Sweeeeeeet Emoooooootiooooons

We have been exploring facial expressions around our house and I must say it is quite a hoot!  Usually Lucy starts laughing/smiling so much that "sad" and "mad" fall by the wayside (this is clearly the case below), but I tried to snap quick and ended up with a few funny action shots.

SURPRISED!:

HAPPY:

MAD (er, kind of):

SAD (really starting to push it...):

Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam came home for a wedding mid-June and we got to steal some of his time for an afternoon by the pool at my parents house. 

We sent him this video the morning he arrived.  Normally Lucy isn't this calm, passive, gentle, shy little thing you see in this video, so I thought I should capture and share it in case it never happens again.   

 

And then we had fun in the sun:

two years, baby!

Milestone: TWO YEARS CANCER FREE. 
Words don't describe how happy this makes us.  Yay Paul!  We love you! 

Days Go By: 153-182 of 366

June 1

June 2

June 3

June 4

June 5

June 6

June 7

June 8

June 9

June 10

June 11

June 12

June 13

June 14

June 15

June 16

June 17

June 18

June 19

June 20

June 21

June 22

June 23

June 24

June 25

June 26

June 27

June 28

June 29

June 30

Bribery at its finest.

Chicago

These (FOUR?!?!) sorry photos and my impending story about the quick trip Paul and I took to Chicago last month do not do it justice.  The short story: it rained 60% of the time and I don’t believe we saw the sun once; I spent most of my time sporting Sam's North Face fleece (he’s 6’2” – a good look for me, yes) as opposed to the sun dresses I had hoped to wear; and truth be told, we didn’t kill ourselves seeing all of the sights and sounds of that wonderful city.

What we DID do was have tons and tons of fun.  We went to a Cubs game, hung out in Wrigleyville, bummed around watching basketball, explored the Art Institute of Chicago, strolled through Millennium Park, ate really good food and drank to our hearts content.  Did I mention that Lucy got to stay home with her grandparents? 

The bottom line is that my brothers (I’m totally biased and still totally convinced when I say this) are really great people; in fact, two of my favorites; so a weekend with them, even in the rain, always ends up being just what I needed.

Mother's Day Weekend

We went to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead:
We saw cows. 

And chickens.

And goats.

We even got brave and fed the goats.

And once we got tired of the aggressive, hungry, pushy yet adorable goats, we stuck that thumb in our mouth and waited for the bottle to run dry. 

We fished.  

And after a few hours (really, this place is huge, it is so great!) of visiting all the animals, we found the play equipment and that was pretty fun too!

Then on Sunday we had coffee on the back deck.   

We climbed on the chairs.

We tried, and I can confidently say, failed, at getting a decent picture of Lucy and me on Mother's Day:

Dada got some attention too:



We had a lesson in learning how to GENTLY brush Buckley:

And then we got in trouble for beating the dog with the brush:

We took a trip to the Dollar Store:

And then a trip out to Grandma Gaye and Grandpa Tom's house where we fed fish:

We took another stab (a few stabs, actually) at a four generation picture:

We ate fresh picked strawberries:

And when Mama said, "I think we're done with strawberries," I led Grandpa back to the goods because I KNEW he would be on my side: