Hi Elmo!

Lucy's a blossoming conversationist, and our wonderful nanny, Jamie, wrote down a few talks they had last week.

Lucy and her first mac & cheese from a box, and said, "It's so yummy." And then when Jamie told her it was all gone, she said, "Jamie go store, get more?" Jamie said "no, not right now" and then Lucy said, "Mama go store, get more?"

Later on that day, they had the following exchange:

L- Jamie and Lucy go to playground now?
J- No, but maybe I can take you on Monday.
L- Mama take playground?
J- Maybe later.
L- Mama come downstairs, Jamie go bye-bye.
J- Yes, and then what?
L- And then naptime. Jamie and Lucy playground?
J- No, maybe Monday.
L- Monday playground and Sunday go to church.

It's amazing to me how much she remembers now, and the little conversations we have.

Here's Lucy talking on the phone a bit.

Offbeat

As you may have noticed, Lucy often likes to do things a little bit different than normal.

Markers are occasionally used for coloring, but sometimes they're more fun as building blocks (I helped with this one).

Stairs are a great place for nap time.


We love wacky hats!


Lucy straddling continents- her shirt is from Morocco and her skirt from Thailand.

What can I say? She's one wild and crazy girl.

What's that?

I may have mentioned how Lucy asks "what's that?" all the time now. She has a very curious mind!

Weekend adventures

It was a glorious weekend, an unseasonably warm break from the rain last week.

We had a family outing to Walden Pond, with Lucy sporting her sunglasses.


Playing in the sand was fun...

...but the water was freezing! Understandably, since it was frozen over only a few weeks ago. Lucy kept coming back and saying, "it's cold!" and then she'd go back and dip her toes in again.

We had a great time at the playground too.

Lucy has been so much fun lately. She remembers things from earlier in the day or even the day before, and has learned most of the words to a lot of songs, like "Old McDonald" and "Twinkle, twinkle" and "Baa, baa, black sheep". She's becoming much more of a companion- a few weeks ago she and I had a fun outing at the mall. We tried on clothes together, played at the indoor playspace, ate in the foodcourt for lunch, and then shared a donut.

Random pictures

This is one of those catch-up posts that I've tried to avoid lately, but it can be hard to have fun and blog about it at the same time!

Morning quality time with Mimi.


Our Elmo puppet is like one of the family now. Lucy often will bring him over to Matt and say "Papa hold Elmo", as Matt is definitely the Elmo-acting expert (Jim Henson would be proud).

It feels strange to post pictures with snow in them (we had weather in the 60s-70s this weekend). But here is Lucy and the snowman she made with Mimi and Great-grandma the morning after her sleepover last month.

Touring the snowy garden with Great-grandma.

Most of the best pictures we have with Lucy involve her sitting on our shoulders.

Our little book lover.

Great-grandma showing Lucy the ropes.

The singing channel

Lucy's been singing songs a lot these days- she strikes up the alphabet song at the most random moments, and sometimes goes into repeat mode. Other favorite songs right now are "Where is thumbkin", "Jesus loves me", and "Ba, ba, black sheep".

Last week in pictures

It's been an intense week for us, as we've received some difficult news about good friends of ours. Last week seems like ages ago, but it was filled with lots of fun.

It was our first warm weekend and we went for walks and to the playground both afternoons. Elmo came too.

Lucy's so excited to be out on the playgrounds again.

We have orange slices in our mouths, though you may not be able to see them. I love Lucy's outfit- such fun colors, and all from Mimi.

At breakfast one morning, Lucy took her banana peel and started flapping it up and down, saying that it was a birdie.

Another fun mealtime moment- the other day things had been quite for a few minutes at dinner, and I had been distracted with something. I finally looked over, and saw that Lucy was taking her peas, one by one, and squishing each one and then putting it in her bib pocket. So funny.

And another non-typical use of a toy- she managed to get a marker cap on each finger of one hand. Lucy scissorhands?

8, 9, 10, 11

Lucy's having fun counting as well, though 7 and 11 apparently sound very similar to her... ;)

A B C D...

Lucy singing along with the alphabet song.

Birthday Shirt- year 2

We had an exciting photo shoot for Lucy's 2nd year birthday shirt pictures (tradition explanation and year 1 pictures). Most of the pictures were like the following:

Thankfully, running down the hallway was a win-win. :)

Plus a few bonus pictures with Mama in my birthday shirt!

Goop and Ice

Lucy and I had a blast making "goop" (I think I used to call it "ooblick") recently. It's just cornstarch and water; when you press on it it's hard, but when you let go it gets runny. The most fun part was adding food coloring and stirring it around. It made the coolest marbled patterns.

Lucy, Matt and I went on a walk around Walden a week or so ago. It was a gorgeous day. It's a good thing we soaked up all that sun, as we've hardly seen the sun at all since then!

Lucy's been talking in longer sentences these days, which is fun. Recent ones include, "They both have zippers" and "Lucy close eyes, Mama hide animals, Lucy find them". She's very talkative, and asks "what's that?" about everything. Lucy also has started answering questions with "yeah"- so cute, coming from a 2-year-old.

Mimi's visit

I took a break from posting as we were busy having fun with Mimi this past week!

She and Lucy shared a room, and the first few nights they went to bed at the same time because of Mom's jetlag. Apparently every minute or two Lucy would say, "Mimi?.... Mimi?.... Mimi?" checking that she was still there.

Highlights from the visit were a special coffee/dessert time with mom, going out for breakfast with mom and Lucy on my birthday, and having a delicious feast and movie night with mom and a few friends. She also took Lucy to my grandparents for her first sleepover (a few of my cousins stayed over too) so that Matt and I could have an evening to ourselves. Lucy had a great time with them, and Matt and I enjoyed a delicious dinner and then getting to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast the next day! Mimi and Lucy also had lots of quality time in the mornings, which Matt and I appreciated.

Here's Lucy tickling Mimi.

And snapping beans together- Lucy did a great job, and kept snapping them into smaller pieces until they wouldn't snap anymore.

The 3 generations.

And the Mimi (and Grandma and Grandpa) tickling, in action.