A Birthday - Cute and Sweet

 Lucy and the birthday tradition of streamers on your bedroom door.

 I had to show this picture, even though you can't totally see my cute streamers that I sewed to ruffle them up.  I love ruffled streamers now - thanks to MADE.

 Yep, today you did get a sucker at breakfast time - or, rather, after breakfast time.  Yep, you were thrilled about it!

 After breakfast and some sucker-sucking time the older kids were anxious to give their gifts to Lucy.  Emmy gave her one of her fairies.  Jonas had made some "doll" that was created from a hot-glue gun stick, doily, and streamers (for the hair).  It did not look like much of anything (though, of course, it was a very sweet gesture) and so Lucy just kind of ripped it up - what else?  Jonas burst in to tears.  Poor kid.  He just wants Lucy to love him so much.  I then shared a story with him about how my brother Derek had worked for many weeks in his wood-works class and had made me a wooden duck that you pushed on a stick and its legs flapped around (you totally know what I'm talking about, right?).  Apparently I hated it, cried about how much I hated it, etc.  Funny that my mom brought that up, too, when I mentioned the kids giving things to Lucy.  (My mom thinks I was about 3 when that incident occurred.  Glad I wasn't 10!)

Miles worked on the above "doll-house" for Lucy.  Ben cut all the pieces and then Miles was left on his own.  He hammered it all together.  Then he asked Emmy if he could use some of her doll-house things and she agreed.  Cute idea from a sweet boy.  I was impressed with my kids since I had not yet said anything about them giving something to Lucy.

 We went to the park in the morning.  It was a little short since I had bread rising, but we still had a fun time.

 After nap I had promised a "very special birthday snack."  Milk and iced-animal crackers.  Yay!  9 out of 10 pictures I tried to take Lucy smiled like this.  "Smile!" I'd say and she'd cheese it up, squint her eyes, and put her head down.  At least this one she was looking straight up.  Silly birthday girl!

 She and Emmy and a neighbor friend Lily spent a little time in the kiddie pool.  I guess the idea of it was much more exciting than actually doing it?

After dinner it was present-opening time:

 So beautiful.

 So sweet.

 So silly!

 Lip gloss was a big hit.  (Except for when I had to take it away because "enough is enough.")

 Hello!  (Notice the cute flip-flops - "flop-ops" as Lucy would say.  They are little bears.)

 I'm great!  How are you?  It's my birthday.  I'm 2.

 She got a doll that she calls "baby."  She immediately gave her a hug.  So adorable.

 And a stroller for baby!  Lucy loves her baby and stroller.

After some play time it was on to cake and ice-cream:

 Cute picture of cute Lucy and a so-so cake.  :)  This is what the cake should have looked like.  I had actually done 4 layers and it looked utterly ridiculous.  We (Ben and I) realized that we needed to shave off the top so it would have sat flat and looked much sharper and better.  But it did look okay once we removed 2 of the layers - okay enough to be in a picture.  The kids didn't know it was a "flop" and sure made me feel good!  :)  "Wow!" they said.

This little birthday gal didn't care one bit what it looked like.  She just wanted to eat.

A bedtime she insisted that she wear her flop-ops.  Okay, done.  Then after she'd been down for a few minutes I heard her on the baby-monitor saying, "Mom, need   my     baby in       my bed."  (She has pauses when she speaks, thus the extra spaces).  You bet I went up there and got her baby to her.  So cute!

I love having birthdays and the chance to celebrate one of my precious little babes.

Happy Birthday Lucy

Dear Lucy,
Oh Lucy.  For 99% of the time you are a pure joy and delight to have around.  We (your family) adore you and treasure you and pretty much think the world of you.  We don't spoil you with gifts a plenty, but you are definitely spoiled with love and attention - and I think that's okay.  We just can't stop ourselves.

I alone just can't get enough of you - (well, unless you're pitching a fit.)  I just love to hold you, squeeze you, and kiss you.  I don't think you always love it, but you usually don't mind too much.

