Lucy loves yogurt

In case you didn't know, my child has a thing for yogurt. She eats it at every meal of the day. . . and sometimes in between! So we went to the grocery store this evening and as we were leaving, she didn't want to let go of her 6 pack of yogurt. Well, I figured, what's the harm in letting her hold it on the way home?? Not my smartest move! About halfway home, Michael and I began to notice a fruity scent filling the air. Lucy had figured out how to remove the cardboard container surrounding the yogurt, peeled one of the tops back and was enjoying her yogurt, using her fingers for a spoon. Sigh. . . . I was too proud of her for figuring that out to be mad! But next time, I will make sure that all food containers are out of reach before driving away! :)

Don't forget!

(Please indulge me with this post. . . this post it more for me and my poor memory!)

There are so many things that Lucy does that I think to myself, "Don't forget this! Don't forget this!" She is growing and changing all the time. It seems every time I blink, she gets more independent and more grown up. I say this all the time, but I don't know where my baby went! So here are just a few of those memories that I want to preserve so that when my memory fails me, they will still be here:

* After I brush my teeth in the morning, I wipe the corners of my mouth to make sure I don't have any remaining toothpaste. I usually wipe it on my towel which I hang over the shower rod to dry. I handed Lucy her toothbrush this morning so that she could "brush" while I did. (I think it was more chewing on her toothbrush than anything, but it was the idea that counts!) I looked over at Lucy as I was getting ready to do my makeup; she took the toothbrush out of her mouth, reached over and wiped her mouth on the shower curtain, and then looked up at me and handed me her toothbrush to put away. She just grinned at me like, "Look! I did it myself!" I couldn't help but laugh and marvel at how observant she is. This tiny little movement of mine is something I hardly even notice, yet it's something I always do. Never have I wiped Lucy's mouth after brushing her teeth, but because Mommy does it, she does it too. A cute memory, but also a good reminder to me that those little eyes are always watching what I do. If she picks up on tiny details like that, how much more important is my behavior on the big things that matter, like my attitude, my temper, how I handle stress??

* We have been teaching Lucy signs to help her communicate. Her vocabulary is growing every day and I am amazed at how much she seems to truly understand. However, any frustrations we have usually are related to a failure to understand her when she tries to communicate with us. So she knows the signs for book, play, more, eat, milk, juice, music, and all done. (There might be more - those are the only ones I can think of right now.) We're also working on teaching Lucy to say more phrases. She is good at one word replies (more like Commands!), but saying this like "Up Mama" or "Night Night Dada" are fewer. So I thought along with the phrases we'd learn to add the word "Please." We have worked on "Thank You" but please is a little harder. This week while I was at home with her, whenever she would ask for something, I would squat down next to her and say, " Say, ' _______, please' ". I didn't push her to say please, but we would try to reinforce this behavior any chance we had. I took her to her babysitter's house on Thursday where Lucy immediately asked to watch her Elmo video. I looked at her and said, "Lucy, say please." And what does she do?? Squats down to the ground. Yup - she didn't learn the word, but she learned the motion that I did every time I had asked. Again - she is so observant! And every time since then, whenever you say the word "please," that's what she does! So now I'm working on the signs for please and thank you. . . without squatting down next to her! :)

* While Lucy was playing the other day, I had brought my computer into the living room and I was listening to Top Chef play as I sorted through my cooking magazines. (One of my projects during break was to go through the HUGE stack of cooking magazines I have and cut out the recipes I wanted and throw the rest of the magazine away. . . after 5 years here, I have amassed quite a pile!) So as the theme song was playing, I look over and watch Lucy swaying to the music while she plays. No big surprise there since she is always moving! But then there is a section in the music where someone sings some little "Oh, yeah, yeah" and what do I hear? Lucy is singing along! Maybe her Daddy and I watch too much Top Chef. . . :)

*This next one is my favorite. :) Many times when I give Lucy a big hug, I squeeze her to me and say, "Mmm, mmm, mmm." Today, as we were getting her changed into play clothes after church, she reached over, wrapped her arms around my neck, laid her head on my shoulder, and said, "Mmm, mmm, mmm." Well, my child could have asked me for anything in the world right then, and it would have been hers. Moments like these are the ones that remind me that no matter what changes lie ahead for our family, I am truly beyond blessed.

Well, if you've made it this far, I am impressed! But someday, I know that I will want to look back and remember these sweet, simple moments and the only way I will remember is if I write them down! In just a few short months, she will be two years old and every day, she becomes more of an independent little girl and less of my sweet, little baby. (She's still sweet of course, but baby she is not!) I can't believe that she's almost ready for potty-training! ( I will not be one of those moms who gives every play-by-play of her child's bathroom experiences, but I think it's worth sharing that she already uses her potty every night before bed time! ) While I am so excited about all the fun things that are ahead of us, part of me is so sad that this baby phase is quickly coming to an end. . . .

