on the wall.

The Royal Troon golf club is located in my mom's home county of Ayrshire, Scotland! What a coincidence.

My parents got to worship with us on Sunday, here's a picture of little Lu in her Sunday best:

Papa and Lu hanging out on the couch after church:

On one of the days when it wasn't raining (wasn't sunny either, but you take what you can get), we walked around the University of Oregon campus. There was some sort of street fair going on. Lucy had a blast, particularly when Joel held her in this position. I think she thought she was walking:

There were so many neat buildings on campus. Here we are outside of the Museum of Art:

It actually had a quote from Proverbs engraved above the entryway! Lovely architecture.

I'm so glad we were able to show them around Eugene a bit. Maybe next time they come it will actually be sunny!

Channeling the Bayou

2011-05-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

We've been on some whirlwind vacations these past two weeks, but instead of posting pictures of those I'm going to go the easy route and post a recipe first!

Lucy and I watched the Princess and the Frog yesterday and all that New Orleans jazz had me in the mood for some Cajun Cooking.

So I found this recipe on the Pioneer Woman for Cajun Chicken Pasta and, trust me, it was INCREDIBLE. I was tempted to lick my plate afterwards. I have a big container of Tony Cachere's creole seasoning and only one recipe that uses it, so I'm thrilled to have another excuse to pull out those yummy cajun spices. I used more of the seasoning than she suggested, but hey, we like our food spicy.

I was too enraptured by the dish to even bother taking a picture so here's one from Pioneer Woman's blog. And here's a link to the recipe. You have to try it!

6-Month Check-Up

2011-05-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Lucy had her 6-Month check-up (even though she's 6 1/2 months now) and she's just as healthy as can be, praise God! Here are the stats:

* 27 1/4 inches long

* 87th percentile for height

* 18.2 pounds

* 79th percentile for weight

Steelhead Brewery

2011-05-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

Grandma Sunny (Joel's mom) came for a visit on Thursday to see Lucy (okay and probably to see us too, but really, who are we kidding? Lucy's the star). We had a great time showing her around Eugene and catching up and playing with Lucy. We walked around downtown Eugene, strolled through Hendrix park, visited 5th Street Market and the Sweet Life, and did some shopping. On Saturday we decided to try out a Brewery, and opted for the Steelhead Brewery right in downtown Eugene

We all ordered fish and chips, and all three of us agreed it was the BEST fish and chips we had ever had! It had an incredible batter on the outside and really tasty halibut inside. Plus they have great beer, Sunny and I both tried a wheat beer with orange infusion and it was incredible. Yum!

Lucy didn't try the fish and chips but she said her paci tasted the best it's had in months.

She also sampled a little bit of dad's sunglasses

When it was raining or Lucy was napping we hung out in our apartment and chatted.

And here's a gratuitous bath picture I snapped of our little cutie while Sunny was here.

We really wished Grandpa Howard could have come too, but he's working hard in Phoenix. We're all looking forward to seeing him in July though, Lucy's got a lot of kisses stored up for you!

Easter Pictures

2011-04-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

We had an incredibly relaxing and fun time in Moscow for Easter this year, I'm so glad Joel was able to get the time off to visit home!

We went to the Ryan's house for Easter:

Here are my parents all spiffied up for church:

Dad decided he should teach Lucy how to use an I-Phone:

We also spent time with the Williams' and Points':

Les and Lu having a narcissistic moment. Only joking. I think they were comparing eye colors?:

We went mini-golfing (sorry for the horrible light, forgot to change the settings on my camera!)

And Brian taught Lucy Adele a thing or two about the game (I'm not sure how much she picked up, though):

Lucy 1 and Lucy 2 became fast friends on the trip:

We also played several games of Ticket to Ride with my parents and watched some Bones episodes with them. And we went over to the Church's for a fun evening of games and fellowship, although I forgot to bring my camera that time! I'm impressed at how much we were able to fit into four days. It was so nice to be back in Moscow for a bit, and to get to share Easter with our family!

My best friend

2011-04-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

Okay maybe this isn't my best friend EVER, but it's pretty close. I don't know how I survived three years of marriage without my dutch oven. I think I use it at least once a week, if not twice.

Where else can you take this (yes those are chipotle peppers on top, yum!):

And then six hours in the oven come up with this:

Which then gets shredded into this:

And served up like this (sorry this pic is rotated for some reason blogger insisted on rotating it every time I tried to upload it):

Delicious! And I submit that if I had made it in a slow-cooker it wouldn't have tasted nearly as good. Although I have no good argument for why that would be except for that my slow-cooker burns all my big cuts of meats. So that was our dinner last night, and it took maybe 15 minutes of my time to prep. The recipe is called Spicy Dr. Pepper shredded pork and is on my new favorite food blog here.

