All Grown Up

I can hardly walk in these heels, I don't know how she manages!

Oceanside Pier

My Dad and Sierra had their first "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" show on Saturday. Sierra is the Narrator (and sings most of the show) and my Dad is Jacob (he couldn't look more the part). They were incredible! I can't wait to see it again! Come check it out and you won't be disappointed! They have shows on Friday, April 24 @ 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 25, @ 2:00 p.m., and Saturday, May 2 @ 7:30 p.m. located at the Star Theater in Oceanside!

To celebrate the opening of the show my family and our good friend Frank, walked out to Ruby's Restaurant at the end of Oceanside Pier. It was the perfect warm day for it! Lucy got to experience Milkshakes and Cherry's for the first time, and now we can't feed her anything else! Anyway, we had a blast, but I will let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

Owies

Yesterday, while we were out and about, Lucy started pointing and exclaiming "owie." I didn't catch her drift at first, but then realized she was talking about the cars. "Oh Wonderful!" I thought! I was very excited Lucy was starting to put two and two together and remember what we had told her about cars being "owie." I had high hopes this would help her be more careful about going in the street. Lucy then proceeded to go and kiss about 3 different cars.

Okay, so I gave Lucy a little too much credit for understanding that the cars were "owie"... but nonetheless, it was very sweet of her to the give the cars kisses because they had "owies." What a caring and good natured little girl. Sometimes I wish I could freeze her at this stage forever, but I guess that isn't what this life is about. I'll just have to keep working on enjoying the moment!

Baby Meow Meow

Our Cat had kittens 1 week ago, Monday... and Lucy found them...

When the Cat had kittens one week ago Monday, I really wanted to show them to Lucy. She points out the Mommas and the babies when we read books about animals, so I knew she would be excited. We decided it would be better not to tell her about them until they were older. Well, Monday morning Lucy disappeared for a few minutes and my Dad went looking for her. He found her standing in the closet with the kittens, just watching. I'm guessing she must have followed the Mom. When she saw my Dad she told him as if she had just discovered gold "Baby, Meow Meow, Baby."

It has been nothing, but kittens since then. All she wants to do is see them all day. She has been dragging her stuffed kitty around and wants her kitty book read to her. If I take my eyes off of her for one second she is on her way to the baby kittens. We go visit about every hour and she points out the "Mommy" and "Babies." Then she counts them "two two two!" (there are really four, but Lucy can't do four yet, however on that note her counting has really improved, she now counts all by herself in this order "two, three, five, eight, nine, ten" and can say "one" if you beg) When they "Meow" she "Meows." When they roll, she rolls. When they sleep, she sleeps (only about 10 seconds, yeah I sure wish that really put her to sleep)When they have a drink, Lucy wants one too! I am amazed at how gentle she is with them. She seems to know that she can't be as rough as she is with their Mom. She treats them like they are little angels that were sent here just for her. When I let her hold them she is thrilled. When I try to hold one, she burst out into tears and reaches her arms toward me. She really thinks they are all hers. Usually she is pretty good about taking turns if I remind her that we have to take turns, but not when it comes to kittens. She has also included them in her goodnight routine. After we say goodnight to everyone in the family, she also has to go give the "babies" a goodnight kiss as well. Anyway, just a cute little experience with Lucy I wanted to share. Such precious moments!

I LOVE CHURCH!

Church today was pretty funny:

1) Lucy yelled the f-word really loudly during the closing prayer of Sacrament meeting. Oh Happy Day! The good thing: my worst nightmare was finally fulfilled, so now I can stop worrying so much! It's weird, but when the worst thing you can think of actually happens it is kind of relieving.

2) When Dave dropped Lucy off at nursery he found and caught a real lizard and showed it to all the kids. I never imagined that happening at church! Guess the window had been open.

A side note: Lucy loves Nursery! She has been going for about a month now and couldn't be happier about the whole experience. She runs in there without so much as a thought about Mom and Dad. Usually she freaks whenever I leave, so I can't quite figure it out, but I'm definitely not complaining!

3) I teach CTR 5 and during the closing prayer the little girl prayed "Thank You Jesus for protecting us from the Holy Ghost." It took everything I had not to bust up laughing! What a funny little girl.

