9 Months

Lucy is 9 months old and as sweet as ever!  She is 19 lbs. and 14 oz.  Her top two teeth have made it through, but it was ROUGH!  I suspect her next two top teeth will emerge any day.

She loves to wave! 

 And eat- whether or not something is edible!  She's not too picky!

 She has the most beautiful, long and thick eyelashes.

 And it's getting harder and harder to get her to sit still!

 She doesn't stay in one place for too long.  She has places to go and people to see!

Candy Girl

Since Lucy is incredibly mobile these days, no one is safe from her scavenging.  If she sees or hears someone eating, she is there at lightning speed.  Earlier in the week Ross had a sucker in his mouth.  When Lucy noticed, she was like, "Roooosssss!  Buddy ol' pal.  How ya doin'?" 

Crazy Things I Heard This Week (And Crazy Conversations)

*Awwwww!  Baby slippers!!!!  (Mallory, upon seeing these hair removal pads)





*(Drew singing) Kumbaya, Lord. Kumbaya! Lady Gaga wrote that.

*I wish I could meet Mr. Rogers in real life, but he's dead, isn't he, Mom? (Mallory)

*Ross:  (Grumbles about doing a writing assignment)  This is useless.
Me:  Bud, writing is something you will use for the rest of your life.  You will use it in your job.
Ross:  No I won't.  I'm going to be an MLB player.
Me:  Well then, it will help you with your English.  You need to sound proper when you are interviewed.
Ross:  I'll just pretend like I'm Dominican.

*Mallory:  Will you tell me the story of the Ugly Duckling?
Me:  (After I tell the story)  See?  We all have feelings, and we don't want them to be hurt.  We are kind to everyone.
Mallory:  Yeah, even ugly people.

43 Days

43. That's how many days are left until Halloween! That means it's time for me to start thinking about costumes for the kids. I'm one of those nutty moms that loves to make handmade costumes for her kids.  If at all possible, I try to steer them toward ideas that are outside the box.  I enjoy seeing them dressed as something other than the thousands of Spidermans and Cinderellas I see each year.  That's not to say we haven't had a child dress as Spiderman or Cinderella - we have.  I just enjoy coming up with unique costumes. 

My motto with everything in life is "there is no need to reinvent the wheel."  I live by it.  And with the world at my fingertips, I get a lot of ideas online.  Halloween costumes are no different.  All of our ideas from years' past have come from the Internet.  This costume of Ross's was our best yet.  We received many compliments and had a lot of fun.

This year, I've come across a few ideas on my new obsession, Pinterest.  Here are two Drew and I are considering:

Mario

A Despicable Me Minion

And I can't decide which of these two I'll be dressing Lucy as.  They are both darling!

An aerobic instructor

http://homemadebyjill.blogspot.com/2010

Or a sock monkey

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com

Which one should I choose?

Crazy Things I Heard This Week

*This feels like your stomach after Lucy was born.  (Drew, said while kneading dough with me)

*Mom, that's so weird I don't even know what it means!  (Elizabeth, unappreciative of my humor)

*I can't fit my big toe in my nose.  (Mallory)

*Hey!  Did you know I can crack an egg with one hand?!  I would make a good amputee!  (Elizabeth)

*Mom, I want to call sleep "shut-off," okay?  (Mallory)

*Mallory:  Does Lucy have a brain?
Me:  Yes.
Mallory:  Well she doesn't know a lot of stuff.  She's not very smart.

Excercise is Wierd

Let it be known that I do not enjoy exercising.  (I know.  I know.  Looking at my figure that's pretty hard to believe.)  I have never enjoyed it.  I distinctly remember every year in elementary school the dread I felt when it was time to run the mile for the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.  I loved my PE teacher.  He is still special to me to this day.  However, lap after lap, as I ran with a stitch in my side, I remember muttering under my breath that he should have to run if we were being forced to.

I go through spells of catching glimpses of myself in full length mirrors and deciding I need to do better at getting in shape.  I'll get on a kick for a while then remember why I hate it then come up with excuses not to exercise.  I wish I was one of those people that runs and enjoys it.  I truly admire them.  But I simply cannot wrap my brain around it.  Running for fun makes about as much sense to me as people who enjoy taking part in the Polar Bear Plunge - you know breaking the ice to jump nearly naked into a pond in the winter.  I don't get it. 

I recently read that one can lose 1 pound for every 7000 jumping jacks.  Break that up over a week, and it's 1000 jumping jacks per day.  I can handle losing four pounds a month.  So I decided to give it a try.  I calculated that I can do 100 jumping jacks 10 times per day.  No sweat.  So today I decided would be day one.  "Ten.  Eleven.  Twelve..."  Mallory looked over and yelled, "MOM!  Stop it!  That's embarrassing!"  I immediately cracked up and stopped bouncing.  I said, "I'm just doing jumping jacks."  She whined, "That's weird!  Stop!"  Apparently my children think everything I do is aimed at embarrassing them.  I told her, "Just don't look at me."  To which she replied, "Just go in the other room.  I can still see you."

