This girl LOVES strawberries! We spent some time in the garden this afternoon “harvesting” our berries…well, I harvested and Sage did her best to eat as many as she could. I am going to need to invest in some good stain remover the way this kid eats her berries. See for yourself…
Oh yes, we must eat the ENTIRE berry.
Just sampling…one bite from each.
My bucket (L), Sage’s on the right. She kept reaching into mine and taking bites and putting them in hers!
Love this one!
We are now fully into being one and experiencing a new child…seriously. One week after she turned one she threw her first tantrum! Several days later it occurred to me that perhaps the reason she was getting upset was that she wasn’t getting enough food. It only took one morning of offering snacks every 15-30 minutes before we had our relatively content toddler back. Phew! I had started to worry that we were arriving early in the “terrible twos”!
Sage has yet to really say her first intelligible word, although she has a continuous babbling conversation going throughout the day, but she has several signs that she is using daily: help (her current favorite which really means “I want this”), please, food, more, water, dog, and all done. One verbal thing she does do consistently is bark like a dog. If you watch this video, at about 30 seconds in you’ll hear a dog bark and then watch her stop and bark herself. It’s quite cute!
She loves taking discovery walks. Picking up rocks, dirt clods, garbage, leaves, flowers, and other stuff along the way. Sage is a collector! Check out her stroller, loaded down with toys and books and her mouth holding a set of key.
We try to get outside every day and are often found at the neighborhood park where Sage has braved the big slide and so far has only gone down head first!
She still LOVES reading and her current favorite is Tanka, Tanka, Skunk! We picked it up at the library, thank to the advice of our librarian, Korie, and it was an instant hit for Sage and us.
We took Sage to Pacific City–her first time with toes in the sand! She wasn’t real sure what to think of it and spend more time being held or on the blanket. Gonna keep trying though!
Since we are trying to eat more these days and we are also trying to spend much of our time outside, those two often go hand in hand. Here’s a tofu-kefir-goat milk-banana-blueberry-raspberry-almond butter smoothie. Yum! Right? She likes it!
Sleep is always sweet…for all of us =)
We enjoyed a day full of celebrating Sage’s birthday on Friday. From waking her up in the morning to the Macy birthday song (it’s not an original to the Macy family, as some were asking in the last post) to lunch at Red Hills Market (more of a Mom and Dad celebration) to Yumm! Bowls and party time with the local family, we rang in the start of another year of life with gusto. Here are a few video and photo clips from the day:
Lunch at Red Hills Market
Opening her gift from us--an activity doll, Farmer Fred
Pre-party Walk
Party Guests:
Aunt Rachel via Skype
Andra and K
Aunt Linsey and Great Grandma
Uncle Pete, Gum, and Will
Gus, Sage, and Gum
Papaw
Mamaw
This video is so fabulous as she gets down and starts dancing!
Yum! Gluten free carrot cake with a coconut cream frosting. It was delicious! Sage’s first real dessert.
Happy 1st Birthday, Sage!
Yes, just like you, we cannot believe it that our girl is 1 year old today! A friend this week repeated something she had heard: “The days go slow, but the years go fast.” Amen! And we’re only on year one! We are continually amazed at our girl and most of our time is spent watching her discover the world. Best reality TV around! Tonight we will celebrate with family, remembering the day she was born, grateful for each day we have gotten to be with her since then.
At age one Sage spends her days walking around, pulling CDs off the shelf, tearing apart “her cupboard” in the kitchen, reading books (or at least a couple of pages here and there), spending time with her grandparents and Aunt Lins and Uncle Pete, climbing up into her rocking chair and trying to rock, walking outside and playing at the park, pointing, destroying structures we build with blocks, punching buttons on any remote or phone (real or otherwise) that she can get her hands on, and more.
This is our recent favorite shot. I mean, check out those eyes!
Here are a few of the photos that were runners up in the above photo display:
DECEMBER
OCTOBER
MAY
MARCH
John timing my contractions...we were on "Lap 40" at this point, almost 3 hours into his timing.
I am kind of thinking of today as my Labor Day in the very literal sense that one year ago today I spent about 20 of the 24 hours of March 1 in labor as Sage worked to get her way out into the world. It’s one of those days where I have looked at the clock periodically and thought, “at this time last year _______.” Although it’s not the day she was born it was really the beginning and I almost think of the 1st and the 2nd of March as one day in regard to Sage’s birth.
I recently finished writing out the birth story–which was more than six pages–and also included a Cliffs Notes version. Below is a Cliffs Notes of the Cliffs Notes.
