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!

Where have we been???

Oh my.  It would seem that, as soon as I realized that Maddie really "got" Christmas this year, I started a maniacal quest to create some sort of insane June Cleaver-esque winter wonderland Christmas fantasyland "experience" for her.  So I just couldn't find time to blog in December, even though so much was going on.  Sue and Dave came for Christmas, and the next week our friend Cedar visited for New Year's.  Then I needed the first part of January to "recover", which sounds just neurotic/histrionic enough to be...accurate.  So then we started doing a bunch of home improvement projects.  By "we," I of course mean "Luke".  But since he has been busy putting in new closet systems (3 of them!), getting rid of some old furniture (Goodbye, green futon that was supposed to substitute for a couch "for a few weeks") to make room for some new stuff (Hello, pretty brown sectional that Maddie specifically asked to write on today with my pen, i.e. not pretty for long brown sectional), getting our (literally) ancient floors worked on (no, they really don't look any better than they did.  Sigh.), I have been spending more time taking care of the kids, and spending WAY to much time on Overstock.com trying to find some rugs to cover up above-mentioned floors, so the blogging just hasn't happened, despite the best of intentions.  Man that was a long sentence:)

We also had to cancel/reschedule our long-awaited trip to Maine because of yet another New England blizzard that closed the aiport in Boston, but on the bright side we ended up in San Anotonio (where it snowed for the first time in 50 years while we were there.  No kidding.) to visit Scott, Jeni, Kyle, and Caroline, who had never met Lucy, and who we hadn't seen in over a year.  It was a really just the *most* fun trip, and there are lots of pictures of that coming up!  Next week Luke is meeting Sue, Dave, and lots of his aunts and uncles in Florida for a golf trip.  3 days of freedom.  If I weren't so excited for him I would be green with envy and feeling horribly bitchy.  But since I am a) never bitchy and b) he totally deserves it after our first year of 2 kids and all that he does for all of us, I'm just so excited for him.  Luke loves to golf with his dad and his uncles.  He is of course excited, but also nervous about being away from the girls for so long, which I think is very cute. 

My mom is coming to help me next weekend while Luke is gone, which Maddie is very excited about.  Lucy keeps having a lot of expectant looks, which could mean she is excited, or could also mean that she planning her next "Surprise!  I'm going to vomit in a TOTALLY UNEXPECTED and innovative way today!" (perhaps later I will share the tale of how Lucy found the combination of cheddar bunnies and milk to be, well, totally nauseating, while flying at 30,000 feet on the way to San Antonio.  The old guy behind me was super helpful, taking the time to tap me on the shoulder and let me know that some of the vomit had gotten on the floor.  The flight attendant really took it to a whole new level when she brought me...a can of soda water.  Exciting times!  We have been skiing a ton this year with our friend Dawn, which has been great.  Luke went to Breckenridge today, and I have been to both Keystone and Breck this year.  I haven't been skiing in 4 years because of pregnancies and that whole "episode" we had living in South Carolina for 7 months:), so we have really enjoyed it.  Things were so hard with the two kids at first that we really didn't think we would get to go this year, so that has been so nice.  In a few weeks we are going on a 4 day trip with Sue and Dave to Frisco, and Luke and I will get THREE WHOLE DAYS to ski together.  We are crazy excited for this, and Maddie is excited to see her Grammy and Pops. 

Maddie and Lucy continue to do better and better.  Maddie is excited to announce that she is transitioning from the "easier than we thought-two's" to the "what the hell is going on here-three's".  That's right, she's engaging in some exciting new behaviors, such as:

• Responding to all HORRIBLE, UNREASONABLE parental requests, such  as, "Hey Maddie, can you come here so I can put your socks on?" with awesome replies like, "I don't *have* to." or "I don't *like* it."
• Responding to any correction to her behavior on my part, like, "Hey Maddie, don't throw the toy at Lucy, ok?" (no matter how nicely I say it, seriously.  Like, if I'm not even mad/annoyed at all, just making a simple request)...wait for it...with, "Don't yell at me, Mom."
• Going limp on the floor and laying there listless, staring off into space, when she's feeling *particularly* maligned by me or Luke.  Try and move her when she's like this.  Go ahead.  Try.

So yeah.  Maddie remains so flexible with change, big or small, and is her same sunny self about 75% of the time.  I'm just saying that this 3 year old stuff makes me a little nervous about the teen years:)  She still takes great naps, and still amazes me (seriously) every single day with what a loving big sister she is to her little shadow, Lucy.  They have truly become inseparable and Luke and I are so happy to report that after the incredibly difficult last year and a half, what with my glorious 70 pound pregnancy that went on FOREVER and Lucy's colic and tummy issues that took up her first 10 months or so, we have finally found our "new normal" and can see that what people have told us all along really is true--it's harder to have them so close together at first, but it pays off because they play together all the time.  Despite Lucy's little "episode" on the plane, she only throws up about once every few weeks these days.  This is an enormous relief.  More than anything because Lucy feels so much better and doesn't seem to be uncomfortable at all anymore.  She is even eating dairy like yogurt and cheese without a problem, and she never gags on food anymore.  Ok I'm lying.  We're so happy our little Moose feels better, but we're even happier that we're not getting puked on 3 times a day:) 

