Our Christmas Celebrations!

We like to spread out Christmas each year which meant torturing Luci!  She figured out that presents under the tree meant she was getting new and fun things!  Being 2 means that we are short on patience and she constantly asked when she could "open presents...Luci presents".  She also isn't shy about asking the grandparents for "Luci presents".  The girl has got it figured out and she typically gets what she wants!

We had Christmas with Jason's side of the family the week before Christmas.  Our niece Allie has a birthday that week so we typically celebrate Christmas one day and have a birthday party the next.  Luci had a blast opening gifts at Pops and Nana's house and playing with her cousins.

Very serious about opening Christmas presents!

Loving on her new Sing-a-majig!  Don't know who had more fun with this toy...the kids or the grown-ups!

I am seriously loving Luci's new rockin' rain boots; she is enthralled with her new necklace!

Cousins playing on their new computers!

Serious conversation over dessert!  Notice the bowl of whipped cream by Luci...she kept refilling her plate.  The girl LOVES whipped cream!

Helping Pops make waffles the next morning.  Looks safe, doesn't it?!

We had our family Christmas (just the three of us) on Christmas Eve night.  We ate a ton of food and opened our presents.  One of Luci's that I am particularly thrilled with was a Custom Board Book with her story in it. I had it made at My Custom Story and they did a great job.  The quality is wonderful!  Luci loves it because it is full of pictures of her.  She is getting old enough now that she can start to understand some of her story and we thought this book would help!

Open these please!

A sleeping bag of her own...all set for spring family camping!

Her own story... she was mesmerized that it was a book full of Luci pictures.

Helping Daddy open his presents

Curled up in her sleeping bag with Mommy reading a new book.  (Yes, that is Luci's new bag and yes, it was the smallest camping grade one we could find!)

Christmas Day we headed out to Mom and Dad's farm in Big Flat.  We always enjoy our time at their quiet hide-away.  My brother and his wife came the next day and we celebrated Christmas with this side of the family.  While we were at the farm we decorated Christmas cookies and had a lot of fun watching Luci try to keep her food away from Ryan and Sherri's dog, Lucky.  When Luci eats, the food is about at Lucky's level so it is very tempting!  Jason and I also took some time to do a little bit of Christmas hiking in the National Forest...a nice 9 mile hike with gentle (HA!) rolling hills was just what we needed to get the blood moving after all the eating!  Sorry though; no pictures from the hike.  We left the camera at home so as to lighten our packs!

Rotten girl!  Look at all the packages...not like she is the only grandchild on my side or anything!

She loved her vegetables so much that she took the carrot, cucumber, and potato up to her nap the next afternoon!

"I'm so tired but will you please peel my potato?"

Cutting out the Christmas cookies...she is a PRO!

Making Daddy a special Red-Hot Santa cookie!  Notice the candy dumping technique Luci developed using the lids!

This is Luci's idea of cleaning up after the cookie decorating!

"Walk away, Lucky!"  This is my pretzel!

I truly hope each of you had a very Merry Christmas!  May 2011 be full of blessings!!!

Putting up the tree and other Christmas traditions

This entry is a little dated but this is the first I have had time to sit down, play with pictures, and update our blog.  We didn't just put our tree up...its been up for about 2.5 weeks. 

Luci is really getting into the Christmas spirit and excitement this year!  She absolutely loved decorating the tree and now she is super excited that there are "Luci presents" under the tree.  She checks on them hourly and has even tried to open one or two.  She isn't very subtle though; the ripping of the paper gives it away instantly!

Luci picked out her own ornament this year when we visited the Plaza in Kansas City after Thanksgiving.  She is very proud of it...a pink piggy just like her stuffed one!  She hung it on the tree and we found out that it is just as fragile as it looks.  She didn't get it hooked solidly and it fell to the floor.  Poor piggy's feet didn't survive the fall.  However, Luci didn't notice the missing appendages so I was able to slip a new piggy on the tree the next day (after a mad search for an identical one since the original was purchased 4 hours away)!

We continued our Christmas tradition begun last year.  Downtown Fayetteville puts on a beautiful Christmas lights display on the Square each year. Its always lots of fun for the kiddos in the evenings.  Luci particularly likes the ponies and loves to ride them.  (Don't let the picture fool you...she really does love to ride the ponies!  She just wasn't feeling her normal peppy-self that evening!)  Following the pony ride, we went to get a cupcake at Bliss.  Luci decided to bring her cupcake home to eat but she was more than happy to devour a shot of chocolate frosting in the cupcakery!  Mmmmmm!  Chocic!

There will be more Christmas happenings to follow another evening.  For now, Merry Christmas to each of you!

