Lucy's First Movie

We tried to take Lucy to see her first Movie, "Up" (about an old man who launched his house with millions of balloons) on September 5th, as an added Birthday Bonus, but it was sold out! I even took a picture of her outside the theater with Nana (who visited us to celebrate Lucy's Birthday) to signify the great event, before we found out we weren't going! Oh well, it is still a cute shot.
We took Lucy later that week on September 9th. She didn't really know the difference I guess. She loved the movie, and I was surprised how good she was.


Funny fact about Lucy, whether at home or at the theater Lucy's eyes water whenever she watches shows. She forgets to blink (I used to think she was crying). We have to remind her to blink the whole time. It is sweet.

It was a really cute show! Dave and I both cried just within the first 15 minutes, so you know it was good for both child and parent. It had a sweet message about enjoying life at every age!

I would recommend it whether you have children to take to it or not!

Lucy's Birthday Party

September 4 We went swimming at Lani's pool, let Lucy watch Disney movies (she chose "Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin," both she hadn't seen before. It was kind of a celebration of the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no t.v. watching before age 2! We are so excited to start sharing our favorite childhood movies with her. Plus I felt really sick in the evening and didn't know what else to do with her.) She went to the dollar store and picked out a princess necklace and then to the ward Fish Fry with Dave for dinner. I think she had a really fun day, which was the goal!

This is the only picture we got of Lucy on her actual Birthday, September 4. I realized we hadn't taken any pictures of her, so sleeping is better than none, plus I thought how she was completely turned around with her feet on the pillow was hilarious. She is such a crazy sleeper!



September 5 we had a party with all the neighborhood kids. Here is the invite we made. I am sometimes not very crafty so I am really proud. I had Lucy color a bunch of paper and then I cut them out and pasted them on the backside of brown paper bags. Lucy helped me write the invitations by handing me the correct color markers when I asked for them (I didn't know she knew her colors so well, but I would say she gave me the right color about 90% of the time. Yay Lucy!).


We started the party with fishy crackers. Check out the monstrous handful Lucy just grabbed. This explains the funny faces she is making in the next couple of pictures.



First Activity was an obstacle course. They had to dress up (girls in princess clothes, boys in Dave's clothes) crawl through the playhouse and then under the hi chair as shown below.Then hop over a bucket 5 times, throw 3 balls into a laundry basket, and then shake the music shakers and dance for 10 seconds (Lucy shaking pictured below).


To finish you had to make a tower 5 blocks high. We timed the kids and they had a blast. We had over 20 kids there (I know I am crazy! But I love having all the neighborhood kids over). Here is Lucy with her tower and a face still full of fishy crackers, even after the entire obstacle course!


Then we played animal charades. I cut out animals from magazines and had the kids choose one and act it out until someone guessed it.

Then we played drop the clothespins in the bucket as pictured below.
Not everyone played...some just doted on Lucy. She looks like such a little princess surrounded by all these fun girls giving her attention in this picture. They are such sweet girls! I love our neighborhood!
Before we finished the Birthday song, Lucy was already diving in. I just stacked Costco brownies for the cake. I didn't feel good the day before so I let Dave talk me into going the easy route for a few things. We forgot candles, to top off our already kind of interesting cake, so we put Belle and Beast on top and had her blow them over. Hey, it worked!


We finished the party by building towers with blocks. It was a hit!


Zach is so cute!


And here are some of the sweet girls, Linea, Mathilde and Aynslee
Here is a rocket launch

And here is an attack on Dave


Here is the gang. Some of the kids already had to leave and some were just playing in the house and not to be disturbed, but here is the majority.

We tried to wait until everyone went home to have Lucy open presents, but a few girls really wanted to stay and watch. It was so fun to watch the excitement on her face!

Princess Shoes


Princess Panties

A Barbie Tricycle (that we got at a yard sale in great condition for a few bucks! Yay!)

