Growing up...

Lacy has been full of surprises the last few weeks. Her vocabulary has expanded, without a lot of coaching. Every once in a while, she'll say a new phrase or word and dumbfound us. When she watches her TV shows or a movie, I've caught her gasping and throwing her hand over her mouth for dramatic effect--in cue with the plot of whatever she's watching. Or she'll say "NO!" when something bad happens in the plot. She makes her toys kiss all the time. She puts people in her toy cars and rolls around. Her favorite is a little people bus that she likes to put the people in and out through the door as opposed to the hole on top. She helps us pack her diaper bag before we leave for an outing. She dances to music. She sings. She does the hand motion to songs when we sing, because she can't quite sing and do the hand motions at the same time (think itsy bitsy spider). She recognizes family members in pictures and yells out their names when she sees them. She notices when people are gone and asks "where'd they go?" or ex. "where's noah?"

A lot of people told me that this is the best age (around 18 months) and I just have to agree. She is SO fun and so full of surprises. She is so impressionable, loving and intelligent. I hope it doesn't go by too fast...

Today while Lacy was playing with her little people we found two of them in her shoes where she had put them and thought it was a hoot. Here's the pic

Celebrating the 4th

We spent the afternoon at my aunt's house for a family BBQ and some swimming. We got Lacy a bathing suit with the life jacket built in since she wouldn't stay in her inner-tube. She borrowed the arm floaties from my little cousin Nathan when he was done swimming. Lacy was over-inflated...she got in the water and would get stuck on her back or on her tummy swallowing water. But she loved it and refused to take either safety device off. On the other hand, it was good that she had so much cushion. At one point while she was climbing up and down the stairs up to the hot tub she lost her footing and bounced down the stairs and literally walked away unharmed. It was hilarious.

Unlike our cousin Nathan, who is 3 months older than Lacy and takes to the water like a fish, Lacy prefers to hang out on the steps where she can firmly plant her feet. If we ever took her further into the pool she would start yelling "Help me! Help me!" What a goober.

We also drove to a good secret spot to watch fire works, but Lacy didn't last long as it was past her bed time and she missed her nap. So we went home about 10 minutes into the fireworks.

Aunt LuAnn bought Lacy some cool gaucho pants the other day, so I got some cool fat pregnant lady gaucho pants to match with her. There's a picture of me and mini-me down here too.

New Pirates Ride

We met some friends at Disneyland today. It was SO HOT! But we still had lots of fun. We got to ride the 'updated' Pirates of the Carribean ride--very cool. And to top it all off, we had a very exciting celebrity sighting. COREY FELDMAN. Cliff was the most excited though, haha. He tried to casually take a secret picture of him, but it didn't work out so well. We also unsuccessfully tried to convince our friend's 4-year-old daughter to go up to him and ask him if his name was "Mouth" (Goonies anyone?). Anyway, see if you can tell that that's THE Corey Feldman. Oh yea, and there's pictures of our cute little lady on pirates too.

Grad Week

We celebrated two graduations last week. Cousin Kortney's and Uncle Noah's. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of Kortney's graduation because we were in charge of the video camera (so someone email me pictures!) but here's some pictures from Uncle Noah's graduation. We're proud of both of you. And a special Good Luck and I Love You to Noah as he begins Basic Cadet Training tomorrow at the USAFA.

Independent Woman

While I slaved away at traffic school at the Courts in Santa Ana for 8 hours...Daddy and Lacy had a blast hanging out with family. I was even told that Lacy was more enjoyable to hang out with without the distraction of me :( I was more dissappointed when I finally saw her at 6PM that evening after not seeing her since bedtime the night before and all I got was a quick smile and then right back to her business. Well at least Cliff took lots of cute pictures.

She played piano and sang 'Popcorn Popping' with Great-Grandma. And had lots of fun with her cousins in the pool--even though they were teaching her bad things (like drinking beer and inappropriate vocabulary...ok, fine it was rootbeer, but the vocabulary is still not excusable)

She just keeps growing up!

HOORAY!

LACY WENT PEE IN HER TOILET this morning after she got out of the shower. We were so proud and excited and we were saying "YAY!" and jumping up and down. So Lacy got very excited too and sat right back down on her toilet again to get the same reaction. I know it's just the beginning, and we have a long road ahead of us for her to be really potty trained...but we are too excited and had to tell everyone!

