Lauren's First Christmas- Part 2

For part 1 and many more pictures, see below :) I have lots of pictures to share still, so I'm going to keep the chit-chat to a minimum. Here are many, many pictures of Lauren's first Christmas and of time spent bonding with her grandparents and her aunts. Enjoy! Enjoying her new cell phone from Grandma. When you push a button, it says "Hi Lauren, it's Grandma. Call me!"

Having pancakes with Grandma.

Enjoying her new red wagon from Santa! My dad ended up pulling her around the house several times....
Santa also brought Lauren a new play kitchen/living room. She LOVES it!

It was so much fun to have everybody together. Karlee and Matt are going back to Denver tomorrow and she begins nursing school in just a few weeks. Holly is flying back to Nashville the first week of January. We all live so far apart, so it was really nice to get lots of time together for Christmas :)

Have a nice weekend!

Love,

Mindy & Lauren

Lauren's First Christmas- Part 1

Merry Christmas from the Lucas family!

We just got home this evening from a wonderful 5 days in Rice Lake with my parents and my sisters. We had a great time visiting with them and everybody got in lots of cuddle time with Lauren. It was such a special time to celebrate her first Christmas. She isn't quite old enough to be excited to unwrap gifts--she enjoyed that for the very first gift only and then simply wanted to play with tissue paper and the boxes. Go figure! We drove up to Rice Lake on Monday, after spending a nice and relaxing 3-day weekend at home last weekend. On Friday the 19th, we got dumped on with 13.5 inches of snow. School was cancelled (and thus so were our classroom Christmas parties) and Chad's office was closed. We stayed home and played with Lauren. At one point, I piled a bunch of snow onto her highchair so she could play with it. She wasn't sure what to think at first, but she ended up having fun!

This is Santa's biggest present for Lauren this year. Somehow he managed to fit this climbing system into his sleigh. Now it's in our yard awaiting spring so that Lauren can come out and play on it!Looking bored, waiting on Mommy to bring dessert :)
This is where Westin lays now whenever Lauren is in her highchair. Hey, it prevents the need for clean-up when she's done eating!

Monday we drove up to Rice Lake and spent the past five days playing with her and spending time with my family. There are lots and lots of pictures, so I'm probably going to post them over the course of two or more days. Enjoy :-)

Visiting with Lauren's Great-Grandpa Mac in Rice Lake.

My sister Holly's birthday is on Christmas day so we always spend the evening having a birthday celebration for her. Lauren got to join in on the fun and enjoyed her very first taste of birthday cake. I figured this is good practice for her first birthday, which is only three weeks away!
"Mmmmmm....sugar!!!!"

I'm headed to bed now but I'll post another update with many more pictures tomorrow. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your own families. G'night!

Love,

Mindy & Lauren

First steps!

I'm home sick with strep throat today and thought I'd finally take some time to update the blog. I felt SO guilty taking Lauren to daycare for the day, but it has allowed me to come home and get some much-needed rest. As soon as I finish typing this, I'm going back to bed :-)

Well, as the title of this post indicates, Lauren took her first steps! On Monday night, she took two steps from Daddy to me. Then Tuesday night, she did it again but added a third step! Pretty soon, our little one will probably be running around like crazy!

As we begin to celebrate Lauren's first Christmas, I laughed at the jammies her grandma Lucas bought for her. It says "What Santa doesn't bring me, Grandma will." Ha!

In this next picture, Lauren looked so cute standing by the dishwasher. Then she suddenly turned it on! I didn't think she'd be able to turn the knob and start it up, but she proved me wrong!

I hope Chad rinses out his travel mugs before he uses them. I can no longer guarantee that the ones in the drawer are clean!

Tonight we're supposed to get dumped on with nearly a foot of snow. Yuck. I'm already tired of winter and it's still December. Ugh.
Awwwww!

Have a good weekend~

Love,

Mindy and Lauren

Almost walking!

Hello again! I think it'll be any day now, maybe even this week, that we can say Lauren is walking. She is so, so close. She walks all over the house holding onto our hands but just for reassurance-not for balance. She's ready! Here are some updated pictures. Grandma and Grandpa Lucas came to visit Saturday night. They spent the day with Lauren today while Chad and I were at work. They were planning on going home tomorrow but with 8-12 inches of snow forecasted for tomorrow, they may be staying another day. Enjoy the new pictures!Getting ready for bathtime :-)

Playing Grandpa's favorite "ride the dump truck" game on his knees.Not sure what she's doing here. Her neck isn't really that long! She's being goofy :)

Cuddling with her new Jingle Bells bear from Grandma Steighner.

Lauren LOVES riding around and pushing her little lion.

Have a good night. If you live in southeastern Wisconsin and are about to get dumped on with more snow, drive safely tomorrow. And cross your fingers for a snow day for me tomorrow!!!!

Good night!

Love,

Mindy & Lauren

Lauren's First Thanksgiving~

She spent lots of time playing with Grandma Steighner.
Grandma picked this out for Lauren. How cute!

Goofing around with Grandpa Steighner.

We were taking some early Christmas pictures while we were with Chad's family. You'll just have to be surprised to see which one we selected for our Christmas cards :-)

Checking out Grandma and Grandpa's tree with Daddy.Lauren's favorite pillow~

Today we had quite the snowstorm and got about 7 inches of snow. We took Lauren outside to play in it but that only lasted for about 2 minutes before she tipped over and started crying. So much for that idea... By the way, check out the new snowboots from Grandma Steighner. They look HUGE on her but should last her throughout the winter.

We had a very nice weekend with Chad's family in Indianapolis. We came home Saturday so we could have a day at home to clean up, go grocery shopping and get ready for the work week. Lauren has been getting over a case of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. The poor girl had a rash, fever and blisters on her hands and feet and we ended up spending a few hours at an Urgent Care center on Friday. She's doing fine now but it turns out that all the kids at her daycare ended up with it :-( Yuck.

Have a nice work week!

Love,

Mindy and Lauren