Just Catching Up

Flip-Flops

All summer Lulu has been trying on our shoes, she particularly likes flip-flops. So while at a local store I picked up some kid sized flip-flops and trimmed them to fit her. She wears them for hours, just walking slowly from one room to another. When one show falls off she picks it up and brings it to me to put back on her. She has tried to put them on herself, but that generally turns into frustration and hollering.

Letting The Cat Out

Yes, Lucky me now we have to keep an eye on door locks, she lets herself out too.

A Little Cheese to Go with That Egg

The average breakfast. She's a good eater in the morning, then she goes to Day Care and eats again... well we eat at 6am here, so by 8:30am it's understandable to be hungry when your growing so fast!

She Likes Cars

In addition to stuffed animals, blankets, purses and shoes she also loves to play in the sand and play with cars. I had to make a special trip the the store to buy her a few.

4th Of July with Dad

What can I say but "Awe." She loves the water as much as her Daddy.

Her Outside Chair

No doubt that she thinks all the chairs on the beach or in the living room are hers, but she especially enjoys the ones that are her size.

Ready for Fun Island

"Everyone quit telling me no!"

Things That Don't Belong

Shoe's and balls, and who knows what are often found in my kitchen draws.

Still Loves the Piano

She plays her little piano all the time too, but nothing beats side by side with The Pianist*

Watching Dad on the Tractor

Just so darn cute! So I think she's missing her Daddy as she's blowing kisses and calling his name when I take her outside to see him and let him know lunch is ready. As he starts walking toward with his arms open and smiling she is seemingly moving toward him... but then she walks around him and heads straight for the tractor. What a hoot!

Family PicnicPB&J, sliced fruit and H2O in the front yard.

My Inside Chair

She's hamming it up for the camera. We're watching Baby Einstein she always crawls in that chair when I ask her if she wants to watch her movie. However, she's learned how to scoot the ottoman around the living room to get on anything she wants, and so any chair seems to be hers these days.

Fat Lip

My poor baby girl! This picture was from the Saturday of Midsummer Festival. We were at the Girl Scout volunteer spot (mini-golf course) and she just HAD to have 3 golf balls in her arms (more if I'd of not taken away the bag of balls). In her meandering around the area of my feet she took a spill and with 3 balls she wouldn't let go of she fell and last thing to hit was her little mouth on the asphalt. Right away we got her a popsicle because putting ice on her eye last week was a disaster, she like the popsicle and it reduced the swelling right away. Now less than a week later you can't even see where it was.

Oh but I almost forgot... I got her a magnetic alphabet book, and I caught her going through it yesterday pulling the letters and pictures out of their spots (p.s. Doug & Melissa stuff rocks) and she was singing the alphabet song... well the tune she does when the Baby Einstein alphabet wheel plays. She's so smart!

It's been a busy life for us lately, so not a lot of pictures or things besides the everyday routine. One day out of routine makes us all miserable! Yesterday I did feel a little more like myself, I picked up Lulu from day care, made us dinner and her at the same time, put her to bed, made a chicken salad and baked banana bread, worked in the garden, and painted a plate for the pie eating contest. It felt a little like the good ol' days when I seemed to be more productive.

Picking Wild Daisies

Things are finally calming down, and all I want to do is curl up and snuggle with my special little Lulu!

She's started talking quite a bit, climbing everything and eating with a spoon.

Her First Shiner

Lulu's Shiner

Well I hate to admit that I turned my head for a couple of seconds while I knew Lulu was on the deck playing with the Mickey Mouse push toy we picked up in Minneapolis. I was looking at my flowers and thinking about how much I love the Peonies and Cone Flower that are growing by the deck and how wonderful that combination might be across the entire front of the house if I tore out the juniper bushes that I am allergic to anyhow. Imagine how many fractions of a second that took for me to think that, meanwhile Lulu was going down the 3 wooden steps in front of our house. The best we can figure is that she did a summersolt down to the walkway. It must have hurt pretty good because she cried for a good 10 minutes it seemed.

By Friday morning she'd recovered and became very playful, or she really knocked her noggin'! She was crawling around on all 4's panting and going up to our dogs panting as if she's having a conversation with them then crawling away really fast as if they were chasing after her. It was too funny! She's also figured out how to open the dog food and scoop it out... so it's a new problem we haven't figured out how to fix without putting it one the counter.

Later we were playing on the floor with her Doug-n-Melissa puzzle pieces clapping when she put a piece in correctly. We also like to play with the shapes bucket that Tracey gave us last week... she can put the circle throught the circle hole, but for any shape she doesn't get on the first try gets flug across the room at warp 10. What a stinker!

