Lucy is Two!

Our Lucy Loo is two! We had a really fun birthday weekend, especially because B and J's family was visiting in town that day, as well as some O-family cousins from Oregon. This birthday was especially fun because Lucy had a really good idea of what happens on your birthday, having recently seen three other family birthdays take place in the weeks preceding her special day. She practiced singing the "Happy Birthday" song and blowing out pretend candles on her toy cake for weeks. (And now, come to think of it, she hasn't pulled out her toy cake since!)

The day before Lucy's birthday we took her to the Woodland Park Zoo.  Beforehand she made a specific request to go and see the gorillas, and we were happy to oblige. However, her favorite "animal" during our visit was a sculpture of a fox, since she thought it looked like Swiper from "Dora the Explorer." 

On Lucy's actual birthday, we got her dressed and went downstairs to open presents. She was thrilled that we got her a birthday balloon. This balloon actually lasted for almost a month before deflating. Lucy's present from us was a set of Fisher Price Disney Princesses. I really wasn't anticipating that she would be "into" princesses, but she really does love musicals and I ended up showing her Cinderella and Snow White a few months ago (which started the "princess ball" rolling). The feminist in me feels better about having her play with the cute, round Little People figurines though, since they are less objectified than the Disney characters themselves.

We ate brunch with B and cousins at a cafe in Issaquah that morning, and then spend the afternoon playing at RB. Lucy got a bubble machine as a gift from her caretaker at day care, and it was a huge hit! Lucy's other main request was to watch Beauty and the Beast in the upstairs room at RB, specifically the moment "when Belle comes" (which is when she walks down the stair in her gold ball gown, at 1:00 in this clip).

This was taken right before we started singing to Lucy. I think it's cute that Sam crouched down to smile and share the moment with his little sister.

I took this photo just as we started to sing. She knew exactly what was happening (after weeks of practicing on her toy birthday cake). Her expression says, "This is it! This is the moment! I can't believe this is happening!" When she blew out the candles, she got a very loud cheer from her extended family members.

Lucy is such a sweet girl. She loves to snack, and it is a common sight to see her going over to the pantry door to help herself to whatever is inside. She constantly asks to eat Goldfish crackers, Creamies, or baby food "crushers" during the day. (Although she is extremely picky about crusher flavors, and will only eat the peaches, apple-carrot, or blueberry-purple carrot-pear flavors made by Plum Organics. She's way too old to eat these anyways, but we are trying to help her cut back on her addiction!)

Lucy has been introduced to potty training and has had some success, but she's not really interested right now. She usually asks to use the potty so she can watch "Cookie Carnival" on my phone. We have tried to bribe her to use the potty by rewarding her with M&Ms, but she isn't interested. On two occasions, though, when she really felt like eating candy, she beat our system: she would use the potty (only relieving herself the tiniest bit) and eat her M&M reward after we all cheered, and then go back to the potty and eek out a little bit more so she could have her next M&M. I think she ate five or six M&Ms within fifteen minutes! Silly Bubba.

Lately Lucy has gotten in the habit of asking "Where are we going?" when we get in the car, and then responds, "Oh!" after I tell her our destination. She also asks if we can "go somewhere" in the car, and last weekend asked (when we were driving away from our house) if we could go shopping. She loves that her car seat has now been turned to be front facing, and she likes to talk about how "red means stop" and "green means go" when we get to stop lights.

Lucy loves singing, dancing, reading books, stickers, drawing and painting. She has quite good fine motor skills, and she can hold a pencil correctly and make little spirals or straight lines. Her favorite shows are Anastasia, Cinderella, Thumbelina, Swan Princess, Wreck-It Ralph, Toy Story 3 and Letter Factory. She also likes to watch episodes of "Dora the Explorer." Every night she asks to wear Sam's toy astronaut helmet while we have our bedtime routine. She loves to listen to music in the car, and we continually have either a Disney compilation, Yo Gabba Gabba, the Rio soundtrack, or a Nancy Stewart CD playing while we drive.

We love Lucy's cheerful little personality, and her curly blonde hair is perfect for her usually-sweet temperament. She has only had a few major tantrums in her little life; most of the time she is very easy going and happy. She's very chatty and social, and she especially loves to play with her brother (whom she often calls "Sammy" or "Sammy Loo"). We love having this little light in our lives.