Oh, and Whiskey wanted to wish everyone a Happy Easter. She likes Lucy's plastic eggs almost as much as Lu does.

Lucy giggles

2011-04-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a little video for the grandparents of Lucy giggling. We never get tired of hearing her laugh, it's one of the best noises out there.

A New Haircut and the Sweet Life

2011-04-16T19:08:00.001-07:00

Today I went to Novo Salon and spent a good deal more on a haircut than I used to back in Moscow. But it was definitely worth it! Not only was the atmosphere of the place really enjoyable and relaxing (they offered me tea when I checked in), but the gal who cut my hair did an amazing job. She looked at pictures with me and we talked about my hair texture and face shape, and then she came up with this fabulous short cut! The best part about it is that it will look good curly too. I'm really happy to have short hair again.

Also, Joel and I went to the Sweet Life last night and split an eclair. This one, specifically:

I LOVE the Sweet Life. Such good desserts, and a fun date-night getaway!

Joel and Lucy waiting patiently in line. Sorry for cutting your head off, hubs.

(P.S. Joel says: check out Lucy's mad dog look. She gets that from her dad.)

6-Months Old!

2011-04-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Happy 6-Month Birthday to our beautiful Lucy Rose! We are completely head over heels in love with this baby. She has the most adorable smile and laugh, and she's growing up so fast!

Hendricks Park

2011-04-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

On Sunday the weather was nice so we decided to go explore an area of Eugene we'd never been to before. We'd heard that Hendricks Park with its rhododendron garden was beautiful, so we decided to go visit. And it was gorgeous! (Sorry for the weird focusing issues on some of the pictures, still figuring this new camera out!).

We took Lucy for a swing on the swings:

Which she enjoyed, but not as much as being out of the front-pack:

One of my favorite things about this garden was that it wasn't all neatly manicured lawns and shrubs; it felt wild and remote.

Check out the wild turkey:

Loved this lamp-post:

Memoirs of a Kitty

2011-04-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

I was talking on the phone with my sis a while back and I mentioned something about Whiskey. And her response was, "Wait, Whiskey's in Eugene with you guys? I thought you left her in Moscow?" I have to admit I felt a little bit guilty about that. Apparently I haven't written a single post about our furry feline since Lucy was born. So here is proof that Whiskey is, in fact, still alive and living with us in Eugene: In Whiskey's opinion, her life took a turn for the worse about 5 and a half months ago, and has been spiraling downwards ever since. First there was the arrival of the noisy, hairless second pet on October 15th. Suddenly our laps and attentions were occupied by someone other than her, and that was disconcerting enough. But then, to make matters worse, one day we shoved her into the back of a car (her least favorite place on earth), drove 10 hours, and dumped her in a completely unfamiliar place, announcing it was her new "home". Gone were the days of going in and out of the house whenever she wanted. She is now stuck on the second floor of an apartment complex, with only a small balcony as her access to the outside world. Are you feeling sorry for our kitty yet? I hope so, this post is my cathartic way of getting all my guilt out there in the open. I'm certainly feeling a lot better now that other people can feel her pain. But there has been a bright spot in these dark days. There is no longer a constant fear in the back of her mind that she's going to get shanked by my parent's cat in her sleep. And in Whiskey's mind, that is a decent trade-off. So while Lucy may have taken center-stage, Whiskey will always be our favorite little kitten.

Eugene Yard Sale

2011-04-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

I went to my first yard sale in Eugene. It was actually a compilation of yard sales held in the Lane Event Center. It was massive, busy, and overwhelmingly full of vendors and shoppers. I did score a few fabulous finds (including a hand blender that I have now used to make ice-cream shakes and fruit smoothies). But the only ones worth taking pictures of were these two cute pictures I found for Lucy's room. Lucy's nursery has a walk-in closet, which up until recently was filled with boxes of books, boxes of clothes, and boxes of things I didn't know what to do with. Unfortunately, from my seat in the rocking chair I had a nice view of all of this clutter, and it was not making me happy. So after my parents brought me down this nice white bookshelf, and after I found these two cute pictures for $2 each at the yard sale, I decided it was time to do some organizing. At some point I'd love for this walk-in closet to be an adorable play-nook for Lucy. For now, at least it looks well-organized from my rocking chair seat, and these two pictures make a world of difference. Much better!

Lucy learns how to make rude noises

2011-04-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Alright, here's a video of Lucy making adorably rude noises with her mouth. For some reason when these blog posts automatically upload to Facebook the videos don't carry over, so if you're viewing this on facebook and want to spend a minute and a half watching my child do something that perhaps only her parents (ok and the grandparents) find really funny, you'll have to go to our blog!

