Sew Daphne: Happy Birthday Lucy!

Lucy!

So! To start with: Happy Birthday!

2 x 2 x 2 x 2 is an especially lovely birthday.

And you, Lucy, have gone from...

...to...

this in 16 years!!

This blog entry really could be called Lucy-Through-My-Eyes.

Over these years I have had so much fun taking photos of you.

I want to share with you my point of view as a way of getting you to see clearly what an awesome person you are becoming & have become.

First, in the final weeks of the pregnancy that brought you into the world, Joslyn & I went to a lake. Joslyn was absolutely Her Royal Roundness at that point.

A few days later Joslyn went into labor.

There were some important things that had to be done before delivery.

One involved using a skill saw. The other was finishing off some peach canning!

That's the way I remember it.

Joslyn & Rip might tell you otherwise.

Then less than a half day later the amazing Lucy-bundle arrived.

Oh my! We were all so excited! You got plenty of skin time.

This was one of the first outings you took.

Pretty early on the 'outdoors' was imprinted on you!!

We all wanted to hold you!

It wasn't long before "Lucyness" appeared!

How amazing & cool is that??

By 3 months you had become this sort of creature!

I've always thought Rip was having trouble keeping a straight face in this photo.

I mean you DO look pretty outrageously adorably cutely funny.

And by August of 2005, a year later...

In early 2006 you came to our wedding.

You were a bit sick then, so not at your best.

I was pleased that you were wearing a dress that Joslyn had worn as a baby!

At Lesley & Jay's wedding 8 months later you looked a lot better!

Other photos I have of your royal two-ness!

You & your love of balls = ba'. Balls were EVERYWHERE. "Ba," you would say. If we didn't confirm your observation you would point again & say "ba, ba, ba..." until someone said, "Yes, that's a ball."

This one below is taken in Vancouver's Chinatown.

At at the baseball game that Joslyn & Rip played in I got some classic photos of you.

Joslyn was very pregnant with Timmo.

You were being ridiculously cute/funny!

In that period you were going through the Sendak Nutshell Library Books at this stage & really into dinosaurs too.

Then came Timmo.

Early on it was clear you would be a super sister.

Jos sent me these 2 photos. I've cheated here-- not ALL these photos were taken by me...]

Peanut butter toast was a favorite.

And later [@ age 4] reading to Timmo.

...a trip to Maui in 2008 & your look of being 4.

By then you were already drawing a lot.

2 months before your 5th birthday I loved your classy runway-styling!

Then your 5th birthday. One of my favorite birthday parties ever.

OH MY Lucy!! I was so in love with you & your sweetness!

Not always happy, some times quite pensive......even worried maybe...

It must have been in this period that I traced your body to make this for you...

Below are pictures from your 6th birthday.

I remember being so impressed that you didn't open all your presents in a big rush but spaced them out so you could enjoy each one.

I know I only see 4 candles, but the photo-info promises me you were 6.

From the year Max & Reed were born [2010] you came up for the Olympics & then again when they were older.

March of 2010 at Glass Museum.

In 2011 I went down for a spring visit.

I got some classic girl pictures of you.

I totally loved the drape of your pants.

You have always been a big reader & repeat reader, so you learned books by heart.

I have to include the photos I took of you & Wes at the Akido demonstration. He called on you to help demonstrate a "throw". I was melting with your sweetness & Wes's graciousness!

AND then, you lost your 3rd or 4th front tooth!!

I'm sure I didn't take this photo. But those first teeth going is a big deal!!

I see this as a turning point.

You are starting to be more fully you: your interests, your style, your drawings, reading, & forms of play are shaping up.

For Joslyn's birthday party I brought a set of 6 Groucho Marx glasses & mustaches.

You were super in that role.

Don't you agree!!???

In October of 2011 you came up here.

You & I took a photo-shoot outing on the sea wall & you had such big plans to make a book with photos & text.

Then there are the famous trampoline photos. I wish I could say I took them but, no matter....

BUT this are quintessential you, Lucy.

Grace, Energy, Humor, Fierceness, & Beauty!

I'm in love with Lucy-ness all over again revisiting this!

Those two above were taken on a Father's Day weekend in 2012.

In September you came up for Jazzy & Jonathan's wedding.

Here you are with Leslie Alexander.

After that I have 3 great photos of you on the red couch.

I went down again in December.

You were playing again with dragons.

Then in December I was down in Olympia & a big tree next door was being taken down.

You & Timmo both were carrying branches to the shredder.

I also got an awesome photo of you as Lucy-the-Warrior.

In September we went out for a walk in your neighborhood.

We found a phone to play with. For a while it was in the treehouse.

During that visit we went down to the Toutle River.

In October you all came up here.

November of 2013 we went out into the Nisqually Basin.

I always loved the photo Joslyn took of us out there.

On that visit I got to see another Aikido lesson.

And you reading, again!

& working on your big writing project.

On that visit...I got to see your school art project. And we went on a field trip to a pizza place.

By then the dragon was roughed in in the sauna space. OH MY!!

All those dinosaur-&-dragon years of drawing came to awesome fruition!

Then there is a distinctly "Fern Period".

Another of you drawing...

That was when I came down for Timmo's birthday & gave him the tangrams from my Grandma Harwood's trip to China.

And another visit to see Aikido. I loved seeing those lessons & watching you all grow & progress.

Some domestic pictures from that weekend....

We all went to an SPP picnic.

In September of 2014 you came up to Vancouver & I have two from that visit.

The beast was struggling with the sun, so you helped him out!

Then some random photos of you.

[I am having trouble keeping all the events straight. There were so MANY!]

I figured it out!

This is from your epic 10th birthday party at the Toutle.

There were two treasure hunts for that birthday.

I can't remember whether these photos were for Halloween preparations.

Your concentration, determination & ingenuity making this costume was wonderful to see!

For Thanksgiving in 2015 you came up for a visit.

I got this marvelous shot of your scorn for the 'dopiness' of poor Reed.

I felt sorry for Reed!!

I think this might have been the Canadian ThG. because this hat came out.

Then the viola!

I was really impressed at how disciplined you were about practicing.

I got to see you for the last time at Aikido.

Because then TaeKwonDo took over. I never saw you do that.

This is from when you& Timmo came up for The Eclipse & a lesson with Anthony....

Your eclipse shadows... see those crescents between your fingers?

Our outing to the Mural Festival...with Jason & Erica...

with marvelous ice cream!

& a few outings to the pool....

At the end of 2016 you came up for your New Years' Party.

Erica unsnarled your hair.

There were all manner of activities...

The party began!

& then the surprise for me!

November 2017.... oh my this is a Very Long Story!!!

[Maybe I shouldn't have taken so many pictures of you, Lucy!!]

You came up to Vancouver for a solo visit. I went down to pick you up. Then we hung out in a variety of ways.... preparing cloth for dying...going to a gallery downtown