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.