Just a few spring shots

2011-03-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

Today it was 65 and sunny here in Eugene. Lucy and I took a long, long walk to Starbucks in the afternoon when it was a little overcast and not as bright out. On the way I took a few shots of things that are blooming with my new Nikon. I'm so excited to have this camera, although I have a lot to learn about shutter speed and aperture.

Here's the view from our back porch. Still waiting for those trees to blossom, but the hillside is such a beautiful green!

And some flowers I picked up from Fred Meyer for 99 cents.

Lucy, etc.

2011-03-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

Just some pictures of our smiley baby. Oh, and my birthday present is in the mail right now... a Nikon D80 that I got off of Ebay. Woohoo! So there might be even MORE pictures of our adorable child. As the Heffalumps and Woozles song says, "Beware, beware, bewaaaaarre!" (That song is on almost constant repeat at our house, fyi).

Lucy's First Solids

2011-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

We decided to start Lucy on rice cereal yesterday, not because she needs to gain more weight, but more because we noticed her increasing interest in food. We'll often put her in the high chair with a toy during dinner time so that she's near us, and over the last few weeks we've watched her follow our forks from the plates to our mouths. She's even done some appreciative licking of her lips while we're chewing. And so we decided to let her join in on dinner time. Here's Joel giving her a bite to eat:

Her initial response was confusion mixed with a little disgust (can't blame her, rice cereal tastes like cardboard to me):

But then she decided she liked this stuff that grown-ups eat (not that we'd ever eat it unless we were starving, but don't tell Lucy):

For a while she was content with helping us guide the spoon to her mouth

But then she realized it was much more fun holding the spoon herself:

And much messier:

Springtime!

2011-03-23T09:30:00.001-07:00

I love that my birthday often falls on the first day of Spring. It's such a rejuvenating time of year: flowers waking up from the dead ground (stirring dull roots with spring rain, if you're Eliot), birds finding their songs again, new life, etc.

In Moscow and in Spokane I was often disappointed by the first day of Spring. Quite frequently there was still snow on the ground, or even snowfall. But here in Eugene I really can believe that springtime has come. The trees that line the road up to our house are beginning to produce little pink flowers. Last night Joel and I sat outside on our back porch and ate dinner. I watched two hummingbirds duke it out over a flower trough, and I watched our cat dream of leaping off our balcony and eating them. I suppose she has her own reasons for loving spring.

Here's another stellar recipe from over on Baked Bree. I made these Italian Drip Beef Sandwiches for our outside dinner last night, along with some sauteed asparagus. It was delicious!

Picture and full recipe found here.

Here's what's cookin' at the Cohen house

2011-03-18T18:12:00.001-07:00

I tried this recipe that I found over on The Pioneer Woman for Tikka Masala Chicken, and it was incredible! And not too expensive if you already have the spices. For some reason I have a giant container of Garam Masala just sitting in my pantry. You can control how spicy the dish gets by adding chili peppers or a dash of cayenne pepper.
You can find the recipe here. Another reason I'm such a big fan of this recipe is because of the step by step pictures. That's right up my alley!

King Estate Winery

2011-03-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

Our friends the Williams came to visit us this past weekend; we had such a fun time with them! We ate a lot of great food, played games, explored Eugene, and caught up on each other's lives. One of the highlights of their trip (and the only time I actually remembered to get my camera out) was our visit to King Estate Winery. This place was incredible. It's about 30 minutes outside of Eugene, and the weather cooperated so the drive was absolutely beautiful. The winery sits on over 1000 acres of vineyards and fruit trees, but the most impressive part of the estate is the winery itself. We took a tour of the grounds: through the wine-pressing rooms, into the storage cellars and the old wine-tasting room. It was so fun to learn about how wine was made, plus after our tour we were able to taste 6 of their delicious wines. Such a great time! Because Lucy had a cold we brought her along with us rather than getting a sitter. Everyone there got a kick out of her, we received several comments about "starting her off young." Notice in the last picture how she's trying to subtly sneak a bit of dad's wine.

Lucy Kisses

2011-03-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Our little darlin' turned 5 months old yesterday! And she's just getting more adorable and fun every day. Here are some recent milestones:

* Discovering her feet. Even more delightful was discovering that she could put them in her mouth.
* Rolling over. This happened a few weeks ago but it's made life so much more fun for her. Now when I lay her on her back I usually find within a few seconds that she's rolled over onto her stomach and kicking those chubby legs furiously trying to figure out how to crawl. I have a feeling that's coming soon!
* Learning her name. We're not sure when this happened but the last few days we noticed that when anyone says Lucy's name, her little head whips around trying to figure out who is talking to her. She really is an incredibly social baby. I have to take her out somewhere every day to admire and be admired, even if it's just a quick trip to the store. She loves people!
*And my personal favorite: Lucy kisses. I guess she was tired of having thousands of kisses planted on her cheeks, ears, forehead, nose, etc., without giving any back. So now when I am holding her she rotates so she's facing me, grabs the hair on both sides of my head, and very deliberately pulls me towards her open, smiling mouth. Then she spends a few minutes with her mouth pressed against my chin or cheek (depositing a lot of saliva on my face) before pulling away to see if I approved. It's adorable. I love Lucy kisses, even if my face is drenched afterwards.