Both girls still love going to Dee Dee's house two days a week, we are so lucky to have such amazing childcare.  Since I'm usually home with them their two days out are just a nice break in their routine for them.  Lucy loves being around other kids and oh my goodness, Lucy LOVES a baby!  Sit a baby on the floor with Moosie and you will see one happy kid!  It's so funny how being around other little kids so much has made Lucy such a social creature.  I did go ahead and drop back to 2 days a week at work, I was working a few hours on Wednesday nights, but we decided that was just too much.  The two day a week schedule is heaven for me, and much nicer for Luke since he doesn't have the girls 3 nights a week. 

My last big news (if any of the above qualifies as "big news") is that Maddie got in to her little preschool we applied to.  That's right, she's a prodigy.  Ah, just kidding (although I'm sure they were taken in by her amazing intelligence.  I'm mostly serious here;)), their count is based on the age range of the kids they have, but they do have really limited space and a long waitlist, so we were really excited.  Check out their website if you want, it's the Washington Park Early Learning Center, http:\\wpelc.org.  It's been around since the 70's, and is a cooperative school which I am so excited about!  It's very relaxed, all about play-based learning through experience for the kids, no pressure, which to me is really important because in reading this sentence it would appear that I am a total hippie flake:)!  In all seriousness we would love for Maddie to be able to just enjoy "being a kid" for as long as she can...seems like there is so much pressure on kids these days and we're in no rush for all that.  Plus she is just so smart, we know she'll do great no matter what!  So we are as excited as we can be about this whole "play-based" learning thing.

Ok, so that is our big update.  Here are some cute pics I've taken of the girls this week with my fun new camera, excluding Christmas and San Antonio, which I am planning to post on later tonight.  I stole yet another idea from Jessica and bought her very same camera and am trying to learn how to take pictures like hers with it (did anyone else notice how AMAZING the little photo of the cupcake with Ross in the background was on his 1 year old card?  Seriously Jessica I *loved* that.  I was really impressed!).  Mine are...not as good:)  But I am excited in the difference I can already see in the photos I am taking.  I already posted these on Facebook for the most part, so for a lot of you they won't be too exciting! 

They are so funny in the bath.  Lucy is really much more of a daredevil than Maddie was at this age (and much more "into" everything.  I seriously cannot turn my back for a second with her!), so she just swims all around like a little fish, and laughs at everything Maddie does. 

Kyle is such a talented drummer, and he was so nice about sharing his drums with Maddie.  She LOVED it.  She sat in his room with him for an hour at a time, playing the drums while he played guitar hero.  She loved being in the band!  Kyle was so patient with both girls and spent more time with them than any other 17 year olds I know would have.  Somehow I only have a few pictures of him from our trip, and I am really annoyed with myself!

I took these photos of Lucy in her crib right when she woke up from her nap...went in to get her with my camera.  She is so sweet when she wakes up like this, so chubby and cuddly in her jammies!  She has so much personality now and shows a little more of it every day.  Now that she is crawling she is loving her mobility and is the most easygoing, low-maintenance baby you ever saw!

Lucy is such a little imp!

Expressing her readiness to stop our photosession and get out of the crib.

Looking like a weird combination of Luke and my dad:)

They are so funny in Lucy's crib before bathtime.

Lucy gets SO worked up.

I love these photos I took of Maddie. 

So sweet.

Pretty girl!

Such a ham for the camera.

Lucy making some calls.

Lucy loves face shots.  She totally gets into it.  It's her favorite part of baby modeling.

I was messing around with the new camera in the kitchen while Maddie and I "did the dishes" during Lucy's nap.  This is such a funny photo to me and I think it captures her silly personality these days!

Lucy was really funny with her french fries at Cheesy Jane's in San Antonio.  They were really, really good fries.  She ate about a million.

I mean, she *really* liked them!

So there you go!  We'll see how motivated I'm feeling later on to post the rest of what I have:)

Happy Thanksgiving Chowie Bwown.

Well it's a few weeks late (like everything I attempt to get done these days!  I have even slowed down at work.  But that's neither here nor there.), but here are the photos from our great Thanksgiving.  This was the first time in a long time that we haven't traveled for a holiday, and it was SO NICE!  Of course the upside of traveling is that you get to see everyone together, all at once, and we do love visiting Maine and Memphis to see all the people we wish we saw more.  BUT.  Traveling with babies is such.  A.  Pain.  For us any excitement for the trip itself always ends up getting overshadowed by the painful logistics of fitting 4 people in a 9 foot space for 4 hours.  I gaze at the childless with longing when I am at the airport.  They have their nifty little roller suitcases, "Nothing to check, thanks!".  They get to read Us magazines and eat a breakfast sandwich on the plane without having to give the eggs to a certain toddler who demands all of the eggies.  We, on the otherhand have a stroller, diaper bag, book bag, computer bag, 2 carseats, 1 carseat base, a portacrib and always at least one giant suitcase to check.  Both girls do the very best they can with traveling, but frankly, ladies, mommy and daddy need you to do better.  Either that or we're going to have to start drinking on the long flights, and we don't really want to be "that family," do we?  Hmm.  Maybe we do.  It's not like we ever drive from the airport....we'll talk about this later.  This is supposed to be a post about Thanksgiving. 

