Pool Fun

Today we had a lot of fun at a friend's pool. Lucy has not been in a pool since we were at the beach, so I didn't know what she was going to think. She was a little scared at first, but then she remembered how the floaties work and she was off. She would say to me, "I do it momma. I swimmin." Okay. I just stood back and took a zillion pictures. Our friend Liz was there with her two girls - Taylor, who is 2, and Reece, who is 4 months. Lucy LOVED Reece. She is obsessed with babies right now. She kept saying, "Baby, Woo Cee's lap." So I would help her hold the baby. Whenever Reece made any noise, Lucy would run over and make sure she had her paci. She was really so sweet with the baby. It is so fun to take pictures of other people's kids since I am mostly only used to Lucy. It is also fun for the post processing. Thanks for so much fun today girls!

I think I have figured out the whole bed time thing and we have had 2 naps and 2 night times with no tears, no fuss, just calmly going to sleep. Every night before bed I tell Lucy we are going to brush her teeth, pick out 2-3 books, sing a few songs, kiss night night and then I am going to my room to go to bed. This has always worked just fine, but recently she has wanted us to stay in her room forever. She would not go to bed with us in there and she would freak out whenever we tried to leave. Even if we stayed long enough for her to fall asleep while we were in her room, she was waking up when we tried to leave. So, I tried something. After our normal routine, I give her one of her small books to read to herself while I leave. She is perfectly happy with this and makes no fuss at all. When she is done, she tosses it on the floor and passes out. Works for me, works for her, sounds like a plan. I love to go in and check on her now that she is sleeping in the big girl bed. She looks so small in there.

Big plans for tomorrow - THE CIRCUS!!! I can't wait. I think I am more excited than anyone, but Lucy does talk about it a lot. For some reason, she thought flamingos were at the circus. Whenever I mention the circus, she would say, "El-phant and mingos!" I didn't want her to be disappointed, so I have told her that there are not flamingos at the circus. So now she says, "Cir-tus, el-phant, no mingos!" She cracks me up.

Here are pics from the pool today. They all got a cup of ice cream and those are my favorite pictures. They were all so serious and quiet while they were working on their ice cream. Lucy loved to feed Kori's chihuahua, Moose, her ice cream. She would let Moose lick her spoon and then she would eat a big bite. Yuck, but whatever. Moose was so happy to get some ice cream that I couldn't make her stop.


Reece - the world's sweetest baby. She was so fun to love on!

My new favorite person to take pictures of - R would look at the camera whenever I said her name and smile. Who knew 2 year olds willingly did this?? It takes A LOT of work for me to get Lucy to look and she never wants to smile.


Aren't they cute?




Keeping a watchful eye on Reece.

Morning at the Park

This morning we went to a park with some friends. I can't explain enough how miserably hot it is here. I feel like we never get outside, so I just dealt with it this morning and went. I was sweating, a lot. So was Lucy. But the park was shaded and Lucy had a lot of fun. I honestly cannot wait for fall. We have such nice spring and falls here. Sometimes it stays hot for too long, but at this point, the high 80s would feel good.

Bedtime has gotten a little easier the past two nights. Last night was a breeze. Tonight was a little rough, but nothing compared to several other recent nights. She is in the big girl bed in the guest room now. That will be her room, so I am working on getting her transitioned.

Who is ready for the Olympics?? What is your favorite event? Mine is by far gymnastics, but I also love swimming and diving. I can't wait for tomorrow night and the opening ceremony. Yeah.

Here are some pics from this morning.

Daycare at Our House

Before I forget, the Photoshop Elements book I got is The Photoshop Elements 6 Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski. I really really like it. I got a lot of questions about it.

Today was so fun. Mandy needed to run a bunch of errands, so she brought Anna and Louis over to play. Then Katy needed to look at some houses, so she brought Ava over. So, it was me and 4 kiddos. We had so much fun. I had all 4 of them outside and let them paint pictures. Anna only wanted to use red. She was my most meticulous painter. Louis painted a field of corn. And Lucy and Ava just kind of smeared around all of the colors. I had all four of them cleaned up and back in the house playing before Katy got back with sandwich supplies. I whipped out 7 grilled cheese sandwiches in about 10 minutes and Katy cut up some strawberries. We had them all fed and playing again before Mandy got back. I really had a lot of fun at my little daycare.

