Christening

Cecily was christened this weekend. She looked beautiful in the antique christening gown. The dress was made by my great grandmother Rosina (my mother's father's mother) when my grandfather, James Nickerson was born. He wore it as well as his siblings (brothers Kent and Earl and sister Roxanne) Roxanne then used it to christen her boys, Richard and James. So needless to say it has some history! Im not sure Cecily appreciated all this, but she sure looked angelic. She struggled a bit in my arms during the ceremony and would give out an occasional shriek which echoed through the church. She refused to give up her rubber doggy, but since it was a bath toy it was sort of appropriate for a baptism. She seemed a little worried when the water was poured on her head and tried to rub the holy oil into her eyes. But she loved all the attention!

At St. Monica's church with Father Greene

Then back at our house we had all the family over for lunch and cake. There were quite a few babies there including her cousins Kyler and Kohnner (twins) who were also baptised that day. Cecily loved playing with everyone, refused to nap and barely took breaks to eat. She crawled up to one of the twins (sorry, I cant remember which one) and kissed him! I was out of the room and missed this unfortunately!

It was great having my parents and sister (and the corgis) up from Southern California to visit. Cecily loved seeing her grandparents and auntie Kathleen.

With Grandma & Grandpa

10 month old pictures

10 months old

10 months old and turning into a toddler. Cecily is everywhere! up, under, around, crawling like a speed demon around, pulling up like a pro, balancing on her own, starting to cruise along the coffee table and other furniture.

She seems to have a small vocabulary of actual words (including Dada, Dog, and No No) as well as her own language which she babbles happily. She cant really say Ma Ma unless she is very upset. I will say "Ma Ma" to her and she will answer back "Na Na". So its close.

Food: She is getting very tired of spoonfuls of pureed fruit and vegetables being offered to her. And just forget abt baby oatmeal. She likes to feed herself. Her faves are cheerios, any crackers or bread items (especially if it is my food), avocados, cheese. She has learned to feed Luca anything she doesnt want. Luca loves to hang out under the high chair despite the occasional hazard of the thrown sippy cup which has bonked her on the head a few times.

Sleeping: Not good. She is in our bed and now waking up again every couple of hours to nurse. She has to be in someone's arms to get to sleep and will wake up as soon as you lower her into the crib. Then she will instantly start screaming, standing up holding on to the crib bars, rocking and thrashing. She gets so worked up she can hardly breathe. Needless to say, this is heart wrenching for us. I survived it one night and she ending up falling asleep after 2 hours of off and on crying with me going in every 5-10 mins. She fell asleep sitting up holding onto the crib. I think one of the biggest elements in this battle is the nursing. I remember worrying at the beginnging whether I would be able to breastfeed her for 6 months, and then whether I would make it to 9 or for the full year like I wanted. Now with her first birthday visible I realize that the challenge now is how to wean without too much distress for either her or I. I enjoy our snuggly nursing sessions when she is calm and focuses on the nursing. I enjoy it less when she is distracted and is rough with me and milk ends up all over the place. But I know that nursing to her is very important. She has not showed any signs of self weaning, and just when I think she is starting to lose some interest she starts wanting it more frequently. It is her ultimate "Mommy Time". And it will be hard to break that off, for both of us.

NOTE: I have not been very good about keeping this updated lately, and the reason is we currently have no computer at home! And thus I have not been able to upload all my pictures. The pictures above were taken with my Treo, which is why they are so bizarre looking. Hopefully we get our new computer soon and I can post lots of new pictures!

Summer Fun

Our little girl is getting so big! She is almost 10 months old and is crawling all over, chasing Luca, pulling up on everything, and giving us lots to do! Greg's new nickname for her is "Trouble".

We have been so busy lately. I am actually starting a new job next week. This will make our lives a little more predictable as now I will be home at the same time every night, and it will be much earlier. Hopefully we can start really sticking to an evening routine.

















She loves her leap frog piano....

Some pictures of her and her cousins playing in our new backyard.

Shasta Houseboating

We spent the second week of our vacation on a houseboat trip at Lake Shasta. Cecily loves the water, but hates her lifejacket. She had the most fun splashing around in the baby pool with cousin Lauren.

Ceci loved hanging out with her cousins and auntie and uncle and nana and nonno as well as the Passalaqua crew on the other boat. She seemed happy and content no matter who was playing with her as long as they were paying her plenty of attention!

I was happily suprised to see her dealing very well with the new environment. Eating and sleeping were a bit disrupted (she was so distracted by all the fun things going on) But all in all it went great! We introduced her to many new things, and worry-wort Mama relaxed a bit about all the scary things about having a baby on the houseboat. We put her in a baby raft and swam around with her, keeping her safe and shaded from the hot sun. Next year she'll be ready for the wakeboard (well...maybe in a few years)

9 months old

Cecily is 9 months old now. We have been on vacation and she has used this time to reach several milestones! She now can crawl forward on all fours, pull herself up into a standing position by holding on to something, and clap her hands together (if she's happy and she knows it : ) ) She also seems to sing along to songs, especially the tried and true Old McDonald, at the Ee-I-ee-I-O part. She LOVES the sound of her own voice and really shrieks up a storm.

We have her well baby appointment next week but Id say she weighs about 19 pounds based on the last weigh in I gave her at Day One.

She is busy busy busy getting into everything, trying to eat whatever miniscule thing she finds on the ground, trying to stand, bumping her head, catching her fingers in things, and not sleeping very well at night. All this has made for a very tired Mommy and Daddy.

She is very social and loves to be around other people. She wants to be the center of attention and seems very proud of herself with all the new tricks she has learned.

4th of July

We just enjoyed a wonderful 2 week vacation. During the first week we spent some time with our friends Scott and Cara in Sonoma. Our friends Erin and Juan were visiting from Denver as well and it was wonderful to see them.

Baby Addison (Scott and Cara's little girl) had a pool party (aka belated baby shower as she was born before Cara could have her shower) and there were lots of babies there!

Cecily had so much fun playing with the other babies though she exhibited some selfish behavior while fighting over a water bottle with Will and Jenny's son Nicholas.

Later in the week we went wine tasting in Sonoma and the baby girls (Cecily and Addison) were great as we sipped wine and snacked by the vineyards. Cecily was very exhausted at the end of the day.

It was quite hot on the 4th and Cara bought a huge "baby" pool that the grown ups could sit in as well. Cecily loves to splash around in the pool and is a real water baby. We went to the parade in downtown Sonoma, had a BBQ with friends (yummy Brisket in Bill's BBQ pit), and watched a really good fireworks show. Cecily slept solid through the fireworks despite how loud they were. It was a great first week of our vacation!