Two at the Zoo

On Lucy's birthday our family went to the zoo. That's becoming a fun tradition on the girls' birthdays.


The girls had fun, even though the most active animals we could find were probably the meerkats. They found some other things to be interested in, such as the water fountain (Lucy) and the telescope (Bella- she was serious about it- look at that scrunched up face!). We had to talk them into going to find some more animals!

Lucy wanted to see the elephants. She has an elephant bath towel, so we end up talking about elephants a lot. Two elephants were right up close to the window, and Lucy loved watching them. However, the fake elephants in the elephant museum were scary to her. It's a good thing Daddy was there to scoop her up!

They both enjoyed spending time with Daddy, and I enjoyed having him there to help! Just looking at these three pictures makes my back hurt! :)

We got the girls some "Elfin" crackers out of a vending machine, but they insisted on calling them elephant crackers. Of course we rode the train...


What a sweet kiss...although in these close up pictures you can also see the scratches on Bella's face. Guess who scratched her?

This little onery TWO year old did!

Onery one minute, and sweet the next...mostly sweet though!

We ate a quick dinner and went home for presents and cake. Bella was just as thrilled about Lucy's gifts as Lucy (if not more).
Bella picked out this My Little Pony baby pony for Lucy, and I think it's safe to say she loved it!

We love our little Luc!

Dance Becital

Becital = Recital...that's another one of Bella's words. :)

Bella's recital was a couple of weeks ago. She loves to dance. Almost anything can be her stage- a big rock, a porch, a small patch of tiled floor at the post office...

She really enjoyed her dance class this year. Her class tap danced to Blue Suede Shoes, and of course it was really cute!

She had to warm up at home (hot curlers and all!) on the fireplace hearth.
I love that they are all looking in different directions! :)
Bella's fan club this year:
That fan club came armed with flowers- lots of them!

Two May and Two Pigtails!

I can't believe Lucy is almost 2...just a little over a week from now! When people ask how old she is, she has heard me say "She'll be two in May" for a while. So now when we ask her how old she is she says "TWO MAY!"
Pigtails! I was just playing with her hair while we were all watching a movie together, and believe it or not, there was finally enough hair for pigtails!

She had to check it out in the mirror, and was pretty proud of her new do!

She wanted to sleep with her pigtails in, but we thought that might make for even crazier morning hair than usual!

4 1/2

We have a 4 1/2 year old now! 4 1/2 sounds way too close to 5, and 5 just sounds so old! I'm so thankful that Bella has an October birthday so that we have one more whole school year before she goes to kindergarten. She will be more than ready when the time comes...me, not. At the preschool parent-teacher conference, her teacher said if all of the kids were like Bella, they would have a perfect class. I couldn't be more proud!

Here are some of the latest Bella-isms!

She has several words that she just doesn't quite get right each time, but it's so cute, I hate to correct her!

forehead = "forsehead"

lemonade = "lemolade"

ear infection = "ear confection"

remember = "memember"

cook = "coouuk" (she loves to help Daddy coouuk hot dogs outside)

dessert = "bizert"

A few other funny things she says:

Sometimes when she gets in trouble for something, she will cry and cry, and I will eventually tell her she needs to quiet down and quit crying. She almost always responds with "but my WHOLE BODY just feels like crying." Now maybe that's a little dramatic, but who can argue with that (haven't we all felt that way before)?

She will kind of tattle on herself...and the red flag for this is when she starts with "I kind of just..." (fill in with "spilled my drink" or "got paint on the wall"). She thinks the "kind of just" will get her out of any trouble.

She is very concerned about "wetness"...if there is a drop of water on the floor, or if I give her a plate right out of the dishwasher, she quickly points it out. "Mommy, there is WETNESS on this!"

We were at Target and Bella was sitting in the cart and when I touched her, she shocked me. She was very concerned about the shock and where it came from. "Why do I have the shocks? Was I born with the shocks?"

We were organizing the craft cabinet and Bella found a Hello Kitty notebook and said, "OH! I have been looking for that for YEARS!"