Growing up with three older siblings makes you think you're one of the gang.  Which, of course you are.  But that doesn't mean you get to walk like them and talk like them, so to say.  But have mercy when we try to tell you that.  You'll have none of it.  You are already a very determined (ahem, stubborn) little girl.  You can and do think for yourself.

Like your big sister Emmy you love all things sweet.  You used to be such a great little eater - you'd eat pretty much whatever we'd have for dinner.  Now?  Not so much.  You won't even eat PB sandwiches for lunch.  Oh what's a mom to do?!   You love chocolate and it was definitely one of your first words.  You're also like your big sister in other ways:  you love to dress up, you love to do ballet, you love to be a princess, you love to pretend-make food - pretty much whatever Emmy is doing, you want to do too.  Emmy is usually wondeful to you and plays so great with you.  You two are lucky to have each other.

Like your big brother Jonas you like to be silly.  You like to make us laugh.  You can be wild and crazy and just a goof.  It's great.  You can play well with the boys, too.  You can roar like a dinosaur; drive cars like a race-car driver, and literally get your hands and feet dirty in the mud.  Jonas still loves to dote on you - but you have learned (from who?!) the crafty skills of hair-pulling and face-pinching.  It makes for a very unhappy Jonas.

Like your big, big brother Miles you love to talk.  In fact, I've never heard a 2-year old articulate like you.  It's amazing and impressive.  You not only parrot whatever is said around you, you demonstrate knowledge and remembrance.  You get a lot of comments on how well you speak.  You'll string together 6-7 word complete sentences.  The other day I questioned something, "Why Lucy?"  You replied, "Because."  Sometimes all you need is a one-word sentence.  My favorite word of yours of late is "well."  You use is perfectly and adorably.  "Well. . ." and then you speak whatever it is that is on your mind.  It is quite helpful to know pretty much exactly what you want.  But, sadly for you, it doesn't always mean you get exactly what you want (like when you said, "No, I want a sucker" at breakfast time).

I haven't even scratched the surface with all your cuteness and with all that makes you YOU.  But sometimes things are harder to put in to words.  You have to live it to experience it to the fullest.  And lucky for me I get to live with you.  And experience Lucy to the fullest.  Oh what a joy that is.

I love you.  I adore you.  I treasure you.

love,
mom

Summer Mini-Olympics, 2012

(*updated with a few pics I stole from my sis)

 Erin and I started off our Saturday with a Midway 10K race - how lucky to find one right in Midway?!  It was the loveliest run - I truly loved it.  It was fun to run with my sis, it was beautiful, Memorial Hill was fun to run up and then down, plus we had the best cheering fans ever.  We ran right by a road super close to my parents' home.  So the whole gang came to cheer us on - it was pretty awesome and I'm pretty sure the best of all cheering sections.  It was so cute to see them run and shout, "Go, Mom!"  and "We'll see you at the finish line!"

 They hung out (ha) at the finish line waiting for us.

 And there we were!  Yay!  It was a fun finish and fun to have everyone there.

 This is how Lucy got to ride for the last 1/2 mile of the trip home.  Yep, she felt larger than life.

Then on to Olympics, 2012!  My sister had the idea to do one and so we ran with it (ha, again).  We planned the activities on Friday nite, my sister made up some of the treats, we gathered my parents' croquet set to use for practically every event, I made some flags, and that was that.  I wondered how it would really turn out?  Would the kids like it?  Do it?  Have fun?  Only time would tell. . .

 It didn't start so well.  To get this picture a lot of tears were involved over who got to hold the flag.  Yes, really.  I finally came up with this solution.  Oh brother.  But the picture is pretty great.  (My sister made the stencils for all the shirts.  I painted them on.  The backs all have an Olympic event picture.  So cool.)

 The "Opening Ceremonies."  Each kid got a flag with their name on it, plus all the events on the back to record their time, distances, etc.  Each kid also got a "torch" - i.e., ice cream cone filled with yellow-dyed rice krispie treat.  They were great.  I don't know why, but Lucy was quite upset at this point.

 But she quickly got over it as soon as she got to sit down and eat her torch.  Yum.

Now on to events:

STRAW RACE

So this race was suppose to be to hold a straw between your nose and upper lip (making a silly, pucker-face), but it proved too difficult for the kids.  So we changed it to holding the straw under chin.

