This Week in Pictures

Hello!  Ok, I have about 8 million pictures here that I want to post on the blog, so rather than write a bunch about our week (which was not too exciting...this is a good thing!) I thought I would just post these with captions.  I know there are too many, but I love all of these and want to have them up so I can look at them when our girls are at college and we are relaxing in Jamaica.

This is Lucy's boyfriend, Oden.  He is older than Lucy by about 6 weeks, but Lucy is a bit (ok, a LOT) bigger than Mr. Oden, who has a much more petite mother than me:)  Lucy went to his birthday party (her first!) last month, where Oden told me he actually prefers a larger woman.   Here they are having a quiet moment in the hallway.

Lucy will be ONE YEAR OLD tomorrow!  We can hardly believe it.  We are excited that we survived the year!  She is looking cuter and cuter each day, as this series of photos clearly illustrates!

Lucy loves playing in Maddie's room!  And by "playing," I mean "systematically destroying anything she can reach".  That's right, our Lucy is hell.  On.  Wheels.

I think she is just trying to figure out what she is going to grab next.  She actually likes to just sort of blindly pat surfaces that are above her head, and then pull down whatever she finds.  We have a lot of empty tabletops at the Poppish house these days.

I took these when Lucy woke up from her morning nap.  They both look completely nuts!

Maddie practicing her...ballet, maybe?  as Lucy looks on.  She's quite talented.

I love my new camera!  I bought a book and was trying to take photos at different focal lengths.  I really liked how these turned out!

The Moose loves a close-up!

Maddie gets tired of me taking her picture (She runs away from me while saying "CHEESE!"), but on this particular morning she was in the mood to humor me.  I love this one!

So I got all artsy and decided to take some of Lucy through her crib bars, and I thought they turned out great.  While I am relieved that she is a little older now and she and Maddie are playing so well,these photos made me sad because she looks so babyish, and I know that won't last much longer.

Mini Maddie!

I liked this one because you can see the Moose screaming like a maniac in the background.

Funny girls.

Perfect:)

Lucy loves to scream and squeal more than any baby I've ever seen.  Especially at naptime.  For an HOUR.  It's been a fun week with the sleeping, let me tell you!

Maddie has been saying the funniest things.  This week at daycare she was doing something or other and a little girl was next to her watching.  Maddie turned to Trisha (the little girl) and said, "A wittle help, pwease?"



No longer interested in modeling.  I think it's the constant pressure...

Mom came to visit last week while Luke was in Florida with his parents, and I finally got our bedroom all finished!  Of course I don't have any "after" pictures to post.  Just trust me, it's magnificent!  Lucy and Maddie were kind enough to help me get things finished.  Maddie did some taping while Lucy tasted the paint to make sure it was safe for use.

I really like this photo.  Maddie loves to crawl with Lucy.  And anytime Lucy crawls, well, anywhere, Maddie likes to scream and giggle and say that "Moosie is twyin to get me!"

Crawling after Lucy.

Mom made cupcakes for the girls while she was here and had a little birthday party lunch with them.  She left that afternoon while they were napping, and when Maddie woke up she only wanted to know "Where's my birfday pawty?"

I will admit that I have about 20 photos of Maddie expressing her love of the cupcake to post.  She just looks SO excited.  This is how I secretly feel about cupcakes, too.

This really was so fun!

Lucy loves to clap...as long as you're clapping with her! 

Mom did her best to get Maddie to eat fish sticks before she got to the cupcakes.

Here come all of the cupcake shots.

She was literally laughing only at the prospect of eating cupcakes...she was that excited.

Which one should be first?



Mimi showed Maddie how to lick the candles,  a time-honored family tradition.

Moosie got cupcakes, too!  She's rocking a mullet look in these photos, I don't know why...sorry Lucy!  I feel like it's too soon to take her for a haircut, but there's no way I can do it myself--trying to change Lucy's diaper is like trying to get a diaper on a worm having a seizure...I have no interest in attempting haircuts.

Lucy DESTROYED this cupcake!  I don't think she's ever really had sweets before, other than ice cream, so it was like a whole new world!  It was so fun to watch!  The ones from her birthday are even better.  

I love how in all of Lucy's cupcake shots she is like, palming the cupcake and shoving it into her face. 

Everyone's riding a pretty sweet sugar high at this point.  Lucy looks like she's about to jump out of her own skin.

Since mom was there I actually got to be in a few photos.  I am using a  new photo editor now and did not get to use the "facial touchup" option in these shots.  I'm going to have to start wearing actual make-up, now.

Lucy does some clapping for me.  It's her primary means of communication, really.  She LOVES it when she claps, you see her clapping and respond with clapping and a big "yaaay!!".  She always looks at me like, "You get me, mom.  You really get me."

Ok, this is the last one of the kids.  Maddie loves those starfish at the butterfly pavilion.   The next shots are really for my mom so that she can tell me I'm doing a good job with my photos and also pick something to paint.  I really enjoyed going  to the butterfly pavilion and ignoring the children while practicing my photography skills--although for some reason Luke didn't look quite so amused.  Hmmm.

This one looked PERFECT on my camera, but then when I uploaded it the flower was blurry:(

Lucy looking at the butterflies.

I took these when Maddie woke up from her nap.  She really gave the camera everything she had, which proves that letting your toddlers watch "America's Next Top Model" really does pay off.

She's kind of perfect.

I have to move *so* fast to get Maddie in a picture...in this one she moved down and I literally only caught the top of her hair!  It's part of why the manual settings on my camera get me so frustrated--everything blurs!

Bear with me, a few more flower shots for mom.

So as soon as we can get the energy to undertake a big project, we're going to do our kitchen.  I *swear* we're getting around to it any...month now.  Lucy makes me crazy because she constantly goes over to the bakers rack with our pots and pans, looking to explore.  They are so heavy so I spend 50% of my mornings pulling her away from it, and I usually just end up carrying her around.

Maddie always sees me tell Lucy, "No no no, Lucy!  Get away from there!"  And since Maddie really loves bossing the Moose around, here she is saying, "No no no Moose!"  She always does it in this sing song voice, mimicking me. 

As you can see, Lucy takes her really seriously.

Clearly 100% deterred by Maddie's instructions.

Ah, God.  Lucy *loves* her bottle.  She's truly attached to it in a way Maddie never was, and we of course use it as a pacifier (which we also, of course, lie to the pediatrician about:)).  So I'm going to take her off the bottle next Friday.  Poor Moose.  I really feel sad for her.

And with this funny shot of Maddie, we're finished!  Again sorry I didn't really exercise any editing skills this week!  Next post is Lucy's birthday, which was wonderful.  We love our Lucy, and since she often takes a backseat to Maddie at this age, we were so happy to have a special time to celebrate *just* Lucy!  (Maddie did not quite see it this way.)  Sue and Dave get here in a week and a half for our ski trip, we can't wait!  This afternoon we're going shopping for a snow suit for Maddie.  Have a great week, everyone!