Funny Lucy

I have a bin of "baby toys" packed up and stored in our laundry room.  Every once in awhile, Lucy spots them and asks me to get them down so she can play with them.  I recently agreed and we both had a lot of fun!



Shaking her zebra and giraffe rattles

She wanted to pretend she was a baby and she got a huge kick out of me telling her which toys she played with most when she was a baby.  I would describe a scene from her baby days and she would reenact it...it was hilariously adorable! 

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This girl may watch a little too much tv...
A few months ago, we caught her reenacting a scene from The Lion King - the one where Simba confronts the hyenas and tells them, "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"  In the scene, the hyenas are looking down and slowly look up at Simba and say, "Like...you?"  Lucy has perfected this scene!  She lowers her head and slowlys lift it to slowly ask, "Like...you?" just like a hyena!  Then she switches to Simba: "Oops!"

Last week, she was playing with some of her Little People and we hear, "You sit in chair and I tie you up and hit you with frying pan."  Anyone a little bit afraid of my child right now? 
Yeah, me too...although I happen to know she's playing out a scene from Tangled.

Also from Tangled -
The other night, Dave picked her up off of the couch where she was sitting with me to take her in to brush her teeth.  She yells, "You take me!" as she's looking at me and I figured she wanted me to brush with her instead of Dave...but then she finished her sentence "...to see the floating lights!"

On our way home from the babysitter on Monday, I took my lanyard/ work badge off and she started screaming, "I need that necklace!"  I handed it to her and and asked, "What do you say?"
I was looking for a "thank you" but what did I get?
"Bonjour"
Thanks, Belle, for teaching Lucy French!  (We listen to the Beauty and the Beast soundtrack, aka "Belle music," every time we're in my car.  She tells me she likes it better than "Daddy music" which she has to listen to in Dave's car!)

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She loves bubble baths...and so do Lulu and Tessa!

She liked her bubble beard...I gave her a mirror to hold to check it out and she was cracking up.  She wanted us to have bubble beards, too...

Bubbly Meyers family!



Happy 4th of July!

The 4th of July was a total wash-out...pretty rainy from start to finish...But we still managed to have a little fun!

That morning we got up and went to GranJan and Grandpa's house to go watch the Edgewood parade with them and Great Grandpa and Granny.  Lucy was excited for an opportunity to use her new umbrella!



Catching candy with Lucia...whose parents were smart enough to put her in a rain jacket...

We hung out for a little bit after the parade before we moved on to our next party of the day.

Next we went to Grandma and Troy's house to play and eat dinner...and oh, it did stop raining for a few minutes - and Grandma let Lucy do some fireworks!  She had a lot of fun throwing poppers or snappers or whatever you call them...and stomping on the ones that failed to pop upon impact!

Wacky!

Random

These were taken back in early June on a park outing with Dave...these two hit up several different parks during their summer of fun:

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Snacks with friends

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Thank you, Subway, for offering apples...somehow, Dave and I do not have just the right touch that you seem to have because after refusing them in the past, Lucy now eats apple slices.  When we go to Subway, she gets the apple slices with her sandwich and I get barbecue baked Lays with my sandwich and we split the both of them.  The apple packs have red apples and green apples and she's decided the green ones are mine and the red are hers.

She likes for me to hold them up to her mouth so she can take a bite and often tries to avoid eating the skin - but if she happens to get a big old bite with skin included, she chomps it down just the same.

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When I uploaded this pic of Lucy, I was struck by how much she looks like me in this photo...and then I remembered I had a picture of me with a horse in my purse (because my Grandma recently brought me this photo to show me how much Lucy and I look alike, ha!) - so please forgive the picture of a picture I just took to upload.  But look at me!  I am touching a LIVE horse!  It took us, like, 30 trips to the library before Lucy would get this close to their stuffed horse, haha!

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Before bed, Lucy gets to watch a little bit of tv.  Usually, we start out with a snack, enjoying the movie of her choice (lately, we've watched The Brave Little Toaster and The Land Before Time, both rentals from the library, and this week we added Cinderella to the mix).  After snack, we pause the movie to brush teeth and find her B, then we come back in to watch just a little longer.  For awhile, she sat in her pink Zoe chair, then she upgraded to her recliner for a few weeks and then she kicked me off my spot on the couch so she could stretch out up there.  Her next preference was to lay on the floor (and she requested a pillow for her feet, too...this girl is high maintenance!)...

She took that one step further, though, by camping out in her tent!

Unfortunately for me, she now seems to be back to a couch kick so I am back to the floor...

Happy Birthday, Daddy (and other July birthday friends)!

Lucy and I went shopping to get her daddy a birthday gift...we went to the Dollar Tree and I let her take control...I told her she could pick 5 things to get him and she took her job very seriously, even insisting upon carrying the basket around.


Pretending to be on the phone with Daddy...