 There goes Miles!

JAVELIN THROW

 We had the measuring tape all out and ready to measure how far they threw their javelins.  Go Jonas!

BALLOON RACE

 This was a fun one!  Emmy is so great - she just loved it all and went fast and did her best.  She's our little mini-athlete for sure.

 Lucy adapted the balloon race to her own skill-level.  Looks like she had a blast!

HURDLES

 I think this was everyone's favorite.  The kids all did it again (and again!) when we had gone through everyone.

 Fantastic!

 Go, go, go!

 Yep, Lucy did this one, too.  I think she did 2 hurdles and then ran to Ben - who was at the sidelines taking all the photos.  She only did a few of the events.  I'm not sure exactly why.  She was just in a mood or something.

SPRINT

 Yay Jonas!  We even had an official timer that flashed everyone's time big and bright.  I loved it.

 How cute is this little sprinter?

 Miles and friend Isaac tied on the sprint.  This was the tie-breaker.  Go, boys, go!

SHOT-PUT

They threw little croquet balls and we measured the distance.  Cool.  (I don't know why we didn't get any good face-shots of Jonas!?  He's such a cutie.)

SOCCER KICK

This was an easy and fun one.  Score for Miles!

RELAY

We had 2 teams with 3 running legs.  I think Jonas ran it twice for his team (he and Emmy).  And guess what team won?  They tied!  No joke.  It was totally perfect and we didn't even have to lie about it being a tie.  "Yay!  Everyone won gold!"  Which lead us to the gold medal ceremony:

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.  Cute kids with the awesome medals - golden oreos with fruit-by-the-foot.  Erin found the idea on pinterest and Chuck made them all up Friday night.  These were huge hits - and tasty, too.

The kids really did super great.  They were excited, had fun, and stayed interested.  A totally fun time.

Goooooooooo Team!

Yellowstone Day #2, Thursday

We had decided to go in to the park again - there is just too much to see there.

 So. . . after the breakfast crew had eaten, we headed out.  Erin and team left by 7:15 and we were out by 7:45.  Not too shabby.

 We deemed her the epitome of fashion in Yellowstone Park.  The sweatshirt was a hand-me-down and was pretty much awesome and totally '90s.

 Two cute siblings walking the trail of the Artists' Paintpots.

 Two cute cousins.  We met up with them on their way down and our way up.  Fun!

 Lucy was determined to try and do everything by herself.  She loved walking down the steps.

 The gang, minus me.  This was a really cool stop.  I think it's a fairly new one seeing as Erin nor I had no recollection of it.  (Plus, the boardwalks were totally in better shape.)

 We had to get a picture of our very own Paint-splot by the Paintpots sign.

 Our next stop of the day was at the Norris area.  This was Geyser Basin, I think.  I can't remember the name of the loop-trail we took, but I think it started with a P.  It was a really cool site with lots of small geysers, hot-spots, etc.  The colors were also spectacular and were mainly due to the thermophile organisms that live there.  Jonas and Emmy were less-enthused about walking more, but they did okay.

Miles and I, with Lucy - who fell asleep, took a small trek out to the Steamboat Geyser.  Steamboat is the largest in the world, yet its' eruptions are sporadic and unpredictable.  We got there and it was going off - small spurts, yet very cool and still impressive.  It did a few more spurts every few minutes.  It was fun checking it out with Miles; he was pretty excited to have seen it erupt, even if just a little bit.

We next stopped at the Canyon Visitor Center.  We had the kids turn in their Junior Ranger activity sheets they had all worked on.  The Ranger was absolutely fantastic.  He took probably 10 minutes talking to the kids, going over their work, asking them questions, etc.  He focused solely on them and their stuff.  It was so perfect.  He then presented them each with their patches:

 Yay!  What adorable little Junior Rangers.

 We did our last hike of the day at Lower Falls.  It's insane.  You look right over that fence at a 308 foot waterfall.  It literally made me sick to my stomach and nerves.  Yes, it's impressive.  But in a terrifying way, too.

Yellowstone Canyon is truly beautiful.

