Happy Halloween

HAPPY HALLOWEEN to everyone. I hope you all had a great, fun, and safe night. I have a lot to report and as always, I am way behind. The story of my life, being way behind. As far as Halloween, Lucy wore her flamingo and helped pass out candy at my mom's house. No trick or treating this year. She is sick, AGAIN, and has been for a whole week. She is on antibiotics, but we have seen little to no improvement. Horrible congestion again, coughing til you puke, again, etc. HORRIBLE! To make things worse, Justin is really sick, too. Please pray with me that they both get better soon.

In other Lucy news, she now has 4 molars and the 4th top front tooth came through. She has 12 teeth. Still drooling, so I am sure more are coming. Ugh. She still chatters all of the time. No new words that I can think of right now. We have a new morning ritual and Lucy cracks me up every morning now. She drinks her milk right when she wakes up. Usually in our bed and then we turn on a kids channel while we all wake up a bit. If we don't get the TV on soon enough, she starts looking everywhere for the remote and when she spots it, she frantically points at it and makes this funny noise. She doesn't really like TV that much, she gets bored quickly, which is good. It is just a sweet morning time thing where she will cuddle and be still with us, which never happens again throughout the day. She is too busy.

Anyone have any advice on how to get her off of the bottle with her milk? She uses a sippy cup fine for water or juice, but when I put milk in it she refuses it profusely. She still takes three bottles of milk a day. One first thing in the morning, one as she goes down for her nap, and one when she goes to bed at night. She is 15 months old today, and I am not worried yet about still being on the bottle, but I am not sure how to get her to ever switch. She still really needs her milk, since she gets hardly any other protein, so we will stick with the bottles. I would love any advice from anyone with a similar experience.

I have taken Lucy with me to get a pedicure several times now. It is amazing to me, but she sits really still in my laps and eats the snack that I bring her. The salon is staffed by wonderful Vietnamese people who LOVE Lucy. When they see us coming in the parking lot I can hear them all shreking inside, "HUONG, HUONG!!! Yeah Huong!" They call her by her Vietnamese name and talk to her in Vietnamese the whole time. I love hearing them talk to her. It is so cute. Recently they have decided that they want to hold her. Lucy has pretty major stranger anxiety. She rarely lets someone she doesn't know well hold her. So, when they asked if they could hold her, I said that I doubted she would let them. Boy was I wrong. She let two of the girls pick her up and they held her for about 15 minutes. Then she wanted back with me. She was sitting on my lap and one them tried to get her again. She started crying, so the lady left her. Then one of the men who works there said that all baby girls love him and that he wanted to try and hold her. She went to him! I really could not believe that she would let any of them even touch her. They are so sweet with her and even told me that they could see my behaviors in the way that she acts. I loved that. I never think that she is paying attention, but today she pulled a nail file out of the drawer in the bathroom and acted like she was filing her toe nails. How funny is that?

And finally, Lucy has always hated when I held another baby. She is super protective of her momma and lets everyone know that I am not supposed to hold anyone but her. She has taken that to another level. She now does not like to share me with animals either. I was holding a friend's puppy the other day and she insisted her dad put her down, she marched over to me, and she tried to push the puppy out of my arms. Some day she is going to have a rude awakening when a sibling comes along. We will be working on this now. I am also working on her playing and acting a little more gentle and kind - to both people and animals. She is rough with the dogs, so we are working on petting them softly. She has hit on several occasions, so we are also working on being kind with people as well. I can't believe that she knows how to hit. I am really working hard to stop this and she is learning. She knows it is wrong and when I say to be gentle, she will touch me softly and sweetly. She is going to be such a handful. The other night in the bathtub she was doing something that she was not supposed to be doing - I don't even remember what it was now. I asked her to please stop and she looked at me right in the eye and did it again, without taking her eyes off of mine. We then had a stare down for about a minute. I was not going to look away and neither was she. Then all of the sudden she started dying laughing. I could not help myself but laugh. I tried so hard not to, but I couldn't help it. I will say it again, she is going to be quite the little toot. Hopefully we get this under control soon. She is so sweet most of the time, but I see a side that makes me really terrified of the teenage years occasionally! I am sure my parents are thinking, "Pay backs are hell!"

Here are some adorable pictures of the flamingo and from the beautiful fall day today. Enjoy!!

The flamingo can even play the piano.

Where are the trick or treaters?

Lucy hiding with my mom's fake ghost kids. Aren't those so cute? My mom has the best holiday decorations.


Anyone need a ride?


Putting some gas in the car.