So happy 5 months baby girl! We love you!

The secret ingredient

2011-03-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a dish that pretty much everyone you know loves, so you can't help feeling bad that you secretly despise it? That's how I feel about mashed potatoes. Okay, despise might be a bit of an overstatement, but I don't think I've ever made them for dinner, and at holiday meals I either avoid them or take only a small portion to be polite.

But that has all changed.

Today I discovered a recipe for mashed potatoes that uses one simple ingredient that completely changed my view towards mashed potatoes: Lawry's seasoning salt.

Honestly, if you are like me and you find pretty much every mashed potato recipe bland and uninteresting, you have to try adding seasoning salt! I'm confident that mashed potatoes will now begin showing up regularly on dinner menus at the Cohen casa.

Here's what I'm serving with the mashed potatoes: a good old fashioned pot roast. Can you say comfort food??

Winnie the Pooh Time

2011-02-28T18:59:00.000-08:00

I wish that I had the technological capabilities to take these two videos and piece them together into one, taking out the not so interesting parts. But I don't, so here they both are. Lucy's favorite thing to watch on our computer is the Heffalumps and Woozles song on youtube. These are two separate videos of how happy she gets when she watches it. With the second one, you only really need to watch the first 45 seconds because she calms down after that, but I thought her reaction was so hysterical when I started to play the video!

Photo Shoot

2011-02-23T15:49:00.000-08:00

I already uploaded these to facebook, but since there are a few people (read: adoring fans of Lucy) that don't have facebook yet I thought I'd post them here. KeriAnn (see previous post) is a fantastic photographer. She took these pictures with her awesome camera a few days ago and I just can't get enough of them!

Grow baby grow!

2011-02-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

Lucy had her four-month doctor's appointment/shots on Tuesday, I can't believe she's already that old! She's 25.5 inches long and weighs 15 pounds 6 oz. That puts her in the 88th percentile for height and the 84th for weight. From the picture above you might guess that a large majority of that weight resides in her cheeks. They're about as kissable as cheeks come.
She's developing right on track and we're so grateful for that. She can now roll over, although she doesn't do it very often yet. She loves to grab at anything within grabbing distance (a fact I discovered when trying to take a sip of coffee while holding her). She loves listening to us sing to her and babbles away when she's really happy. God has blessed us so much with our beautiful Lucy Rose!

PS I did have a home decor post planned, but my computer has decided it no longer recognizes my camera and won't upload any pictures. The picture above was taken by my friend and amazing photographer KeriAnn. Someday I will post pics again!

Baby Legs

2011-02-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

I get a daily email from Babysteals that lists one item per day at a reduced price. I've never actually bought anything from them before, but when I saw their email on Friday for babylegs, I just had to!

I've wanted to get Lucy a pair of babylegs before, but at full price they were just too expensive. The ones I got from Babysteals were only $20 for a set of four, so I went ahead and bought them.

They came in yesterday, and they're adorable!

Lucy has, shall we say, a somewhat round stomach, and I always feel bad putting pants on her, even stretch pants, the elastic can be pretty tight. These little legwarmers go up all the way to her diaper if I want them too, but the elastic is around her thighs rather than her stomach.

This, incidentally, is one of Lucy's favorite new perches. She can watch the Heffalumps and Woozles song on our computer from that spot, like she's doing in this pic:

Sometimes, if she's feeling particularly fancy, she sits on her bumbo on the couch.

Anyway, I'd highly recommend babylegs. They're good quality leg-warmers, and oh-so-cute!

Lucy's New Favorite Toy

2011-02-08T12:41:00.000-08:00

Our friends the Becks loaned us their jumping toy, and the very first time I put Lucy in it she gave me this huge grin and began bouncing up and down ecstatically. Sorry for the poor picture/sound quality on this video, I'm not sure what happened! But as you can tell Lucy is giving shrieks of joy while she's bouncing. It's adorable. And I love this toy because I can move it all around the house with me so wherever I need to be (fixing dinner, doing my hair) she's entertained. A win-win toy!