What can I say... I love church!

Party Party!!!!

April 7th (I'm slow, but at least it is still April!) we took my now happily married friend, BreeAnn Gwilliam out for her last single night out on the town before she tied the knot! It turned out to be an absolute blast Girl's night out, so here are the pics and night in review!



We started at my house, popped in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and gave BreeAnn hand and foot massages with Satin Hands! Thank You Mary Kay!

Then we played dress up with my family's sweet assortment of costumes, and voted on what BreeAnn had to wear out that night. We chose the 80's pink prom dress, complete with a Bachelorette Sash, crown, and huge light up ring. We completed the outfit with gorgeous hot pink eye makeup! Woo woo!

We went out to Fidel's Norte in Carlsbad for some great Mexican food. We all told our favorite memories of BreeAnn and then we wrote fortunes for BreeAnn predicting her future life, which she read aloud to the group. We played the "If, then Game" with a twist. You had to make up a statement "If BreeAnn..., then Andy..." and then trade so that everyone got mix matched statements. They were very hilarious of course. Then the restaurant brought BreeAnn Dessert and sang "Happy Wedding to You" complete with a guitar serenade. It was fabulous!

Then we headed to "Pump it Up" for some fun games and quite the exercise for a night on the town. Who would have ever imagined a bunch of grown girls at a little kid party place having such a blast! We had the whole place to ourselves and at an extremely good rate! (Thank You to the Bartons!)

We concluded the night with a little ice cream at Mickey D's and then some hot tubbing at my house. What an awesome night! I hadn't had a GNO since before Lucy was born, so this was seriously needed! Anyway, I guess I will conclude by saying congratulations to BreeAnn! I couldn't be happier for you! And last but not least, plan a Girl's Night Out...it is totally worth it!

Happy Easter!

As you can see, Lucy loves the Easter Bunny...

She loves him sooooo much that half of his face is missing now. I am still in the process of gluing him back together. (I said "him," but that sounded weird. Is the Easter bunny a guy or girl? Santa is a guy, so the Easter Bunny should be a girl!)

Jackpot...

Sheer Joy!

Mom, I can't believe you are making me pose like this... Some sweet artistic Easter shots...

Mom...somebody stole my eggs...

ooooo Spill ....and why not eat jellybeans out of the dirt? Mom's too busy taking pictures to stop me from eating them, that will teach her!

"I really hate to ask it, but do you have a basket?"

Name that musical and I will send you a free picture of Lucy!

Today I decided I wanted to write the cool sayings in Hallmark Cards, so listen to my poem about Easter:

I love Baskets

I love Bunnies

I love yummies in my tummy.

I love Sunshine

I love Spring

Isn't Easter a wonderful thing?

I know... can you believe I made that all up on my own?Okay...I guess I won't quit my day job...but I will wish you all a very Happy Easter!

Yay for some words, not for others

Lucy's speech is really coming along. She tries to say almost every word and usually is somewhere close to how it actually sounds. She has started to put two words together, like "all gone" or "I go" or the other night she came out with Dave's shoes on and said "shoes...Daddy" So adorable! Even her politeness is increasing. She usually says "please" (which sounds like "mease") with a big smile, "thank you" (dank do) when you give her anything, and even "Sorry" (pronounced perfectly) after she hits people. The fact that she hits people just to say "Sorry,"... um yeah, we are working on that. It's almost impossible for me to resist giving her what she wants when she says "please" and "thank you" so sweetly, but I am trying really hard to hold strong and make sure she isn't too spoiled!

