Lucy is all grown up!

Lucy is just the cutest thing ever. She is such a joy. And she's growing like a weed. She is still in the 90th percentile for height her age and is in the 75th percentile for weight. She babbles all the time. Her favorite thing to say right now is ba-ba but she can also say da-da, na-na, ffffffp, and shhhhhh and she can do some crazy loud rasberries. Can you believe it? She started sitting up about a month before the books said she would and now she's a pro. She tries to take off crawling but just ends up on her face. She rolls herself around the room and scoots on her back. She can even pull herself up on furniture! And our newest milestone was hit on December 10th. HER FIRST TOOTH! She had been fussy at night, and wouldn't eat her dinner and now I know why. I love that girl to death.

Birthday Celebrations!

My birthday was last month and it was so fun. It was a celebration that lasted a few weeks. It started out with a little party at my parents' house during Thanksgiving. Ben took me to Red Robin (they send out free meal coupons for your birthday so go sign up). That night Ben and I set up our Christmas tree and decorated it while listening to Christmas music. Perfect. I love my christmas tree.

Later that week Ben set up a nice surprise. I got to ride a horse! We went to a neighbor's house and rode their horses in the snow! I loved it. Now I want a horse! That night we had a babysitter for the first time. We went to see the Disney movie Tangled (We had free tickets from our winnings at the County Fair this summber). I loved it also.

The day of my birthday I baked a layered cake. It was a disaster. It tasted great but I had to glue it back together with frosting. I took a picture of it because I thought it looked hilarious. I am terrible at baking. Repeat, TERRIBLE.

It was a great birthday. Oh we also got a dining room table during Black Friday! Beautiful I tell ya, absolutely beautiful. And it's great for puzzles.

Lucy's quiet book

I got the idea to make a quiet book from one of my good friends Tiff who made her beautiful baby girl Lyla one. We don't have the internet so I had to remember what I saw on her blog and use my creativity and make up a lot of the pages. I made it as one of Lucy's Christmas presents (shhh, don't tell her). She's going to love it in a couple years. In the mean time she'll chew on it while I tell her "No." haha. Here it is.

Here's the cover
This page you can turn the hands on the clock.

The flowers are buttons that you can remove. The dial on the phone spins and the handle is velcroed to the page so your kids can pick it up and 'talk' on the phone. Preferably they are calling mommy. ;)

The balloons teach colors and they snap on and off. The beads teach counting up to 10.

The shoe can be laced and tied (wish I did the shoe in felt...it looks sloppy in calico). The sports balls are removable and can be matched to their appropriate sport.

This alphabet took me about a week to cut and hand stitch on. Grrr.

Tic-Tac-Toe and the Touch and Feel page. This page is my least favorite. The squares aren't aligned and the pink square is a mess. But I guess it makes it unique, right?

On this page you can match the shapes and they are attachable by velcro. If I were to do it again I would add a crescent. That was the most often mistaken shape when I taught preschool. So moms out there make sure your kids know the crescent shape (and that it's not called moon, although that is a good example of one). The teepee zips open and closed.

My favorite pages! The doll can be dressed in all sorts of clothes. And the barnyard has a dog, cow, chicken, and cat inside that you can play with. I couldn't get the clearest pictures but you get the point.

And a stoplight page. I don't really know the point of this page but it works. I guess they can learn the meanings of the red, green, and yellow lights.

Updates

Ben and I love it here in Tooele. My only complaint is the WIND! It is so windy here all the time. We live in a cute subdivision and we love our place. It is plenty big and there's room for us to grow. I've made friends with some of the moms here and we have play dates at least once a week. I was called as 1st counselor of the YW program and it is so fun. I forgot what it was like to be in YW and it is a blast. And I love being a mom.

Lucy is so cute and fun. She's cooing and smiling a lot now. She reaches and grabs a hold of things. And she can roll over! If we leave her on the floor for a while she'll scoot herself across it. She's in the 90th percentile for height! Lucy loves bath time and splashes around like a crazy person. She also loves to read! Crazy, I know, but her attention span is so advanced compared to my preschoolers last year. She can look and listen to the same Dr. Suess book for 20 minutes or so.

Ben likes his job a lot. He's always working on several different projects at the same time so he never gets bored. He was called as the project manager for some project that is bigger than any project they've done since 2003. Yay Ben! Ben's also a scout leader in the ward so he gets to do all sorts of fun stuff. He plays for a city softball league and loves it. It's nice that he gets a chance to do boyish things. Now that he doesn't have hockey and intramurals to do he gets bored pretty easily. Softball and scouts has eased some of that boredom.

