Halmony's Bday

Halmony (my mom) took the day off work for her birthday so she could hang out with Lacy--a very affordable and reasonable gift on our behalf I think. We decided to check out the local Santa Ana Zoo. During the 5 minute car ride to the zoo, Halmony got out the princess figurines which she keeps stashed in her purse to spoil our little lady with. Little did we know, that those princesses would upstage the zoo and all of its cool animals. This is Lacy looking at the Emus and Llamas. This one is in front of the Bald Eagle.
After the zoo, we went home to nap and then went to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. We came back home for cake. It was a very fun day!

More Stickers

She decorated daddy the same way too.

New and Improved Prospector Pete

Friday night we went to the CSULB vs UCSB girls volleyball game. The big deal was that they were unveiling the new and improved mascot. The CSULB mascot is Prospector Pete who's just a guy with a dimpled chin and five o clock shadow with a pick axe for gold mining. The mascot costume for the last 10 years has been an inflatable costume--think moonbounce or the giant blow up gorillas at car dealerships. Consequently, it wasn't easy for the old pete to get around--you could hardly tell when he was moving his arms. So, after the second game/set they take a break to introduce the new pete. The cheerleaders come out and are rallying and form a entryline for the mascots. The announcer tells everyone to stand up its now time to say farewell to the OLD pete and introduce the NEW pete...so the old pete comes out and goes to center court. More applause. More loud music. And heeerreeee's the new Pete. NEW pete comes out riding a segway (like GOB from arrested) he goes like 3 feet and runs into two cheerleaders, falls off. All is not lost, he can still save face! He attempts again and quickly hops back on to the segway, goes another 2 feet and this time leans too far forward and completely falls off. It was hilarious. Then he makes a wise choice and ditches the segway and runs around the court rallying and cheering. It was quite the grand entrance. We watched him as he finished his thing and walked off the court and he threw down his pick axe like he was mad as heck that he blundered his big intro...i guess you had to be there. It was funny, I promise.

Now to the important stuff. Lacy did well at the game too. She cheered and shook her pom pom. We made sure she wore her LB tshirt. Cousin Kortney was good to me and took Lacy for walks when she got too restless.

Family Bonfire

We spent the evening with family at Bolsa Chica State Beach. We got there just before dark and it was already a bit cool and windy, but Lacy didn't seem to mind. She tugged on Cliff's hand to head towards the water. They found some cool shells and jumped over waves. The lighting provided some very romantic looking pictures. (Thanks to Tori for the pics...we came cameraless!)

While I dried off and tried to warm up Lacy, the Aunts got to work on our gourmet seven course meal of hot dogs, chips and smores. Lacy ate a well balanced meal of cheeto puffs, pringles, and apple juice. Weird kid wouldn't have any hot dog OR smores! Lacy did laps around our bonfire area all night long. Aunt LuAnn tried to teach her duck, duck, goose...but Lacy kept patting her own head and saying duck, duck...

A little later, we got a REAL treat. There was someone walking a polar bear on the beach. just kidding... it was a dog, but it was the most ginormous dog I had ever seen. It was an Irish wolf hound and it was a puppy and still had another foot to grow. Cliff and family ran over to question the owner and ooh and aah at the dog. It was pretty cool.

We topped off the night, by stopping at a little cafe Cliff used to go to so he could get some banana nut pancakes. Lacy licked the whip cream off of Kortney's hot chocolate and had some watermelon. Then we took our tired dirty girl home to go to bed. We had SO much fun!

Labor Day with Noah

We spent Labor Day weekend visiting Uncle Noah at the Academy. It was his first opportunity to leave the base for the weekend and I think we all enjoyed it. He looks so handsome in uniform! We're so very proud of him.

Breakfast Buddies

This is the array of stuffed animals that Lacy has in her bed with her, and consequently likes to carry around the house after she's woken up. On this day though, she insisted that they sit IN her chair with her while she eats her cheerios. But daddy had to feed her because she would risk dropping one of her friends if she tried to feed herself.

Disneyland Family

There were four generations of Cliff's maternal side at Disneyland on Friday. The 3rd generation aunt is taking the picture and Cliff's two cousins work there (that's why they're in costume). Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa rented wheelchairs while there and Lacy thought it was so cool because they were in 'strollers' just like her. While we were caravan-ing through the park she would cup her mouth and yell "gramma, gramma" which is Lacy speak for both grandma and grandpa, to make sure they didn't get too far ahead of her.

Earlier that day, before we met up with the fam, Lacy and I were practicing our skills...like nunchucks skills, hehe just kidding. We were practicing our buzz light year ride skills. Only the COOLEST RIDE EVER. Lacy's getting pretty good. She might break 100,000 the next time we go. Me on the other hand...I should get my vision checked maybe. But check out our looks of determination!

