Ballet at its finest

From her bun to her perfect ballet position, these pictures just make me smile. Partly because we got this awesome ballet outfit, along with 4 other dress up outfits for free at a garage sale the other day (it pays to bring a cute girl, who goes crazy at the first sight of a dress)! I mean this is 4th position complete with a ballet bar:

Passe:

Arabesque:

All that learned in only one night's ballet lesson, thanks to her wonderful live in instructor, (that would be me. Yeah, maybe one lucky day I will be able to convince Dave that ballet lessons would benefit Lucy's athletic coordination, but for now she will have to make do with my ballerina dropout skills)!

Dolphins

Wow...that's really all I can say!

Yesterday we had a really close encounter with 3 Dolphins, closer than I can ever remember in all my days at the beach. All three of them leapt out of the water at one point (wish I could have caught that on camera). What a majestic experience. I included the next picture, just to give you some perspective of how close they actually were to the beach. You can see the fin right there in the breaking water.

After the dolphins swam by, I got in an artsy mood and shot these pics of Lucy's footprints. Looking back at them, I was actually kind of impressed, although you can't tell how cute and little they are. What do you think? I have always (okay, only for a few years now) wanted to be a photographer. Do you think I would have a shot (get it, shot?,lol, okay I'll stop being lame now, you can stop reading and give them a quick look)?

Bubbles

As I was refilling the soap dispenser, I poured way too much in the bottle and let the excess run into the sink...and I will just let the pictures do the rest of the talking!
I should mention that when Lucy says "bubble" it is one of my favorite words. She has perfect pronunciation and also calls her burps "bubbles" as well. I taught her that just because I wanted to hear her say the word more, silly, I know.
Don't even try to claim that you have never made faces in the mirror before...we've all done it! Just FYI, this next group of pictures was entirely unsolicited by me. I was just standing back and capturing the moment...enjoy!

Practice your kissing, why not??...

Lucy Pendergrass, you are much too young to be practicing your make out skills!!!

And I was left with one very soaked, yet very happy kid!

Animals

At the Wild Animal park (a few weeks ago, yes I'm behind and just realized how far behind when I loaded up 400 pictures, yikes!) we saw this baby elephant. He was only one month old! Spring is such a fun time to visit this place...there were so many mom's and babies.

Seriously, though...how sweet is that! You can just feel how much the Mommy elephant loves her baby. I was too lazy to post on Mother's Day, but now I wish I would have put this picture up. Oh well, I guess you can honor mothers on any day!

Although we saw lots of good stuff, most of out time was spent at the petting zoo! Nothing like touching a bunch a dear, huh? Well, Lucy thinks so, and I remember feeling the same way not too long ago. Now I just enjoy taking pictures and have no desire to give them a cuddle. I guess that's just cuz I have my own little girl to love and hold and cuddle (when she isn't running around, which totals about 3 minutes a day)!

We were teaching Lucy about horns, as demonstrated... Good Times!

Support Creativity Month

Okay, I don't really know if it is Creativity Month, but there seems to be a month for everything these days, so I am dubbing May that month. (Please feel free to correct me if there really is a creativity month some other month, but beware if you are the first five to comment you are going to have to comply!Hehehe!)

The first five people to respond to this post will receive something made by me. HOMEMADE! The item will be my choice made just for you! This is an offer you can't refuse!

Restrictions and Limitations:
1. I have complete creative freedom (meaning you don't have to like it!)
2. What I create will be just for you
3. It will be done within the next year
4. You have no clue what it will be. It may be personalized note cards. I might bake something. I might write you poetry. I might not think of anything until 1 year from now...who knows? Not you that is for sure!

The catch?You must re-post this on your own blog and offer the same giveaway to 5 people who comment. The first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they are in, will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift from me! Be sure to post a picture of what you get!

Here's to creativity!

Little Lucy Moments

A few little moments to share from the last week



1. Last week Lucy fell down the stairs. After doing a complete backwards sommersault she miraculously landed on her feet! Can you believe that? She still cried and a had a little bit of a bloody nose, but really it was a miracle and I couldn't be more grateful. She is either going to be an olympic gymnast someday, or there were angels who brought her down safely. The stairs are carpeted, but the floor is hardwood at the bottom, so it would have been bad. She is actually really good at going down the stairs, but she was running away from me trying to wipe her bum after using the potty. She gets really overexcited when anyone chases her and runs super fast... I guess she couldn't handle the stairs at that pace yet.



2. Lucy has been doing great using the potty. She still doesn't always tell me when she has to go, but I would say we make it to the toilet 50% of the time with "number 1." I haven't pushed her at all, so I am very impressed with her. Yesterday she did her first "number 2" in the toilet, so I just had to share how excited I am! We were at the Church teaching Webelos, when she told me she had to go. Usually she tells me too late, but this time we made it. I thought it was kind of funny that it finally happened at the church and not at home. I thought toddlers did better with regular routines and such, but there seems to be nothing routine about my little girl. (Or maybe she just has a crazy mom who couldn't keep a normal routine if her life depended on it!) Either way, yay! Only Mom's of potty trained or traing individuals will probably think that is cool, and the rest probably just think that is gross, but this is kind of my brag page, and right now I am proud of toilet training, soooooo...sorry, you had the choice whether to read my blog or not!



3. Today Lucy pointed at a parked red convertible Mustang and said "Mine." What can I say? She is a girl who knows what she wants!



4. The other day I fell and scraped my knee, while holding Lucy. Lucy was fine, but my knee was bleeding and gross. It totally freaked her out and she cried the whole way home. I think this was the first time she had seen blood, and it really upset her. She kept pointing and saying "owie," then she would whack herself and say "owie" and keep crying. Then she kept wanting to kiss my owie, (I let her kiss a different part of my leg), all while crying histerically. I think she was just really tired and upset or maybe it just shook her up realizing that Mommy could get hurt too. Hopefully she is not one of those seriously whimpy people who has to be excused from biology whenever they disect something, but I guess that wouldn't be the worst problem your child could have.

Anyway, I love watching Lucy's personality emerge. She is hilarious, sweet, bratty, athletic, musical and an overly loved child! I say it all the time, and I am sure Lucy will continue to prove me wrong as she grows more wonderful every day, but I will say it again "I couldn't love her more!"

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!