Friday, July 19, 2013

Final Free Flight!

Wow, I am a bit behind on the blog, but determined to get caught up!

Back in April I decided to take Luke on one last free airplane ride. We literally came back three days before his 2nd birthday. Luckily we had an open seat next to us on both flights so he did pretty well. He enjoyed eating snacks, looking at books and watching Hotel Transylvania with no sound! He wouldn't wear the ear buds to hear it, but he was happy to watch it with no sound so it worked. 


We made the rounds in Utah and were able to visit many of our favorite people! 

My life long friend Heather! She moved in across the street when I was in first grade and although she moved many times in the neighborhood and eventually to Arizona we have always been best friends. When we are together it feels like we have never been apart. Now if only she lived closer...


Since we were high school buddies we thought we should color coordinate ;) Not really, but it was great to see these ladies and their boys. They are both pregnant and I am SO happy for them! It is still strange that we are grown ups with kids sometimes! 



 We also were finally able to meet the amazing baby Eddie! He is a precious miracle to his family and has an angel brother in heaven. It was so wonderful to hold him and see his perfect little face. Luke also took to Rob right away and even started calling him Dada!! It was pretty great! Erin and I made our traditional trip to Bath and Body Works and partook of some Sweet Tooth Fairy!



Nana and Poppy took us to the Aquarium in Draper one day. Luke loved seeing the fish and was excited to find Nemo and Dory in one of the tanks. We brought our little cousin Livvy with us and Luke liked following her around.












CAFE RIO!! Need I say more? It is simply the BEST! Another great thing is that Luke loved the free quesadilla! 


 I had never been to the Children's Museum at Gateway so we took Luke down one morning. When I was a kid the children's museum was in North Salt Lake in this kind of strange old building. They had a pretend supermarket, an airplane cockpit, a tarantula, funny mirror and a place you could pretend to be blind. (that is what I remember anyway!). Luke played in the ball area for about an hour. He wasn't too keen on the supermarket area of the water, but loved the balls and the building block area.







Dan's Mom and Sister had us over for a little birthday party for Lukey! It was very nice of them and Luke loved it! We had some presents and of course the best part was the cake and playing with his cousins!  






My mom helped me make this cute bow tie for Luke while I was visiting. Luke also sat through 2 hours of Stake Conference that day! I only had to take him out once so it was pretty awesome.  


We went up to the school and played on the playground. It's fun to take Luke back to my old Elementary School, but oh how the playground has changed! When I was there we had a three tiered wooden balance beam, and several wooden play structures. Now everything is plastic, but pretty cool with climbing walls and lots of other fancy things.  


Luke was exploring his clothing a lot while were in Utah. Almost every night I would check on him and find him in his onesie with his PJ's completely off! It was still pretty cold and we were in the basement so I would have to try to get his jammies back on with out waking him up!
 That's much better!


I went to Sweet Tooth Fairy every day except Sunday and one other day! I probably ate thousands of calories worth of cupcakes, but it was worth it! They are THE BEST cupcakes in the entire world. Good thing they are not available in Oregon.  
 Luke loved the cake bites and I would allow him one or maybe two cake bites while I would down countless cupcakes!


Little Luke loved being at Nana and Poppy's house. He especially loved being the boss of everyone and having the attention of three adults all the time! He liked to make Nana watch him jump on the little trampoline. 

He made both of them play in the teepee with him on a daily basis. 
He even got Poppy to play Wii with him.
Here he is reading Dear Zoo with Nana thinking that the tiger is pretty funny! 
I told him he got a treat if he would smile for a picture. It kind of worked...




I love this picture because there is nothing sweeter than a sleeping child and this is my crib with my bedding that I slept in! How cool is that! One kind of funny/not so funny thing that happened was one night I hear Luke start crying a really really sad cry from the basement after I put him in bed. It was strange because he doesn't usually do that. Then I noticed that it seemed like the crying was getting closer! He had fallen out of the crib! The bumpers in the crib are very very stiff and he must have climbed up and pushed himself over. He has never climbed out of his crib at home because when he steps on the bumpers they just crush down and he hasn't figured out how to pull himself over. Anyway, I ran downstairs and found him crawling toward the stairs in the dark crying. It was so so sad that he had fallen out, but just a little funny to. I gave him a big snuggle and it didn't happen anymore after that!

