Lucy turns one!

Every first birthday celebration seems like such a shock. How can it have been a whole year ago that this baby was born? I feel like it was just yesterday! Lucy's birthday was no exception. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine our family without her in it, but on the other hand, it's still so surprising that she's not a baby any more. She's still so tiny it feels like she should be a baby, at least. But she's walking around and very opinionated and in all other ways she is a toddler, so we just have to mourn our baby days being over with her. 

Since Lucy was born on St. Patrick's Day, we had everyone wear green and we decorated for a St. Patrick's Day party with a rainbow and four-leaf clovers.

The birthday girl in her hat!

Such a cutie. 

We had a birthday breakfast and then opened her presents.

She loved her first cup of milk she got at breakfast. It worked out that we ran out of formula on her birthday, so the introduction to whole milk was perfect.

She actually seemed interested in opening her presents, shockingly!

She loved her Beanie Boo that she got, which we got her because she is always going into the boys room and trying to steal their Beanie Boos off their bed. She loves Graham's owl, especially. It hasn't made her like their any less, however. 

Everyone with their own Beanie Boos.

We all got dressed in our green and then went for a nice walk in the morning. Lucy loves being outside so we tried to do as much outside as we could for her!

Wearing the little skirt my mom sent her for a present.

We tried to get some good pictures of her outside with our nice camera, and it really didn't pan out. This is why I don't understand how people can get *picture perfect* pictures of their kids all the time. I had the nice camera and the lighting was pretty good, but she was determined to get at the boys' balls that were on the grass and she would not do anything other than running over to where the boys were. 

But she was still really cute.

We had a green dinner with friends (green enchiladas, green salad, chips and guacamole, and green Jell-o salad), and then brought out her cake for her to smash. 

This was the part of her birthday I was looking forward to the most, and she did not disappoint! She was such a cutie and so excited and determined to demolish this cake.

Thank you Dane for making that face in this nice family picture, haha. 

And that was it for Lucy's birthday. We love this girl to pieces and she is keeping us on our toes these days for sure. What a fun life we have with this Lucy girl in it.

Beginning of March

We did something very exciting starting March 1--potty training for Graham! He was so excited and sooooo ready. He's been ready for months, but I wasn't. And he fulfilled all my wildest dreams of being the world's easiest potty trainer. Hallelujah!

We had a "potty party" in the bathroom for two days where they were allowed to play on the Kindle as much as they wanted and drink tons of juice boxes and sit on the potty a ton. They moved the party to the bathtub so Lucy couldn't bother them. Poor girl!

Some celebratory ice cream for Graham getting through the first day of potty training. It was smooth sailing after the first two days.

Dane dug a hole at the park and buried his "weapons" he was finding--sticks and acorns. I asked if he was being like the people of Ammon and he said yes. I love him acting out Book of Mormon stories--makes me feel like I had something to do with it (when I really didn't). 

Oh so nice! Thank you Lucy for going through our trash for us!

Mr. Potty Guy.

So exciting to plant things in our garden! I need to take an updated picture--everything is growing like crazy! And I feel like I've accomplished something huge--I haven't missed a single day of watering it yet. This is huge for me.

Lucy is always thrilled when she's allowed to be on the tramp with the boys.

What a walker! She is cruising everywhere now.

I love little kids in underwear when you're still getting used to it. Their bums look so tiny after wearing diapers.

Lucy being left out again. Come on guys, let me up?

I took all three kids to a doctor's appointment and to Trader Joe's right afterwards. And in a one-hour span I had four people say to me, "You look like you've got your hands full!" Hmm, yes, thank you. I wish I had a better response to that. I know people mean to be encouraging and friendly, but it made me wonder if I looked stressed or harried to hear it that often in such a short span of time. I know I have a lot of children, thank you very much.

Lucy loves her hippo friend.

Graham and his buddy Anson playing out in the backyard. Anson loves diggers and is obsessed with playing in our yard when he comes over.

Lucy was being so funny the other day. She was taking bites of blueberry and putting them in her mouth, and alternating each blueberry with sucks on her pacifier. She had a good system down.

We had a ward bonfire the other night and it was such a fun night.

Dane said, "Mom, I think it's time you come and take a picture of us with our trucks!"

Ooooh, great, Lucy! This is just what we want you to be doing!

Graham and his friend Emmi stealing their own snacks.

Lucy carrying Big Baby around, which is 3/4 her size.

We went for a nice long walk on this nice trail near our house. It's not walking distance from our house, so we have to drive there, but once we were on it it was so nice. We were all happy exploring. I was wanting to get some more time outside, especially now while the weather is nice. Soon it will be too hot for this sort of thing (sob sob).

Tommy and I went on a date to a drive-in movie theater! I've been wanting to do this for ages, and it did not disappoint. It was perfect. We saw Black Panther and it was really good.

Lucy's style of grocery shopping.

Lucy on her last night before turning one. COULD SHE BE ANY CUTER?? We were so sad to say good-bye to our baby year with our baby girl. Now she's a full-fledged toddler, walking and all.