Luke's first trip to Utah

I hadn't been to Utah in about 18 months and Luke had never been so we said bye-bye to our Daddy and went on our first plane ride together. Luke did great on the way there! He ate lots of snacks and played with his toys. He hardly fussed at all. There was nice granny that even held Luke for a few minutes and let him look out the window. (Forgive the quality of most of these pictures. I mostly used my phone because is was too hard to manage my camera and be in charge of Luke by myself!)

This was my view while nursing Luke the second day we were there!! Pretty crazy to see that much snow in March!

 I wanted to get some cute pictures of Luke in the snow, but he wasn't really into it!

My little burrito sleeping in the pack 'n play! 

  Playing with Poppy! It was fun to see Luke play with the toys that I played with when I was a baby. 

 It was my Mom's birthday while we were there so we had a nice family dinner!

Luke LOVED playing with his Spilker cousins! 

Happy Birthday to Nana!! We were so happy to be with Nana to celebrate her Birthday. She loves her grandchildren so much and it is sad to live so far away. Luke is SO lucky to have amazing grandparents who love him so much!

Playing with Nana in the sewing room. 

We miss our family and friends in Utah, but we also miss the yummy food!! I did a lot of eating while I was there!

I went to Cafe Rio 3 times that week!! It was so delicious and I miss it all the time! Lukey loved the black beans and quesadilla. 

 Olivia decided she wanted to help feed the baby!

Sweet Tooth Fairy!!! My favorite vaNIElla square cupcake! Get it, you won't regret it!

 

 

We visited my dear friend Heather and she let Luke pull out about half a package of wipes :) Thanks Heath, he LOVED it and he LOVED your kids. He also took a 2 hour nap at her house. I think I need to go visit more often! 

 Lukey having fun at Nana and Poppy's house. 

 There is a frozen yogurt shop in Midvale that has REAL DOLE WHIP!! You can only get it in Hawaii, Disneyland/World and this place in Midvale!! It was SO yummy!

Here is Luke playing in MY crib!! Yep, that is the crib I slept in as a baby, those are my blankets and my toys! So crazy that now my little boy is in there!

We were in Utah about a week and the time went too quickly. I could have easily stayed another week, but we did miss our Daddy in Oregon. It was so nice to spend some time with my parents. We had a big open house for my family on Sunday evening and it was so fun for Luke to meet lots of my cousins and aunts and uncles. I didn't get any pictures because I was too busy talking with people and taking care of Luke but it was really fun. Time to say goodbye to Nana and Poppy.

 I have to admit that Luke did not do as great on the plane ride home. He was tired and wouldn't sleep on me. I even pulled out the sucker, but he didn't want it!! I was very happy when the plane landed and our Daddy was there waiting for us. Luke was so tired and this was him on the car ride home :) 

Day of Love

We decided to get take out this year for Valentine's so we could celebrate at home with our little guy. Doesn't it just look so romantic with that high chair hooked on to the table :) 

 We had THE MOST delicious dinner from Outback. We decided to make a really unhealthy choice and get coconut shrimp and cheese fries. Yep, that was our dinner and we were STUFFED!!

Me and my little lovey!! 

This was the first thing I ever made from Pinterest! It was Lukey's valentine to his Daddy. I traced his little hands and made this cute card! 

 I know people probably thing we are crazy because we never leave Luke with a babysitter, but I am totally ok with it. I love being with him, he is happy 99% of the time and he is just so cute! Who wouldn't want to be with him all the time :) I loved our little Valentine's dinner at home. I'm sure our time will come when we can go out to a nice dinner, but for now I'm happy with what we have.

Daddy's Birthday

 Our Daddy had a birthday many many months ago :) We had the Daley's over for dinner, presents and cupcakes! These chocolate cupcakes with Pioneer Woman frosting have definitely become a favorite of ours! Dan usually requests a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, but this year he wanted the cupcakes. If you haven't tried PW frosting you must!! Check out the recipe here. 

This was Lukey's first time having a cupcake! Let's just say that he LOVED it! 

Dawson is always the first to "volunteer" if anyone needs help opening a gift :)

Daddy and his boy! These boys love each other SO much! Just look at those cute faces! Lukey flaps his arms with excitement when his Daddy comes home from work and Daddy loves to wrestle, hug and kiss this little boy. 

 If you look closely you will see that Luke decorated this package for his Daddy. He also wore Daddy's favorite shirt for his birthday!

 Luke like helping Daddy open his gifts!

 Some chocolate bars all the way from CANADA from our Poytress friends!! 

 Happy Birthday Dan!!

11 Months!

Well, I'm a major slacker and I didn't post at 10 months or take the picture with the bear. Then 11 months rolled around I didn't take a picture with the bear, but I wanted to quickly note what Luke's was doing at 11 months.

Lukey! You are so funny! You finally learned to crawl on March 25, 2011. I can't believe that one day you were not crawling and the next day you were! You have only tried to eat the rocks out the fireplace once and you love to be my little shadow. If I put you by your toys you are next to me in the kitchen or on the computer looking up at me with those beautiful brown eyes. You are a very good listener and when I tell you no with voice and sign language you will usually stop what you are doing. (usually going to eat some lint/garbage/old cheerio off the floor) You have grown out of the 6-12 month and 9 month size clothes and are into the 12-18 and 12 month size. The 12-18 are a little big, but you are getting close. I decided to move you back to size 3 diapers because we were having some leakage problems with the size 4's. You are really good with you little fingers. You love to turn the pages in books, feed yourself most finger foods, put coins in the toy piggy bank, push buttons, open drawers and cupboards and poke people in the eye!

