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watch it and you will too.

The last couple MONTHS...

I haven't posted in months!! Part of me even thought to just wait until Dec and do a post for the whole year but I'll post some of what we've been doing the past couple of months...

This was a girls weekend I had in Ft.Lewis with some of my girlfriends - it was really fun, I haven't really done anything like this for years so it was great to see them all.
We went camping with Nicks family to Lake Chelan - it was so fun and we had awesome weather!! It was so nice to just spend time with the family...and Lucy LOVES hanging out with her Aunts, Uncle, cousins and grandparents!
Here is Grandpa Mower, Lucy & Melia eating. Grandpa was great at getting Lucy to EAT...it seems like Grandparents usually have a way with her. She is NOT a big eater, she'd live on milk alone if we let her...well, that and candy. She is her Fathers daughter in that way!
Here is Lucy & Melia while we were camping...Lucy ADORES Melia more then words can explain! Aunt Laura had gotten them these huge suckers.
Then my girlfriend Candy got married to Bryan. It was a beautiful wedding and reception and it was really fun to see so many people from my stake that I grew up in.
Here is Candy and all of her bridesmaids...Candy is the type who makes friends with everyone...and she is really good at keeping those friendships too so she had a lot of bridesmaids. It was really nice to be involved - Congrats Candy & Bryan!!

Here is Diane, Lesa & I at the wedding reception. I just liked this picture so I thought I'd add it in. We re-took this photo so many times trying to get it right, it was really funny!

While we were in town for the wedding we stayed with Nicks family and got to spend more time with them, which we always enjoy.

Then we spend a whole day with my Dad, which I hardly ever get to do - it was SO nice!! We spent time at the mall shopping (obviously MY idea) and then after lunch my Dad took Lucy & I to the Portland Zoo...it was so much fun for all of us. Thank you Dad!!

We've been painting our house, one Saturday we tried have Lucy "help" us. Of coarse we realized it wouldn't really "help" us, just keep her occupied, but real painting was SO boring! So I gave her a bucket of water and a paint brush and asked her to "paint" her slide. She had a ball and it was super cute! She commented to me a couple times about how much work it was and how long it was taking her, but all the while she had a smile on her face :)
This is my favorite doll I've made so far, it was for one of Lucy's little friends. I'm not a really good seamstress, so this is a bit of a stretch for me and I feel quite accomplished with each doll I finish.
In October my friend Aubree and our family went to pick apples, we ended up picking 150 lbs. We made apple sauce, chunky apple sauce and apple pie filling. It was a lot of fun but I was kind of done with canning for awhile after that. Well, until someone brought me three bags of plums and I spent 1-1/2 days making plum syrup.

SOME of the apples - finished.
and of coarse here is the most current...our beautiful Dorothy. She did win a costume contest on Halloween - she picked a PEZ as her prize...again, like father like daughter.
My friend Bekie's MIL made the outfit for her just as a dress up outfit. Little did she know it would become a favorite in our household!
I also dressed up as The Wicked Witch of the West...it was really fun to be dressed up WITH her.

I hope everyone has had fun the last couple months like we have!

My Princess...

The other day Lucy & I were watching a movie and a guy was getting ready to get married – Lucy suddenly burst out giggling as though it were the funniest thing ever.

“Mom, boys don’t get married!”

“They don’t?”

“No!!! Girls get married!!!”

“Who do the girls marry?”

“Mom! Girls marry Princes!!”

Silly me! I didn’t correct her, I’ll let her have those standards for awhile.

Gosh, until she’s 21 if I can.

Flamingo Hops

This is one of my favorite pictures of Lucy, she is practicing her Flamingo Hops from Ballet. She also practices her "point, flex, point, flex" a lot too. This is a girly girl all the way through!

My good fortune...

I went to Chinese food the other day with my sister and my fortune read:

"Don't worry about the stock market. Invest in Family"

I love it.

I remember when I was a little girl going to China town with my Mom and buying fortune cookies by the big bags, like grocery size paper bags. I thought she just loved the cookies, but I bet she loved a good fortune too because when I inherited her jewelery box it was full of little white pieces of paper full of good fortunes. Like Mother, like daughter I suppose. Lucy was pretty jazzed about her little piece of fortune too so maybe the tradition will continue?

PS. Don't worry I don't put too much stock in to my "fortune" or play my lucky numbers, it's just a fun bonus to some good Chinese food.
PPS. By the way, the Chinese restaurant just North of Northtown mall in Spokane is pretty decent. My sister & I both agree it's no where near as good as the Golden Wheel on 1st street in Yakima Washington, but it was worth the $10.50.

Camping at Kamiak Butte

Nick called from work on Friday afternoon and mentioned going camping. So we went. Kamiak Butte is just 20 min away from us and is a great place to go on a quick trip. I'm hoping that we get a lot of trips in this summer because it was so much fun!

Loading up while Nick & I had our back turned. I thought it was awesome - way to go Lucy!!Roasting her marshmallowsNotice where her marshmallows are now? Yep, she eats them..all! Lucy & I getting ready for bed. Playing a game before bed time. She doesn't care how MANY matches everyone gets, it's just who gets the match of Little Bo Peep. This is Malley, her "pet" caterpiller. Nick found it when he woke up Saturday morning and she knew it's every move for the next hour and a half! She was in love!!

When You Wish Upon a Star...

We LOVED our trip to DISNEYLAND!

