Take your Kid to Work Day 2013

Last week we celebrated Take your Kids to Work Day at Epic! I picked up Lucy from day care and she spent the afternoon with mama at work.

 

I recently moved into a new building on campus. There is still a lot of construction going on in the area. Lucy loved watching the cranes, dump trucks, and construction crews. She was so excited to see the equipment and she waved to a bunch of the construction workers.

 

My new office building is the Barn so there is a lot of farm animal motif for Lucy to admire. :)

 

She enjoyed seeing the animals and making noises.

 

She sat on a grassy carpeted couch.

Lucy worked on her typing skills.

 

The theme of the afternoon was under the sea - Lucy colored an octopus, she did stickers, caught a little pink sea turtle in a fishing game.

 

 Here is what we took home from the day:

 

There was a photographer taking pictures of the kiddos in front of  an underwater sceen. Lucy would not crack a smile and totally gave the photographer the stink eye! It was so funny. Doesn't she look thrilled to be there? haha!

 

 

 

Children's Museum

On Sunday, after brunch Lucy and I met up with some friends of ours at the Children's Museum. What a great place to go on a cold and rainy day!

 

Lucy always loves playing with the puppets.

I wanted her to pose with the awesome turkey puppet for a nice picture for her Dad (you can see it hanging in the background) but Lucy was super interested in the butterfly instead.

 

Yay for butterflies!

We also worked on some art projects. Lucy l-o-v-e-s to color and draw these days. When she wants to color she will say the word Yellow. At first Daniel and I thought that she was a genius baby who already knew her colors but it turns out that she calls every marker, crayon, pen or pencil a 'Yellow'. We still think that you are a genius, Lucy! :)

 

I snapped this cute picture of Lucy in deep concentration as she colors. I just love her little tongue sticking out.

 

While Lucy napped on Sunday, Mama worked on sewing projects. Just trying to make our house beautiful for potential buyers! I finished up some curtains for the downstairs bathroom.

 

Hunting

While Dad was off turkey hunting in New Mexico with his buddies...

 

Mama and Lucy did some hunting too...

For bargains at the Half Pint consignment sale!

 

Here are our finds:

Lots of good stuff. :)

 

I was nervous to bring Lucy to the sale because I thought that she would be all over the place. But we survived! There was only one meltdown all morning! Lucy was really in love with a life sized stuffed pony - she was petting its tail and giving it kisses and was very sad when Mama told her that she could not bring it home.

 

Because Lucy was such a good girl, we stopped at McDonalds on the way home and picked up some chicken nuggets. She was pretty excited. :)

 After nap time, we went to the park - we drove to the playground next to the dog park. We were missing Chief and Scout so we had fun watching some other dogs running around. We love you Chiefy and Scout!! Lucy had a good time going down the slide many, many times. She wants to do everything by herself these days and adamantly refuses any help from mama. Lucy did have one mishap on the slide - she went down a little too fast and did a face plant at the bottom. :( She cried for a bit but quickly walked it off and wanted to go down the slide again almost immediately. She is a determined little girl!

 

 

We did some grocery shopping too and, for the first time, I let Lucy climb in one of the carts that has a car for your kid to drive while you shop. She loved it - for about 15 minutes - then she was sick of shopping and threw a fit for the remainder of our visit to HyVee. Watch out! I was definitely that mom with the crazy toddler on Saturday afternoon!

Good Morning

One of my favorite things about Lucy is that she is always so happy and excited to wake up every morning! She always greets me with a big smile on her face. When I take her out of her crib we snuggle for a minute and then she wants to hug all of her stuffed animals and babies.

 

Here is our little sunshine with her baby on a recent morning.

 

Happy Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone! Today the kids at Lucy's day care were supposed to wear clothes with the Earth or nature scenes. Little Lucy went to school sporting this zebra shirt. :) 

 

Lucy's Artwork

Last night Lucy's daycare had an open house so Lucy Bear and I attended. We saw a slide show of photos of the young toddlers having fun. It was so cute. Lucy is getting really good with names lately and when she was looking at the pictures she would occasionally yell out the names of her friends. It was really hilarious. There is a little guy in her room named Arlo, which is a pretty easy name for her her to yell, so she shouted Arlo! whenever he was in a photo. :) We also admired her artwork, ate some snacks, and looked at the blueprints for some upcoming renovations that will be happening at her center over the next few months (June - October). Exciting times!

On our way home we stopped to pick up a few groceries and Lucy was getting restless so I let her play with my phone - I have a couple of drawing apps that she likes. When we got home from the store I found that she had created a picture and somehow saved it to my camera roll. This girl knows how to work an iphone! Anyway, here is the drawing from our little artist:

Weekend Happenings

Here is a the weekend recap from the Storm household.

 

On Friday night we went out for Indian food. Lucy wasn't a big fan of the food - she just nibbled on some naan but she loved the mango lassi!

On Saturday Mama and Lucy went to the library. Lucy worked on some puzzles before story hour.

 

We went to signing story hour - the kids learn a few signs and then they sign along as the instructor reads out loud. On Saturday we learned rain, flower, butterfly, caterpillar, and grass. It has been many years since I went to story hour but guess what -- things have changed since the early '80's! The instructor reads from an ipad on the floor and the kids watch her flip through the pages on a bigger monitor on a table. No more crowding around to see the pages in a paper book!

 

After we learned the signs, read a story, and sang some songs the kids got coloring pages and bubbles.

 

 

Here is a picture of Lucy when they started blowing bubbles in the room. She was a big fan.

 

 

Unfortunately it still does not really feel like spring in Madison. It is pretty chilly outside - no flowers blooming or buds on trees yet! We did play at the park a little bit this weekend. Here is Lucy swinging with her Dad. Notice that she is still wearing mittens! Hopefully the warm weather will get here soon.