And a big congrats to our dear friends who had a little baby girl yesterday and named her Lucy Adele! Naturally we think it's a terrific name, and we're really hoping that in the future we'll live in the same town so the two Lucys can grow up being fast friends. Way to go Morgan and Brian!!

The Great Apartment Tour

2011-02-01T15:23:00.000-08:00

Alright folks, here I am finally posting pictures of the inside of our apartment! Keep in mind that we have not collected all the pieces of furniture or hung all the artwork, but we're very happy with how things are coming together.

Here's a pic of our front door. The door you see to the left is the nursery. Behind me is our dining room:

Nursery:

I should point out that Lucy's room has a walk-in closet. SO not fair.

And a shot from in the nursery down the hall. Down at the very end is the master bedroom:

Dining room/breakfast area:

Here's a shot from inside the living room looking through the galley kitchen to the dining room. Sorry for the weird lighting!

Kitchen:

Living Room:

Our computer desk is in our living room right now. Still need to buy a chair but for now we're using a kitchen chair.

A shot from the living room into the hallway. My lovely assistant in the Johnny Jump-Up is in front of the guest bathroom. The door to the left is a linen closet and beyond that is the Master bedroom:

Here's the master bath:

And master bedroom!

We bought a new dressser from Ikea since ours broke shortly before the move. And we love it! Highly recommended:

Pheww! THat was a lot of pictures. But we're just thrilled with this place and feel very blessed to have found it since we only had a few days to apartment-shop.

In which Lucy and her Mom go on an Adventure

2011-01-28T09:23:00.000-08:00

Remember that hill behind our house that I posted about? Yesterday it was gloriously sunny and got up to 62 degrees, so Lucy and I decided to climb the hill. Here we are! Off to go on our adventure!

At the top of the hill we found this little copse of trees

I don't know my trees very well, but these were really neat looking even in the middle of winter! I can't wait to see what they look like in the spring and fall.

And the view out over Eugene was magnificent:

We wandered down the path through the trees, and on the other side of the butte as it started to slope down we came across a cemetery:

The grave markers were so interesting to look at. Here's one from 1853

And another one with a family name on it. Any connection? Who knows!

All in all it was a fabulous little walk and we both enjoyed ourselves immensely. I know Eugene is not normally this glorious in the winter-time, but we're loving this abnormally warm weather!

Lucy tells a great story

2011-01-27T15:34:00.000-08:00

If you aren't immediate family then you'll probably find this video rather boring. I've been directed by certain family members that I need to post lots of videos/photos of Lucy so that is what this blog has basically turned into! Poor Whiskey, she never had a chance.

Lucy has become very vocal these past few weeks. For some reason whenever I pull the camera out she becomes pretty shy, but I still got a fairly good conversation recorded. So enjoy!

View from our back porch

2011-01-25T16:13:00.000-08:00

I really will post pictures of the inside apartment, but I prefer to do so once I've removed some of the more unseemly items, like our giant old tv (that we sold on Craigslist for 25 dollars but have yet to get removed) and the stack of boxes next to our computer desk, and once I've finished hanging the pictures (should be any day now!). But in the meantime I thought I'd post two pictures of the view outside our back porch. We were blessed with the apartments that sit right up next to a hill. I actually have no idea what's on the other side of the hill (Lucy and I plan on climbing it some day). But today the sun was shining and the weather was glorious, and it made me so happy to have a view of this beautiful green hillside. I can't wait to see what it looks like in the Spring!

Lucy in the Johnny Jump-Up

2011-01-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

Lucy got a Johnny Jump-Up for Christmas from Nana and Papa. It's meant for 4 months and up but since all she ever wants to do is be held in a standing position (or bounced in a standing position) we decided to try it out early. And she loves it! She's a little small for it, so I frequently have to rescue her arms which slide down into the leg area, but it's been great for me to be able to get more done since she spends a good bit of time in it.

This post is particularly for Nana and Papa, since when they were helping us get moved in Lucy hadn't yet figured out how to bounce in it. But after a few days of me showing her how to bounce she has finally got the hang of it.

Eugene Sunset

2011-01-23T09:21:00.000-08:00

We love how pretty Eugene is, and the front porch of our apartment gives us a great view of the beautiful sunsets!

Phoenix

2011-01-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

Like I mentioned in the last post (two posts in one day! I'm just flying) we went to Phoenix after Christmas and stayed through the New Year. We had a great time seeing family and introducing many of them to Lucy. It was unseasonably cold in Phoenix, but still much warmer than Moscow which made me very happy. And the last few days we were there did get pretty warm. I was able to soak up some much-needed sun (and visit Ikea!).

Unfortunately, traveling with a baby makes things a lot more hectic. And so the extent of my picture-taking during our entire trip is this:

Cute pictures though, eh? This was on one of the glorious afternoons when the sun came out and we were able to sit outside. We miss our Phoenix family!

