Sheeps

Madeline has been expressing a lot of interest in filmmaking and so we put this together. She was the visionary mastermind behind this short film, Sheeps. The 12-minute uncut Director's Edition will be out in March 2011.

Shooby Dooby

A little Lucy nibble. And a few blurbs. This is really more for me than you, but I hope you enjoy.

*Lu is a maniac on the stairs. She'll dive down head first trusting that you'll be there to catch her. And most of the time you will be. But every once in awhile, well let's not talk about it. Oh, and she has a DENT in the middle of her forehead that the doctor says will eventually fill back in. Nice.

*Madeline and Brenley played Stuffed Animal Barbershop recently, and I found locks of unicorn hair as well as very fine blonde hair. And Maddie's left side  is a little layered now. Could've been a lot worse.

*Aaron's reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe with Maddie! It's her first real book and most of the time she fidgets until talk of sweets and cake, or something very silly happens, then she perks up. But she wants to keep reading it together, so we will.

*Maddie is kind of amazing me with her musical ear. She really prefers jazz to anything else, and hums along with Dave Brubeck, piano and sax solos and all. I'm waiting patiently until she has the attention span for piano lessons.

*We're taking our first mini family vacation next week! I think we're doing one day at King's Island (Maddie's nirvana) and probably a day at this amazing museum in Cincy. I think it will be fun/hellish.

*My friend Julie B. was talking about completing her 50 states sometime soon. Her goal is to visit all of the non-contiguous states (Alaska and Hawaii for those who skipped geography) this year. And then she listed some more out west, like Idaho and New Mexico and Oregon...and I REALLY want to go with her since I have friends in all those states! But I have no more vacation days left. Real Life, you are a real bummer sometimes.

*I have successfully organized a standing Girls Night Out date every Wednesday night with some really great friends. This is kind of big, since the guys have had a date night for the past 5 years. For some reason, it's hard to get the girls together. But I'm glad we did it.

Lucy gives High Five, Low Five.

Lucy is 11 months today. She has four extremely gnarly teeth. I can't figure out if two are growing together on the bottom. And her top two are large (gets that from me). She will readily give you five, high or low, rarely too slow. Lucy says Dada and something that sounds like "haiiii" when she waves. She eats anything and thrills at drinking from a cup. She crawls fast and stands around furniture. She likes to play with Maddie and looks at her with complete awe and everything big sister does is hilarious. Maddie picks her up under her arms and totes her around, a little companion who she needs occasionally for imaginary airplane rides in the closet. 

Me and the Loose Goose

Me and the Loose Goose
Originally uploaded by Steph Fisher

Maddie loves taking pictures and video with my phone. Here is one she took of me and Lucy in the kitchen the other day. And now.....

A Short List of Lucinda's Nicknames:

1. Lucy Lu
2. Loose
3. Lucy Goosey
4. Lucy McGoosey
5. Luce McGoose*
6. Lucille
7. Fuzz
8. Red
9. Baby carrot
10. Lucifer

*Maddie's go-to

"Kids!"

The weekend after Christmas, Aaron and Madeline went out to play in the snow. We only got a very little accumulation in our yard, but they used every snowflake to roll up a sweet mini-snowman. Maddie came running in asking for a carrot, then a little later she needed buttons for eyes (we ended up using bottle caps), then she needed a hat. I watched out of the kitchen window as they put together a very cute little snowman, who was finally dubbed "Junior." You can watch the video to see poor Junior's fate. He was violently knocked over and his carrot nose was planted victoriously like a flag into his....."bottom." Madeline thought this was hilarious and asked to watch the video many times.

The other day she declared that she had made a "carrot snowman butt ball." Her favorite word is butt, or any variation of bottom, booty, pooty, stinkerbutt...etc. She is quite silly. But the funniest part is that, at the end of the video Aaron says "Kids." Like, "oh brother...kids, nothin' like 'em." Or an exasperated..."kids, good grief." And now Maddie is saying "Kids" in that same tone.

Most of the time she uses it where we would say "Dang" or "Oh shit!" Sometimes she gets the meaning and usage just right, like this morning at breakfast when Lucy was playing the part of Godzilla on the breakfast table, rampaging through breakfast town, knocking over cups and bowls of cereal. She looked at Lucy, rolled her eyes, and said "Kids."