Thanksgiving Week Festivities

Thanksgiving week was a busy one this year!  It always is but it seemed extra hectic this year.

Luci had her harvest feast at school on Tuesday and because I didn't have to work I volunteered to help.  Each classroom prepared a dish to serve to the rest of the school.  Luci's class made the sweet potatoes.  I know what you are thinking but yes...11 2-year-olds cut up, mashed, and mixed all the goodies into the sweet potatoes.  No wonder they needed parental help!  After the preparation was complete, the kiddos delivered dishes of their menu item to the other classrooms.  Then it was feast time!  It was quite interesting to eat lunch with a group of toddlers!  I took Luci home after lunch; we both needed a nap!

expert sweet potato masher!

The delivery and hand-off.  This is seconds before the bowl landed upside-down in the floor.  Luckily we had made plenty!

Looks deceptively calm, doesn't it?!

Wednesday morning we set out on our annual Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin to visit my family.  We had Thanksgiving on Thursday and since we won't see them again, we had Christmas on Friday.  Everyone had a great time catching up and visiting.

Kaitlyn and Luci talking about the nativity set

Best group picture taken...you can't win them all!

Opening presents

Playing the piano and singing!  The video below shows Luci's first piano concert.  She is very proud of herself!

Playing dress-up with one of her new Christmas presents.

This year we decided to break our trip home into 2 days.  We stopped in Kansas City Saturday night to spend some time Christmas shopping on the Plaza.  I lived in Kansas City until I was 6 years old and I remember visiting the Plaza each year at Christmas time.  I wanted to experience this again with Jason and Luci.  We had a lovely time and it made for a nice reprieve from the car!

Jason and Luci as we were waiting for a table at the Cheesecake Factory.

The beautiful Christmas lights on the Plaza.

 Hope everyone out there had a lovely Thanksgiving and is looking forward to Christmas as much as we are!

I "boted" and I am sooooo proud!

Notice my upside-down sticker!

Luci Update and a Fun Fall Festival

Luci started a new school in August at the beginning of the Fall Semester and we are LOVING it!  She is truly blossoming into a sweet little girl...no longer a baby.  I can't believe everything she has learned since August!  First and foremost...she is potty trained!  I can't take the credit for this.  It is all her teachers; miracle-workers!

I have to continue bragging just a little...she is also learning the sounds of the alphabet.  She knows s, m, a, r, t, c, o, l, b, and j.  She also knows several shapes: circle, triangle, oval, and diamond.  She is learning her colors and is beginning to count in both English and Spanish although she will occasionally interchange them.  We routinely hear "1, 2, 4, 6, 8" or 1, dos, 4, siete,..."  I am just truly amazed at everything she is doing at age 2!  I had lots of 5 and 6 year olds when I taught Kindergarten that struggled with these concepts.  Yes, I am a proud mommy!

This afternoon we attended the Fall Festival at Luci's school.  It was so much fun to see all her friends dressed up and watch Luci go through all the stations and games.  She wore her costume from last year because her new costume is quite warm and today was a very hot and humid October day.  We decided to save her new costume for Halloween night...hopefully it will be more characteristic of October!  The following pictures are from this afternoon.  Fun times!!!

"Arggg mateys!  I am ready to go pillage and plunder!"

Drawing in the black light room

Making a spider

Cheater, cheater...I don't think you are supposed to walk the bean bag to the target in the bean bag TOSS!

Getting a spider painted on Luci's arm (she freaked out when they tried to paint her face!)

What did I catch on my fishing pole???!!

The other side of the pond...helping Daddy load other kids' fishing poles.

Maiden Voyage of the Teal Buffalo

We finally got our brand new teal Buffalo canoe in the water!!!  We ordered the canoe in May, picked it up in July, and it has been sitting under a tarp in the yard since then.  There was nothing more irritating than seeing our new canoe everyday for 2 months and knowing there was no water in any of the rivers; it has been an extremely dry summer!

Well it finally rained and Jason kept his eye on the river gauges for any sign of movement.  Ahhh...finally there was enough water for us to float in our canoe instead of carry our canoe!  We were off to Ponca!

Luci loves the boat and Daddy had her psyched up to go!  For two days she constantly asked "Boap?  Wawa?"  "Yes, Honey...we are going to take the boat and float in the water!"  Below are the pictures from our maiden voyage.  What fun!!!

Ready to launch from Ponca

 Helping Daddy cook the hot dogs for lunch!  Encouraging pats on the back help!

 Don't even think about trying to take these chips!

 Don't be fooled...Luci only eats the filling out of the Oreos.  Mommy and Daddy finish off the chocolate cookie.

 Jason jumping off the bluff.  Luci was very concerned!

Waiting patiently for Daddy to swim back after his jump.