She had a great time seeing everyone and I think her favorite part was when everyone sang “happy birthday” to her!

She was not about keeping her birthday hat on and luckily we got plenty of pics with her while it was still on her head. Everyone, as always, was very generous with all of the wonderful gifts! Thanks to everyone for coming up and spending the day with us.

See all of the photos here!

As always, she was amazingly well behaved all day long and gave out lots of snuggles to everyone. You can see all of the pics from the day here.

Lulu & (birthday boy) Uncle John

That night when we got home we headed down to Pickering Wharf to watch the Salem fireworks. We didn’t know how she would react to all of the different factors: lots of people, being up past her bedtime and loud fireworks. She did so great you could have knocked us over with a feather. She loved all of the different colors in the sky and would occasionally clap. Considering we thought we’d have to leave before the night even started, we ended up having a great time.

To my surprise, she didn’t immediately tear them off. In fact, she thought it was pretty hilarious-probably because we were laughing, too. All she needed was a mesh shirt and a pair of baggy pants and then she’d look like a little raver club kid. *oontz oontz oontz*

He  keeps a respectful distance from her, but has been known to do a drive-by sniff of her when she’s not looking. When she cries, he gets very concerned and meows at us to let us know that she’s crying just in case we can’t hear her. When she naps, he sometimes sleeps on the couch in her room. And when she plays with her toys on the floor, he plays with his as well.

"I is in yur lawndry rubbin' my butts on yur kleen shirts"

Lulu is now at the age where she gets excited to see the cat. Every morning when she gets up, he follows us downstairs and she lets out a squealy “oooh!” when she sees him.

He is very patient with her when she wants to pet him. I try to teach her to gently pet him while all she’d like to do is stick her finger in his ear and grab two little handfuls of his fur. He purrs for a little while, his ears half askew (you can almost hear him sigh impatiently), and then looks at me looking like “can I go now?”

He’s pretty good about staying away from her toys that are scattered all over the floor. Sometimes when she’s in bed I see him cautiously approaching one, tentatively sniffing and bumping his nose against it. Then he goes on his merry way.

I put one of her stacking cups in front of him the other day and he sat up very uncomfortably. He batted at it for a second and looked at me curiously like I was setting him up for something bad. He bolted to avoid trouble.

Don't touch it! It's a trap!

Even though I lavish most of my attention on Lulu, he and I still hang out on occasion. Just like old times.

Lulu & Mom

With Grammi Frazier

With Grampi Frazier

With Great-Grandmother Lucille

With Grammy K.

With Grandpa K.

It’s not very often that I use Forrest’s massive D70 (it’s massive compared to my pocket-sized camera) but I’ve been trying to get used to it. Most pictures I take are out of focus; or a tiny button on Lulu’s shirt will be in focus instead of her face!

Here are some of the better photos I recently took outdoors while we went for a walk one afternoon. I know it was in the afternoon because she has an orange clown mouth from her lunch.

We’re all looking at this big change as a positive one and hope that it’s a blessing in disguise.

Lulu is going through another growth spurt. She is eating baby food three times a day on top of her bottle that she gets every 3-4 hours. She is starting to feel “solid” and meaty and has the cutest chubby wrists. She still shows no interest in crawling, but sits up for very long periods of time and rolls herself across the floor over and over again.

A new behavior this week is that she holds her arms out when she wants to be picked up and shows a preference when she wants Mom or Dad to hold her. She also is learning to make different sounds (ba ba ba, da da da) and yelling or squealing at different volumes, which we love when we’re out in a restaurant or coffee shop!

Here’s a big photo update since it’s been a while since our last post. Some are from our visit with Lulu’s great grandmother, hanging out with her Dad and outside for walks when the weather is nice.

Two Lucille's are better than one: Lulu with her Great Grandmother Frazier

playing with Grammi & Grampy Frazier

hanging with Dad

there's the smile

flying!

feeding herself...kind of

talking a walk down Pickering Wharf

Mumma and Lulu

cheeky

she looks like she has something to say.

sitting with Grampy K.

When you have a kid, you find yourself doing things you just wouldn’t have done in your old life. You’ll whip out photos of your kids to show just about anyone who’s willing to look at them, gush about your little one to anyone who’s willing to listen (and not rolling their eyes the minute you open your mouth) and you might even start a blog.

Getting a tattoo that is inspired by your offspring is not an unusual occurrence. People get tattoos to commemorate their children all of the time. They get portraits of their babies or the names of their children inked in their skin so that they can look at it fondly no matter where they are. Love for your child is more than skin deep, but a tattoo let’s the whole world know how much your child means to you.

Turns out that we’re no different. This little girl has enchanted us beyond our expectations in the few months she’s been here. A tattoo seems like the least we can do to show our love for her.  Forrest and I both have violets since Lulu’s middle name is Violette. Both tattoos were done by our friend, Natan at Witch City Ink.

Mom's tattoo on right forearm

Dad got a compass rose with violets & her date of birth on his right chestular area

Some might find the means of our expression a bit disagreeable, but we don’t.

Hey, did you know that babies can get tattooed now?
** Lulu’s next!

*Flesh for Lulu is not only the title of this post, but the name of a goth/alternative band from the 80′s that we were fond of! In fact, most of the post titles are inspired by a lot of 80′s songs, especially if they’re by The Cure.

**Just kidding! No babies were tattooed in the writing of this post. The tattoos on the baby are not real, view the magic that is Photoshop.

Lulu spent a lot of time playing on the floor. She loves her little floor gym, playing with all the dangling toys. And now that she’s rolling over she does so quite frequently. She also has discovered that she has a voice and can make noise. Lots of noise. Loud noise. Her new thing is to roll over onto her belly, little feet kicking away behind her and she just yells as loud as she can. Mom thinks it’s funny, Dad…not so much.  One thing is for sure, this little girl is getting strong. She’s been pushing herself up and holding her head high.

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