Breakfast with Santa (and Orbit!)

Santa invited us to breakfast on Saturday, and Lucy had a great time! It was pretty obvious Santa was a touch overshadowed by Orbit.. she couldn't stop flirting with him. They must have hugged goodbye at least 3 times... after high 5ing and hugging occasionally throughout the morning. She didn't cry on Santa's lap this year, but was a little stunned by the whole photographers set up. She failed to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, but she knows to leave him chocolate chips on Christmas Eve. Santa said so. Lucy loved the crazy haired balloon twister girl, and, of course, the train.

She knew her Christmas Carols and was able to sing along right before parading up to the tree festival. It was a really fun morning!!

Happy Halloween!!

Buckless

Did someone say Pumpkin Patch?

Hi everyone! I just had to share some of my favorite pictures from our trip to the pumpkin farm. Lucy had such a special time, she claims her name is now Lucy Pumpkin Patch. Oma prepped her for our big excursion the day before, taking her to a local fall festival...and brought her back looking like this! Lucy made sure we saw it. "Right here!"


Before we could go find a pumpkin, we detoured toward the farm animals Lucy loves from her books. She got to pet this calf...what a treat!



And she pet the bunnies too!


Once Lucy discovered this corn feed box, the pumpkin patch had to wait again. She could spend hours in here, I think. So could Eric, I guess.



"Chug-a-lug-a!" That's what trains say, says Lucy. She was so excited to ride this train. I was thinking she would get scared once she realized she had to ride alone. Nope! She smiled the whole time! She's getting so big!





Finally, we took a hayride into the huge pumpkin patch. We told her she could pick any pumpkin she wanted and she seemed to take that very seriously because she didn't want the first one she saw. She scanned the area, walked around for a few minutes poking at different pumpkins, and then chose one she liked the best to take home with us.







This one has nothing to do with our pumpkin farm day...but it makes me laugh whenever I see it.
This is her wearing a hat like daddy, she says.

Scary House!

In celebration of Halloween, we have these sticky gel things in shapes of pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and things that stick to the windows. Lucy plays with them every day... she especially likes the bats, and also this empty pumpkin face that comes with choices of eyes and noses and mouths- kind of like a Mr. Potato Head thing- that she can switch around. She is partial to the the "goo goo goggles" (Thanks, Dr. Seuss, for that accurate labeling of eye glasses) and the "eyes balls." She carries her "eyes balls" from one window to the next... and even to dinner!

Yesterday evening, Lucy was interested in the purple gel haunted house. I kept telling her it was a haunted house, that it was scary because ghosts lived in it.

She eventually turned around to look at me and asked "Go see it?"

"You want to go see the haunted house?"

"Yea, sure," she says. "Go in it? Scary house?"

"You want to go in the scary house? Okay!"

Immediately upon receiving permission, she bounces to the front door, trying to turn the doorknob to get out. I play along.

"Okay! Let's go to the haunted house!" I open the front door. "You'll have to show mommy where it is!"

She bolts out, descends the stairs as quickly as she is able, and starts jogging toward our cars.

"This way!" She says, still jogging, and is pointing to our neighbors yard. "Scary house?"

At that moment I realized! "Oh! You're going to Gary's house!!!!" Gary is our kind neighbor.

"Yea, sure. Scary House? Go see it?" Even more excited, she runs, high knees, through the tall grass towards Gary's. So, naturally, we jaunted over to visit Gary's scary haunted house.

more summer stuff

Hi everyone! Just posting some photos from a few weeks ago. Im back to work (boo!) so I needed to update this for myself, actually. I miss the summer days already and need to see Lucy on my computer during the day. Im sure you all have the same heartache, right?

We took her to Copley Heritage day and low and behold! Thomas the train (or his generic look-a-like) was there. Bonus!! Lucy spotted it and seemed so anxious to ride it... but as soon as we boarded she changed her mind. She wanted off so badly, I had to pin her down and force her to ride this train! It was a two dollar ticket! She's riding! :-)






Im sure you all guessed, but the next tearful photo is from AFTER the initial ride, which she ended up loving tremendously and therefore threw a similar tantrum as I forced her off the train. Here she is, crying "Again! Again!"



And then God made grandmas. Oma saved the day and took Lucy "again." Whew...the storm has calmed.




Opas are just as valuable. Here Opa is reading one of Lucy's favorite books, which she can recite on her own. She was puzzled as Opa went through the book and read his version. She let him know he wasn't reading it right. :-)



She's just plain silly sometimes.

July fun!

We all laughed at how horrible this picture might look to a social service worker...or any breathing person for that matter. She actually liked being dipped upside down into the water. And I'm guessing those rocks aren't as close as they appear. It was all in the spirit of celebrating the Fourth of July at the lake! I even tried not to squirm when Lucy touched the fish's eyeballs. Thanks, Grandpa, for catching all those little fish for her!






To occupy time during the slow afternoons, we have become frequent visitors of the zoo. Lucy's favorite animal is the Llamas, which we see first. Then she likes the jellyfish and the sea ray, which we see last. In between is just murky gray, I guess. She definitely suggested that she wanted to ride the train, so we bought her a ticket and dad threw her on there. She lasted maybe 1.5 seconds...and here she is coming off the train. We'll try again next time!


Puddles remain a priceless pastime. She would never come out if it were up to her.



I couldn't resist celebrating someone's birthday in the summer!!! So we celebrated a half birthday, 1.5, with Grandma & Grandpa Freund and the Great Grandmas too! It was a great excuse to get together and to eat ice cream cake! Yummy!



Grandpa won the favorite person award of the evening. We have many more pictures, but here's a few for fun. Happy Summer, Everyone!!