Penelope unknowingly donated her "Spin-spin a letter" toy to Lulu. Who I noticed yesterday was spining it and singing to the "ABC's" So not bragging here, she wasn't singing the actual ABC's she was just singing and it was so sweet. I tried to catch it on video... will upload anything I find if I got any.

As she was playing in her favorite black chair she was messing with the attached massage remote and was leaning too far over the side and fell on her head. I was quickly moving over to try and catch her but it was too late. Good thing she only fell about 4 inches, but all the crying, kicking and head rubbing I am sure it was a good bonk. Unfortunately she didn't learn her lesson, she still climes on the black chair and looks over the side.

During both lunch and dinner she let me put food in her mouth wth a utencil in between her own bites. After dinner we were sitting outside and I was spooning some yogurt into her hust before she popped off to plat in her car. I left the yogurt and spoon on the step and sometime between her playing and resting on the step she grabbed the spoon and started to feed herself. I am pretty impressed because she use to use a spoon before when she was really young but then she lost interest in feeding herself until now. So at breakfast this morning I gave her some applesauce with her eggs & cheese... I am guessing about 1/2 made it into her mouth with a spoon, but she sure looked like she was having fun. That's the same with drinking out of a big girl cup, she loves to do it... when she took it away from me one day she ended up dumping the milk on her head, surprizing even herself.

What else is new? Hmm, kisses on demand, and a hug now and again... and my favorite is that she likes to snuggle up to me in between her play time. Oh and the way she uses everything at her height as a chair, legs & laps especially, then she leans back and melts into me... I love it.

And at the end of every evening I love to see her resting so sweetly with her Mac & BB.

Just Random Days

Side By Side

My Little Twinkle Toes

Lulu's 1st Birthday

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

A picture is worth a thousand words, these say she loves ice cream cake!

Big Gift

The Piano

At least an hour past her bedtime and Nana couldn't wait any longer to open Lulu's gift for her. So after it was open I am pretty sure she was awake 2 hours past her bedtime, hamming it up as everyone applauded her playing. She's so cute!

The Cheese
Look at her go, kicking her feet into the air and playing feverously.

The Cousins

Lulu, Penny & Bell wishing they were allowed to play the new toy, but smiling for the camera anyhow.

A Week Goes So Fast

Last Sunday a Couple Hours at the Lake

She watched The Lumberjack* chop up some trees/branches and walked around exploring a little but never to far from Mama.

A Fish In Water

Once we walked on the dock that was the end, I could hardly hold her from jumping in the lake. So barely able to get off her clothes she jumped, cold water and all.

She wanted to walk all around and touch all the rocks and mud... eventually she got a leech on her foot and I had to call it quits!

Dressed Again But Not Happy About It

Breakfast with BB

She refuses to part with BB and Mac when she gets up in the morning... for the past week. This morning I could even get the bear away from the highchair! She's eating eggs, cheese and banana in case you wondered.

Practicing a Little B&E

Our kind friends pasted along some puzzles their kids outgrew. This board has a series of locks on it. We leave it in the bay window to occupy her time when we're eating (and she's done). Then last Sunday we went to Nick's birthday party (8 yrs old, WOW!) where in the go-home-gift-bag was a water pistol. What are the chances she held the pistol correctly and started playing with the locks?! I was lucky to snap a picture.

A Birthday Gift from Aunt JoanneShe opened the gift, sort of, and pulled out a few cute new outfits, a piggy bank, and a few other things.

5/27/10 Lulu starts to point when she wants things. Still not talking much, but is using consonants and vowels... not worried, she does have sentence structure mimicking. I can tell she knows a lot of words, and what they mean because I can tell her to look at things or pick something up and she can do it... she doesn't always want to though.

I was making pizza, so rolling the dough and patting/slapping the dough when she was eating in her highchair watching me. Then she stared to make the same patting motions... so I used that opportunity to sing Pat-a-Cake with her. It sure made the song make more sense to me after all these years!

She's such a ham, and will do anything to get a chuckle out of us.

I've been going through the animals on puzzles and pictures/books, etc. Trying to correlate sounds like "Meow, meow, I am pretending to be a kitty." So I was in the dining room with her when I asked, "What does a doggie say?" and she responded "huhuhuhu." LOL, she was panting like our dogs do! Guess they don't bark that much!