Videos from High Point

This is a video of Lucy, sliding down the slide attached to the plane at the children's museum. It isn't the best because Michael has to catch her at the bottom, but hopefully you can see how much fun she had. We had to do this SEVERAL times!!!



This video is of Lucy with Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe is an awesome juggler, so he was showing Lucy some of his skills. Lucy decided she wanted to copy him, so she picked up some fruit and "juggled" herself! :)

Just a few more pictures . . .

It has been a fun intersession break for me. Even though we only had a week off after our third nine weeks, I am so thankful that we had it. I was really beginning to get burnt out at school and a week with my family was just what I needed! We traveled to High Point for a few days (see the next two posts) and while it was a busy time filled with activities and visiting with family, it was lots of fun. The rest of the week has been filled with play time with Lucy, which I can never get enough of!

Lucy and Baxter, out in the driveway. Who knew that some sidewalk chalk, a ball, and some bubbles could provide hours of entertainment on a beautiful day?? :)


We kicked the ball, we bounced the ball, we threw the ball, we chased it. . . . and it never got old!


Lucy found a stick in the yard, which she wanted to show to Baxter. They had a good time playing with it. . .


Until Baxter got a hold of it!


Look how cute she is!!! And look how grown up . . . there's no baby left at my house!


It's been a fun week for us all. I've also gotten some work done around the house. . . laundry, cleaning around the house, putting away winter clothes, packing up toys Lucy doesn't play with anymore, boxing up a few things that I know we won't need between now and June. . . but those things aren't interesting to blog about, so I won't bore you with that!

I know that I will have to go back to work on Monday, but we have three more weeks until spring break, so I can make it until then. After that, we come back for about a month and then it will be June! Wow, time is flying by!!!!

Natural Science Center

On Monday, we took Lucy to the Natural Science Center in Greensboro. We met up with Aunt Lauren and Uncle Joe and started to explore. I wasn't sure if there would be enough at the museum for Lucy to do, but while many things were a little more advanced than she needed, we found lots to keep us entertained!! :)

Lucy enjoyed looking through the holes of the different insects. She likes looking at these pictures of herself - they make her laugh! :)



One of Lucy's favorite things of the day was the dinosaur. He roars when you walk by and this thrilled her to no end! We have a book that we read at night called, "Dinosaur verses Bedtime" so she already had her "ROAR" down pat! (If you look closely, you can see her doing it in the picture below.)

And here it is, up close! :)


After we drug her away from the dinosaur, we went to the kids play area where there were plenty of things to do. One of Lucy's favorites was the giant boat. She ran UP and DOWN the ramp to the boat over and over again. She peeped through the sides and just grinned and laughed. I think she would have played on that boat all day!


But there was still more to do! Outside, they have a little mini zoo of their own with lots of different animals to see. We saw meerkats, tortoises, crocodiles, monkeys, birds, and a lot of other things. There were also lots of things on which to climb and play. Lucy enjoyed looking at the animals for a minute or so, but could have spent all day climbing and playing. This picture below is my favorite from the day! :)


Lucy really liked these frogs. . .

There was also a petting zoo with all kinds of farm animals - sheep, donkeys, ponies, chickens, goats, pigs, llamas, etc. We didn't pet anything this time, but Lucy enjoyed looking at everything. We even got to see a live "Cocky the Rooster!" (Carissa, this picture is just for you!!)


Lucy especially liked the pigs. While they didn't look anything like her pink pig that she loves so dearly, they oinked and made lots of noise!

After the farm animals, Lucy was tired of looking at things behind bars or glass. She began to run around in every direction, climbing up onto a bench, and back down again. Uncle Joe spent a lot of time watching Lucy do just that! :)


Aunt Lauren also got to watch Lucy run this way and that. . . Lucy definitely wanted to show her independence!!


And this picture is for Michael. . .he loves otters and has always said that when he wins the lottery, he is going to get a pet otter. Sadly, this is probably as close as he's going to get. . .

Lucy was definitely tired by the end of the day. It had been A LOT of walking and playing and looking at things, but it was a good tired! Before we left, we bought her a little dinosaur that roars since that was her favorite exhibit. It has now been added to our bedtime collection of animals (along with pig, bunny, George the monkey, and her puppy dog blanket) so we have talked about our trip a lot this week.

Children's Museum of Greensboro

We decided not to take Lucy to the zoo, after our day at the Natural Science Center. While she appeared to have fun looking at the animals, her favorite part was climbing and running around outside. We decided instead to go to the Children's Museum where there would be PLENTY of opportunities to run around, climb, and explore. So on Tuesday, Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Lauren, and Lucy jumped in the car and headed to Greensboro.