Luke was a great traveler on this trip. It was pretty crazy with visiting and outings, but he slept well, ate terrible and was fairly happy meeting new people. Here he is on the plane watching Hotel Transylvania again. He kept the earbud in for about 1 minute and then watched the rest in silence! 


Wednesday, May 29, 2013

My Two Year Old

My tiny little baby turned two at the end of April. I really am in denial about him being two. Since he is still an only child I am sure that we baby him a bit. We still swaddled him right up until his birthday and he loved it! We have since stopped, but I miss wrapping him up on the bed every night. Now we just let him jump on the bed before he goes to sleep! Here are his stats from his two year check up.
Weight: 30 lbs (75th percentile)
Height: 36 inches (90th percentile)
Head: don't remember the inches but he is 95th percentile

Luke has always been a great sleeper! Whenever I hear about other babies who are over one and still don't sleep through the night I am so sad for those Mommies. Luke has been sleeping through the night (with the occasional wake up of course!) since about 4 or 5 months old. (Yes, I know that I am very lucky and that my next baby will be terrible!) He goes to bed at 8 pm and wakes up around 7:30 or 8am. He has never gone a day without napping in his entire life and I intend to keep it that way until he is 4!! He naps from about 1-2:30/3:00 every day. It is a bit of a hindrance if we want to go do something all day, but somehow we have managed to let him nap everyday for the past two years!

Luke has great motor skills! He runs, jumps, runs some more, climbs stairs and ladders and then he keeps running! He is also good with his hands. He can put beads on a string, feed himself fairly well with spoon or fork, he loves to paint with watercolors and push any button he can get his hands on.

His speech is still a work in progress. I can understand him quite a bit, but that is because I have learned to speak Lukese. He does have quite a few words and the Dr. says there is no need to be concerned and I know that his articulation will develop with time. The words he says the most are:
Buzz
Woody
Mama
Dada
No, No (which translates to his sippy cup! He has been calling it his "no,no" for months!)
Nack (snack)
Dinna (dinner)
Bye, Bye
Night, Night
Mom's car
Dad's car
There it is
Peas (please)
Geez (Jesus)
Baby (that is what he calls his friend Seth who is a few months younger than him)
oooo (smoothie)
Dat way, dat way (that way, that way)
Det's go Dad/Mom (Let's go Dad/Mom)
Elmo (that is what he calls Nemo)
Choc (chocolate)
Ma (marci)
Dan
Key (Kelsey)
Daw (Dawson)
Jenna
Na (Nana)
Pa (Poppy)
There are a lot more, but these are some of the fun ones!

He has been pretty good as far as tantrums/melt downs go. We have one occasionally when he wants to walk in a store instead of ride in the cart or if I won't let him watch a show or if he sees chocolate and can't have it! He doesn't hit or do anything vicious. One day he threw a toy at my face, but he was doing it to play and not with the intent to hurt. It did hurt me a lot so he did get a time out for that one! He has probably only had a few time outs in his life, but it helps that he is an only child! He shares well when we play with other kids. He loves being around other kids! We have some neighbor friends that we play with frequently and we try to see family and go to the park often.

He is a terrible eater (according to me!). He used to eat everything and anything and now he eats very few items. I have had a hard time trying to decide how to deal with it. Do I just give him the foods he eats or do I offer him what we are eating and if he doesn't eat it he goes hungry? I don't like doing the hungry method because then there is a lot of whining and complaining and I don't like that! He does eat cheese, yogurt, quesadilla, pizza, bread, grapes, lots and lots of smoothies (we sneak his veggies into the smoothies and protein powder!) banana, cereal, waffles, pancakes, black beans, pork and beans, apples, and of course all the snacky crackers and any chocolate! He will occasionally try something and I am super surprised! Eating is my one hard thing with him so I guess I should be grateful!

Luke loves to play with his car ramp, all of his toy story characters, blocks, musical instruments, dancing, bubbles, any jar with a lid that screws on and off, books, balloons, balls, doing anything outside and wrestling with Daddy!

He is my everything, this little person. He brings me joy, love, completeness, happiness, frustration, peace, worry, laughter, amazement, fulfillment and every other good or bad things us parents feel! I love him so much I can't even describe it!

Tulips

One of the reasons I live in Oregon....The Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival. Words cannot describe the beauty! It is amazing to see so many tulips in one place. The weather was great the week before but we went on a cooler day and it was a bit muddy but there were no crowds and that was worth it! Enjoy the beautiful pictures.