I went into the other room and began jumping again.  This time little Lucy crawled around the corner after me.  As she came in the room and sat down, she began cackling when she saw me!  Even a baby knows exercising looks unnatural on me.

Vote for Elizabeth!

Elizabeth has decided to run for Student Council at her school.  She needs to come up with one poster to hang up in her hallway for the campaign.  She has asked me to brainstorm with her.  We are having trouble agreeing on a slogan that is suitable.  I think her ideas are a little too bland.  She wants something like, "Elizabeth for StuCo.  Just Do It."  As with everything else, she thinks my ideas are weird and embarrassing.  We even asked my witty brothers for suggestions, but they were also embarrassing to her. 

I browsed one of my favorite blogs last night for ideas.  I came up with a few, and she laughed when she saw them.  But the thought of her peers seeing them mortified her.  I think they are hilarious if I do say so myself.

 She is a little more inclined to use one of these of Lucy.

I had a lot of fun doing these.  Maybe I should just run for StuCo myself!

The Only Thing Better Than An Ice Cream Cone...

...is enjoying it with your sister.

Crazy Things I've Heard (Recently)

It has been a while since I've posted about the crazy things I've heard recently. I'm not going to lie. It's because the end of summer break can be brutal, and I didn't think the kids were too funny anymore. But now that they're back in school, I can find the funnies again. Without further ado,

*Lucy's trying to kill me! She's trying to tackle me. She'd be good at linebacker or center because she's sort of fast, she can hit, and she can sorta block. (Drew)

*Mom, even when we're sleeping the government is watching us? (Mallory - asked while looking at the eyeball on a dollar bill)

*Are we gonna have to live under the bridge with the hobos?! (Elizabeth)

*Can you tell me a real story about fake people? (Mallory)

*Death smells like cheap perfume and used tissues. (Elizabeth - said upon entering a funeral home)

8 Months Old

 Miss Lucy at 8 months.  Still cute and smiley!

 Her new loves this month are clapping...

 kisses...

 and playing the piano.  She is OBSESSED with the piano.  You can't walk past it while holding her without her trying to jump out of your arms to play.

Pocket Safety

It's back to school time for our kids.  *Hallelujah chorus plays*  The first few days are filled with learning new routines and rules.  While I try to encourage the children to have good attitudes about the school year and teachers, I had a bit of a hard time being positive about one of Ross's PE rules.  He came home today to tell me about gym.  This is the one that got me:  They are not allowed to wear shorts with pockets to gym class because if the kids run, they might get one of their fingers caught in the pockets, dislocating or breaking a bone.  *Crickets chirping*

I've been alive for thirty-three years.  I've never met anyone who has had a pocket mishap in gym class, resulting in a maimed digit.  I've never even heard of that.  Perhaps instead of gym clothes, the kids should just wear bubble wrap.

Needle In A Haystack

Lucy is at the stage of finding microscopic particles on the ground.  If it is tiny and barely visible to the naked eye, she will find it.  We've told the kids that it is very important for us to vacuum regularly and make sure things are picked up off the floor.  Their solutiuon is to buy a playpen and keep her in it.

Mud Fest 2011

While I normally detest the kids making unnecessary messes, I stepped out of my comfort zone and let them play in a little mud Saturday.  Our community had a Mud Fest in one of the local parks to encourage recycling.  Personally, I didn't get the connection. Oh, well.  They had a blast.

 Drew, in orange, was the first to compete.  A HUGE obstacle course was set up, and the winners of the heats were suppose to compete in the end.

 Drew jumping over the barrels

 That kid is so fast!  Even in the soggy mud he passed kids from the two races before him.

 Dirty Monkey Boy

 Almost done!

 Even his teeth were dirty!

 And his ears.

 Lucy was like, "You fools are insane."

 Mallory took a turn.

 Her muddy little foot

 And it turns out she hated it.  She was finished pretty quickly.

 Much cleaner and much happier

 Elizabeth (on the left) competed with her friend, Anna.

 It's hard to tell because all of the muddy kids look the same after a while, but Elizabeth and Anna are on the ramp.

 Getting ready to cross the finish line

 Muddy beard

 Elizabeth and Anna, and their pretty white teeth

 Of course Edward had to compete.  He and Ross are ready to go.

 Showing Ross no mercy!  "Eat my mud, Ross!"

 Ross

This is my cousin, Joe.  The kids said, "Mom, that's Joey."  I never would have recognized him, and I don't know how they did.  All you could see was his blue eyes!

We ended up throwing all socks away and most of the clothes after the festival.  We never let the kids play in the mud so we thought, "Why not."  It certainly will go down in the memory books!