It truly, truly is a magical place!

Nick was already in Anaheim for work so Lucy & I flew down together, leaving the Pullman airport at 6:40am. I had gone back and forth for MONTHS about whether or not to take our stroller, use a rental stroller at Disneyland, but a cheap umbrella stroller to use there and to/from the hotel. I am SO glad that I decided to just take our own stroller. I knew it was comfortable for Lucy, it was comfortable for either Nick or I to push. It has a nice shade and a nice basket for stuff. And we used it SO much! Definitely when we go again I will take my own stroller again. I know you're probably wondering why I started out with THAT, but honestly I can't even tell you how long I deliberated about it, and then once I was there I had the thought SO many times that "I'm so glad I brought my own stroller!" So I wanted to share that right off.
Entering Disneyland for the first time was amazing. I had never been before so I wasn't even really sure what to expect. I was caught up in the magic almost as much as Lucy was. The very first day was a bit overwhelming and we took it easy learning our way around, and getting familiar with the park. We started at 8am and by 8:45am we were in line to meet the princesses at the Princess Fantasy Faire. We weren't really sure what to expect, but it's pretty much the only way you can meet the Princesses. We stood in line for just over an hour to walk through and meet 3 princesses. Since we were in line before they opened our wait wasn't even that long considering most people wait 2-1/2 hours once the line is established. You get to meet three princesses and they are constantly being switched out so you never know which three you'll get. Our first visit we met Cinderella, who seriously stepped RIGHT out of the movie! She was an amazing Cinderella and paid a lot of special attention to Lucy. Then we got a quick picture with Pocahontas (who was switching places with Cinderella) and then Snow White and Ariel. Lucy wanted to immediately get back in line again...
We did go back on our third day hoping we'd finally meet Aurora since we hadn't met her yet. I got in line for that at 8am, they opened at 9am. I was the first in line and told Nick to go ahead and take Lucy on rides while I waited. Shortly after they left I was joined by a guy about 35-ish. I figured he was like me and getting in line for his daughter - (buzzer sound) WRONG! After talking to him for just a short moment I found out he was a local....no big deal right? He comes every saturday...you're thinking "So? Get to the point!" right? Okay, here it is...he goes by himself, every Saturday to meet the Princesses and then goes home! He was bragging that they know him by name. I was very grateful that after talking to him for a moment I was joined by a couple from New York.

We spent a lot of our time at Disneyland doing shows, parades, and meet & greets. Lucy was much more interested in these things then the rides. We got to see the Aladdin Show over at California Adventure which was a highlight of our trip. It's a Broadway Show of the movie condensed to 40 min. It's pretty spectacular! We saw the Celebrate Parade twice and loved it both times, we also saw the Pixar Parade once and the Electrical Light Parade all of which were fabulous. We went to the Drawn To the Magic Stage Show and the PlayHouse Disney on Stage, where Lucy said one of the most wise things. . .They threw streamers out in the air and of coarse all of the kids were rushing to grab as many as they could. Lucy grabbed one and came to show me and then looked a little boy with his arms full of them and said "That boy has a lot, but one is plenty." She said it so matter of fact, I felt so proud as a Mom at that moment.

Another big highlight of our trip was that we were there for the opening night of the new fireworks show, Magical. It was exactly that too...Magical. The fireworks were cheographed amazingly well and Tinkerbell FLEW across the sky as the fireworks were going off. After Tink was done then DUMBO FLEW across the sky as well. They fly over and around the castle and it truly was amazingly cool.
Lucy saw this closet her first night there and claimed it as her room. She would play and sleep in there.

We went on quite a few rides over the three days we were there...including Dumbo, Tea Cups, It's a Small World (which I loved), Mr.Toad's Wild Ride (which freaked Lucy out!), King Arthur's Carrousel, Walkthrough of Sleeping Beauties Castle, Storybook Land Canal Boats, The Railroad, the Monorail, The Jungle Cruise (loved it!), Tarzan's Treehouse, The Enchanted Tiki Room, The Many Adventures of Pooh, Tom Sawyers Island, Big Thunder Ranch Petting Farm, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Gadget's Go Coaster in Toon Town....There is a lot to do there!
This is over on Tom Sawyers Island
This is one of my favorite pictures of Lucy, I just think it's funny. There was a little petting farm and Lucy loved petting the goats. She informed us several times that she wants "four goats".
I don't know where we'll put them :) This is at Mickey's House, Lucy loved meeting everyone, but mostly loved going into their houses! This is at the Rain Forest Cafe. They had a huge fish tank with a "Dory Fish" Lucy was obviously very excited.

This is on our last day, Lucy had collected all of these leaves, and wanted to take them all home with us...so we suggested she make a house for Tinkerbell and her friends - it worked, we didn't bring home any leaves. That makes me happy.
Oh, did I mention that on our last day we spent 17 hours at Disneyland/California Adventures! I'm not even exaggerating either! We got there just before 7am, and then left at midnight! Lucy was a trooper too, she didn't even get cranky or mean the whole day. If we weren't able to pull off the full day then we were going to go back for a forth day, but we pulled it off! The next two days were lazy/catch up days. Lucy slept a lot the next two days and the picture of above is in the airport...she was out cold for 2 hours. I even lifted her out and carried her through security and then put her back in the stroller and she was out again.

It was a great trip and we look forward to many more
trips to Disneyland over the years.