It was definitely the right decision to make! The museum was such a fun place, and if we end up living near Greensboro in June, we will definitely have to get a membership. There were so many sections to play and explore . . . everything from a doctor's office, to an airplane, to a grocery store. . . Lucy had fun in all of them. (Well, except for the outdoor camping one and the construction zone. . .but then again, she is my daughter!)

Here is Lucy getting ready to go into the museum. She loved the big chair they had at the entrance! :) And no, I don't know why she wanted to make this face. . . that's just what she did when her Daddy held up the camera!


Our first stop was the grocery store. Lucy had a good time filling her cart. . . with citrus! There were SO many things to "buy" at this store, but Lucy was only interested in lemons, oranges, and orange juice. She wouldn't look at the bread, the other kinds of fruits and vegetables, or even the canned goods. She filled every cart in the store with all the citrus she could find!


I call this Lucy's audition for "Supermarket Sweep!" (Remember that show?? The boys and I used to LOVE to watch it!)


I think Lucy would have stayed and played in the grocery store all day. After a while, we tried to convince her to move on to another area. She wasn't happy about that, but after she discovered that there was more to the museum than the grocery store, she got excited! We played in the theatre for a little while, but Lucy didn't want to dress up. She did like standing on the stage and listening to people clap for her though! We went to the Kids play ground next. . . she loved this place so much we had to come back at the end of the day too.



After the play area, we went to the doctor/dentist office. Lucy immediately went to the desk. . . .look at her - already multi-tasking with the phone and keyboard! :)


Lucy loved playing with the babies too. She put them in the stroller and walked around. She wrapped them in blankets and put them to sleep. We put them on the scale, we fed them. . . .she loves her babies!


The big kids also got to play with the giant Operation game! :)


Lucy liked to play doctor too.

From here, we went to the library center, the construction zone, Noni's house, the news room, and the post office. Lucy played for a bit at these places, but I can see how these places would all be more entertaining to an older child. She did enjoy driving the mail truck though!


There was also a camping site, a police car, a fire truck, a train center, a garden, and our favorite of the day - an airplane with a slide down the side! I don't have pictures of that because I was sliding with Lucy, but as soon as I get the video off Michael's phone, I'll post it.

We had a great day and lots of fun. We will definitely have to go back there again! :)

Lucy at school!

It was our teacher workday before our intersession week at school. Several teachers had mentioned that they hadn't seen Lucy (Ever!) so I thought it was time to go and introduce her to everyone. She stayed with me for the first part of the morning and I took her over to her babysitter's when it was time for her nap. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy her morning. We played every instrument in Mommy's room when we got to school (See video below!) and then we went into the main building to meet everyone. Lucy LOVED running up and down the halls! I'm sure to a toddler those halls look like they go on forever. She would stop briefly to wave at teachers but then she was off again. We went into a Kindergarten room to visit with one of Mommy's friends and Lucy decided she is ready for school. Between the water table, the kitchen toys, the farm animal and tractor toys and the blocks, Lucy could have played all day! After I finally dragged her out of the Kindergarten room (after all, it was a WORK day for teachers! :) ), we went back and watched Sesame street videos off the projector onto the white board which was very exciting! You can watch Lucy dance in the other video below. We watched this video clip for ten minutes in a row (not kidding!!) and danced the whole time. By 10:00, Lucy started to fade. . .she had played hard that morning!!! I may not have gotten much work done while she was there, but it was the most fun I have had at school in a long time! (Don't worry - I did get work done after she left! It turned out to be a very productive day!)






Sorry the videos are not the best quality . . .they are taken from my phone.

German dinner at the Flacks

A few nights ago, we had a delicious German dinner at our house! We had found a box of Spatzle in the foreign food section at Ingles so we breaded some thin cut pork slices and had schnitzel to go along with it. After adding some parmesan cheese to the spatzle, and some green veggies (okra for Michael and broccoli for me!), we sat down for a delicious dinner!! MMM!!!!

Playing outside

Today after youth choir, I took Lucy over to the playground at church. (Of course, if you have ever been to our church, you know I use the word "playground" loosely!!) There is not much there, but Lucy had a ball going down the slides. There was a small one that she rode down herself (holding my hands, though) and then she and I rode the big green slide. She kept going over to the covered slide, but I don't think she's quite ready for that one by herself . . . and I wasn't about to get stuck in the slide! :)

When we came home from church, Lucy wasn't ready to go inside yet. We went out to the front yard to play with the swing set, but Lucy saw her push car and wanted to drive that instead. So we went up and down the driveway again and again . . .running most of the time! :)


Of course, then the sticks in the driveway caught our attention. Lucy loves to pick up sticks and throw them into the grass. . .