Lucy has her first crush. The girl LOVES Louis. I mean loves him. She wants to hang on him, sit in his lap, talk to him, and just be near him all of the time. This really happened a couple of weeks ago. He is so sweet. He is great with her because he is a great big brother to Anna. I think it is so funny because Mandy has always told me about little comments Louis makes about Lucy when we are not around - like how cute she. I just had to share because Lucy is never like this with any other kids. She just loves her WooEEEE.

We are having some CRAZY sleep issues around here. She is back to sleeping okay, but getting her to sleep is SO difficult. All of the sudden she is totally stressed out about going to bed. We have tried the guest room, her room with the air mattress, and her crib. Some nights are okay, but most are terrible and take forever to get her to sleep. It is hard on all of us. I try to stay calm, but I start to lose it after a while. It is just frustrating and that time from when Lucy goes to bed and when I go to bed is very valuable to me. I just wish I knew what snapped. Why all of the sudden she is stressed out at night. It is weird.

Other than the night issues, we have had a really great last couple of days. Life is good. Here are some pictures from today.





How cute is Ava?? She makes the funniest faces and noises and I always say that she is telling me a huge story, I just can't understand it yet.

Getting Back to Normal

We are working on getting back to normal around here. Justin is still moving pretty slowly, but he is greatly improved. Nana (Justin's mom) came to the rescue and has really helped us out the past few days. She has to go home tomorrow, and we will really miss her. We finally have all of the birthday presents put in an appropriate place and cleaned up. It almost feels normal around here.

Here are the last of the birthday pictures. I promise. I know you are all sick of hearing about her birthday, but I had to share a few from her birthday afternoon.



I love this picture because I imagine she is thinking - Why would my mom put this hat on me? And Justin is stroking her head thinking the exact same thing. Ha.

My Birthday Diva

Birthday ice cream, of course.



I got a new book about photo editing in Elements. I LOVE it. I have been obsessed with it for the past 24 hours. I have learned some amazing tips. Here a few examples of before and afters of some of my all time favorite pictures of Lucy. The before is on the left and the edited picture on the right (or bottom). It is amazing how just a few small things can really make a picture go from boring to awesome.




The edited picture is on top in this one.


I finally figured out how to remove unwanted objects!

The edited picture is on the left in this one. I have always loved this picture but hated how dark her face was.

Happy 2nd Birthday Angel!

Today is the day. Lucy is 2. Isn't it weird that 2 seems so big, when in all reality, 2 is still very, very little. But now I won't refer to her as xx number of months old. She will just be 2, and that seems big to me. She is every bit of an ornery 2 year old. But in some ways she still is my little baby. She is still very much so a momma's girl. She wants so badly to be independent and big, but then she realizes that she still needs me right by her side. I like that and hope it stays like that for a long time. Justin and I love this girl more than we could have ever imagined possible. She has changed us so much for the better. Not a single day goes by where we don't say, "We sure our lucky to have our guy." (for some reason we call her "our guy" all of the time - it is just a weird nickname that has stuck for Justin and me) She makes us more happy than anything else in this world.

Here are some fun facts about Lucy Goose at her 2 year old mark.

*I never have to worry about her running off in a store or a public place. She will run ahead of me, but just as soon as she realizes she is far from me, she turns around and comes running back. Almost always to hug my legs. I love this. She always needs to be able to find me and have me in her sight. It really makes my life simple, because it would scare me to death if she ran off from me. Most of the time, she wants to hang on the back of the cart and shout, "I push Momma!"

*She loves to pretend. She loves to pretend she is cooking or that she is a dog (named Scruffy) or that she is a princess in dress up clothes. I love to watch her little imagination at work. I think we are going to get her a dollhouse for Christmas. She loves very focused and detailed play. She will sit and do play doh or blocks or draw for long periods of time without getting bored. She loves to feed her babies, rock them, and put them to bed. She is a much nicer momma now than she used to be. Her babies used to get thrown on the ground, run over, and forgotten about. She is much more attentive now.

*She has become really aware of people or animals having a momma and a dadda. It cracks me up because in every book she points out the mom, dad, and baby. At the hospital yesterday, she was watching the fish tank and pointed out to me the dadda fish (the biggest one), the momma fish (a medium sized one), and the baby fish, which was a teeny tiny fish.

