6 Days!

My child the cat lover?

I sure hope not!

Nate and I are not cat people. Neither one of us likes cats one bit. It's great that we are on the same page so we don't have one person begging for a cat while the other one is going "heck no!"

I'm afraid Luke must have missed the little tidbit on our family not liking cats. Because he LOVES them. (Sigh)

Luke is obsessed with my sister's cat, Oreo. He can stare at Oreo and just laugh his head off. This past weekend we were eating dinner and Oreo jumped into my mom's lap. Luke was tickled to pieces.

We came home and Luke was looking at his Pinocchio book. There is a picture of a black and white cat (Figaro) in it. Luke starts laughing and pointing at it. Everytime he "reads" Pinocchio, he stops at the cat page and laugh and points at it.

And now he says cat. He was repeating after me yesterday, I would say "cat" and he would say "daaaaat". I figured it was another word that he would mimic but not actually say constantly. Until this morning when he found Pinocchio on the floor and started saying "daaat" over and over again until he opened the book to the picture of Figaro. He proceeded to point at Figaro, look at me and say very clearly, "dat".

Maybe this is just a phase...

7 Days!

Luke and Big Papi at the Rangers game!

Hey, Luke, you have something on your bottom...

...it's a FROG!!!!

How cute is this onesie he wore today?! I followed him around all day trying to get a good shot of the frog on his bottom. I love it!


Hello?


Cheese!


Mom, why are you following me around?


Here is the FROG!!


Doing some work on Brown Sugar.


He's coming to get me!


Gosh, I love this kid!! <3

ABC of Me

Since all I do is talk about Luke (or Daisy!) on here, I thought I'd share a little bit on just ME! My friend Jamie had this on her blog and I copied it. :)

A-Attached or Single? Attached - our 4th anniversary is a week from today!

B-Best Friend? Nate, my mom, Beth, Melanie

C-Cake or Pie? Cake! Preferably cupcakes, though.

D-Day of Choice? Saturday

E-Essential Item? my camera, my computer, the internet

F- Favorite color? pink

H-Hometown? Dallas, Texas

I-Favorite Indulgence? chocolate chip cookies

J-January or July? July...even though it is burning up hot I prefer summer over winter any day!

K-Kids? Luke who turns 1 next Friday!

L-Life isn't complete without? My family!

M-Marriage Date? June 5, 2004

N-Number of brothers and sisters? 1 sister, 0 brothers

O-Oranges or Apples? both!

P-Phobia and Fears? I'm terrified of birds, rodents and the dark when I'm alone.

Q-Quote? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and he shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

R-Reason to smile? I have a wonderful husband and adorable baby boy who I get to stay at home with every day. What's better than that?

S-Season of choice? Spring when everything gets green and the flowers bloom. But I also love summer and going to the lake!

T-Tag ten people? Huh?

U-Unknown fact about me? I was born without wisdom teeth.

V-Vegetable? Artichokes and fresh green beans!

W-Worst habit? being lazy!

Y-Your favorite food? Stuffed bell peppers; steak, baked potato, salad; anything with artichokes! I love food!

Z-Zodiac Sign? Aries

Teeth & Talking!

I forgot to mention that Luke got two more teeth over the weekend!

#3 and #4, the top central incisors, broke through on Saturday. Five months after his first tooth showed itself! At this rate, he'll be 4 before he has a full mouth of teeth. Seeing Luke with more teeth is going to take some getting used to. I think he looks even more like a toddler now with top teeth. I haven't gotten a good picture of his new chompers yet, but you'll see what I mean!

Also just in the past few days Luke has started saying more words! He's been saying Da Da, Ma Ma, and Day Day for awhile, and he says nih nih when we walk into his room for naptime and baa when he sees a ball. But now he is copying words that Nate and I say. It's so cool to hear him say things that are real words other than his usual babble. Yesterday we were walking in from outside and Nate commented that it was hot and Luke immediately said "hot". The past few days he's also copied the words bug, duck, dog, and ring ring. He has a cell phone that he plays with and this morning I was saying "ring ring" and he started saying it, too. It's so cute to hear him and he gets all proud of himself because he knows he's doing something big. I can't wait to listen to his vocabulary grow and for the day to come where he can actually communicate with me using his words.

Although I know I will probably regret it when all I start to hear is "Why, Mommy" or "no" or whatever. :)

8 Days!

9 Days!

I cannot believe the countdown to Luke's first birthday is in single digits.

I'm going to be the mother of a one-year-old before I can blink again.

Cowboy Luke

Luke has discovered Brown Sugar!

Brown Sugar is my rocking horse from when I was a little girl. I loved it to pieces - we have video of me going wild on it at 18 months old when Dad got home from work. My parents save everything so when we decorated Luke's nursery they brought over Brown Sugar for him and it's sat there since last April until today!