Dave's Mom Lisa came and spoiled her with a few awesome Princess Belle things, and a Toy Laptop as well.

A tired little girl after the party! What a sweetie! I can't believe she is 2 already!

Happy Birth Month (Since this post is so late)! We love you!

Lucy Quotes & Update

At Target the other day, Lucy plopped down on one of the display's and exclaimed: "Nice Couch" The way she said it was soooo funny. Then she asked "Mama, come sit down!"

"Itsy Bitsy Spider" I always thinking she is asking for "peanut butter" but then I see her spider like hand motions!

"Mommy Quengrass" Lucy started calling me "Mommy Quengrass" instead of "Wendy Pendergrass."

Instead of saying "The End" at the end of books she says "Amen." I love it, and can't find it in my heart to correct her. I hope she says this as long as possible.

"I cowy" which mean "I want to color" Lucy was sleep talking the other night. She woke up intensely demanding "I cowy" at 3:00 a.m. Then she fell back over and went to sleep. It is such a crack up when she sleep talks.

"Beauty and Beast. Sowa (Cinderella) Belle Please ha ha ha ha ha" Lucy always says this. It is her joke. Especially when she is tired and we are driving. She will say this about 20 times, laughing hysterically after each time and then just conk out. It is such a funny little joke!

September 22 Before Bed

Me: "Lucy it's time to say prayers"

Lucy: "Mommy, Daddy, Amen." She said as quickly as possible and then started climbing in bed.

Me: "Lucy can you start with 'Dear Heavenly Father?'"

Lucy: "No Dear Heavenly Father. I sleep!" as she put her head down on the pillow and tucked in. I guess she was pretty tired.


That last story reminded me of Nursery on Sunday (I wasn't there, but my sister went in for a little while). I guess the leader asked "Who wants to pray?" and without being called on Lucy said "I pray! Mommy Daddy Amen." Then the nursery leader said to all the other children still raising there hands "I guess we already had a prayer. Good prayer Lucy." She is a girl who knows how to get what she wants, that is for sure. She is already wheeling and dealing. If I tell her she can have one of something (like a bedtime story for example) she asks for two. If I finally give in and say she can have two, she asks for five. What a little bargain maker. So hilarious!

Since Lucy's birthday I have been putting more effort into potty training. She has only had 3 accidents in the last 6 days. I am so proud of her! All it took was princess panties and Lucy was totally on board! Although we still put a diaper on her for bed, I am loving all the diaper savings! Woo hoo! Go Lucy!

I love having a two year old!

Arches Adventure Day 3

September 3 - Arches Adventure- Day 3

We started the beautiful morning on the swing set. You can just barely see the beautiful red rock and sunflowers in the background if you look closely.

While hiking to Landscape Arch, we encountered a huge, cool lizard. Dave was happy to see something cool, even if we didn't get to see any scorpions on our trip (that is what he was hoping for!)



Lucy hiked almost the whole mile to see Landscape Arch (she wimped out once we hit a sandy portion of the trail). This was one of my favorite arches. It is so long and skinny. Very impressive that you can find things like this in nature, somebody must have had a little fun along with all the hard work creating the world.

Here's Lucy flashing a big smile from her sacrificial diaper changing rock. It made for a nice changing table.


The entrance to the Sand Dune Arch. Lucy says "No Trespassing!"

A family pic a little bit farther into the hike

I am making this hike sound long. It was only .2 miles, but it was beautiful so I took a lot of pictures on the "long" sandy trek. Here is Dave scaling the crevice.


This was definitely Lucy's favorite Arch. Shoes off, rolling down the dune. This is the life.

The sand was sooooooo soft! We spent the most time here out of anywhere that we visited in the park. It just felt too good to sit barefoot in the shade.

Here is a picture on our way out of Lucy copying her Daddy.


Goodbye arches. We love you!