 

Daniel spent time this weekend doing some preliminary packing for his upcoming turkey hunting trip to New Mexico. Lots of gear is required for a few days in the moutain wilderness!

Hammer Pants!

So Daniel picked up Lucy at daycare yesterday and she was sporting these awesome hammer pants! hahaha! I guess that she had a couple of spills/accidents and went through all of her own pants so she needed to switch to the community pair. Hilarious!

Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

Lucy turned 17 months old recently and she continues to be a delightful child! She is becoming a very independent girl. If we go to the playground she wants to climb up the slide and go down by herself with no help at all from mama or dad. She enjoys dancing, coloring, reading, she loves babies and is getting really good at identifying family members in photos. She knows her grandmas and grandpas, mama and dad, her dogs, and all of her cousins. Sorry aunties and uncles, your names are difficult to say! One new activity that Lucy is into that is not so great is climbing! This is giving mama some heartburn. Lucy is starting to scale the coffee table, dining room chairs, her high chair, everything!! Yikes. We have taken a few tumbles recently but she is pretty good at shaking it off.

 

Here is a quick picture of Lucy reading one of her faves - Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb.

 

She l-o-v-e-s this book. It starts out innocently enough with little monkeys playing on drums and wearing rings on their fingers and thumbs.

But, by the end of story, there are millions of monkeys taking over the world with their drums. I think that it is terrifying but Lucy thinks that it is hilarious!

Outdoors on a Sunday afternoon

Sunday was a beautiful spring day so we spent time outdoors as a family! To be honest, with the dogs out of town, we haven't been spending as much time taking walks or just being outside in general.  So yesterday we drove to Lodi Marsh for some time outside - Daniel wanted to work on some 'vigorous' hiking so that he could prepare himself for his upcoming turkey hunting adventures in the New Mexican wilderness but Lucy had some other ideas. She was not a fan of being on Daddy's back. There were lots of tears unless we were singing or there were specific things to look at (i.e. dogs running on the trail) - Lucy just wanted to be down on the ground hiking on her own!

There were lots of birds to listen to and grassy areas to play in - Lucy loved exploring!

 

Later in the day we went to the park where Lucy had a good time swinging and going down the slide.
She love, love, loves, the swing and, as you can see in the picture, her hair has started growing recently so it kind of sticks up straight when she is moving. It looks like a cute little halo on her head!

Consignment Shopping and Play Date with Nolan

Spring is here so that means it is time for consignment shopping! Yay! I went to the Lil' Badgers Sale on Friday after work and got some cute clothes for Lucy, including a size 24 month Big Sister shirt! Good stuff. I was also able to find some nice maternity clothes for yours truly. :) Right now I am at that awkward stage where I am too big for my regular clothes but not quite big enough for maternity clothes. Sigh! I wish that I could just wear yoga pants 24/7.

 

Here are some of my good finds for Lucy:

 

On Saturday, Daddy had work meetings in Stevens Point all day so Lucy and I ran errands and had lunch/playdate with Julie and Nolan. We have not seen these guys in quite some time so it was great to catch up.  Check out these sweet 17 month olds! Lucy and Nolan are 2 weeks apart and they have known each other since they were tiny babies. How fun!

Our crazy, awesome Tuesday!

We returned from our Easter weekend in South Dakota and started our week with a chaotic Tuesday.

 

I loaded Lucy in the car to take off for day care only to find that my Subaru would not start. Ugh! I had to call a tow truck to haul it off to the shop. :(

 

About 300 in the afternoon Lucy's day care called to say that our little peanut was running a temperature of 101 degrees. I wasn't feeling too great myself - I think that we caught a bug from the Hoekman family. So I had to hustle home from work, pick up Dan on the way since we were a one car family, gather Lucy and her things, and stop to get milk on the way to our house since we  had not even had a chance to go grocery shopping yet. Whew!

 

 

Despite all of the craziness and annoyances - our Tuesday was perfect because we had our 20 week ultrasound and we found out that everything is healthy and wonderful with Baby Storm #2! Here are some pictures of our little one:

 

 

We are so thankful that everything is progressing along smoothly! We are excited to meet our new baby in 20 short weeks - I can't believe that we are already half way there. Just like last time, Daniel and I declined to find our the gender of the baby. There was a moment during the ultrasound when we were asked to look away - it was super tempting to peek but it is so much fun to have a delivery surprise!!

Opening Day!

It was opening day for the Minnesota Twins on Monday so Lucy showed some team spirit by wearing her Joe Mauer Twins t-shirt! We did listen to most of the game as we were driving back to Wisconsin. The Twins lost. :( 

 

We are very excited that the baseball season has officially started!

Here is a quick picture of our cute little fan:

 

Happy Easter + Peter's Baptism!

On Sunday morning Lucy woke up...

(Of course she had to wear her sweet bunny pajamas on Easter!)

 

 

 

...to find her Easter basket! Full of good stuff!

 

She opened her goodies with Paul and Abigail who spent the night at Grandma's house too!

 

It was an extra special day because our little nephew Peter was baptized on Easter Sunday! Here are Katie, Peter, Anna, Kevin, and the Pastor.

 

Here is a sweet brother/sister shot of Anna and Peter! They are so cute. Little Peter is wearing the same baptismal gown that my great grandma, my mom, me and my brothers, and Lucy wore.

 

Our family with baby Peter

The entire Hoekman family

Grandma and Grandpa and their Grandchildren picture = Fail

Lucy was sick of having her picture taken at this point! 

 

After church we had a great brunch at Katie's parents house, Lucy took a long nap and searched for Easter eggs. What an awesome day! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family.