Birthday Girl

There is nothing like Lucy's birthday to pull me out of blogger hiding, mostly so I can complain, again, about how grown-up this kid is getting. I know, moms never seem to stop marvelling at their kids growing up, like there is something utterly unexpected about it. But watching her change into an actual little person really is a surprisingly surreal experience.

Anyway, birthday #3 was great. It was the first time she could really look forward to a birthday, and she got a lot of mileage out of it. (As did we, what with all the bribery and the no-birthday-for-you threats). In the morning we went to a sprinkler park with a bunch of her little friends, where she showed off her cute new swim suit and her fear of spraying water (perhaps not the best thinking with the sprinkler park).

When daddy got home, we gave Lucy her big present, a little pink PowerWheels. She rode it all around the little dead end street by our house, and loved it, but she is in serious need of some remedial steering lessons.

That night we had a little family party with Aunt Heather and Uncle Jeffry, where she consumed her weight in marshmallows, opened a ton of awesome presents, stayed up far too late, and discovered in general that birthdays are a pretty cool gig. She asked me this morning if she could have another birthday today, and she didn't take well to the whole "in a year" thing.






Feel that wind a-blowin' through your hair (at 1.5 mph)



Lucy, wondering why on earth mom made her another embarassing birthday hat, and how long before she can possible sneak it off.



Lamb cake, BEFORE (this cake was requested by Lucy, I think mainly because it beat out every other cake in the all important category of "pounds of high fructose corn syrup per square inch")


Lamb cake, AFTER. This is why animal/people shaped cakes are a tiny bit bizarre to me. Because you're going to EAT THEM. I guess nothing screams "delicious after-dinner dessert" like sugary little lamb carnage.




Lucy, hyped up on about 4 servings of sugary little lamb.

You can never have enough Halloween.

So sure, Lucy's Halloween costume was cute, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "six months at the top of this blog" cute. How about we move on?

Here are some things that Lucy is all about at 2 1/2 (okay, fine, we're closer to 3 than 2 1/2 now, but I'm a bit freaked about that 3rd birthday thing, what with it making my teensy baby a preschooler overnight. Jerk).

Lazy and unoriginal naming conventions: Lucy's animals are all named according to color. Her turtle is "Blacky the Turtle". Her horse is "Browny the Horse". Her lion is "Yellowy the Lion". And so on. If I'm reading her a book, and she asks me what an animal in the book's name is, I'm apt to make up a name, like Fluffy, or Mittens. This makes her angry, since clearly, that's Orangey the Cat.

Dinosaur obsession: Not much to say here, since this isn't a terribly unique thing for a kid to love. But I am kind of pleased that her favorite thing is a plastic Triceratops instead of a Disney princess (though I''ve accepted that her eventual love of all things pink and glittery is probably unavoidable).

Singing: Lucy finally got the hang of singing around Thanksgiving time, and she hasn't stopped since. The Christmas songs were clear favorites for a while, but now she really belts out the Jackson 5, They Might Be Giants, and Pink.

Some favorite things: The library, hide and seek, playdoh, any food that can be eaten off cake beaters, anything number or letter related, using the potty only when she feels like it, daddy's guitar, forming attachments to impossibly tiny toys that she loses about 15 times a day.

Some not so favorite things: Using utensils (or feeding herself in any manner, come to think of it), fast food, naps, failing at anything, Sterling or I being on the computer instead of playing with her, anyone or anything being sad, sharing, taking turns, being patient, (insert any other polite behavior here).







And, a video of Lucy demonstrating her fabulous singing and dancing (and her incredible ability to produce snot). Remember that one time, before I had kids, how I swore that no child of mine would ever, ever have a crusty, nasty, booger face? Yeah, that was awesome.

Halloween '09

Lucy had a good (but somewhat grumpy) Halloween. I'm still trying to figure out the exact equation, but there is definitely some sort of relationship between Lucy's excitement for an event, and the number of meltdowns she will have during said event. Multiplied exponentially by wearing a bonnet, apparently. But my goodness, she did look cute, even during the meltdowns. I wish there were some excuse for dressing her like this for the rest of November. Or possibly for every Halloween until she's 20.

Quick picture post

Some pictures from our trip to Idaho last weekend! (mostly to tide over the grandparents until our Thanksgiving trip).

Pumpkin Patch

On Friday we kicked October off to a good start by heading to a pumpkin patch. It was one of those awesome ones were you actually get to pick your pumpkin off the vine, and Lucy loved it. She is pretty pleased with the little half-ripe pumpkin she picked out, and has stopped just short of asking to sleep with it.

Olympic Peninsula

We took a trip with Sterling’s family to the Olympic Peninsula last week, and we had so much fun. Lucy was thrilled to be on another “a benture” (adventure), and she had a thoroughly fabulous time. I have literally 700 pictures from the trip, but here are some of Lucy’s (and my) favorite moments.

Our first stop was to the Olympic Game Farm, a must see for anyone in the Pacific Northwest (and, frankly, a must see for pretty much anyone, period). I thought Lucy’s head would explode from excitement every time she saw/fed a new animal.



The joy in this picture was inspired by these guys:


And this guy:


And him:


Lucy and Aunt Robin with a friendly sheep:



Lucy had a great time exploring the big trees that seem to be everywhere in the area, and it was even better that her cousins were all there too:



We also spend some time at the beach exploring tide pools, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lucy quite so engrossed and happy and just blissed out in general. She was wet from head to toe within minutes, and at one point I looked up and she was on all fours, sticking her head in one of the tide pools. Too bad I was too busy grabbing her to get a picture.












Happy, happy, happy.

Birthday self-portrait

Last year on my birthday, I took a picture of Lucy and I hanging out in the backyard, and I thought it would be a fun tradition to do every year. So today I attempted to take the birthday self portrait with Lucy. It's a bit more difficult with a two year old than it was with a one year old, (and lot more difficult when the remote for the camera is dead). So we have, instead, a series of pictures that all are a little lacking. Use your mental Photoshop, and I'm sure you can piece together a fabulous shot.

Here's the picture from last year...

And here are the shots from today...

And yes, Lucy has been wearing that top for the last three seasons. I highly recommend buying sweater dresses that can be used as tunic-y tops the next year. I'm pretty sure she'll be wearing it next year as well. This staggering amount of practicality on my part surely makes up for the shopping spree I went on for Lucy today, yes?