We're Alive!

2011-01-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

So we finally got internet up at our new place in Eugene. That's right, we moved to Eugene. Our last post was about Christmas Day, and then the next thing you know we're no longer Cohens in Moscow, we're Cohens in Eugene. In fact we're going to have to change our blog name but we have yet to come up with a catchy title (Joel suggested "Eu-Jew-Gene" or simply "Jew-Gene" but I nixed those).

So what happened? Well, the day before Christmas Eve a firm called Moss Adams called Joel to deliver the fabulous news that a job he interviewed for earlier that week would like to hire him for a position in Eugene, OR. We were thrilled. Moss Adams is a prestigious accounting firm and this is the job offer Joel had been waiting for for a while. And then they dropped the big bomb: start date was January 17th. That was very soon. Plus we had a week long trip to Phoenix to see family before that date, which gave us very little time to pack, let alone find a trip. And so the blog, obviously, completely dropped off the radar.

But we're back now! And it's time to play catch-up. So we'll start with our favorite subject. Here's one of the creative ways we kept Lucy entertained while we packed.

And while in Phoenix Grandma Sunny came up with this great idea to give Lucy the much-detested Tummy time. Now she loves it! Notice packing boxes in the background.

Christmas Day

2010-12-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

Happy second day of Christmas! Lucy thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas, at least that's how we interpret all the grins and "ah-goo" cooing. And although she couldn't open her presents, we know she is going to enjoy them immensely. Particularly the mobile and the johnny-jump-up. So much entertainment for our busy baby!

We went to a fabulous Christmas Eve service at our church on Friday. Here is Lucy in her fancy outfit:

Christmas day we opened presents with our immediate family (my mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew) in the morning, and in the afternoon our extended family on my mom's side came to celebrate! It was a blast. Lucy was introduced to her many loving relatives. My uncle Bob snapped a few photos of her with her great-grandma and great-grandpa.

And then one of me with her.

It has been SO much fun having my sister and her family in town, I just can't get enough of my adorable nephew!

Lastly, a picture of the whole fam. What a Merry Christmas!

Happy Two Months Lucy!

2010-12-17T15:16:00.000-08:00

Lucy had her two month check-up yesterday (her actual two-month birthday was on the 15th, the same day as her Nana's birthday). She weighed 11 pounds 14 ounces, healthy baby! She's in the 75th percentile for weight and the 95th percentile for height. We're very proud of our growing gal who now says "ah-goo" and looks at us as if she conveyed something very important. She has also discovered that her fists make excellent eye-rubbing tools and also that that they taste wonderful. No rolling over yet, but she's getting close! Happy Birthday Baby!

Christmas Decor

2010-12-11T20:27:00.001-08:00

I finally got around to finishing the Advent calendar that I started last year (hey, better late than never!). I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I managed to finish it on December 4th, so I was only a few days past the beginning of Advent season. And really it worked out quite well since we got to eat four days worth of candy in one go. :)

This year we put Dove chocolates (dark for me, milk for Joel) in each day. Next year Lucy will be old enough to appreciate getting her own treat.

The only thing I would have done differently is that I used felt glue to fix the letters to the white background, and they're having trouble holding the weight of the candies. I'm going to have to go back and hand-stitch the letters back on. Other than that it turned out great!

And here's a terrible shot of our Christmas tree. It really is very pretty, we promise!

And a cute decoration for our bookshelf:

Our santa figurines:

Outtakes

2010-12-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

In an effort to get the "perfect" Christmas card photo, we ended up having several photography sessions (many thanks to my very patient mother, husband and baby who let me be so picky). While I haven't decided which one we'll use yet, I thought I'd share these two which will not be making the cut.

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Dinner

2010-12-08T09:27:00.001-08:00

These days I've limited myself to feeling accomplished if I get one thing done during the day (besides feeding Lucy/entertaining Lucy/changing diapers/making dinner). Yesterday I tried a new bread recipe and it was delicious! That has been a major perk of being home most of the time: I actually have time to make bread! So here's the original recipe, and here's my version (it looked much prettier in person, I promise).

I served it with slow-cooked tuscan pork, a recipe I found here that was equally good. Her picture is a lot prettier than mine, I didn't think about taking it until after we'd eaten. Oh well!

And on the topic of keeping Lucy entertained, she has found a new favorite toy: the glowing sea horse.

Getting the Christmas Tree

2010-12-05T21:28:00.000-08:00

We went with my parents to a tree farm a little ways out of town for our tree this year. It was a very, very cold day. So of course we needed to get Lucy all bundled up to face the cold trek through the snow to find that perfect tree. She has three snowsuits, and naturally I first pulled out the only one that is 0-3 months. This is what she looked like.

