Sunday, April 26, 2009

No more early birds!

This is a cry for help.

For most of Luke's life, he has been a late sleeper. Up until recently, we generally slept in until at least nine and it was not unusual to sleep until ten. For the past two months, though, Luke has been getting up earlier and earlier. He has been getting up at 6:45 am consistently. I am not an early morning person, Gene is not an early morning person. Our house is not very plesant at 6:45 am. How can we get Luke to sleep longer? It doesn't matter what time we put him to bed or how long his nap is the day before. Any suggestions out there? And, no, I am not locking him in his room to let him cry it out. That won't get me any more sleep, and I don't want to scare him. He has never been "locked" in anywhere, and rarely has he been left to "cry it out." Just the occasional whimpers at night--never more than five minutes or so. Even in his crib he was generally content to play with his toys until we came and got him. Now that he has discovered that he can get out of his big boy bed on his own, he takes complete freedom to come and get us up too.

Help! What can we do?

Friday, April 24, 2009

Two year old pictures

I finally got around to taking Luke for his 2nd Birthday portriats. Here they are. . .

My favorite:










Spring things

Things have been busy around here. My work schedule has been super crazy and I have been working extra shifts. It is so busy at work right now that I come home exhausted every morning. In between it all we have been battling another sinus infection with Luke for weeks. We finished antibiotics yesterday and his surgery is a week from today. Please, oh please, let it end the constant snot (and drooling.) Lately I have nicknamed him ooey-gooey.

Spring is here! Luke loves it and constantly wants to be playing outside. Outside? Outside? Outside! OUTSIDE!!! Outside? That is what I hear all day. Whenever he talks on the phone to his grandparents all he talks about is going outside. Provides easy entertainment for us, if only I could put him out there by himself, I could get a whole lot done around this place.





Watching him try to blow the fluff off this "flower" was funny.



My little farmer boy. Notice the extensive drool marks on his shirt. The tonsillectomy & adenoidectomy should make his airway larger and easier for him to breathe. He won't be such a mouth breather and therefore drool less. . . . so they say. Please let it be true!


Farm kid's got his boots on now. . . oh wait, those are mommy's boots. It was so funny to see him walk in these. He was a little wobbly but actually did pretty good.





Luke has taken on a new behavior--one of many that has sprouted since he has been two. I call this move "The Silent Protest." I believe he gets it from his Grandma Juli. When he doesn't want to do something/go somewhere, he simply lays down on the floor and says "sleeping!" Often he goes so far as to close his eyes and fake snore. Its funny until you really are in a hurry to do something/go somewhere, because he turns into a dead weight. He is a solid kid, pushing 34 lbs now, and I just can not lug that weight around all the time.



Luke is very interested in animals and feeding them. We went to PetCo today and he pointed out all the bird food, kitty food, fish food, mouse food, and all the waters in all the cages. He especially loves sharing his food with his Hank-dog. Although Mommy usually doesn't approve, this day he was sharing so sweetly (as opposed to throwing it around the kitchen and laughing when Hank went running for it) I just couldn't resist taking a few pictures before the sweet moment was over.

Cows gotta eat, too. Who knew cows liked teddy grahams?

Easter bunny, Easter duck, Easter puppy?

We spent Easter over at my parents. We went to church in the morning and grabbed one quick photo before changing into our play clothes.

You can always count on Zoe to bring the holiday themed head gear! Once again, she did not disappoint with the pink bunny ears. I love this picture because you can see Zoe behind Luke with her duck beak whistle. The bunny and the duck were chasing each other around and around the table. Luke had paused for a quick ear check.

My dad's cousins, Mary & Martha, were with us for Easter also. They brought the sweetest puppy and Luke was just enthralled with it. It was a great size for the kids because when she jumped up on them she didn't knock them down (like all the other dogs we know.) That evening Luke came home and found a stuffed puppy in his toys that was about this dogs size. He has been spending a lot of time with it--yes he made sure to feed it too (unfortunately the stuffed puppy got applesauce.)

The kids had an egg hunt. Can you really call it a hunt if the eggs are just scattered in plain view? It was too soggy outside so we had to spread them out indoors. While Zoe was into quantity, Luke and Maya were definitley into quality. Luke made sure to open each egg as he found it to examine its contents. If he approved, he ate it on the spot. If he didn't like it so much, he dumped it on the floor and kept on walking. Maya was a little less discriminatory. If it had something in it, she ate it. Towards the end, she was smart enough to shake the egg to see if anything was in there before opening it.

Sweet Maya polishing off the last of an egg.