Mr. Al

Lucy and I went to a children's concert at the Masonic Temple in Old Town on Friday. She loved all the dancing and singing, clapping, spinning, twirling and jumping that was not only encouraged but demanded by "Mr. Al". The kids were all nuts dancing and singing and it was such a nice change of pace for us. Lucy took her new tag-along friend, a stuffed reindeer that her Mama gave her last year. He seems to need to go to every concert, parade, grocery outing, and other excursion we go on. We've already had to sew on the antlers twice and I'm sure he will need a bath before too long.

Side note: speaking of baths, Lucy dropped La La into the toilet the other day. At first it sent her into a tizzy, scared and screaming and crying. Then all of the sudden she thought it was hilarious that La La would take a swim in the toilet and be possibe covered in poop and pee pee. It was all she could talk about for about 2 days.

Zoo Trip

Lucy and I went to the zoo the other day. Of course, it is one of her favorite places on Earth so it never fails us, but we had an evven better time there than usual. The seals were leaping out of the water, the lions and tigers were running around their habitats and roaring nonstop, the gorillas were picking (and eating) their boogers (which Lucy found hilarious), the orangutans were climbing and chewing bubble gum, blowing bubbles and being very silly (and one is named Lucy!), the goats were head butting (another one of those is names Lucy as well!), the baby panda was chasing a ball around her pen, and a hippo was jumping into the water and splashing, playing with a ball and really showing us her teeth. The elephants were eating apples and the alligators were moving all around their little lagoon. Needless to say, she was so thrilled with everything!

Andrew's 2nd birthday

We headed to the National Building Museum on Sat to celebrate Andrew Heath's 2nd birthday. He and Lucy ran wild through the building zone, plowing through other kids with dump trucks, stacking and knocking over blocks and towers, playing in the big playhouse and acting like total nuts. Lucy as usual began obsessing about eating pizza about half way through the party and convinced everyone that they needed to eat lunch at 10:30am.

They had so much fun and Augustin, Paolo, Andrew and Lucy all looked so cute in their yellow construction hats running wild in the main room that towers above us all and Damon and Lauren got to come with us to see what these parties are all about.

Special Projects

Lucy is determined to do a "special project" each and everyday. All this entails is some sort of craft, painting, gluing or beading craft- but she loves it and is keeping me on my toes with coming up creative things for her to do. Lauren and Zanne helpfully stepped in while they were in town to lead the craft charge. Lucy and Zanne made a handful of holiday pictures, puppets and snowmen (all complete with a zillion googly eyes courtesy of Lucy) and Lauren entertained the little crafter with making turkeys, ornaments, and bugs out of pipecleaners. She was so excited to take the ornaments to school for her Panda room Christmas tree and is still admiring her snowman work which proudly hangs in her "gallery" in her room.

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving by hosting Dick and Zanne, Lauren and Damon (no longer Diamond in Lucy's vocab, but we are working on it), and our friends Erin, Andrew and Jay. Even though the entire house had been suffering from one cold, flu or other bug or another, we had a great time. We ate ourselves silly and Lucy and Andrew loved having each other to play with. Dick and Zanne were in town for the week (since Ian's race) and Lauren and Damon were in for about half as long and we were able to celebrate Damon's big 29th birthday with him.

Fun at Andrew's

50 miles!

Ian ran and finished a 50 mile race today. He finished around 300th in the race of more than 1,000 people in about 9.5 hours. Lucy kept asking all day, "Is Daddy STILL running?" Yes, he was, and we sure were proud at the end of the day when he finished strong, having not walked or stopped the entire length of the race!

Monkeys and bananas

Bon Bon brought Lucy some monkey and banana pajamas that she is crazy for! She has spent entire days in them and even asked to wear them to school.

Naples, FL

Well, we were awfully excited to get to the beach for a lazy week in the sun. Instead, we got a sick kid with a double ear infection, strep throat, a stomach virus, severe diaper rash and a head cold that we all ended up getting. Lucy still was wanting a willing to head to the beach at evry given chance, but we were exhausted from trips to the drugstore, late nights and 4am diaper changes. Through all that, she still loved playing with Bon Bon, still wanted to eat pineapple, still wanted to hit the swimming pool's water slide and was a happy little lark. She is feeling much better now and is back at school and visiting with her Gramzie and Pop Pop.

New Halloween photos

Playing in leaves