15 month checkup

Luciana just had her 15 month check up and everything went great (except for her shots which ended in crocodile tears for her and really having to try hard to hold mine back this time). Her doctor said she was very impressed with her level of speech (surprise, surprise) and that she's developing everything else just perfectly! Now that she's running around so much she's not so chubby anymore :( She's in the 50th percentile for weight but she's still in the 90th percentile for height, I'm not sure where that's coming from.

I also found out that she LOVES exam table paper. Especially being able to dance on it - which was really like running in place on it while I held her up. I wish I had that on video, maybe next time.

She's obsessed with books right now and wants one read to her at all times. Once you've finished one (or she's finished it by closing it while you're still reading) she runs to her bookshelf to grab another one. She has about 100 books and we read all of them but her favorites are Hop-On-Pop (which she calls hopop), I love you Stinky Face (she calls it mama mama because that's what the boy in the story says) and a pop-up book about rescue vehiles that she calls weeooo-weeooo (that's my attempt at spelling out a siren noise).

Now we're getting ready for Halloween and Christmas is right around the corner - I can't wait!!

1 Year photos

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Summer Vacations

We took two family vacations to Ludington, MI this year. One with the Catalano's and one with the Eberhardt's. Both were great! In July we went with my family up to our family cabin where we had camp fires, went down to the river, saw lots of deer (and two porcupines!) and went to Lake Michigan where Luciana was due for a nap and slept with Mike in her tent the whole time. Then, in August, we stayed at a house that Mike's parents friends own where we hung out with the little ones (Luciana and her cousins) and spent a ton of time at Lake Michigan where we confirmed our thoughts about Luciana being a fish. She LOVED being in the water and playing water games. Hopefully we'll be able to go back up one more time before the summer's over...




Hanging out at the cabin


Lounging in the airplane swing... I hope this isn't how she'll drive in 15 years



Mom looks away for ONE minute!


Sleeping in the tent with Daddy at Lake MI
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So I'm not the best blogger...

I have to admit, I set my expectations for this blog pretty high when I started it. I was newly pregnant, learning new preggo things to write about and not really going out of the house much (towards the end anyway). Now that Luciana's here... not so much "free time" going around!

Here are the big things going on:

Luciana turned one!!!!

This year has flown by! Luciana started out the day of her party with an unplanned trip to the Dr. office. She was really stuffed up and then her eye started swelling a little so I needed to make sure she wasn't contagious before we had a backyard full of kids. She ended up having a sinus infection (not contagious). But, in true LuLu form, she had a blast at her party and you never would have known she was sick. She wore such a cute little party dress (with a b-day girl t-shirt over it for cake eating time) then later changed into her more "casual" party wear. : )

She got a ton of gifts, now we just need to figure out where to put all of them! She also loved her cake. Not only did she try to pick up her ENTIRE cake and put it in her mouth, she then proceeded to wipe all of the frosting into her hair, making a great frosting mohawk.

Perfect 1st birthday!!

Also, on the day of her b-day (July 2) we were up north at my parents cabin and she took her 1st real steps! She had been taking one or two "falling forward" kind of steps already but these were the first actual walking ones! Now she's cruising all over the house (but still crawls if there's something she needs to get to right away!).


Starting off innocently enough


Realizing if you use some muscle, you can get a lot more


Noticing how great squishing cake and frosting through your fingers is


And... topping it off with a good old run through the hair!



Fun overload!!!!
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We've been really busy so I haven't had the time to post anything in a while... First, we finally got around to having our house painted (now it's gray) which was well worth the $$ - It looks like we got brand new siding and Mike and I agree we should have had it done a long time ago! We also had a deck built off the back of our house. I love it! There's built in benches and flower boxes and they made a spot to put our grill. After all of that was completed, we thought it was time for a family va-ca so we took the train up to Toronto over my birthday. I've never been there before and quickly learned that it's not really the most family friendly place to go but we had a great time just being away from home and somewhere new. Luciana had a blast in the hotel pool (her 1st time in a big pool) and in the hotel room where there was plenty of space for games of "chase me down the hall" and she got to take a bath in the big tub! We went to the CN tower too where we all stood on a glass floor 100-something stories up and went outside (again at 100-something stories up). It was so windy being that high in the air! Luciana, of course, was a complete ham the entire time waiving to everyone that walked by as if she was the official CN Tower greeter.

