Arizona Heat

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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.