 She didn't totally get the 5-item-limit thing - and she also wanted to do a little shopping for herself (notice the giant lollipop in her cart which I later removed when she wasn't looking) - but she did pretty well and seemed pleased with her selections.  She wanted to add a balloon and a card, and the balloon choice was pretty funny...(but Dave's face was even funnier - panicked, as he was trying to determine if the balloon held any greater meaning (no)).

She picked out two cards and I had to tell her to narrow it down to one.  One had a dog on the front and wished the recipient a "doggone good birthday" while the other had a choo-choo train and said, "Happy birthday, grandson!"  I didn't want to steer her and instead let her totally choose on her own but I was really hoping she'd pick the train just because it would have been hilarious to see Dave open it...but she went with the dog.

She had fun wrapping the gift - in the bag she chose - and decorating the card with stickers:

Daddy got a real kick out of his gifts from his girl:

So for his 33rd birthday, Dave got a water shooter, a dish scrubber, some Monster's University sandwich baggies, some ear buds and some popsicle molds.  Not too shabby!

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A few weeks ago, Lucy partied with her friend Lucia:



Hooray for cupcakes!

Lucia received a dollhouse for her birthday.  Lucy has a dollhouse and it is her favorite thing to play with so I was a little concerned when Lucia unwrapped it but Lucy continued to sit nicely and watch the birthday girl open her gifts.  Afterward, Lucia invited her to play!

And aside from one, "No, Lucia!" I heard Lucy yell, the two played very well together.  Lucia had picked up one of the dolls and Lucy was protesting, though she herself was already playing with another doll.  I had to tell Lucy to be nice since these were Lucia's toys and Lucia was nice enough to share with her.  Luckily that was all I had to say.  I was proud of Lucia, though...she quietly stood her ground and tightened her grip on her doll!

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Yesterday, we helped cousin Alli celebrate her 5th birthday...but the party was from 2pm until 4pm - aka, Lucy's nap time.  And in case we were wondering if Lucy is old enough to skip naps, the answer is a big fat "hell no!"  We got her down for an early nap but got her up early, too, and she just wasn't ready.  She was pretty grouchy for much of the party and by the time she was really into it and having a blast, the party was over.
But the birthday girl clearly enjoyed the entire party...and her rainy party curse was lifted (yes, it rained on Saturday but it didn't rain until the party was over)!  And Lucy loved her cake and ice cream, watching the other kids beat on the pinata (she didn't want to partake but was more than happy to help scoop up and eat the treats once they were freed!), and jump around in the bounce house with her cousin:



"Happy birthday, Alli!  Sorry I was a wiener at your party!"



Our trip to Columbus

We went to Indianapolis last year for some all-about-Lucy fun and had a blast (despite the fact that we all got colds afterward...) and wanted to do another Lucy-centered trip this year.  I was perfectly happy to do Indy again but we wanted to try someplace new and decided on Columbus.  This time Jason and Jessica joined us (us = Dani, Dave and Lucy + my parents).

It took us over two hours to get to the Columbus Zoo, which was our first stop of the trip, but Lucy was amazing in the car.  She sat in her front-facing seat (which she still brings up almost every time we get into the car - "My carseat turned around!") and watched Monster's Inc., which is her latest obsession, on a portable DVD player:

Once we got to the zoo, it was time to see some animals!

We liked how close you could get to the animals!  We got to the polar bears as they were being fed so they were very active...Lucy and Jessica watched them swimming around, popping their heads up and diving back down.  Very cool!

Two tired crazy cats:

Gorilla friends:

Lucy and I went in to visit the goats and she kept looking around, finally asking where the brushes were - she wanted to brush a goat like she'd done recently at the Cincinnati Zoo!  Since that wasn't an option, she just sat and pet one on a bench...

They have an aquarium within the zoo which Lucy enjoyed.  Her daddy took her to the touch section and she touched a few things - including a starfish! - but declined to touch some of the other things.



Watching fish with Daddy



Checking out the penguins with Uncle Jason

We looked and looked for the giraffes and never found them.  We did see this guy, though, so I snapped his pic.  (Jason later learned about a nearby place called The Wilds, which is where Columbus keeps their giraffes - and zebras and rhinos).

Dave liked their zoo better than ours because you can get much closer to the animals.  And unlike our zoo, there are virtually no hills - it's basically a flat walk.  I liked it a lot, too, but the animals were very spread out...it seemed like we walked a lot without seeing an animal.  But it was a great zoo day!


Later, we checked into our hotel.  We stayed at the Chase Suites, which was about 10 minutes from the zoo and we were all very happy with it.  I think our favorite part, though, was the 5:30-7:00 nightly FREE happy hour!  Beverages and snacks were provided for free each night!  On our first night, Tuesday, we hung by the pool which was right outside of the bar area and enjoyed the beverages and snacks before ultimately ordering pizza.


The next day, we went to COSI.  Jason and Jessica opted out and explored Columbus on their own while we went with GranJan and Grandpa.

She had fun outside checking out this machine which sucked up foam balls and shot them back out the top!

Walking into "the ocean" was pretty dark so she had to choose a partner!  She had fun in there - lots of splash areas where she could get herself nice and wet...

