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.

Much-Needed Beach Vacation

We did something a little out of character for us...we took a spur-of-the-moment, last-minute vacation.  And we LOVED it!  I say "out of character" because I am a planner.  I plan all our vacations out to the minute detail and to do something spur-of-the-moment is slightly unnerving for me.  However, we desperately needed a vacation and decided to go for it! (It was the "official" last week of summer as school was starting the next week.)

I found a house on St. George Island that was available for the week and we headed out!  The drive was slightly excruciating (15 hours with a 2 year old) but we made it!  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for the new movies and entertainment for Luci!

 St. George Island Lighthouse

We spent a delightfully relaxing 4 days on the beach with no plans other than eating fresh seafood, splashing in the waves, and digging in the sand.  We had never been to St. George before but it was well worth the drive!  The beaches were beautiful and VACANT!  I don't know if it was the scare of oil, the time of year, or just how they always are but the only people we saw on the beach was each other...just how I like it!  It was Luci's first time at the beach and she ate it up! 

Beautiful, VACANT beaches!

Where did my feet go?!

The other thing she ate up was all the fresh seafood!  This girl would eat fish and shrimp at every meal if she could.  She typically doesn't eat that much but on this trip she was a little pig!  I couldn't blame her though...the food was delicious!

One anecdote and then I will leave you to enjoy the pictures.  Each day we drove to the end of the island that was designated as a State Park.  To get into the park, you drove through a booth and paid the rangers a small fee.  We had been doing this all week but the final time we rolled the window down, something clicked for Luci.  She looked up ever so innocently and asked "french fries?"  I couldn't help but laugh at her association with the drive-through.  It also made me realize how often we must have been through a drive through for french fries this summer.  Oh well...school should put an end to that lunch time routine!

Digging in the sand with Daddy

The perfect beach spot to lay, dig, and splash!

I'll be right "back"!  I'm going to go chase this bird!

An unsuccessful chase but not for lack of trying!

Playing in the waves at night

 

What have we done?!

Well, we did it!  We changed Luci's crib into a toddler bed.  I thought it was about time since she is now 2 and has bailed out of her crib a couple of times.  She is a climber and I love it but what I don't love are trips to the emergency room so it was time for safer alternative.

I found a wooden railing online that we can stain to match her bed (a project for another time) and when it came we made the switch.  Any project we attempt turns major when Luci is around.  At first I think she just thought I was changing her sheets so she sat down to read a book and wait it out.

When it became apparent that construction was involved, she jumped in to lend her own brand of helping hands.  In the first picture she is putting back in the bolts that daddy just took out.  The next picture is self-explanatory.  See...everything is easier with help!

Luci was super excited to find that she can now get in and out of her bed all by herself!  Once she figured it out she ran to get her piggy, elephant ("awckie"), and blanket ("B").  It wasn't even close to bedtime but she wanted to try it out!

So we are officially into day 2 of the switch.  Last night went seamless but she was so tired that she fell right asleep and didn't move till morning.  Nap this afternoon was another story.  We are in the middle of it as I type and so far she has (1) come running into the living room at top speed, holding piggy by the ears, screaming "PIGGGGGYYYYYYY!!!!", and (2) climbed out of her bed, grabbed her current favorite book off the shelf (Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog), and got back into bed to read it.  She finally fell asleep with piggy, elephant, and her book next to her but it took nearly an hour till she wore herself down.  Could be interesting; but what isn't with a 2 year old in the house?!