Brie made me hold off putting Lucy in her Star Wars outfit until today. It’s still one of my favorites, and still applies to this little sassy bit! 🤣Being part of our family,you better like Star Wars, light sabers,and frappuccinos! Lu has even mastered the art of cuteness to get Taret to make her one just her size!Happy Star Wars Day! 😊

Our fish is so strange. Walking into the boys’ room to this, I have convinced myself several times that he is dead.However, it is just how Feeper “sleeps” I guess. As soon as he sees you, he flips over and acts completely normal. Every animal in our house has quite a personality. I guess fish are no exception. 🤣

Lucy really loves her little dance class. Even though there are only 4 kids, at most, it is the perfect size for her. Miss Kristen, her dance teacher, is just FABULOUS with these little girls. She is so patient and kind with them. While she has expectations of them, she also lets them be toddlers, which they definitely are. When all the dancing fun is over, the girls get their most anticipated stickers and glitter.Lucy is very particular about Not having her sticker and glitter on the same side. I made the big mistake of thinking it would be a good idea to do our Mommy/Daughter Date Day AFTER dance class. We asked Ms. Brandi and Maedreigh to join us for lunch at Chick FilA and then playtime at Playstreet. Lunch went great, and play went well, for a short bit, until kids started taking things away from Lucy. She is so tiny, she just doesn’t stand a chance. She woke up so early this morning, I was not thinking about how tired she might be after class.Needless to say, once she started to melt down, there was no going back from there. We didn’t even get to play much at all, and got NO pictures with our friends. But we HAD to leave and get a nap. I haven’t seen grouchy fits like this before. We didn’t even make it a mile down the road before Lucy was OUT! I will have to plan better next time.

Brie is home!!!! And we are so excited! Now Lucy just wants to show off. She LOVES having Brie home. It is SOOOO cute! She knows that is her big sister, even though she hasn’t seen her in a while. Tonight, Lucy was singing for Brie, and Brianna recorded her. I am hoping by posting these links, I will save space on my blog account, but will still be able to access some priceless videos. Worth a try, right!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jMQZyMeL3Z8

Alex played his last soccer game of his first season today. Lucy also completed her last gymnastics class until July. So many things are about to get really crazy as we prepare Brianna for her mission. She comes home tomorrow night, and we are all SO excited! Niki sent me these great pictures from yesterday:Niki is one of the most amazing people I know. She helped pick Brie up from school……get her entire apartment all packed up……and then took her to get her wisdom teeth out. She and Savannah took such good care of her! Savannah even made Brie a special menu of all they bought to help her recover. I could not be more blessed to have such an amazing sister in law to help my daughter when I cannot be there.Khaliyah knows Brie is coming home. She NEVER does this. I guess she already has plans of things to do with Brie. 🤣After games and gymnastics, I snuck out and grabbed some Krispy Kreme’s! Haven’t had them in such a long time!Now we wait until tomorrow night. 😊

So… I received some great tips for focusing on a moving Lucy this afternoon from my photography group. I decided to take Lu for a walk to the pond to casually try them out and see if my focus would improve.

Yeah, it did not. I just don’t know where I am going wrong. People get beautiful pictures of toddlers smiling ALL the time! I am not giving up yet though. Lucy’s pictures sure tell her story! And rarely (for now!), I do get a fairly good smile pic. 🙂I’ll take this one for the day! ❤

Taking pictures has made me realize that my perfectionism of things is more than a camera is capable of! I have figured out that I want my camera to take a picture so well that little to no editing needs to be done to call the picture great. Nice thought, but I now realize that most professional photographers spend hours editing their photos. Having that said however, a blurry picture can really get no help. That is honestly my biggest problem! I can get fabulous pictures of Lucy not looking at the camera, but if she is going to smile, it is almost ALWAYS blurry!!! UGHH! She has the biggest, most brilliant smiles too! I hate that I cannot capture a great one in focus! I think I will start a page just of blurry smile pictures. One day someone will invent the fix for them that will look like a real in focus smile picture. But for now, it is my curse! These beautiful pictures came after our horrendous night last night. The flowers were incredible, and Lucy was up to her usual storytelling and singing in them. The sun was at its brightest though, so Lucy’s eyes were squinting in several. I can also tell I gave my camera quite a challenge finding a focal point when I plopped a toddler in the middle of a million brightly colored blooms. It is what it is for now. Birthday pics are in full swing, so there will be more to come. 🙂 

Oh Boy! I could CRY! I was suppose to take Lucy’s pictures today in her birthday dress. I looked at so many different fields the past few weeks to try and find the perfect one for her pictures. Rain and cold kept us from doing them last week, and then today, as I was picking up Natalie from school, I noticed that they had JUST mowed the field we were suppose to go to TODAY! I had worked all day on her outfit. I was sick! I knew of another field past downtown Wylie that had some flowers too, but it was not quite as desirable. It was going to have to do, so I thought. Until we got there! Lucy looked like an absolute princess. She had just woken up from a nap, though, late! I should have known the bad luck was just going to finish out the day. Lucy screamed the entire time I tried to take her pictures. It was AWFUL! Not only did Sam get home late from work, so we were late starting and quickly losing our light source, also the flowers were closing up and every little everything made Lucy upset. Her Chair. Her Shoes. The Grass. The Light. We did not get a single picture. I even thought after singing with her, letting her take her own flower pictures, clearing a whole patch of the field so it was free of any plants, letting her sit on my soft squishy camera bag, and showing her funny Lucy falling over in bluebonnets videos, she still screamed the second I tried to put her down. We both left extremely frustrated. Tonight, I just need a cool down night. Maybe I can try again before the week is over, and she’ll actually be in a happy mood. We are going to quickly run out of fields very soon when the warmer weather stays around!

This big brother is amazing! She definitely thinks so too! 😊❤️

For the record, I did NOT train her like this! 😂