Insane February!!!

Where to begin...Since it is Valentine's Day in a couple of hours, Happy Valentine's Day!  Jason and I celebrated this afternoon with a little theater and some Italian yumminess!   We went and checked out a local production called Sundown Town and it was amazing!  Some of our favorite artists, 3 Penny Acre, provided the music and the play was written and produced locally!  I have posted a link to the trailer if anyone is interested!

As for the beginning of February, well let's just say it has been interesting!  We have truly had WINTER!  We began the month with a couple of inches of ice immediately followed by about 8 inches of snow.  That was enough to keep us out of school and work for 4 days!  We went back for 2 days (at least the bigger districts did) and then we got hit with 19-24 inches of snow depending on where you measured!  All the weather bulletins were predicting 4-9 inches.  I think they were slightly off!  Along with the snow, we also had frigid temperatures (-13 below for an actual temperature).  I was beginning to question where I actually lived...yep, it was still Arkansas; it just wasn't acting like it.  So, this past Wednesday we had record snowfall and today, Sunday, it was near 70 degrees.

We had a blast in the first snowfall!  Luci went out and ran, played, built two snowmen, learned how to throw a snowball, etc...

 

This second snowfall we decided to stay inside.  The bitter temperatures combined with the insane depth of snow, I was truly afraid we would lose her!  I mean seriously, she is only 34 inches tall!  We had drifts around the house taller than that!

Here is hoping that winter is on it's way out and spring is on it's way in!  I am ready to get outside and do some planting!!!

Where, Oh Where...?

Hello...

Is there a little girl in there somewhere?

 
Oh... There she is!

Luci LOVES to read and simply adores reading to her elephant and piggy while snuggled under a "cozy b"!  A girl after my own heart!

2 years ago...

 

Its hard to believe that it has been 2 years since we first learned that God chose Luci as our daughter!  That's right, 2 years ago today we got a phone call that changed our lives!  I will never forget where I was (my office getting ready to rush out the door, heading to Bentonville...boy did I stop and sit down!), the conversation (stunned silence on my part intermingled with "really?!" and "WOW!"), and how I felt (like nothing else mattered and I had to get home right then).

Luci...You are amazing and I can't imagine our lives without you!  You are sweet, a little bits nuts, loving, smart, silly, girly and tomboyish at the same time, shy, and boisterous!  We love you to pieces!

 

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!