There were all kinds of interesting things to find in the grass too. We picked up more sticks and found rocks, blades of grass, dirt, and so many other fun things to see.


And after all that excitement, we had a quick dinner and then off to bed! After all, tomorrow is Monday! However, it is only a four day week and then break begins!!! I cannot WAIT for a week with Lucy!!!

A few videos

*** The videos are out of order and I can't figure out how to rearrange them. So when you read the description below, the first one is actually the 2nd video. . . Sorry!! ***

The first one is Lucy laughing. She was doing something, and so I went "Ugh" in frustration. . . apparently my frustration is hilarious to her. So I picked up the camera and did it a few more times. The second video was as she was getting ready for bed. She loves her WeeSing CD and knows a lot of the songs and poems already. One of her favorites is "3 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" - hope you enjoy my little monkey!!

What we've been up to lately . . .

All the sickness seems to be gone from our house, which is wonderful! Let's hope that colds and sinus infections will now stay far away! I have 9 more school days left until break. . . not like I'm counting or anything . . . . and I can't wait for a week with Lucy and Michael. We're planning on heading towards High Point for a few days and visiting with family as well some fun outings to the Greensboro Children's Museum and the NC Zoo.

Lucy has been a busy girl lately. Every day she seems to become just a little bit more independent. I'm not sure that her Mommy can handle too many more independent steps - I'm not ready for her to not need my help anymore! Sometimes that independence is helpful, like when she wants to clean up all her toys herself or when she wants to help put clothes in the washer and dryer, or even when she wants to pick things up and throw them in the trash. However, with that independence comes a lot of those, "Let's see if I can do this" moments. . .which inevitably lead to time out. Lucy is a girl who knows what she wants and is going to go do it! Most of the time, it's an admirable characteristic . . .except when the thing she wants to do is rip apart photo albums or color on my floor! :)

Lucy is talking a lot more now. She talks gibberish while she plays, especially when she plays with her friend, Jack! They are so funny talking back and forth in their own special language! She can say most all of her animal sounds. The other day I gave her a book of farm animals to look at as we were driving home. She sat back there and made each animal sound as she came to it on the page. She is clear about most things she wants and asks for them by name. So far, she says these words frequently:
- Up, Down, Out, Snack (which sounds like NA!), Mimi (her word for her pacifier), Yes, Night Night, Hi, Bye Bye, Thank You (dat u), this, Jump, Banana (nana), Uh Oh, Mama, Dada, Baxter (which is Baba), David (Day Day), Latimer (Lammar), Elmo (Mo), George (for Curious George), baby, book, shoes, tree, more, milk, juice, fish (for goldfish), and yogurt (yo-ur).
She also has some words which she signs but doesn't say like music and water, and brush teeth. And she loves to talk about her friends at church like Miss Sue, James (Jay Jay), Maddie, Kamden, Merret, and Parker. It seems like every day she says something new. Most of what she says is still just one word at a time, but every now and then she will have a two word sentence like "Bye Bye, Jack" or "Night Night, Dada."

It is so hard to believe how quickly she grows and changes. A year ago at this time we were still working on getting her to crawl and now we can't get her to slow down. We always joke that she has only two modes - Running or Sleeping!

Yeah, most of the time, she is running!! :)

Lately, Lucy has been very attached to her Pig. She has always had her pig with her at night time, but he now makes the rounds during the day as well. She carries him with her to church a lot and around the house to do various things. The other day, Pig sat with her while she had a diaper change, he watched while she ate dinner, he came with her to help Mommy do laundry, and then went with her to bed.


Pig is very loved!! :)

Below is a picture of Lucy while she is eating her afternoon snack. She likes to sit on her cupcake rug during snack time for some reason. As long as Baxter is up, that seems to work out fine. She was eating cookies the other day, (Mommy had some, so she HAD to have some too!) and I snapped a few pictures of her. It's hard to see with all that hair in the way, but check out her crazy eyebrows! This girl can raise one while lowering the other! She does this look ALL this time and it always cracks me up but I never seem to be able to capture it on camera . . this is the closest I've gotten:

And, like she always has, Lucy LOVES bathtime! Sometimes we get out the bath toys, but often, she is just content to splash and play with the washcloth. The other day as the water was draining out of the tub, she leaned over and put her ear down next to the water to listen to the sounds. She'll probably be mad at me one day for these, but here are some cute bath time pictures.



So that's what we've ( or really, Lucy!) been up to lately! While some days are SO crazy, I wouldn't trade a minute of it. Each day is better than the last and I am so thankful for my amazing little girl!