Guess What? Time for Lucyisms!

"Hey Mommy, guess what?"....I took off my shoes, Bella took off her shoes, Santa is coming to our house, My dolly is taking a nap...

Pretty much, Lucy starts most of her sentences with "GUESS WHAT?"
Apparently I say that a lot, but I didn't realize that until she started saying it all of the time!
Here are some other ones:

After hearing Bella tell us new Spanish words that she is learning at preschool, Lucy decided to chime in too. She had just watched the Ni Hao Kai-Lan show (kind of like a Chinese version of Dora) and she said:
"I know how to say baby in Chinese...you say CHINESE BABY!"
LUCY'S LOGIC:
"I want a cookie because... I really want a cookie"

"I don't want to take a nap because... I just don't want to."

"I want to watch a movie because... you are NOT going to say NO."
(my favorite, but not always in the moment)

LUCY ON ANATOMY:
"My tummies hurt." (there are 2 arms, 2 hands, 2 legs, 2 feet, and apparently, 2 tummies!)

"My nose is naughty." or "There is naughty in my nose." (naughty instead of snotty)

Me: "Lucy, what happened to your candy cane?"
Lucy: "It's in there (pointing to her mouth), with my tinkles."
(Eww, I know, but she doesn't realize there is a digestive process yet!)

This little 2 1/2 year old, who often likes to say she is 5 (like Bella), is so much fun. I love to see and hear how her mind is working. She has her 2 YEAR OLD moments, but she also has lots of very sweet moments too.
***And for the record, I don't usually allow the girls to eat cupcakes on their beds! Honestly, it was all about bribery and trying to good Christmas card picture!***

Halloween and Thanksgiving

For Halloween, Bella was a butterfly and Lucy was a ladybug...a very grouchy ladybug, I must add. Lucy ran a fever most of the week between Bella's birthday and Halloween. I was so glad her fever was gone by Halloween, but apparently she still wasn't up for trick-or-treating. We made it to our next door neighbor's house (above), and then it went downhill from there!
She wanted me to hold her from that moment on. It was a bit of a challenge to carry her the whole way and try to get some pictures of Bella at the same time. Brian was at the OSU-Texas game on Halloween night, and oh how I wished he hadn't gone (he did too!).
We trick-or-treated with Brian's side of the family.
Lucy did let Aunt Lisa hold her for about 2 minutes!
I think it's safe to say that Bella DID have a great time though!
With cousins AJ and Jake:
On Thanksgiving, we went to my mom's cousin's house to be with several members of that side of our family. Michael, Stephanie, Sarah (my mom's cousin's college aged kids) and Michael's fiance Leah sat at the table with the little kids and just let them be the center of attention. The little kids loved that!

Lucy made a meal of pickles and mashed potatoes!
We ate, played a game of football, and then ate some more. Bella and Jack even got guitar lessons!
This is my sweet and sometimes spunky 90-year-old Grannie. I reminded Bella that Grannie made the Raggedy Ann and Andy (originally for me) that she now plays with all of the time.

Continuing with the Fancy

I'll just pick up where I left off...this (above) is how Bella went to bed the night of her birthday party. She put on as many of her new birthday gifts as she could to wear to bed.
Below is the next night. Notice a pattern? She likes those accessories!
We had planned to go to the zoo as family (per tradition) on her actual birthday, but Lucy wasn't feeling well enough. We weren't about to leave her behind, so we did what we could to make the day fun anyway.
We started at the doughnut shop- yum! Then we walked over to a nail salon that has special pedicure chairs for little girls. We left with 20 purple toes! Bella's big toes even had a special Halloween design on them.

Poor Luc! She did liven up quite a bit after a while and decided to get her toes done too!
The FIVE year old's toes:

And sweet little 2 year old toes:

While Lucy was having a much needed long afternoon nap, Bella and I baked her cake. Then she got to decorate it. She did not take the role of decorating lightly! I think Fancy Nancy would be proud.

