Friday, June 29, 2012

Festival fun!


Last weekend was the St. Therese festival.  On Friday night we were invited to a graduation party for our friend from daddy's cc team, Alex Schalk.  Lucy was a little naughty while we were at the party (at the Southgate Community Center) - she wanted to do a lot of exploring, which was fine until she started scooping dirt out of a potted plant...(she didn't like it when I removed her from that temptation).

But she had more exploring to do with her dad!



Blowing bubbles with a friend before we left Alex's party...


Soon we were at the festival.  We went to the festival last year but she was just a little baby and she was in her carseat/stroller and was captivated by all of the lights and sights and people.  This year, she was a Lucy-on-the-go, playing games and running around!
One of the games we played was a row of mailboxes and Lucy got to choose one to open.  Inside her mailbox was a lei, a bracelet (which she later broke...beads everywhere...and we'd run into friends Stacy & Nick and poor Nick gathered all of the beads from said broken bracelet and proudly held his hand out to Lucy...who knocked them back out of his hand!  She liked watching the beads scatter!  Nick didn't fall for it again, though!), and a ring (which she let me wear...it matched my shirt!)

She played one other game - basically, she caught a duck in a pond and won a prize.  She chose a little duck that looked like a clown, and she and Stacy played with it together for a bit.
But it getting late and poor little party girl was ready to start her bedtime routine...milk, please!
Grandma & Grandpa Meyers were there with cousin Alli so we got to hang out with them for a bit...Alli even shared some of her game tickets with Lucy, which is how she was able to "check the mail" and go to the duck pond.  Lucy also enjoyed watching Alli fling herself down the inflatable slides...and Lucy even got to sit on the edge of one of the inflatables and do a little bouncing of her own before heading home! 
Lucy was a sleepy little lady by the time we got back to the car and fell sound asleep on the way home.


The next night, Lucy wanted to go back.  Daddy was golfing with Uncle Jeff and Grandpa so it was us girls with Auntie Em and GranJan...we went to Barleycorn's first for dinner and got to eat outside.  Lucy ordered mini corndogs but decided she only wanted the hot dog part.  She played the same two games at the festival, but also found a dirty little mulch pit to dig in...she was in heaven...

Maybe she thought she stays up late now because she did not fall asleep on the way home this time and it took over 10 minutes to get her to sleep once we were home, cleaned up and into pjs...we've had some serious bedtime struggles over time but lately, when it's bedtime and we get the girl upstairs, she's fast asleep within minutes.  So no, 10 minutes is nothing to complain about (it was taking 45 minutes minimum there for a stretch), but it was a bit out of the new norm.  But she had a great weekend!

Lala

Just a few random, cute pics of my girl...

Such a sweet little sleepy-head!  We just recently started putting a blanket in her bed with her at times...we still don't put any "toys" (stuffed animals) in there with her...my mom thinks I am a freeeeeak but...safety first!  Plus - she is supposed to be sleeping in there, not playing!


Fresh out of the tub!  She's giving me "the look" becuase it is MILK time not picture time!


She's sitting on Violet's lap...and stealing the bubby from her baby...


Lucy likes to stir-stir-stir when she's in the kitchen with me "helping" me cook dinner...
she also likes to frequently taste-test her Cheerio creation...


My little beauty...


Loving on her giraffe, Gerry, from her friend Jessica!


Munching on a tasty lunch of pasta salad, turkey dogs ("dog dog"), grapes and blueberries.  No, she was not a birthday girl that day but it was the bib she chose...

Lucy's first pedicure!

Daddy's softball games

Lucy and I have gone to a few of Dave's softball games and have had a lot of fun...
We've walked to some games (Lucy in her car or wagon) and have driven to a couple of the late games (in case we need to make a quicker departure).
She likes playing with Sam and Charlie and Cleo and Anna...softball games are a lot ot fun for her because she gets to run free outside!  There are plenty of sticks and rocks to be found!  There are funny little boys running around screaming at the top of their lungs!  She almost always gets a lollipop!
It's so funny that we're there because of Dave playing softball...but at the end of the game when he comes over to see her, she seems surprised to see him there...like, "Were you here this whole time?"






Lucy alert


Lucy still absolutely loves the little step stool in the kitchen...she's recentely learned, though, that we keep extra Kroger bags stored inside...



She's squatting down on the step...such a dare-devil...


Father's Day

I am ashamed to say that I don't seem to have a pic of Lucy and her daddy from Father's Day...but in my defense, he golfed with his daddy and wasn't with us for most of the day...
We went to my grandparents' house and did a little swimming, a little splashing, a little hanging and a little snacking...

Like I said, she is starting to like baby pools a lot more...
Splashing with her foot...

New swing at great grandpa's house!

Trying to steal a gnome...

Hanging with Grandpa!


Dismount!

Yum!
She went to Home Depot with me to get a Father's Day gift for her grandpa and had a blast "driving" the cart around...as always, she is dressed much better than me but she got a lot of stranger comments - more than usual, even - on how cute she looked on this particular day:

But this bib says it all...

Chompers!