I'm proud to say that my little boy loves my old rocking horse as much as I did! He immediately knew how to get on (thanks to that bounce n spin zebra we have I assume) and he had so much fun riding. Luckily I got it on video!!

Enjoy~

10 Days!

How cute is Luke in a baseball cap!

Lots of Video!

Tonight I uploaded a bunch of recent Luke videos to the computer so I decided to share my favorites lately. Enjoy!

Ahh & Please!

Every day my baby does something new that makes us laugh. I know I've written before about how Nate taught Luke to sign "please" by patting his head. Well I finally got it on video! He is so cute and he's gotten really good about doing it without needing to be prompted (although I had to prompt him to get it on video!). As an added bonus to the signing of "please", I also captured something else hysterical. Whenever Luke takes a big drink out of his sippy, he always goes "ahhh" afterwards. I guess the water or milk that he's drinking is really good!

Get Him!

This is the video I was talking about in the post last week about chasing Luke and tickling him. His reaction when he thinks he is being chased is hilarious!

Giggles at Bathtime!

Happy Memorial Day!

11 Days!

Luke clapping for himself at 9 months old!

12 Days!

I have a very silly baby!

Fun at Grammie & Big Papi's

Nate is out of town this weekend so Luke, Daisy and I headed to Dallas on Saturday to spend the day with my mom and dad (aka Grammie and Big Papi). Luke and Daisy both love it over there and both of them had fun playing with their grandparents and their Aunt Jewels and Aunt Heidi (the dogs). Luke and Big Papi explored all over the backyard. Luke had fun on his swing and playing in the playhouse turned log cabin. Big Papi also showed him all of his vegetable plants in the garden, and all of the flowers planted around the backyard. Luke was intruiged by squirrels, too, since we don't have them in our neighborhood (the trees aren't big enough yet). We also got out Molly's (Beth's dog) baby pool for Luke to go swimming. He wasn't so sure about it at first, but in the end he loved it. Hopefully he'll be a little fish just like his mommy :). We had a great dinner - steaks on the grill, sauteed mushrooms, fresh green beans picked by Dad that morning, and artichokes. YUMMY! Luke even had his first real taste of artichoke and he couldn't get enough of them. It was so funny! I'd given him bites of artichoke heart before but seriously nothing compares to fresh artichokes.

I hadn't planned on spending the night over there, but after our night Friday night I found myself changing my mind. I really don't like staying by myself and I have an overactive imagination, which really isn't good when you are alone. Well Friday night the power went off at midnight (yes I was still up - I can't sleep when Nate is gone!) and I was so terrified. I was convinced all the shadows in the house were moving in to get me. Well that prompted me to decide to just spend the night at my parents and I must admit I'm very glad I did. Luke slept great in his pack n play and I would have slept great in my old room except Daisy kept waking me up. I didn't have her pillow so she got to sleep in my bed and that was not fun. She kept hearing Heidi move around in Mom & Dad's room and wanting to go in there. Finally at 6 am I told her to go on so I could get some rest!

This morning we had a pancake breakfast - Luke gobbled up Big Papi's pancakes - and then Luke, Daisy and I headed back home. Nate is on his way as I type this so we can spend Memorial Day together as a family. Yay for a 3 day weekend!


Here are lots of pictures from our time in Dallas -

Luke waving from the log cabin (which used to be the playhouse that Dad built for Beth and me):


He thought the log cabin was great:


Luke was not happy in the pool at this point, but my mom always pouts that there are no pictures of her with Luke so here you go Grammie:


Luke figured out how to drink water out of the hose:


But he didn't enjoy it so much:


"Daisy, what are you doing in my pool?!"


"Here, Jewels, do you need a drink?"


Jewels didn't want to drink out of the hose so she got in the pool, too:


I had to show Luke how it's done:


Just call him Alfalfa:


First taste of artichoke:


"I can do it myself!"


Grammie helping out:


"I need some more artichokes!"


"This is so yummy!"


Grammie bribed us to stay last night by buying Luke some new jammies:


Making pancakes with Big Papi:

13 Days!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Luke! He was 8 months old.

Playing with the hose

Luke and Daisy had some fun on the back porch this evening. The first thing Luke did was dump Daisy's water bowl everywhere and then reach for the hose (that was not turned on) and beat it against his head. The lightbulb in my mind went off and I turned the hose on a little so the kids could play. Daisy freaks any time the hose is on and tries to eat the water. Luke wasn't so sure of the cold water coming out of the hose at first, he mainly just cackled at Daisy's antics. But he soon got into it, too, and pretty soon I had a soaking wet child and soaking wet dachshund. But considering it was 90 degrees, I was wishing I could be playing in the water, too! Instead I snapped the pictures...