*When she gets really excited about something, like ice cream or cake, she will shout, "Holla!" It is freaking hilarious. If I say Holla first, she will say, "Holla Back!" Love it. It never gets old. We make sure to teach her the really important stuff.

*She refuses to talk to us about colors. I know that she knows her colors because whenever she wants a popsicle, she will point to the one she wants and say its color, but other than that, she acts like she knows no colors. In fact, if I just point to something and ask her what color it is, her standard response is, "Huh?" and then she looks at me like I have 2 heads. She will say the alphabet A-G and then a few other letters in the middle. She knows most shapes. She sings the words to a lot of different songs. Her current favorite songs are "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," "Twinkle Twinkle," "ABCs," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and "If You're Happy and You Know It."

*She likes TV, but doesn't care at all if we say no TV. Her favorite shows are Sesame Street, Curious George, Go Diego Go, and Dora. I prefer she doesn't watch a lot of tv, but we always enjoy our morning ritual of milk, dry cereal, and Sesame in bed together. She is so sweet in the mornings (most of the time).

*She uses incredible manners. She generally always says thank you and pretty please. She is starting to say you're welcome. She does not always like to share toys, but she LOVES to share food. She makes sure that all of her friends have some of her snack, which is really sweet. She is getting better about sharing toys, but she has her moments of absolutely refusing. For some strange reason, whenever she is around other kids, she instantly starts saying, "My juice" over and over. It is weird because no one ever tries to take her juice.

*She continues to have zero time for food. She is simply not interested in eating more than a few bites here and there. Her favorite foods (besides any sweet) are pb&j sandwich, mac and cheese, fruit, pudding, corn on the cob, and sometimes squash. Figuring out what to feed her is not easy. I get green teas from Starbucks a lot and sometimes we share a blueberry muffin. Now every we see a Starbucks, she says, "Muffin!!"

*She wants to know what every single thing is if she does not know the word. I hear the phrase, "Is that Momma?" about 400 times a day. When I tell her what something is, she promptly replies with, "I see it Momma!" It is so cute. She talks in full sentences often. I usually know what she is talking about, but not always. When I don't know what she is talking about, I will just nod and say yeah. This annoys her to no end because she can clearly tell that I don't know what she is talking about.

*She prefers to shower over take a bath, so she gets in with one of us each night. She has a few toys that just stay in our shower and she sits on the shower floor with her toys and she has to have her body in between my feet. If I take one step, she scoots to reposition herself in between my feet. It is kind of dangerous, but I am used to it now. It is just strange how she has to be touching both feet the entire time she is in the shower.

*She loves to wear dresses and any time I get her dressed, she turns to me and expects me to tell her how pretty she looks. Same goes after her hair gets fixed. She will often shout, "Pretty!" She is so right, she is so pretty. I just wish that she did not put up a fight to get her hair fixed these days. She hates her hair in her face, but even more hates giving me three seconds to get it in a ponytail. I always have to find something to distract her.

I could go on and on. She does so many cute things and I don't want to forget any of them. I love our time together. Everyday has something new and exciting for her and I love watching her learn and change. Justin and I both love her more and more each day. We cherish the fact that we were so lucky to be chosen to be her parents. Happy Birthday sweet baby girl. We look forward to watching you grow and change this year. You amaze us and make life so fun. We love you with all of our hearts.

This is Lucy first thing this morning.

The first thing she wanted to do on her special day was play doh. Good thing Nana is here now. She is going to get lots of good spoiling. Justin should be able to come home this afternoon.



We did a special photo shoot with some of Justin's drums to help him feel better. I think these are fun. I have wanted to do this for a while, but just now got motivated to bring a few of the drums downstairs. Lucy LOVED playing these. She makes her daddy proud!



I am trying to learn to use textures with some of my pictures. This is my first attempt, not great, but I will get there.











And just for fun, here she is on her first birthday last year.

Wasn't she so cute and snuggly looking? She still did the Frankenstein walk at this point.



And for really fun times, this might be my all time favorite video of Lucy from her birthday last year when she was totally delirious from all of our travelling around and her not wanting to sleep. Man, I love this girl!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books