For Fun...watching Cinderella

"Arella"

Lacy has really taken to Cinderella. She watches it at least once a day (yes, I know, couch potato!) She sings and dances to the songs. Its actually amusing to me to see her be so girly. I mean you can't get much more girly than loving princesses. Last week, I took her to get some new shoes and was trying to get her excited about a pair of Dora sandals, but she had a far off look and mumbled "Arella." She spotted a pair of princess sandals behind me with Cinderella on them and would only have those!

We were at Target last night and she had to carry everything Cinderella through the store with her. She found a backpack in the back to school section that she put on and it went from her shoulders to her knees. And when she walked up to Cliff I told her to show daddy, she turned around and stuck her butt out, as to properly display the Cinderella backpack. She got a new Cinderella nightlight from the Target trip last night, and she was so excited to see it in her new room. She kept pulling it out of the wall and saying "Arella Light."

Sorry, no pictures. The move has delayed things for a bit.

Funny Lacy

Lacy put on Daddy's dress socks ("shoes") and pranced around on her tippy-toes. What a poser! She is ready for the Paris fashion runways.

On another note, the other night, I was in the kitchen making dinner. Lacy was running laps around me through the kitchen with one shoe and as a result kept tripping. I wasn't too worried...but what made me laugh was that everytime she fell down, she would say "Are you ok?"

And to complete the theme of this blog. Lacy and I stopped for some Panda Express the other day and her fortune said "YOU ARE A CHARMER!"

Our day at the pool

We had a cool but humid Saturday morning and decided to go down to the pool. Going down to the pool is quite an excursion. Cliff loads up the wagon while Lacy runs wild in the street and I try my best to chase after her. Then we lug all our junk down to the pool.

Lacy gets very excited when she's in her bathing suit and grabs her floaties and puts her mouth on them and pretends to blow them up.

Lacy has also warmed up to the pool since she has now discovered how to not swallow all the pool water that comes in her mouth and how to use the arm floaties to keep her head above water.

However, the pool steps are still her safety zone...
until Shamu, the killer whale, gets beached on the steps.
(ok, its not Shamu, its just big, fat, pregnant Leah)


Lacy lets us dunk her, throw her around and glide her along the surface of the pool. She hasn't figured out how to kick so when we tell her to swim to mama or daddy she instead kicks her legs out rigid and just floats in the one spot. Of course, like any properly raised girl she keeps her legs crossed at all times.



Today, her new achievement was floating on her back. She thought that was very cool, and just had a look of pure bliss on her face...like she was sunbathing (yes, she did have a thick layer of sunscreen on per her doctor daddy's request).

We are both excited that Lacy is lots of fun in the pool, but Cliff likes to push her to try new things. That always leads to cries of "mama!" as Cliff keeps pulling her away from her steps because he wants to play and swim with her. And mama's the lazy one that lets her just hang out on the steps. ;)


We had a very exciting morning and Lacy is taking a nice nap now before we go out apartment hunting all afternoon.

Mission Complete

We had about a 2 week period where Lacy would wake up in the middle of the night and come into bed with us. She was allowed to stay because we were too tired to put her back to bed in her room. So I (along with Cliff and other friends and family) worked really hard to wear her out during the day to get her to sleep through the night. As Cliff was leaving for work one morning, he got the camera out and took these pictures. Note the butt cheek hanging out. (Her bed is currently next to her crib, which her dad has been too lazy to break down and take to the garage. I think he has been hoping that we would move soon so he could take it straight into the moving van instead, saving a step).

Visiting Dad

There are 3 things Lacy likes to do best when we visit Cliff at work.

1 - Con stickers from all of the medical assistants. When kids go in for check ups, etc., they get a sticker. Well Lacy, she knows where the stash is and if they hand her just one she whines and points and asks for more. She has been known to empty the whole box.

2 - There's a little fountain outside the building and Lacy likes to throw pennies into it. The one time when we were sitting outside waiting for Cliff to get out of a meeting, I maxed out on pennies. She was inconsolably upset...until I told her to throw leaves in the fountain instead. I felt bad for the guy that would have to get all the leaves out of the fountain...for like 2 seconds. Really I was doing a victory dance in my head. I got Lacy to stop whining at no cost to me.

3 - Lastly, Lacy likes to press the buttons when we get into the elevator. However, the first button in her reach is the bright red alarm button. On other elevators, I let Lacy be a big girl and push the button, but I always forget about the alarm button at Cliff's building. Fortunately, the alarm button just rings a bell (that sounds like a school bell) for as long as you press down on it. We both get startled after 1 sec and that's that. Princess Lacy always has to make her grand entrance.

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.