She's eating a hamburger fresh off daddy's grill...showing off her ketchup-y chompers...
Lucy has 10 teeth now and Dr. D. seemed a little surprised by that the other day...but I have a teething chart I've been filling out and she does not seem to have an abnormal amount of teeth for her age...he was probably just amazed that her mouth is starting to fill in after he slow start.  She didn't get her first two teeth until she was about 7 months old and it seems that some start closer to 6 months...and then she didn't get any more for 4 months...

Not the best pic...wouldn't let me upload a PDF so I had to take a picture of a piece of paper...


15 Months Old - a stats post

Lucy's 15 month appointment was on Wednesday, just two days after turning 15 months old.
I took off work to take her to the appointment but Dave was able to meet us there straight from summer school...he got there just in the knick of time to see a very grouchy Lucy melting down...

She did not want the nurse to talk to her, she did not want me to put her on the scale to be weighed (I finally had to lay her down instead of having her sit, like she usually does, and step back as she flailed and cried), she did not want to lay on the table for the nurse to measure her length...she was just not in the mood.

She calmed down while we held her and answered some of the nurse's questions and was okay once the nurse left completely (but she still wasn't the happy Lucy she'd been at home that morning).  Once Dr. D. came in, it was back to meltdown mode...she did not want him to talk to her, she did not want him to look in her ears or eyes or mouth, she did not want him to touch her at all...But our wonderful doctor who can spin anything into a positive, said he was impressed by her memory - she obviously associated the room to very bad things...and she wasn't far off.  Soon enough the nurse was back to administer two shots.

We went to the library after the appointment...notice the band-aids on her arm

This is the giant red welt, still giant and still red the following evening...
We had just bragged to Dr. D. that Lucy only takes a pacifier when she's sleeping but our girl was so pitiful after the shots, we let her have it.  She was so upset that her entire jaw was shaking - almost like she was freezing cold.  She calmed down pretty quickly once in my car.  If the weather had been as nice as it had been the previous day (80 degree range), we'd have gone to the zoo but it was in the 90s and none of us were up for it.  Dave went to get lunch and since Lucy was so upset, he was just going to get it and bring it home and meet us there.  On a whim, though, Lucy and I decided to stop at the library, which is basically in the same parking lot as her doctor's office.



We only stayed for 10-15 minutes but she had a great time!  She's hoping she's able to sweet talk her daddy into taking her back at least once or twice this summer.  We played with blocks and puppets and puzzles, spelled her name on the magnet board, did some coloring and checked out a book and a couple of DVDs but then it was time to go meet dad at home for lunch.

Lucy now weighs 23.44 pounds, putting her in the 59th percentile
She is 30.5 inches tall and is at 51%
Her head circumference is at 84% (big head = big brain...everybody knows that!)

She had two shots but didn't experience any real side effects (once she calmed down) other than the giant red welts (which she seems not to even notice).
Dr. D. said that by 15 months, kids should have 5 or 6 words and he loves to see 10.  Lucy has over 20 words!
She can't say all of them clearly but we know what she has saying and she's said all of the following multiple times (I did not put anything on the list she's only said once or twice or words that we "think" she may have said):

Duck
Dog
Mom, mommy, mama
Daddy
Bib
Milk
More
Ball
Baby
Bye bye
Shoes
Alli
Eat
Cheese
Boo (she likes to round corners and "scare" us!)
Book
Turtle
Giraffe
Elmo
Bird
Bubby

Recently, our little smarty-pants has started learning animal sounds...she's learned these from her books, The Very Busy Spider, Moo Baa La La La, and Just Like My Daddy.
If you ask her what a horse says, she will answer "neigh!"
If you ask her what a cat says, she will answer "Meee!"  (she doesn't quite have the "ow" part down)
She can answer for a sheep - "baa!" and a rooster - a very funny "cock-a-doodle-doo," an owl - "Whoo!  Whoo!" and a cow - "moo!"

She's finally enjoying her baby pools more and some of her other favorite things to do are:
*Playing outside...walking around, going to the park, swinging, playing in the mulch, going down slides, climbing the ladder on her swingset, hanging on the jungle gym at the park, going for short walks, finding sticks and rocks, etc.
*Climbing the stairs (we're working on showing her a safe way to come back down - on her booty).
*Playing in mom's jewelry...luckily, I don't have many nice items (basically just my wedding ring and a couple of necklaces that are stored out of her reach) because she's figured out how to open the nightstand drawer where I keep some costume-y jewelry and she loves getting that out.
*Exploring in the basement (and unpacking some baby clothes and toys of hers I have packed up...) while I do laundry.
*Eat!  She's obsessed...every time she sees her highchair, she signs and says "eat" - to the point where I expressed my concern to Dr. D. that maybe she eats too much?  (He said her growth pattern indicates that she's doing just fine!)
*Pointing!  She is also totally obsessed with pointing...though she knows many words, she often sticks with pointing.  I like to give her choices many times per day so she can get a lot of pointing in (I pick out two cups and ask which one she'd like her water in so she can point out her choice...being given choices usually also gets a giant smile out of Lucy).

Stay tuned for more blog updates...I have a lot of photos to share!