Cliffs Notes
– Very first contraction was felt after a very close and intense GFU women’s basketball game at Lewis & Clark (Saturday, February 26).
– Continued feeling contractions periodically over the next couple of days, but carried on with normal life.
– Real contractions started early Tuesday morning, March 2.
– Called our midwife, Desireé, around 8am and she said to let her know when contractions got to be consistently 4 minutes apart.
– Spent the day resting as much as we could.
-The consistent 4 min contractions never exactly happened, so when Desireé came to check things out about 4:30pm, we were all surprised that I was in over halfway dilated.
– The birth team was called and we got down to the business of having a baby.
– Long night and slow progress from there.
– I was nearly fully dilated in the early hours of the morning but my water hadn’t broken. After moving around and changing positions yet again it finally broke and we were able to move into pushing.
– Pushed for about 1 ½ hours and our baby was born just before 8am on Wednesday morning, March 2.
– Sage Charlotte-Rose Macy weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz, and was 21 inches long.
– Birth attendants included Desireé LeFave, Carmen Cosby, Karla Williams, and Angie Chisholm. Aunt Linsey Macy was also there through the night and morning taking photos.
If you have never been to the San Juan Islands in Washington State, do not delay, make your plans now. Seriously. It is a stunning and serene area that we love. John and I have been coming here for nearly 10 years (ever since we started dating) and many of the trips we have made have been with our dear friends (who also happen to be related), Derin and Andra. It was fitting, then, that they invited us to join them on Lopez Island in September. We had never been to Lopez and we just might not ever need to go to any of the other islands in the archipelago–it definitely captured us.
The home in which we stayed for the week was about a mile to the nearest beach/state park, Spencer Spit State Park. We made that walk at least once a day, often multiple times. The view from the home looked across to another island but was also the thoroughfare for the ferries. It seemed that any time you looked out there was a ferry either coming or going. I loved seeing this. We had mostly good weather (September is the secret month! shhh…) and were able to spend much of our time outside walking, biking, exploring, paddleboarding, crabbing, sitting, talking, and relaxing. We enjoyed living an island paced life for a week!
Flipping the calendar back to October… Sage and I flew to the East Coast to visit her Aunt Emily, my youngest sister, over a long weekend. Emily and Jess were great hosts even giving Sage and I the master bedroom of their apartment–complete with elliptical trainer (broken), private bathroom, and cable TV. Sage was a great traveler, sleeping much of the time as we flew from Portland to Chicago and then to Dulles. Phew!
The weekend was relaxing and fun as we got to meet and hang out with Emily and Jess and their friends. We hit a pumpkin patch, checked out Old Town Alexandria, hiked at Great Falls National Park, watched Emily’s team–the Dallas Cowboys–on Sunday night football, saw the AOL campus where Emily works, did an Insanity workout, hung out on the rooftop of their apartment building (which had an awesome view of DC), and just chilled together.
The return flight was just as good and Sage was a star. We flew Southwest and I could see people making the distinct choice not to sit by me as they saw a baby in lap. It was a relief that she did so well and made friends with everyone around her (think we have a social girl on our hands).
You can see these monuments from the top of Emily's apartment building: Air Force, Washington, Jefferson, and The Mall
I know we always are amazed at how quickly time passes, but SERIOUSLY, our daughter is going to be one year old in less than 30 days. Holy cow, how did that happen? I haven’t been real regular about the monthly mile marks and updates, but this month there is one big noteable:
She only has two teeth, but the kid is walking! It’s so fun to watch her cruise around and she gets a kick out of going for “walks” around the house or out in front of our house, holding one of our fingers and waddling around.
Other things she’s doing that at least we find interesting:
This month she went on her first snow adventures. The first was at Timberline where we climbed to the top of Palmer chairlift (about 8500 feet). John skied down and I snowshoed to where we met at the Silcox Hut and then down to the parking lot. The second was on a snow day with her cousins and Great Uncle Daryl to White River day use area. We spent some time hiking in our snowshoes and then sledding. She wasn’t a big fan of sledding, but she’s doesn’t mind hanging out in the pack and being hauled around!
Part of the tradition we are trying to set along with Thanksgiving in Juarez is a mini-vacation in Arizona just before we head across the border. Last year we stuck close to Phoenix, visiting with our friends, the Rickeys, and family, the Andersons. This year we set our holiday plans to include both of those again as well as the Grand Canyon and Sedona.