This was an amazing trip! I can't believe I have lived in Utah for so long and this was my first trip here. I had camped in Goblin Valley before, which wasn't very far away, but had never made it out here. I just had no idea it was so breathtaking. I thought we would get here and see two cool arches and then be ready to go. Instead, there were hundreds of arches, and even when there weren't arches there were extremely impressive rock structures. It's only 3 hours from P-town, so make sure you visit on your next Utah trip!

Arches Adventures- Days 1-2

Arches Adventures - Days 1-2

September 1st and 2nd

Happy Birthday Heidi! In Honor of you, we traveled South and went camping!

We decided in the afternoon on September 1st, we better go on a cool trip before Dave gets a job and may have a more complicated process to get time off.

So at 7:00 p.m. we made up our minds to leave right away. We threw everything in the car as fast as we could and were on the road by 7:30 p.m. Dave and I are just like that sometimes. Neither one of us really likes to plan very far in advance.

Since we left so late we stopped at Green River to camp. This was Lucy's first time sleeping in a tent so of course we documented it with a picture. She really loved the tent, although she didn't display that by sleeping very well in it.


Outside Arches National Park Visitor center Lucy found a friend that also had two ponies.


Our first stop along the trek, Park Avenue.

At this point, I looked at some map and thought we could hike to "Balanced Rock" from here. So we went on a hike, and luckily after only one mile we came to the road again and realized that "Balanced Rock" was miles away. I guess what they say about women reading maps might be true, at least for me. Dave hiked back and got the car for us. I was extremely impressed with Lucy, because she hiked the whole mile and absolutely refused to be carried. Even when we stopped to wait for Dave to get the car, she wanted to keep hiking.

Here are some pictures of our very awesome, short hike to the road that we drove on to get to "Balanced Rock":

Lucy going under a Lucy sized arch that we found



Dave and Lucy, with "The Three Gossips" in the Background



Here is the cool rock Lucy and I ate lunch underneath, while Dave fetched the car.

After getting in the car and driving 9 miles, we finally reached "Balanced Rock." I am sure glad we didn't try to keep hiking there!

Here is Dave and Lucy trying to blow "Balanced Rock" over

Pretty cool, huh?


And we don't look like we have been sweating out here or anything

Here is Lucy trying to balance her own rocks. These interested her much more than the random huge balanced rock above her head.


Ah, and here is the artist in me, capturing the real "Balanced Rock" with Lucy trying to balance her rock. I thought it was sweet.


Do you think Dave is strong enough to push it over?


Maybe with the help of Lucy he can. Lucy didn't understand what we were doing of course, but she really wanted to pretend to do whatever Daddy was doing too. I couldn't get her to line up perfectly, but she sure tried hard.


Here is one of the Window Arches. I thought it was pretty cool and worth a picture.


Here is the other Window Arch (I think).


Double Arches (This was one of my favorites!)



Dave asked some ladies, while video taping, "Where's the arches? Are they up here somewhere?" while we were standing underneath them. They were foreign and tried to explain to us that we were already there. We pretended to react as though we had no idea we were right underneath it. It was funny. Maybe if I get highly motivated sometime I will post the video.



Here is the view from up at the arch



Who's that hot silhouette?


It's me!


Here is the most famous "Delicate Arch"which is also on our license plate. We didn't hike to it because Lucy was asleep and it was supposedly a somewhat hard, 3 hour hike. Maybe next trip. It's not too bad of a shot, zoomed completely in with my camera.

After a long hot Day, we set up camp at Slide Rock campground in Moab. The campsites were pretty small and shabby, but they had a pool and that was all that mattered to Lucy. Even the freezing temperature didn't stop her. Here she is jumping in (one of her favorite pool pastimes).


Look at the love on those faces, even through chattering teeth.


What a perfect ending to a perfect day! We celebrated the evening by going to the grocery store and buying Green Machine Naked Juice, which we also discovered was one of Lucy's favorite things (as well as mine). The adventures aren't over yet! Stay tuned for Day 3 of our Arches Adventures tomorrow.