You have had a good long stretch of sleeping through the night!! WOOHOO! You have had some napping issues lately and I think you are getting close to one nap, but there are still days when you definitely need and want those two naps. When you nap twice they are usually 1-1 1/2 hours and if you nap just once it is usually 2 hours. I'm so grateful for your wonderful sleep habits! Here is a typical schedule:
7:00-8:00 am (usually around 7:40 am) Wake up!
Nurse and eat breakfast
Play
10:30-12:00 Nap
12:00 Nurse and lunch
Play
3:30-5:00 Nap
5:00 Nurse and small snack
6:15 Dinner with mommy and daddy
play
7:15 Bath
7:40 Scriptures and prayers
7:50 Nurse
8:10 Bedtime!

You love to play with your fisher price piggy bank, gargbage truck book, anything that lights up and makes sound, football with mommy or daddy, dancing and singing and shape sorter. You enjoying watching Little Einstein's on TV and you get so excited when it comes on you flap your arms and bounce up and down. You clap your legs and raise your arms in the air like they do on the show and it is SO cute!! You enjoy going on walks and going on the swings at the park.

You are a great eater. You are still nursing 4 times a day and you still refuse to take a bottle/sippy cup/regular cup, etc!! You will play a little bit with the Nuby sippy cup, but you are not interested in drinking water and I refuse to give you juice. We will try cows milk in a few weeks! You definitely don't seem ready to be weened yet, but maybe you will like cows milk?! You still enjoy eating all kinds of baby food and big people food. You like to eat cheese, chicken, ham, cooked carrots, bananas, quessadillas, black beans, bread, cheerios, any cereals, sour cream and onion pirate booty, french fries and any kind of treat that we might let you try! You are usually still eating mainly baby food at most of your meals and we will give you some bites off of our plates.

You have had six teeth since December/January and no new ones lately! You are saying lots of different sounds and sometimes I think you might be trying to say words, but I have never seen you look and/or point at an object and say ball/book/toy, etc. You say mama, dada, baba but you don't really seem to call us mama or dada. Those are just words/sounds that you say. I think that sometimes you try to say all done when I say it to you. You do wave your hands and sign all done, but I haven't been able to get you to do any other sign language yet.

You are the joy of my life! I can't believe that you will be one so soon! I love it when you crawl over to me and look up at me with those big brown eyes! You make me laugh and smile everyday! Even when you are a little stink pot I love you so much that my heart could burst. I love to tickle you, throw you in the air, give you rides in the costco wipe box, go the store with you, read books to you and I cherish the few times you have actually cuddled me. You are my best little buddy. I do love it when you nap, but if you sleep longer than 2 hours I really start to miss you. Your little face is the cutest thing I have ever seen. I love you my sweet baby boy. Please, please stop growing up! I want you to be my baby forever! XOXO

The House (technically a condo, but who cares about technically)

I finally found a day that had some sun breaks, the house was clean, Luke was asleep and I wasn't too busy to get the camera out! Here is our wonderful home! It may not seem like much to some, but it is heaven on earth to us! We have been living in apartments since we have been married. These haven't been luxury apartments. They have been places that poor students like us could afford. When we were going to move to the Tualatin area we looked houses/condos/townhouse, but I didn't think anything would pan out. We have looked at TONS of houses the past couple years and even made an offer on one so I was very skeptical about finding something that we could actually afford that wouldn't be a total fixer-upper. God blessed us by leading us to this condo. It is SO perfect and everyday I am so grateful that I get to live here. We really feel so blessed and it was a great time to buy. It is still a buyers market, we got a record low interest rate and with the help of many we were able to close on a short sale in about 60 days!!!! I'm so glad that the buying process is complete and it is ours!!! So, without further adieu here it is!

We live on the top two floors of the unit (I guess I need to add a picture of the outside!) there is a one bedroom condo below us. The main floor is what you see here. The living room, kitchen and a half bath. 

 I think this is my favorite part of the house! The kitchen is big and open and I LOVE it!! I have an island! The funny thing is that it actually has less cupboard space than our Sandstone apartment :) 

 In our opinion we have the best unit because we are the very back corner unit and we look at greenspace and a nice neighborhood behind us. I love all our beautiful trees in Oregon and I love that I get to enjoy them everyday outside my windows. 

There is a little walking trail right outside our door that walks past a pond and through some very nice neighborhoods. We love it and can't wait for spring/summer so we can enjoy it even more. 

As I look at these pictures I believe that some painting may be in the future. It looks a little lifeless. I would also like to do some sort of window treatment in the kitchen to liven things up a bit. Too much brown, black and tan.

These are the stairs that lead to the outside. Yes, I have to carry the groceries, baby, diaper bag up the stairs, but it is good for me! I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. 

 This it where the half bath is and then down the stairs to the left. 

 Half bath on main level. 

Here is the upstairs. I actually took these picures a few weeks ago and I have since added a few things to the playroom and it looks even better now. I am also going to make A Very Hungry Caterpillar valance for the window soon. 

 Here is Lukey's room. Dan is going to paint it a very light blue when Luke and I go to Utah next month. 

Now, I know that this just looks like a boring hallway, but I have never had a hallway before. Isn't it awesome!!  

Here is the full bath upstairs. We chose a monster theme for Lukey!! I am so in love with it. 

 Here is our bedroom. Not too exciting, but it is nice to have a full bathroom in the room and there is plenty of room for all our furniture. 

The only things that didn't get included are the laundry closet, stairs to upper level and the outside. We love our house! If anyone has an great CHEAP decorating ideas I would love to hear them :)