My Favorite Picture

This is my favorite picture so far from this summer. I don't know why. I guess its just one of those Mommy things. It is right after a huge fit and he has forgiven me but is still a bit pouty. I, however, have not yet forgiven the two ladies who walked about 1 1/2 feet behind us and LOUDLY, OBVIOUSLY, stated "Ooooh. He is mad at his momma. Oh yeah, he is mad at his momma. Oh boy, he is mad at his momma." (etc. until the crying was over.) Yes. I know he is pissed off at me. I am clearly ignoring it. I am not giving in to it. I am going to win because I am MOMMY. I don't need your observations. If you were trying to be funny, then, ha ha. I get it. In fact, I got it the first time. I can even laugh at a good fit now and then. What I do NOT need is you stepping on my heels and talking about us like we are fifty yards away from you. Did you want me to stop and say "Yes. He is mad at his momma. He is mad at me because I made him sit in a stroller because it is too far and too hot to allow him to walk. I am intentionally letting him cry. Thank you."

Anyway, this is after all that. Things had calmed down. I just love this pouty little face. I even said "Smile for mommy! Say cheese!" which he usually complys with but this time he just said "no."

Food Lessons From Luke

Here Luke would like to present his food lessons:

1. It is always nice to share your food.

2. Its okay to get messy. Getting messy can be fun and yummy, but the fun stops when you throw food. Especally at mommy. . . then the fun is REALLY over.

3. When you have a big plate of good food, it is best to find a nice secluded place so that you won't be bothered. Then you should start by licking all the dip off the plate first.

4. Cool kids always act uninterested in food. The thumb is way better anyway.

5. Eating a taco can be tricky. First you have to pick it up an bite it without spilling out all the good stuff.

Then you have to put it down without spilling out all the good stuff.

But that taco always breaks!!!

6. Dirt is NOT food.

7. Milk. . . it does a body good.

8. Cake should be closely guarded at all times.

9. It is considered impolite by some to show your food while chewing.

10. Spoons can be hard to manage. It is best to just drink your applesauce.

11. Cheerios should be shoveled in by the handful, not one-by-one.

12. Animal crackers love to dance! They taste better if they get to boogie a bit before you eat them.

13. Only the truly talented can drink from a cup with no hands!!

14. I don't know how I make it look so easy. . . I just do!

Mommy & her sleep

First, I want to do an update on the sleeping situation. . .

If you remember from previous post, Luke was waking up too, too early (between 6 am and 7am) and rushing to our room to wake us up. I was at my wit's end. We are sleeper-in-er's around this place. Thankfully, with a little patience, and probably some luck, we are back to sleeping in. We got up at 9:15 today! Yippie! What did we do? Well, firstly, we have the best, most well-behaved, well-mannered child (oh, did I mention that he is the cutest too?) Mommy just had a talk with him at night about how when he wakes up in the morning, he needs to stay in bed until Mommy or Daddy comes to get him. He can read, or listen to music, or play with his toys, but he needs to stay in bed. Secondly, whenever he came to our room, we just calmly walked him back to his room and told him he needed to stay there until Mommy or Daddy came to get him. We shut the door and then came back in like 30 sec and made a big deal about how great it was that he waited until we came. So, you want to know how many mornings we had to do this? Twice. Yep, twice. There were 30 sec of tears the first time, then it was all over. And since he was staying in bed, it wasn't long before he was drifting right back to sleep. Then school was over and there were no days we were waking him up early and our sleeping just extended back out.

Mommy really, really needed this extra sleep, especially now that I have this sucking out all my energy. . .

Surprise! We are expecting again! This is our little bean at our 10 week sono. And here he/she is again at 13 weeks.

Its amazing how much they change from 10 to 13 weeks!

This little hand looks like it is waving "hello" but in reality it is holding up its hand to say "No pictures, please" as he/she was being rather uncooperative that day.

My due date is December 12, just a few days before cousin Maya's 2nd birthday. However, if this baby grows anything like Luke did they already said they will take him/her early. That would put me right smack in the middle of Thanksgiving. Please, please, please--I don't want hospital food for Thanksgiving! So if that turns out to be the day, I want lots of care packages brought to my room with plenty of leftovers!

We've started talking to Luke about his new brother/sister, but of course, he doesn't quite get it yet. He can say "baby in mommy's belly" which always leads him to lifting up my shirt to find this so-called baby. Any other planning has yet to be discussed. We will probably wait until after we know if it is a boy or a girl before we start any serious planning--like who is going to sleep where! Whew! We have a lot of work ahead of us.

All healed up now!

Back in April, we took Luke to the zoo. While it was only a short morning trip, he had lots of fun. He wanted to ride the carousel so his daddy took him. However, once they got on, he just couldn't muster up the courage to stay on the horse. So the two settled for a good seat to watch the action.

We also went for a ride on the train. It seems that maybe there were a few too many people on the train that day as it was having some difficulties getting up some steam to go. We spent some long minutes sitting still--well, the train that is, toddlers NEVER sit still.

Then it was off to the hospital for Luke's tonsillectomy and other misc. procedures. After a long pre-op morning without any food, they finally came in to give him his pre-op sedation.

Before sedation:

After sedation:

He was in lala land. He always has loved circles and he was MEZMERIZED by this IV pole once those drugs kicked in.

He heard my camera beep for to take that picture, and his head back, his little drunk voice warbled "cheeese!" It was hilarious. He managed to peek his head up to see what I thought was so funny.

He is all healed up now and doing great. So far we have no more snoring, he is talking so much better already, and most importantly--no snot! He has been back at school and hasn't picked up anything! Hooray!

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?

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.