Skating vids

Luz v. Really Big Gingerbread Man

Elephant

Pool Party

Lucy and her buddy Maddie

The birthday girl and her Papa

Buddies from daycare

Eating the enormous piece of cake that Mommy sliced. I am notoriously bad at cake cutting.

Making sand art

The cake before we devoured it.

This year Lucy has a pool party. The local YMCA has a heated indoor pool and I thought that since this December baby with otherwise never get a pool party- we could have one this way. It worked out really well. After swimming we gathered in a room upstairs and did sand art and colored water bottles and ate cake. A good time was had by all. I'm not sure if Lucy knew she was the center of attention, but she definitely took advantage of the relaxed rules on sugar ingestion.

Breakfast with Santa

Santa reads a story. Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Mrs. Bobbie

The whole rowdy bunch

Lucy with Santa. She was supposed to ask for a pillow pet. She asked for glass slippers. She got "glass" slippers for her birthday. Oh well. Santa is just for pretend anyway, right? Which brings up an interesting ethical question. Do you push Santa as real or not? We are at this point just being passive aggressive about the whole thing. Santa is around, but we're not writing letters or doing Elf on the Shelf or telling her Santa is watching and all that. I don't want to lie to her about Santa, but I also don't want her to be the kid telling all the others that Santa is pretend. We're just going to try and ride the fence for now.

Ever wondered what my office looks like?

Now you know

Reindeer Party 2010

The reindeer party guest and the hosts of the party!

Reindeers made from handprints.

Rudolph

Mimsy and Lucy made reindeer food with oats, sugar, and red sparkles. This concoction is to be sprinkled on the yard on christmas eve for Santa's reindeer.

Note the intense concentration as the reindeer food is mixed.

The traditional after Thanksgiving reindeer party was light on attendees this year, but we had a fun time. Reindeer games were played and crafts were made. Afterward, we loaded up and went to the ATL to see Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer at the Atlanta Center for puppetry arts. It was a good time.

Thanksgiving

Technically, it's the day after Thanksgiving. I had to work Thanksgiving day so Wes and Lucy went to LaGrange without me and feasted on fried turkey at Granny and Grandpapa's house. I did partake in some leftovers later that day and they were quite yummy. The day after Thanksgiving we feasted on smoked turkey at Mimsy and Grand Dad's house. Lucy was sitting across from her Papa and as many of you know keeping an eye on him is a full time job.

He appears so docile...

Lucy later changed into her fairy costume and harassed Grand Dad.

The pretty "before" table.

Apple Pickin'

This was labeled as a "steer" that the kids could "ride." It just stood there and I'm pretty sure it had an udder.

Lucy likes to drive the tractor

This year we decided to try an apple orchard in lieu of a pumpkin farm. We drove for over 2hrs up to Ellijay, GA to Hillcrest Orchards. Next year we'll be doing the pumpkin patch again. Lucy's favorite part of the whole thing was getting to hold this kitten. I'm pretty sure the kittens were drugged and/or very ill because they all just limply let little kids manhandle them. There was plenty of hand washing and hand sanitizer immediately after the kitten handling.

Jack-O-Lantern

Lucy helped design and carve this year's pumpkin

Ice Skating

Lucy is 3

Oh yeah, Lucy is 3 as of yesterday.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Luz and I had a couple fights over cupcakes today. First she wanted one at breakfast but I wouldn't give her one and she walked over to a drawer and pull out a weapon and came to hit me with it. She happened to grab a wisk but still.

The reason I wouldn't give her one is that I was taking her to daycare with a set of cupcakes for everybody - so she would have one an hour later.

Later in the day we came home (after she had had a cupcake at daycare) and she asked me for a cupcake again.

I said "You just had one at daycare"

She said "Umm, no I didn't."

"Yes you did, you just had one."

"No, I really didn't"

"So you mean that when you took all those cupcakes over there and all the other kids had one, you didn't?"

"Right. I didn't have one."

"You're lying, I know you had one"

"No I DIDN'T. I'm not LYING"

Then I said "Ok, you can have a cupcake if you say you didn't have one. But I'm also going to call Mrs. Bobbie and if she says you had one there, you can never have a pillow pet*, ever."