The point of my rambling (this time) is that it was so so wonderful to be able to stay home this year, and it's so nice to know we'll be at home for Christmas, too!  The real upside is that we are taking trips to Maine and Memphis in January and February, after the holiday rush, and on a much more relaxed schedule.  We're also hoping to get to Indiana in the spring, so we'll see everyone soon anyway. 

So Mimi and Gaki Mike came to visit for Thanksgiving this year and we had such a nice time!  We had enough food for an army, and since Lucy woke us all up at 4:30am every day that week, we had plenty of time to eat it.  I myself gained 4 pounds, even though I jogged 4-5 miles per day all week.  It was the puppy chow.  Always the damned puppy chow.  Just like Halloween, Maddie really "got it" this year, and just like Halloween, this was so much more fun than any Thanksgiving I can remember.  She loved all of the cooking and activity, and of course all of the company.  We have a whole separate post of pre-Christmas pictures, we got the tree right up the day after Thanksgiving, but I know I won't get to that tonight.  I do love the blogging because it really makes me stop and take pictures, something I've never been good at.  We had a yummy menu that had NO STUFFING and NO SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE.  Sorry dad. 

Lucy on Thursday morning, enjoying her bottle while the rest of us look on with bleary eyes, begging her to explain why we have to be up so early.

Maddie enjoys her morning baba with Mimi. 

The other day Maddie looked right at me and told me "Tomowow I can have both Gwammies".  This kid loves a grandmother.

Maddie shows Mimi how to make the green beans, bright and early on Thanksgiving day. 

Dad worked hard all day, keeping us up to date on the latest changes in mountain lion migration and Republican ideology.  (I couldn't resist.  The Republican joke was for Grandma and Polly!)

Let's just STOP all this cooking and make some necklaces on the kitchen floor, ok Mimi?

Maddie LOVES Charlie Brown this year!  She keeps quoting Peppermint Patty lines.  We of course love him too, so we're excited about this.  And yes, she refers to him as "Chowie Bwown," hence the title of the post.

Food beginning to accumulate.  Please see the two very large trays of puppy chow and peanut butter haystacks to the right.  I wish I could say I'm not already counting the days until I can make them again for Christmas, but I don't want to lie on the blog.  Just like I don't want to drink on planes with my kids. 

This one was a little blurry, but Lucy was having such a good time playing with Maddie's new brownie set that I had to put this in!  She looks so skinny in this pic, but I always think of her as being such a chub!

A mid-morning dance party with Dad.  Nothing unusual for our house!

Break it down, Maddie.

Maddie helping dad cook during the "final countdown".  Our delicious meal included turkey, garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, brussels sprouts, corn pudding, hot rolls, homemade cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole.  For appetizers and snacks we had peanut butter haystacks, puppy chow, homemade chex mix, yummy fish dips from Whole foods and crackers, tortilla chips with white queso (thanks Karyn!), and I swear a few other things I can no longer recall.  For dessert we had two pecan pies, Boston cream cake, pumpkin cheesecake, apple crisp, and somehow a big cupcake with a turkey on it ended up in there.  It was an amazing meal!

My sweet Lucy wakes up from her nap.  She was such a good girl for her first Thanksgiving.

Karyn loads up.

Ugh, chintzy plastic table cloth.  I sort of forgot about that detail.  It was a gametime decision at Safeway...white plastic or nothing!  We went with white plastic.  Also please note this is the only time during Thanksgiving that Maddie sat at the table--she was just NOT interested.  She did sit right down on the couch and watch Yo Gabba Gabba without making a big fuss.  She had the bowl of chex mix to entertain her.

The last few dishes still weren't on the table yet!

Lucy just loves a crowd to watch.  She sat at the table in her little high chair for over an hour.  Luke and I got to eat the whole meal, uninterrupted, at the SAME TIME!  A holiday first since we had kids.  Lucy just watched everyone and at her puffs, and gave out a good yell every now and again.  She really was a doll.

Adam, Karyn, and Dad.

Obviously my hair is having some sort of "situation", here, but this is a photo of all 4 of us and neither of the girls are crying so I thought I had better put it in.  Even though I stare after those people without kids at the airport, I wouldn't trade with them for a minute (well, except for at the airport.  I just can't lie about it.)!  We are so thankful to have our funny, sweet girls, our health, and our family!  We had so much to be grateful for this year, and we hope everyone had as wonderful a holiday as we did!