I have to admit, Joel and I laughed long and hard after putting her in this suit. I'm not sure she appreciated the humor, but she still managed to look very cute.

So that suit was nixed, and we pulled out the second suit, which actually said 3-6 months but looked smaller. I think this one was from grandma sunny and grandpa howard. This one fit much better.

Off we went to the tree farm, and here Lucy is settling down for a nap in dad's arms before we began the walk out through the trees.

Even though it was frigid, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. We found our trees and the guys sawed them down. Behold Joel using his strong muscles:

After conquering the tree:

Joel and I next to our felled tree:

Mom holding Lucy while she slept:

Lucy Sleeping:

A landscape shot:

Here's Joel and dad loading the trees into the truck. They were both over 10 feet, although we cut them down to about 8.

Lucy was exhausted from all her hard work. She napped in the car on the way home...

and continued her nap in her snowsuit in her crib once we got home.

She somehow managed to sleep through us dragging the trees into the house and putting them in their stands. But they look great! I'll have to post pictures of our decorated tree later.

7 weeks

2010-12-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Happy 7 weeks Lucy! A few nights ago she slept for 6 1/2 hours, a record for her! This photo is actually from church on Sunday so it's a little old, but she looked so cute in her church outfit I had to share it!

And happy 4th day of Advent to everyone! We are going to get our Christmas tree tomorrow, I'm very excited to decorate it! And hopefully I'll also have our advent calendar finished tomorrow as well, I'm ready to get these Christmas decorations up!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T16:38:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! Even though both Joel and I caught serious head colds the day before Thanksgiving, we still had a wonderful time over at our friend's the Ryan's house. We ate lots of food, Lucy was the life of the party, we laughed and played games, it was a blast!

Here's another shot of the amazing snowfall we had on Thanksgiving day.

And here is Lucy all dressed up to go to the party.

Lucy bouncing on the table with mama and Becca.

She really was having a fun time, as witnessed by this photo:

Lucy with her mom:

Lucy with mom and Rachel (notice a theme here?):

Lucy, mom and dad:

Lucy and Nana:

We are so blessed and thankful to have such wonderful family and friends!

Let it Snow!

2010-11-23T20:38:00.000-08:00

Well, here in Moscow we've had our official first snow, and it was a big one! I think we measured 7 inches outside our door. You'll have to forgive the quality of the picture, but since it's 4 degrees outside I opted for taking the picture from inside our house.

Since Joel has had to take my car (the one with 4-wheel drive and snow tires) to work, Lucy and I have been fairly house-bound the last two days. But that doesn't matter, we're all smiles around here these days!

P.S. Lucy would especially like to thank Auntie Kate for her musical giraffe. She spends a good bit of her wake-time staring at it and listening to its lilting lullaby. Thank you!

In Which Lucy Talks to her Posterboard

2010-11-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

Lucy loves to sit on her changing table after she's been fed and stare at the poster I made for her. Recently she has also taken to chatting with it.

CSN Giveaway

2010-11-16T14:47:00.000-08:00

My friend Kathryn is doing a give-away on her design blog! Head on over for a chance to win a gift card to CSN stores!

Lucy's Baptism

2010-11-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Today Lucy is one month old, and yesterday she was baptized! Here are two pictures we got before church, I'll post the video of the actual baptism when it's ready. Lucy was on the verge of a melt-down during these pictures, thus the somewhat glazed expression. :)

Welcome to the covenant community little girl!

Saturdays with Lucy

2010-11-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

Since several relatives have requested more pictures of Lucy, I took a few photos of a typical Saturday with Lucy.

First, there is sleeping.

In case you're wondering what adorable outfit she's wearing, here it is. It's from Old Navy and is extremely comfy, I love the fabric!

Then there's our trip to the grocery store. She's about as excited as can be to do our weekly shopping.

And last we have boppy time, in which she familiarizes herself with the world and strikes adorable poses.

I promise I didn't position her like that. Or like this:

And that's about it! A fairly routine day in the life of Lucy.

Pretty Blue Eyes

2010-11-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it. I spend a lot of time staring into Lucy's big blue eyes. How can I help it when they're so pretty?

I think Lucy was explaining something very important to me when this picture was taken.

I love my baby!

Tummy Time

2010-11-05T17:02:00.000-07:00

Lucy has been impressing us with her feats of strength. Today she was enjoying some tummy time with Joel and lifted her head the highest we've seen it go so far.

I was able to snap a picture before she got too tired and had to rest.

Happy 3 weeks baby!

Lucy's First Bath and Halloween

2010-11-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

A while ago we gave Lucy her first bath, and she seemed to like it! I was prepared for much wailing since she usually hates having her clothes taken off, but I guess the warm water pacified her.

