Lucy's baptism

Lucy was baptised last Sunday, September 17, at Grace Episcopal Church in Newton. It was a wonderful ceremony -- very spiritual and meaningful. Everyone at the church was so nice and welcoming to us and they loved meeting Lucy! She was a good girl for most of the service -- she started to cry when the baptism part of it began, of course! But she was just bored and the minute she spotted the other baby being baptised, she quieted down and started smiling :) She looked so beautiful in her long white dress and her hat. After the service, there was a little reception at the church (which is where everyone greeted her). It was so cute to see her crawling around on the floor (well, trying to crawl -- it was tough to do with the dress!) and playing with the children. After the church we came back to our place to have a little party. I kept it very small, with just our parents and Lucy's Godparents (my friend Laura and Jeff's brother Kevin, plus Laura's husband J.R.) in attendance. I changed her into a yellow dress with smocking -- there were duckies sewn into the smocking, which matched the ducky bracelet from her Grammy and Popi that she wore for the first time that day. I decorated the house with all yellow and pink flowers and even tied yellow gingham ribbons around the champagne flutes! I love doing things like that and it is all the more meaningful to do it for my daughter. We took lots of pictures, of course (and J.R. kindly got the whole thing on video). I am really glad we waited to baptise her at 8 months -- it wasn't intentional really, but it worked out so well because she was so alert and seemed to really enjoy her special day!

Lucy the World Traveler

Jeff, Lucy and I traveled to Scotland from August 29 - September 6! It was Lucy's first trip abroad and she did amazingly well. She slept on the plane almost the entire way over, which was a great relief to us. She even got a stamp in her adorable little passport - the first of many, we hope!

We spent the first two nights of the trip in Edinburgh, visiting sights such as Edinburgh Castle, the Scotch Whisky Heritage Center, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It was my third visit to Edinburgh and it was so much fun to be there with Jeff and Lucy. It is beautiful there and just amazing to see the castle sitting up on top of a hill right in the middle of it all. Lucy seemed to have a lot of fun looking at the sites. She loves people-watching, so that made it easy! I had bought some new fall clothes for her and had a lot of fun dressing her up in them for our days out.

After our visit to Edinburgh, we headed about an hour north to Pertshire and the town of New Scone, where we had rented a cottage for 5 nights. It was a perfect "homebase" for us as we explored the breathtaking countryside. We took a bunch of daytrips but tried not to do anything too far because we wanted to limit Lucy's time in the car. Most of our trips were less than an hour's drive, which worked out very well because she generally slept on the way to and from our destinations but was awake while we were visiting the sights. Among other places, we visited Scone Palace, Stirling Castle, St. Andrews, and the Glenturret Distillery (Scotland's oldest). The scenery was gorgeous everywhere - rolling hills, mountains, rivers, and lots and lots of sheep!!! Lucy really loved seeing all the animals. In addition to all the cool places we visited, we really enjoyed spending time together in the cottage. It was so nice to get away and be together for a week, no matter where we were!

We all had such a great time that we are already thinking about where we'll go next summer...France? Italy? Scandanavia?