Stickers!

Lacy's latest new hobby is playing with stickers. She mostly sticks them on daddy's face (as you can see) but thinks its hilarious. Yesterday in her Sunday school class, they made a little paper with stickers and crayons and Cliff helped Lacy put it together. But it was the first piece of artwork that she claimed ownership to, she held it the whole way home from church and sang and played with the stickers on it. And when we got home from church and put her down for a nap, she insisted on taking her artwork to bed with her.

Disneyland again...

We recently got Lacy a potty to see what she thought about it...and well, I have some cute pictures and videos, but Cliff thinks they are a little too risqué for the internet. But anyway, if you want to see our little girl's cute naked bottom, drop me an email and I'll send them your way.

However, we did go to Disneyland last night and took some pictures of Lacy shopping--and let me tell you--that girl is a little poser. 18 months going on 18 yrs old! She did better on the rides but still not a big hit. She was falling over herself excited about the parade. And we stopped for dinner in Tomorrowland where they play techno music in the background and she was rockin' out.

Lacy's First Trip to Disneyland

She didn't cry, but she was tense and nervous. Hopefully, she'll warm up to it more the next time we go (we finally got passes, YAY!). When we first got there it was hot and sunny, so we put on sunblock, sunhat and her cool garage sale shades. Surprisingly, she kept them on all day, she loved it and she looked 'SO HOLLYWOOD.' She liked KC Junior, taking pictures in Toon Town, the parades passing by, and her mickey mouse ears that we got on the way out. So she had the most fun that day after we left the park, running around outside with her ears on. AND the next morning, the first thing she wanted to do was put her ears back on (even before breakfast!)

Easter Pictures

Two of the poses from the pictures in her easter dress. I love that little girl and her underbite grin!

It's A....Baby

And so it begins...Cliff and I have come to an agreement that whenever I'm 'in the area' near his office, that I will 'drop by' and have him do an ultrasound. Today we dropped by during his lunch hour and we snuck down to the tech's room and took a look at baby #2. It was lots of fun and the prints we got, as always, didn't do justice to the cuteness of our little one.

Meanwhile, Lacy ran around the room picking up specimen samples and grabbing packaged suture tools while I tried to stay still and yell "NO...YuCK! put that down!" and of course she finished our intimate time as a family, in that little room looking at the unborn child in my womb, by squatting down and doing a stinky poop. Thanks Lacy.

My mom thinks Lacy is onto the new baby idea and that's why Lacy's being an extra handful! I have no idea. I just hope it doesn't last long.

Here's the ultrasound pictures. First one is a sideview: Baby's head is in top left and bigger bubble is tummy. Second picture is baby thumbsucker: head is in right corner. Hope you can make it out....it's just an ultrasound picture, but we sure are excited!

Daddy's Birthday

Cliff turned the big 3-0 yesterday and we had family over for dinner. Instead of cake we had cupcakes and Lacy thought daddy's frosted and sprinkled cupcake was way cooler and more tastier than her undecorated cupcake. So she climbed up on the table and started eating it while daddy was busy playing video games with the family. The cute part was that she was singing 'happy birthday' the whole time she was eating it because she thought that was so fun when we sang to daddy.

Talking Girl

Lacy has started talking nonstop. We don't understand everything she says yet...but if you give her a chance, she'll give you an earful. We can't wait to hear all the cool stories she has to tell as soon as she uses words.

Here's a small video clip. And use quicktime to open. It won't work in window media.
Talking in the Tub

She loves her books...

Lacy has always loved her books. This passion of hers has evolved over the last 9 months in stages--like so: She first enjoyed the thrill of pulling all of her books off her shelf and throwing them on the floor. Then she realized that she had a pile of books on the floor, and she started opening the books while on the floor to look at the pictures and babble (most times they were upside down). Next she would carry books around the house with her and read them in front of us, babbling and making animal sounds. But the other night, Lacy snuck off into her room and we discovered that she had climbed into her rocking chair with a book (like she does with Daddy every night before she goes to bed). She's a smart little cookie!

Couch Potato in Training

What a princess!