Dad helped towel her off which she also enjoyed, while staring adoringly up at him.

And, of course, yesterday was Lucy's first Halloween.

Granted she didn't eat any candy, go trick-or-treating, or even know what she was wearing, but we had fun with her.

I crocheted her a pumpkin hat before she was born, only to realize how very much bigger her head was than what I had anticipated. Thankfully I just had to add more rows to the bottom of it and it turned out just fine. I didn't get a great picture of it but it has a cute green stem and vine on top.

We went over to the Williams' house and played Speed Scrabble and Settlers of Catan, passed out candy and ate great food (and lots of candy).

Lucy with Lesley:

And her first Settlers of Catan game. Unfortunately even Lucy's shrewd insight could not help us win.

What Lucy has been up to recently

2010-10-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

Spending quality time with Grandpa:

Working hard on puzzles:

Giggling with Papa:

Just being all around adorable:

And of course, sleeping like a rockstar:

Spooky Decor

2010-10-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

To prove that I meant what I said about branching out past Lucy updates in my last post, here's a shot of the decor above our tv armoire. I found the cool vase and spooky crow on sale at Michaels the day before I was induced, and just had to get my halloween decor in order before she came!

Here's a better shot of the crow.

I will admit though, it has given me the creeps at 2 in the morning when I'm up feeding Lucy. But I suppose that's part of the fun! The good news is Whiskey has not decided to stalk it just yet.

Okay

2010-10-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

We promise this won't be a completely Lucy-centered blog. I'll still try to post recipes and house projects, etc. But really, can you blame us for going a little crazy over this baby?

Video of Lucy

2010-10-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

Another video. Lucy trying to fall asleep.

Pictures of our Baby Girl

2010-10-15T20:45:00.000-07:00

In case some of you can't see the videos in the previous post, here are a few shots of our adorable Lucy!

Lucy Rose Cohen

2010-10-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

Praise God for our beautiful healthy baby girl! Lucy Rose Cohen was born on October 15th at 1:27 a.m. weighing a hefty 8 pounds 4 oz and measuring at 20.5 inches. While the entire labor was only 15 hours long, the last 4 were pushing which made it quite the experience! Thankfully my sister was there and took some video footage of her first few minutes in the world.

Nursery Pictures

2010-10-12T16:39:00.001-07:00

I suppose that being 4 days overdue has its pros. Like being able to crochet baby a Halloween pumpkin hat. And actually posting pictures of the nursery that we worked for so long on. So here they are! The long awaited nursery in its finished condition (ok, we're still shopping for a floor lamp to go behind the rocking chair, but besides that it's finished).

So first off, here's a picture of the nursery from standing in the doorway. I tried to get in as much of it as I could, what you're missing is the changing table and dresser and closet which are all on the right side of the picture.

And while the camera's flash might make everything nice and clear, it also tends to distort the colors so here's a more fuzzy shot of the room, but with the colors much softer and prettier than the first:

Here's a close-up of the crib, the canopy, and the dresser with its cute little stuffed animals and carrousel on it. The bassinet is only temporarily to be stored there, until baby graduates to her crib.

Next we have a shot of the rocking chair corner (imagine a really cute floor lamp that I'm going to find on sale somewhere).

These are the two cute animal prints that complete the set of three mom and I made for baby's room out of greeting cards. I love how they turned out!

And on the wall next to the rocking chair we have our fabulous craigslist bookshelf!

And I have to point out what mom and I have dubbed the frog-house.

We couldn't decide what to put on the top shelf, until mom came up with the brilliant idea of a bird-cage. So we spent an afternoon scouring all the stores in Moscow and Pullman looking for a bird-cage and we found the perfect one. For 70 dollars. So with that plan out the window we came to our last stop, the antique mall on Main/Washington street, and found this charming little house for only $20. Stick a couple of frogs on it and it becomes a frog-house. Ta-da!

These adorable elephants were giving to me by my friends Deborah and Lydia. They parade along the second shelf of baby's bookshelf and I can't wait until she's old enough to play with them. They're so cute!

And last we have the changing table side of the room. Please notice the lining on the baskets underneath the changing table are of the same fabric as the rocking chair pillow. That's because my mother very kindly made them for me after we could not find baskets with a lining that matched our color scheme.

Plus she also sewed the adorable banner that goes over the changing table so that we could stick with the fabric scheme we already had. Isn't she fabulous?

I love turning on the little frog light, it will make late-night diaper changes a little bit more enjoyable.

So there you have it! And the one thing we're still waiting on? Our beautiful baby girl. Any day now!

The Final Countdown

2010-10-10T16:32:00.001-07:00