Playing with the hose is so much fun:


I think I'll tip over the water bowl...I'm just not wet enough yet:


Luke and Daisy try to get the water (it looks like Daisy's about to take a big bite out of Luke's hand, but I promise that's not what happened!):


Luke was mesmerized by the running water:

This Week in Pictures

Fun times with Luke this week!

The signature "what the heck is going on" look. It's all in the eyebrows:


Clicking his tongue:


I hear an airplane...it's up in the sky:


Mr. Innocent:


Daddy's home:


Taking a break:


Watching himself on tv:

14 Days!

We had a very hard time getting Luke to eat solid foods. When we started cereal at 4 months, he threw up every time he ate it. So I guess he associated a spoon with throwing up and any time I would come at him with a spoon he would FREAK OUT. So we waited until he was 7 months old to try again. At first he wasn't too sure about it, so we had to put the tub of fruit or veggies on his high chair tray, give him a spoon, and give him a teething cookie and let him at it the first few times. He ended up dipping the teething cookie into the puree and eating it that way. After two times of this, I was finally able to get the spoon near him without a meltdown and from then on he ate like a champ. (I mean, you can tell he doesn't miss any meals by looking at him!)

This picture was taken on night two of our Mission: Get Luke to Eat Solids and he sure looks proud of himself for getting it figured out!

Funny Luke story of the day!

So we play this game with Luke where we say "get him, get him" and he crawls away from us as fast as he can, usually laughing like a madman. Then when we get to him, we make this deep breath sound and tickle him. Well he knows that the deep breath sound means now and he'll start laughing uncontrollably when he hears it. So I got it on video today and it's really funny. At some point I will get it uploaded to the computer and then to photobucket and post it on here. Sometime. I promise.

I wanted to see what the video looked like so I hooked up the camera to the tv. Luke was mesmerized by himself and would start laughing whenever he heard the tv-Luke laugh. Then he pointed to the tv and waved at himself. So cute! In the video, tv-Luke crawls over to his sippy of milk in the floor and starts drinking it. Well real-Luke does the same thing when he sees himself drinking his milk. He had to find the sippy and take a few swigs!

Sometimes I wonder where this child came from. I knew that Nate and I would make adorable kids together, but I never expected one this adorable! :)

15 Days!

Luke's first vacation in Breckenridge, Colorado!

16 Days!

17 Days!

Bathtime with Luke!

Luke's 1st Trip to the Zoo!

Nate, Luke and I went to the Fort Worth Zoo today! Nate took the day off to make up for going to the deer lease over Memorial Day weekend, so we decided to have our first official family outing! Since Luke is so into animals, we thought the zoo would be perfect.

I had never been to the Fort Worth Zoo, and I have to say I've been missing out! As one of the "top five zoos in the country" it was very nice and well kept, and there was so much to see! Luke's favorites were the flamingos (who doesn't love big bright things that stand on one leg?), the elephants, and the zebras. He got a kick out of seeing a real zebra since he has a toy one at home. At least, I think he did - it's not like he can tell me these things! All I know is the zebras were the only animals he clapped for!

We saw lots of birds, which I was okay with because they were in cages! There is one exhibit, though, where there are ton of parrots and parakeet type birds flying around and you actually walk in there with them...I sat that one out. Luke seemed to enjoy it and I was just fine watching from afar.

We also saw some reptiles, which Luke wasn't too interested in unless they were moving. There was a snake that was, so Luke enjoyed that. There was an aquarium with lots of fish, but Luke was more interested in the ceiling fans in the exhibit. He liked looking at the kangaroos in the Australian Outback exhibit, and the Texas longhorns and horses in the Texas Wild exhibit.

We saved the best for last - the Asian Falls, the African Savannah and the World of Primates(even though in hindsight we should have gone there first since most of the animals were sleeping). We saw a sleeping lion, a roaming tiger, a sleeping white tiger who woke up while we were standing there, Asian rhinos, elephants, hippos, meerkats, giraffes, cheetahs, and all the different kinds of primates (gorillas, chimpanzees, spider monkeys, etc). By this time Luke was over being held or being in his stroller and just wanted to crawl around (which we would not let him do) so it was time to leave. I can't wait to take him back as he gets older, though, there are so many things for kids to do! It will be even more fun that today was.

Some pictures...

Look, Daddy, there are flamingos...


Telling the flamingos "hi"...


Watching a very large bird...


Strollin' with Mommy...


Very interested in the yellow snake...


Daddy and Luke...


Clapping for the zebras...


Watching the zebras in the distance...


Walking away from the tigers...


Sleepy white tiger...


Wiggle worm with the Asian rhino in the background...


Mommy, Luke and an elephant...


Hey, there's a monkey!


Mommy, did you see it? He's sleeping!


Mr. Independent on the move...


And last but not least, the hippos...