Now we're getting ready for her 1st birthday party - I can't believe it's already here!








Singing in the hotel room


Having fun in the big bathtub


The view from the glass floor in the CN Tower


Pointing down to the ground below


Luciana "NO FEAR" Catalano!
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My little baby is growing up... Too fast

Okay - So we all know Luciana looks a LITTLE bit like her dad. The good news (or bad news) is that her personality is just like her mommy's (I think my mom is saying a little "thank you" prayer right now).
She was reluctant to change out her "baby" stage but once she decided it was time - IT WAS TIME!

In the past 2 weeks she's got her 1st tooth (and 5 more), started crawling, pulling herself up onto the furniture, standing with the furniture and started feeding herself! What happened?? She was just a little baby and now she's getting so big! She had her 9 month check up too where we found out she's 21 pounds (90th percentile) and 29.5 inches long/tall (97 percentile).

Here are a few pics I thought you might like.



Playing at the park


Chatting with Great-Grandma


Stopping to pose for a pic


Rockin' out in the bathtub


Being cute outside


Riding on Mr. Moo-Cow
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Peek-A-Boo

Luciana has figured out how to do peek-a-boo all on her own!

Trying to move

Luciana is really trying to crawl now! She's gone through all of the pre-crawling stages (pushing up on her arms, rocking up on her knees and scooting backwards). I think she'll be crawling any day now. She likes to go on our wood floors and scoot backwards because they're so slippery. Mike and I just get nervous because sometimes she tries to drop her head on the hard floor and we're very overprotective. She's also a fan of sometimes licking the floor which is not gross at all! ;) Everything's going into her mouth these days and she's drooling a ton so teeth might be right around the corner too. She's talking non stop (which is odd because Mike and I are so quiet...). Her favorite words are mama, dada and babagagaththpppththpp :)

I can't believe how fast she's growing up.





Reading a book


Playing before a bath


Relaxing and chatting


Practicing sitting poolside
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Lots of updates

Luciana had a lot of fun over the holidays. She was a trooper too and made it through not 1 but 2 nights of being put to bed at Grandma and Papa's house (Catalano on Christmas eve and then Eberhardt on Christmas Day), being woke up to go in the car and then back to bed at our house. The 1st night didn't go so well and she was awake for about 2 hours after we got home. Mike and I are quick learners though and on Christmas we were able to get her out of the pack-and-play, into her car seat, into the car, out of the car and into her crib without her ever waking up!! Mike calls it a 'Christmas Miracle' :)
She decided to wake up at 11:45 on New Years Eve to make sure she didn't miss the ball dropping too...

She's also eating a ton of new foods with sweet potato and bananas topping the list of her favorites. She also loves her breakfasts of oatmeal and pears. She started rolling over a while ago and now does it all the time. She loves to play on her belly but still doesn't know how to roll back over so she needs some help when she's tired of being that way. This gives Mike and I a lot to do in the middle of the night since she really likes to roll over in her crib! She's actually had a few nights where she rolled over and stayed asleep so she might turn out to be a tummy sleeper.

Overall she thinks life is pretty fun and that her mom and dad are really funny (or crazy but at least she's laughing)!!!

Here are some pics of our lives lately...


In her chair with her bear that she's bigger then now


Playing in her bumbo seat


Here she is in her new bathtub that she loves (she already outgrew the 1st one)



Action shot from the bath - After this bath everyone and everything was soaked. It's time to move to the bathroom!
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