What a trip! We flew in Saturday afternoon and were so lucky that we got to see every member of the Rickey family (Jeff, Debbie, Jon, Angela, Jacob, Joshua, Ali, Kyle, Maddie, and David!) over dinner at Jon and Angela’s. It was really special to be part of the gathering and to be able to introduce Sage to them all. We really enjoyed the time together through Saturday night and Sunday morning. Unfortunately, our time ended not in the way planned as Jon and Angela’s car was broken into and valuable items were stolen while we played at a park with the kids. (Definitely not as good as our plan to grab lunch at In and Out before hitting the road!) We left Jon and Angela with a Glendale police officer and them quickly making calls to credit card companies to alert them of the theft. Boo.
Our first stop from Phoenix was about 2.5 hours north in Flagstaff, which would be our home base for two nights. It’s pretty incredible to drive from Phoenix to Flagstaff as so much changes in such a short distance. We drove through desert and cacti and temperatures in the 60s to mountains and snow and temperatures in the 30s. We followed our noses from our hotel to the university district (Northern Arizona University seemed to be the lifeblood of Flagstaff), convinced that there had to be good, cheap food nearby. And there was! We found some delicious Mexican food that hit the spot. (Our personal rule–held loosely of course–when eating in Arizona: Eat as much authentic Mexican food as we can… and if there’s none to be found, go to In and Out or Pei Wei.)
Our Grand Canyon day started early as we wanted to make sure we had the most amount of daylight as we could in the park. Sage was sick with her first cold so we didn’t leave quite as early as planned, but we still managed to arrive mid-morning. The Grand Canyon is pretty amazing! It seemed so bizarre to me how you just drive and drive and there is really no sign of anything “grand” and then, all of a sudden, you’re standing at the edge of this massively deep canyon, almost without warning. Crazy.
It was plenty cold, which we had, thankfully, prepared for, but the sun was out and began warming us. We did our best to maximize our one day in the park, and taking into consideration a sick baby. After our walk to the rim and a few photos with hundreds of other people trying to get the same shot (SO glad we weren’t there in the summer, I’m sure it’s CRAZY with people!), we jumped a bus and ventured out on a trail down into the Canyon to “Ah-Ha Point”. The layers of the Canyon were incredible and just gorgeous–really, such a different view and beauty to hike into the Canyon versus standing on the rim. Truly stunning! We continued to marvel at the depth and color and layers and all that we don’t know about geology.
Hiking out we grabbed the bus again and headed the opposite direction to the end of the park road at Hermit’s Rest. There were many beautiful stops along the way. At the end of the trek we got out and enjoyed a cup of cocoa inside a really cool, old stone house. Once warmed up, we returned to one of the lookout points to take in the sunset. It wasn’t an epic sunset, but the scene was still certainly epic. We picked a spot where you could see the Colorado River and soaked in the last rays of the cold winter sun before it got really cold. Finally, back on the bus and back to our car and, eventually, back to Flagstaff (but not after some more Mexican food!).
The following morning we headed out of Flagstaff going southwest this time with a destination of Sedona. We weren’t really sure (beyond big rocks) what to expect, but had been told by a friend, and Phoenix-native, that it was a must see. Wowsers! This place was the perfect spot for us. Warm, blue sky, sunny, and serious hiking. We stopped at visitors info booth and got a list of hikes; decided rather than doing the “easy” hike the attendant had recommended (he spotted the baby and took us for “easy” kind of folks) and went straight to Bear Mountain–5 miles round trip, 1800 feet elevation gain. Not the hardest hike ever, but it was no 1.5 miles round trip on a flat grade either. We had to bust it out in order to get back to Phoenix in time to pick up John’s parents from the airport, but it was just what we needed and was so incredibly beautiful. Sure didn’t hurt that it was in the high 60s either! Sage was feeling better, it felt so good to be working hard in the sun, and the scenery was great. Ah…an awesome way to end our time outside of Phoenix (well, that and the barbeque pork sandwich we grabbed on the way out of town! Do I talk about food too much? ;-))
We made it to the Phoenix Airport just in time to meet John’s parents. The five of us headed to John’s sister’s home where the rest of our Juarez team was hanging out. The following morning all 15 of us packed the cars and drove to El Paso and then over the border! The rest of the trip can be read about in previous blog posts.
Next in the “Going Backwards” series, we revisit our time in Juarez. The blog post shared just after we returned certainly captured our thoughts and the video of the house going up well, but I wanted to share a few more photos to round out the visual aspect of our time there.
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