Just when I was starting to think I had the most genius, most advanced in speech, most cute, most polite, most perfect child on the face of the planet, Lucy graced us with a four letter word, starting with an "f" last Wednesday. Yup, it doesn't get much worse than that folks! While riding in the car, Lucy just started saying the f-bomb like a broken record all the way home. At first I tried to figure out what she was trying to say "Did you want a fork honey?" "Oh did you want your sock off?" "Are you having lots of fun?" "Oh yeah that is a big truck." She just kept on saying the f-word, really slowly and exaggerated, with perfect pronunciation. I decided I would just ignore it and surely she would never say it again, but she has said it at least 10 times every day since then. I usually have to hide my face in my shirt so she doesn't see me laughing. This morning I was helping her say a prayer on her food and she could say "father""thank you" and "food" pretty close to perfect, but then when we got to "bless" it just came out as the f-word. What am I ever going to do with my little angel? I am totally afraid to take her out in public! What do people do to a mother with a 19 month old daughter who cusses? No one will ever want to be our friends! We can just kiss playdates goodbye! Before I had my own child, if I heard a little kid using language like that I would have assumed that the parents had terrible mouths, but now that it has happened to me and I know me and Dave both have clean language, I guess I can chalk this one up as one more lesson in not being judgemental of others. You would think I would have learned that one already! It seems like every time you think something bad about someone else's kid, that exact same thing happens to you. Oh well, we'll get through this! Any advice on this issue is certainly very welcome!

Beach Babe

Lucy has turned into quite the Beach Babe lately. I'm really happy to have a little buddy who is always ready to go with me! It doesn't matter if the water is cold, and her teeth are chattering, there is no getting this gal out of the water.

Heidi is cool... and Lucy wants to be just like her when she grows up

A little sunbathing...

Lucy and Grandma...2 very hot chicks!

Lucy can never resist being chased

We took Lucy in the Kayak for the first time the other day. She loved it...sadly I didn't bring my camera with me that day, but we will get some shots of the sheer joy later.

Lucy's beach code:

If Lucy says "suit" that means "I want to go to the beach, so please put my suit on me"

If Lucy says "shhhhh, two..." that means "I want to chase the birds"

If Lucy says "waw waw" that means "I want to go in the water"

If Lucy says "up" that means "you better get up and come with me" ... you can tell who is in charge at our house!

Monkey

Lucy has turned into quite the Monkey in the last couple of weeks. She swings on everything she can get her hands on...monkey bars, the dinner table, her high chair, the church pue. If you can hold on to it, Lucy can swing on it. She has also learned how to climb up the slide, despite my great attempts to always have her go up the stairs. She just watches the big kids do stuff and there is no telling her that she can't do what they do.

She climbed up this thing by herself...the real question is: Where was her Mother?

And the slide has been conquered...Hey, why not give this thing a climb!

And, last but not least, the sheer joy of swinging!Well, that is Lucy Monkey for you!

Never a Dull Moment!

Try to guess what these pictures were all about?

Family Home Evening at the Poppleton's...there is nothing else quite like it!

Everyone dressed up and then we had to listen for promptings of where to go and what to do. I gave a lesson while we drove about listening to spirit.

Here is where we were prompted to go:

We caroled Happy Easter songs to one of Sierra's friends, Aubrey Dustin, and sang "All I want for Easter is my braces off" since she got her braces off that day.

Then we stopped by the Porterfield's and sang Happy Mission Call to Cody. Dave rang the doorbell and did a little song and dance first, which was hilarious because they don't know Dave. I was soooooo impressed by him. Dave can be stubborn sometimes, but get him in the right mood and you can get an awesome performance out of him! Plus he was wearing my jeans, so it doesn't get any hotter than that!

Our final stop was our Dad's office. It's well into tax season, so we miss our CPA/Father/Grandpa these days. Why not bring the FHE to the office? We sang, of course, "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home." I don't think I will ever get too old to sing that one.

Anyway, if you are in need of a fun FHE, why not dress up as crazy as you can and carol with Easter songs to nice people who you know will still be your friends afterwards?

Personally, I'd make up any excuse to dress up, but maybe that is just me!

Goodbye Diapers...Hello Freedom!

Okay, I lied, we're not saying goodbye to diapers yet... but I am really excited because Lucy went to the bathroom in the toilet for the first time today! I haven't even really been trying to potty train her at all, but I have been talking to her about the toilet and what is supposed to happen. I have let her sit on the toilet a few times (we're talking only about once a week) in the past month, but no serious efforts. We just happened to be in the bathroom changing her into her bathing suit before heading for the Jacuzzi and I asked her if she needed to go to the bathroom. She answered "ya," so not expecting anthing, I put her up there and I was happily surprised! She even did a little bit more in the toilet after our Jacuzzi Dip, before her bath. Go Lucy! Maybe she will just Potty train herself...hey you can always dream...