She thought about it and said "Ok. The truth is I had one at Mrs. Bobbies. I'm being honest."

* Pillow pets are a rather corny toy. The apparently run a lot of commercials. Luz wants one really really badly and talks about them to her mom a lot.

Three Year Old Pictures

We met up again recently with our very most favorite photographer Oana Hogrefe so we could document Lucy as she embarks on her third year of life. To see her pictures go to

http://shutterview.com click on "the site" then select the "proofs" tab. The password is little. The proofs are only up for a week so hurry up!

cookies

Luz y co making the cookies last weekend.

Lucy with one L

Today a friend of mine was explaining to Lucy that her name was Alison with one L. Lucy exclaimed: I'm Lucy with one L too!

Sent from my iPhone

Justin Beaver

Luz knows who Justin Bieber is. Or Justin Beaver anyway.

Quote it

Luz: I'm going to et the rest of my chips, ok?

Me: Knock yourself out.

Luz: I'm not going to knock myself out!

Llama llama red pajama

Llama llama red pajama wouldn't share a cupcake with her Mama

Llama llama red pajama putts real bad- like her Mama

Llama llama red pajama with her hooves folded back picks up a duck- quack, quack, quack!

Llama llama red pajama looking sideways with her Mama

Mama llama holds baby llama. Halloween is over with very little drama!

This year we celebrated Halloween in LaGrange. Lucy was Llama llama red pajama and I was Mama llama. If you have a child and you haven't read these books you should.

Dear Lucy

I love you more than you will ever know, and I think you are the smartest 2.75 year old I have ever met. Since you are so extremely intelligent I thought that you might remember how unpleasant it was when you had to go to the ER to have corn removed from one of your nares. Apparently, this traumatic event made a bigger impression on me that in did on you. Today I was able to use my small object shoved up nostril retrieval skills once again. No ER trip was necessary, but come ON! Just stop putting stuff up there!

love,

Mama

Great Grandma's House

About a month ago Lucy and I took a trip to visit Lucy's Great Grandma. This is my mother's mother, my Grandma. We don't visit her enough. She lives in the country and life moves at a different pace. I'm about 4000% sure Great Grandma would not approve of her picture being on the internet. I won't tell her if you don't.

Lucy had so much fun at Great Grandma's house. Great Grandma doesn't have central heating and air (or if she does she just chooses not to use it) and she doesn't have cable, but she does have space. Lucy could just take off in the yard and run. I didn't have to worry she would be immediately smooshed by a car, but I was a bit concerned about snakes. We walked across the street to Uncle Herbert's house and picked apples and pears right off the tree. There were no cartoons only conversation.

I remember going to Grandma's house as a kid and exploring her yard. I remember being frustrated that she didn't have cable and really really wanting to touch that radiator even though I knew I shouldn't (and never did). Mom and Dad used to make Andrew and me help pick up pine cones out of the yard (two acres of wooded land). They always said that it built character, and to this day I want to know why all of the character building tasks out there are unpleasant. Couldn't my character improve with something enjoyable? I remember Grandma cooking in the kitchen and sitting on the deck. I remember riding in the back of Grandpa's truck.

We need to visit Great Grandma more often because I want Lucy's memories to be populated with happy memories of running in the country. I, however, will not make her pick up pine cones. If she grows up to have no character I will be entirely to blame.

We need to visit Great Grandma more often because we love her and enjoy her company. We need to visit Great Grandma more often because she likes seeing us (to a point :-) ). We need to visit Great Grandma more often because she won't be around forever.

Florida trip

Light painting take 1

We went to the beach in Florida last week with Lewis, Lindsey, and Margot. More pics from that next. But this is about light painting. Lewis had the great idea of taking a flashlight to the beach at night to chase crabs. It was according to Lucy her favorite activity of the week. But I also wanted to try this photo technique.

So I'm going to figure this out because it rules.

Its all over the internet so you can find some other examples. The idea is that you do long exposures and write things with light sources (or use light to reveal objects in a dark space). But you really need a tripod and I forgot mine. Also couldnt figure out how to focus. And we had Lucy running around. The white squigles at the bottom of the last one are her. When she's older ths will be cool and she will participate rather than be annoyed by something she thats boring and that she doesn't understand.