5/30/10 We were going to pick up some fence panels in Perham yesterday listening to the radio when a Joe Walsh song came on. Prior to that song she was dancing in her little swaying way and slapping her knee to the beat... but as soon as that song started she started yelling and putting her hands on her head while squeezing her hands from the top of her head to her jawline a few times. I didn't know what was wrong with her until she stuck her 2 index fingers into her ears to plug out the sound. She hates Joe Walsh!

5/31/10 Since Lulu was little I started using some sign language with her, trying to potentially make my life easier. Awhile ago she started to use the sign for finished/all done... but never does more than that sign until this morning. She ate a bunch of food and looked to just be playing with what was left on her tray so I asked her if she was all done... and she used the sign for milk. I thought she may have just confused the signs so I repeated the all done sign with words again... and she signed for milk again. So I gave her milk & she was very pleased with herself!

Later when I was eating she came over to be picked up (trying to get her to sign "up" too) so I picked her up and hugged her saying "I love you" and for the first time she said it back to me. Ok, maybe not in exact letters/words but she used the same syllables and letters very close to I love you since it was unmistakably like it. I then set her on my knee and was talking to her and said "who's at the window" to which she replied "doggie." She's very smart, just doesn't use many words the sinker!

In my effort to stop the running toward my legs and flinging herself whining I am teaching her to say "Up" (with words and sign)... she was giving me nothing! I mean she already points it's not that much different, gesh! So just when I was starting to think she doesn't pay attention to me whatsoever, she flings herself at my legs crying to be picked up and I say & sign UP as I pick her up... then as shes on my hip and immediately stops fussing she then signs UP... or she was pointing at the top shelf my bookcase!? Gez, who knows.

My Cookie

A Little Something Sweet Although she wasn't acting so sweet while eating the chocolate cookie I brought back from Aimee & Nick's Lemonade stand. Thank you for the wonderful snacks!

Lulu Runs Away
After the cookie she was pretty upset that I had to wipe her face and hands, and well let's face it at 11 months old she's acting a bit like a 2-3 year old having tantrums and scream fests... oh the fun! Anyhow after she was irritated with my picture taking (hence the pointing) I cleaned her off and put her down. Once her feet contacted the ground she made a B-Line for the front door and opened it.


Are You Kidding Me!

It was windy outside so it shut right away (and quicker than she walks anyhow) and then Mom locked it while she thumped on the door yelling I took was able to get this picture. Look at the stink eye I am getting! We've had a couple nice days outside and I am thinking she's pretty done with being on the inside looking out.


Meanwhile...

The Weatherman* was up on the 70 ft silo changing the battery in his anemometer.

Notice the black speck is a chicken.

The new red wagon for Lulu by the house. She put clothes pins in and out of the red wagon while The Mechanic* worked on the truck and I worked preparing the garden for the tiller.

And YES Penelope... it's your little red car by the tree! She was either tired or having a fit because she could figure out why it didn't steer as well as the golf cart so she didn't really play with the car.

Walking

She walks slow and deliberate.

It was last Saturday that she really started walking from chair to wall, to dog, to ledge, to window... but know she's cooking along. Yes I am bribing her to walk with Cheerios because when she sees the camera she seems to get angry... stinker.

A Summer Drive

We let her steer around the house, she likes it.

This week she's become fond of sticking her face under the water when she takes a bath. She also likes to stick her face out the window when we drive around the property. She has the same silly happy look on her face.

A Piece Of The Puzzle

Eating Cheerios and putting puzzle pieces into her snack cup!

Little Lulu has a new wagon.
Tata, Nana & Lulu at the airport.

Nana & Lulu during the car ride. They both fell asleep holding hands.

Lulu's front central incisors broke on Friday. Saturday morning she started walking to get from place to place... it's so cute how she takes baby steps.

Lots of tantrums this past 2 weeks, you'd think she's been taking queues from 2-6 year olds.

She's been saying a lot of new words too! Oh the fun starts now.

Sleeping Beauty

She sleeps like I did when I was a baby, on her tummy with her butt in the air.

I want to type so much more but I am too tired.

Lulu started blowing her little runny nose. I put a tissue to her nose and squeeze (gently) her nostrils and say "blow" and she does. So cute, and useful.

My Cinderella

Starting chores at an early age!

If she can stand, she can sweep... JUST KIDDING!

So

First Steps

Lulu has taken her first steps today. She took 3 steps at Day Care so unfortunately I have no pictures or video. Later at home she took one step for me, but again no pictures.

So.... coming soon, video.

Thankful For...

Standing Unaided

Happy Easter!

A Basket of Easter Fun

In no time flat she located the on/off button on the Bunny-In-A-Basket.