Communicating: a story with no pictures

So yesterday we came over to Colleen's, Karen's mom's, house to spend some time and play some games. We left her dad's place about 4:30 in the afternoon, planning on coming back when Lois got tired.
We had a fun meal of tuna and sweet potato fries. Lois loves running around and playing with all the toys Colleen has saved since her kids we little. Old cabbage patch kitchen set, pop-up Sesame Street toys, flash cards, connect-together plastic chains...the works. Well, we wanted to play a game with Colleen, so Lois entertained herself with the toys while we played Rummi-Up Uno. It's this board game with the similar rules to Rummi, but the tiles have Uno pictures like the colors, draw two, and whatnot.
So we're playing for a while when Lois comes up to me with one of her croc shoes. She hands it to me and says "eeh go."
I looked at her. "Let's go? Do you want to go?"
"Yehh." (yes) and scurries over to the front door to then bring Karen and me our shoes. A pair of flipflops in each hand, she gives us each our shoes. This girl is ready to go home.
We finished the game maybe a minute later. And it's time to clean up, right? Well, Lois was mo-tivated! She was flying around putting toys away. She not only put all of the giant checkers in their bag, she also carried them to the cabinet, put them in, (well tried to; the bag was awkward) and tried shutting the door. It was really cute.
Oh, and Karen told her we need to change her diaper. So she stops right there and lays down, not moving until I had come over and finished changing her diaper.
We get home and I don't know if she said a peep the whole way from leaving Colleen's to putting her in her bed. We went inside, walked up to her room, read scriptures, prayed, sang and put her to bed - all way faster than it usually was.
It was really funny to have her communicate how tired she was. She's like, "I'm tired, and we're going home. Here's your shoes. Now, come on. Let's go."
She's a smart little one and is figuring out how to tell us what she wants, if not with her increasing vocabulary, then with the ever-important body language.

Lois's First Haircut

Our dear Lois was looking like a little ragamuffin,

Which simply could not do, so we decided to take on the seemingly 

insurmountable task of cutting a 18-month-old's hair.

Indifference turned into 

boredom, which then turned into

"No, I will not hold still or keep my hands down."

Which led to desperate measures.

You know, a pacifier to keep her happy.

But in the end, we all survived without any jabbed eyes or too many jagged hairlines. 

Cute as ever. Maybe cuter even.

Although she's just as sneaky as ever. :-)