Partners



Splashing



They had this giant lite-brite which Lucy was very serious about.  She would not let me touch any of the pieces - I guess she had a very specific design in mind!  She cracked us up - several time as she was inserting a piece, she'd pull it out, say "it's upside down!" and turn it around to insert it the other way (the sticks were the same size on either end...)

They had a very cool children's area at COSI which Dave and I agreed was worth the price of admission alone!  There was a big water table with plenty of toys and books and boats...they even had raincoats for the kids to wear as they splashed around so they didn't have to walk around soggy afterward! 

There were play kitchens and house and a grocery cart and plenty of other things to play with that were right up Lucy's alley.  We played until we were all ready to eat but once her belly was full, she crashed!

Zzzzz



Dave said, "Lucy's really going to miss hotel life!"  We stayed on the second floor and GranJan & Grandpa's room was on the end, ours was next to theirs and Jason & Jessica's was on the other side of ours.  Lucygirl quickly learned how to open our door and run down to GranJan's room...she thought this was hilarious and great fun!

Laying on the couch in our room watching Monster's Inc.

We brought her pack-n-play for her to sleep in and she slept pretty well most nights!  The first night she slept amazingly but the third night was a little rougher, but not bad.  She ended up sleeping in bed between us that night, taking up more space than either of her parents (I think she was trying to pose like a starfish...)

On Thursday we all went to the waterpark connected to the Zoo (Zoombezi Bay).  We weren't sure how Lucy would react - sometimes she loves to swim and sometimes she just wants to be held in the water and is "done" pretty quickly.  We need not have worried.

She had SO. MUCH. FUN!

We sat our stuff down at chairs by the wave pool and headed into the water.  The others went to check the park out and go down some slides while the three of us waded and splashed and Lucy screamed with delight!  She wasn't crazy about the waves at first but then I picked her up and took her out a bit further and we jumped when a wave came at us and she loved it!  At one point Dave had to tell me to calm her down because she was screechy-screaming so much that he said it was distracting the life guards who probably thought there was a problem at first!
After awhile, though, we ventured off to find out friends.  The three of us watched them go down a slide and then Lucy hung with GranJan and watched her parents go down one.  She kept saying it was her turn, though, and that was not an option on those slides - so my parent's offered go with her to find the kid's area while Dave and I went down some of the big slides.

When we found our girl, she was having the time of her life with her partner:

They had an awesome kid's area where the water was shallow enough for her to walk around on her own but deep enough for her to splash and get wet and feel like she was swimming...and there were lots of things to climb on and slide down and get sprayed by. 



One happy little bumble bee!

She Soon it was time for her to dry off and take a little nap...my dad had had enough fun by that point and offered to sit with sleeping beauty while the remaining 5 of us went to ride more slides.

She I don't think she was ready to go by the end of the day but we coaxed her out of there with the promise of ice cream on the way out!



Yum!

We ordered pizza the first night and we picked dinner up the second night to eat at the hotel but on the third night, we went out to dinner.  Lucy has become obsessed with taking pictures and I let her use my phone to take a couple of crazy pics: 


Yes, she took this herself and yes, the "pose" was all her idea...



When we woke up on Friday morning, Jason and Jessica were anxious to hit the road (to prepare for the Kenny Chesney concert that night!) but we decided to have one last adventure (mainly to tire the girl out so she'd nap on the way home) and we were able to persuade GranJan and Grandpa to stay back and join us.  We went to Magic Mountain, which was basically a larger-scale Chuck E. Cheese.

The play area was a little bit bigger / more intense than I was expecting but she had fun.  She climbed and crawled around and played and took in the sights of the other kids doing the same.

And then we heard that a group of 150 kids was on their way...yikes!  If only we'd have gotten there 15 minutes later, we'd probably have taken one look in at the 150+ plus kids and ran for the door...but we were already there and we'd already paid for Lucy to play (only $3 but still...plus it took a lot of convincing to finally get her to wear the wristband!) so we stuck it out - until Lucy got pushed / run into by two "blue shirts" (the kids in the large group were all wearing the same shirt) right in a row.  She was pissed!  I was standing with her but a kid came flying at us and knocked into her as he raced by and she was startled but okay...but then another crazy blue shirt came at her and she was knocked into again and she started screaming so we dashed out of that area.  When we found GranJan and Grandpa, they were playing games and Lucy decided she wanted to play some, too:

Skee-ball was hilarious!  Maybe she was taking out some of the aggression she felt toward the blue shirts??  She flung those balls - overhand! - down the lane and I had grab them as they came sailing back toward us (although she did make one or two all the way up to the buckets!)...she loved it!

She and GranJan earned quite a few tickets and Grandpa helped her feed them into the machine to tally them up before she and GranJan traded them for a candy necklace, 3 DumDums and 2 rubber ducks.

The girl was getting pretty tired after that so we got out of there, grabbed some lunch and headed for home (and she slept almost the whole way home, just as we had hoped).

It was a great vaca!