We then drove through Hayden Valley which is known for bison-seeing.  We did see plenty of bison - not tons as in years past, but enough.  And they were pretty close, too, and so the kids were really excited about that.  Yellowstone Lake is huge and beautiful.

It was a long day - we got home around 6:30.  But everyone did okay.  Erin had prepared dinner and so that was nice.  Erin and Chuck went to West Yellowstone to the Playmill and had a fun time watching a play.  Ben went out with the boys on the tree-house and tried to look at the stars, but perhaps it wasn't dark enough?  He was out there from 9:15-9:45 with them (I was not out there with them because I had had enough of the little guys. . .).  Instead of stars, though, they did see lots of little bats.  Glad I wasn't out there!

Friday morning we packed our bags and cleaned up while the kids played outside.  There were lots of dirt-bombs and the such and so the kids were banned from coming back inside.  It worked out perfectly for them and us (potty-breaks apparently where taken from atop the tree-house, ahem).  We had a dandy of a drive back and only stopped for lunch - but not even getting out.  We made good time.  That evening our whole family went to the pool and had a great swimming time.

I hope we get back up to Yellowstone before another 6 years pass. . .

Macks Inn, Wednesday

We started early in the day working on our "Yellowstone Junior Ranger" packets.  Each of our kids, minus Lucy, had gotten one the day before.  There were a bunch of questions and activity pages that had to be done in order to earn a "Junior Ranger" patch.  I worked with Jonas inside the cabin and Miles and Ben worked in the cool tree-house.  Fun!

We had planned to stay closer to the cabin on Wednesday - so the kids wouldn't have to suffer long car-rides.  We had planned to do the Coffee Pot hike - which was super close (under 5 minutes) from the cabin.  Of course, from the previous day's experience, our kids weren't super excited about doing another hike.  But this one was going to be cool, I told them.  And it totally was.  But it also took a little longer than expected (hmmm, I'm noticing a pattern. . .) and, because I didn't think we'd be out for so long, we didn't bring any food with us.  So it was another really late lunch day.  But it was still a beautiful hike and worth it. . . to me, at least.  :)

 Lucy really wanted to hike by herself.  So she did get some down-time.  But she did greatly slow us down.  But she was just too cute that we couldn't stop her. . . yet.

 One of the coolest parts of the hike was finding a toad!  Miles spotted it and caught it.  Emmy was brave and held it (Jonas was being weird and wouldn't hold it - he wanted to, but just couldn't make his body actually do it!).

 Miles loved it and, of course, wanted to take it home for a pet.  And, as Uncle Chuck had predicted, it did pee on Miles as soon as he caught it.  Awesome.

 I told him to kiss it - he does love kissing fish, so I thought he should kiss this toad, too.  I love Jonas' face in this picture!  The toad didn't turn in to a princess, though.

 This was the cool end spot of the hike.  There were some "rapids" and just a fun spot to wade in a bit.

 There we are, with a fly-fisher behind us.  It's so pretty up there.

We got back and then Erin, Chuck, and Rhett headed out to float the river.  Ollie napped at the cabin and we tried to put Lucy down - but she had fallen asleep on the hike and so she wasn't going to nap again.  So Ben took all our kids down to the river again and they had a blast.  They caught a frog there and Jonas just played and played with it!  That was really exciting for him, and the rest, too.  I hung out with Ollie once he awoke and that was fun.  He's a cutie.  That nite Ben and I decided to go to West Yellowstone and do "something."  We're pretty great like that.  We walked around a bunch, went in some stores trying to find some little things to get the kids (we never found anything worthy of our money. . .except some fun pieces of candy), and went to get dessert.  We went to one place that Ben wanted to try - but the wait was pretty long.  So we tried another spot - and, though it didn't have quite what Ben wanted, it was definitely more quiet and quaint.  Ben got an apple pie ala mode and we both got huckleberry lemonade.  Delicious.  It was a fun evening.

Before we left we had gotten Emmy and Lucy to bed.  We let the boys watch a movie - since Erin and Chuck were going to watch a movie, too, we set up Ben's laptop and made a cozy spot for them to watch their show.  They had fun!