We do miss Provo a lot though. We made so many great friends that we miss. It was such a great place to live and helped my testimony grow to what it is today. And it was so accessible to everything we needed. So we make a trip to Draper once a month to get all of our shopping done and to go to the temple. Its a long drive but I think grandma and grandpa are glad that we do it. :)

June and July

I havent posted anything in a while because ben and I go to the library to use the internet and it wont let us post blogs. Our little Lucy is growing so fast. She is so fun and I enjoy being her mom. She sleeps through the night and entertains herself a lot.

We took her to JcPenney's and got some professional pictures taken. She's such a cutie.

On June 20th Lucy was blessed. It was a great way to spend Ben’s first father’s day as a parent. He did a wonderful job on the blessing. Lucy was absolutely adorable and surprisingly quiet throughout the whole thing. My mom, dad, brother and his wife came out for the event. Afterwards, they came to our house for dinner. It was a good day. Ben is such a good dad.

We took a little trip to the Salt Lake to take some pictures in June.

We went to Provo one weekend because one of my good friend’s, Deise, is moving to Washington D.C. with her husband. So we went bowling to celebrate her birthday and then spent the night. I’m so glad I got to see her one more time before she moves. I’m going to miss her.

We went to Canada for Pioneer Day. The stake comes out to the Shugart’s farm for a pioneer picnic. They have lots of games and food and fun. All of Ben’s siblings and their families came out for the weekend also. It was nice to see everyone and spend a few days with them.

Our Family Has Grown By 19" !!

Our baby girl has finally arrived! Lucy Love Shugart was born last Saturday morning at 12:28 am. She was 6 pounds 6 ounces and 19” long. She is quite the cutie and is very healthy and happy. It’s amazing how similar her personality is to how it was in the womb. She is very calm and content. My mom says she’s the most content baby she’s ever seen. It’s been fun to have her home with me. I can’t stop staring at her! And even more exciting…she slept for five hours last night.

So here’s the story of the delivery. I went to my prenatal appointment on Friday expecting to come home a few hours later but after checking my blood pressure and because Lucy was still breech they decided to admit me to the hospital and deliver her that night. They tried turning her but her heart rate dropped so they decided to do an emergency c-section. It was the most uncomfortable, icky hour of my life. But we got this adorable little girl because of it and it was completely worth it.

As for my recovery, things are going very well. I always heard horror stories about how painful recovery is after having a cesarean. That hasn’t really been the case for me. The first day was pretty uncomfortable but it was definitely bearable. I’ve been up and about and moving around more smoothly than I did when I was pregnant.

Here are a few pictures of her earliest moments.

When it rains it pours

This past month has been very eventful for Ben and I. We have been very blessed. At the end of March Ben turned 25 years old. We celebrated his birthday by going to one of our favorite resturaunts Red Robin.

Then we opened gifts at home. This is him before he opened all of his goodies.

This is him after.....

I also had a baby shower. We rented out a room in the provo library and it was gorgeous. We had almost 30 girls show up! It was really fun and I really was showered with gifts. I failed to take any pictures but here are a few a friend took.

Ben has been applying for jobs across the country for a while now. At the beginning of April he interviewed with Detroit Diesel in Tooele, Utah. A week later we got the exciting news that he got offered the position as their new process engineer! They wanted him to start within two weeks so quickly our life became a little hecktic. We got a gift card for P.F. Chang's that we have been saving for when he got a job offer so last weekend we finally went! It was really fun.

We needed to find a place to live quick and after a day of looking all over Tooele we found this great condo. It is brand new and has three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. We move in this Friday.

Here's me entering our condo for the first time after the keys were officially handed over to us.

We have been extremely blessed. Life is a little crazy right now being 8 months pregnant, moving, and Ben starting a new job in less than a week, but I am so grateful for all of the opportunities that Heavenly Father has given us.

On the home stretch.

This is a picture of me at 29 weeks. I'm so excited that in 10 weeks our baby girl will be here (hopefully). I've really enjoyed my pregnancy. I've been really blessed to not have the typical pregnancy nausea, wild cravings, and crazy emotions. I've had a few minor aches and pains but its really nice to have books and resources that remind me its all normal.

We've been prepping for the big day and we now have a crib, mattress, and bedding for her. Recently, a few family members have been kind enough to send us some baby stuff. And I officially have the craft fever! I made these really cute baby wipe holders and fabric flowers for her hair. I'm so excited.