After Bella's soccer practice that evening, she chose to eat at "Tin Stars," her favorite restaurant. Finally, Bella got to open her gifts. Brian thought to get a little something for Lucy too. Good idea, Daddy!
Bella's main gift from our family was (so shocking, I know) a Fancy Nancy doll. I think she liked it! :)

Happy Birthday to our wonderful, sweet, beautiful, fancy 5 year old!

Fancy Five!

Bella loves Fancy Nancy books, so we decided to have a "fancy" birthday party. Fancy Nancy likes to speak in French, say things like "ooh la la", and dress up in all kinds of fancy accessories. I had help from former French teacher Momo with making the little signs!
Did you know that the Eiffel Tower has a big flower poof, and giant butterflies on it?
We had more kids than ever her birthday party since she invited all of the girls from her class and all of the girls on her soccer team. Most of those girls are Fancy Nancy fans too, and some even came dressed like Nancy! For those that wanted to add to their fanciness, we had the "Get Fancy" table.

We wouldn't dare leave out Bella's boy friends (I'll keep those two words separate for Brian's sake), so we had some fancy options for them too. Everett was quite the willing participant!
And so were Bella's cousins Tyler and Noah. They even wore the stick on mustaches while eating ice cream...talent!
Bella's cousins Jack and Andrew even came a little fancy, which I'm sure was completely their idea. :) I loved it!
Bella's cousins Taylor and Bailey painted the girls' fingernails in sparkly polish and offered stick on earrings. What would we do without these older, helpful cousins?
Lucy was showing me her nails! :)
Papa even came up with a fancy, firework-like candle for Bella's cake. She really was more impressed with that than she looks in this picture!
And, wow, she is growing up!

Good Job Daddy (and his helpers)!

When I found out that I was going to be out of town for school pictures, I might have panicked just a little bit. I know it doesn't REALLY matter what school pictures look like, but I want them to reflect what the girls look like on a day to day basis right now. For Lucy, that means pigtails.

The problem was that Brian doesn't do pigtails. He has pretty well mastered the ponytail, but that's where it stops. He kept avoiding my attempts to give him a lesson in pigtails before I left, so I wasn't sure what picture day hair would be.

As you can see, we had pigtails!!! And Bella has freshly combed hair with a matching bow. These are my favorite school pictures ever!

While a big thank you goes out to Brian for being the Mom and the Dad while I was gone, a big thank you goes out to Bella's and Lucy's teachers for doing their hair. Bella's teacher had an extra bow of her daughter's in her purse, and Lucy's teacher nailed the pigtails. Apparently a desperate dad face at 9:00 am on school picture day goes a long way! :)

An Evening Out

On birthdays in our little family of four, we always let the birthday girl (or boy- Brian!) pick where to go out to dinner. For my birthday, the choice was more about where the girls would be happy to eat and maybe, just maybe, allow for a somewhat peaceful dining experience!
We went to Olive Garden, and I took along my camera hoping to be able to walk around afterward at Utica and take some pictures of the girls. Bella fell asleep on the way there, and kept right on sleeping. Lucy was having fun being the center of attention for a while- can you tell?


This was Bella...she loves her accessories lately! She even insists on putting a headband on every night after her bath.
Dinner went pretty well, although it only took about 30 seconds after we sat down for a finger to get smashed in between chairs. That sent me flying back outside with a very sad 2 year old, but she got over if fast, and all was well after that!
The girls were looking down at something on the ground so I told them to keep their chins up while I took the picture. They really listened to that!
Bella kept finding places she wanted to pose for her picture. One time, it was in front of a trash can; another time, in front of the doors of Miss Jackson's. Below, Ann Taylor is in the background. She kept it well rounded.
And Lucy kept on keeping her chin up! What a pose!
Bella insisted on a picture with this statue.
Time to go home and have some cake!