Ice Skating

Luke has been begging - BEGGING - me to take him ice skating for weeks, maybe even a month. The obsession began with a Little Einsteins episode where Leo skates on the ice to save Annie's balloons. Add in the Olympics with the speed skating, figure skating, and ice dancing, and you have a little boy who asks his mommy daily if they can go ice skating.

I finally decided to attempt it today, so we headed to the mall this morning. I asked if there was a walker or bucket he could hold on to since it was his first time, but they wouldn't give me one since he's not in skating lessons. Whatever. So he just held on to me the whole time.

It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. He had fairly decent balance on the skates. Sometimes he held both of my hands and I skated backwards while he skated forwards, sometimes he held one of my hands and we skated next to each other, and sometimes I held both of his hands and he skated in front of me, like you do when helping your baby learn to walk. And when I say that we skated, I mean that we scooted around the ice. We stayed in a small section of the rink and basically went around in circles.

It was an experience, that is for sure. Luke loved it, though. He told everyone he saw, "I'm skating on the ice!" We didn't skate for very long, but long enough where we both enjoyed it.





His expression in the last picture is due to the fact that he didn't like holding on to the rail without also holding on to me. But I made him do it so I could get a pic of Luke skating on the ice!

I'm So Glad

Luke just gave me an impromptu kiss on the cheek and hug, complete with a back pat. As he laid his head down on my shoulder, he said, "I'm so glad".

I asked him what he was so glad about.

He responded, "I'm so glad for you."

And I'm so glad for him. I am so glad that I am his mommy. It's the best job in the world.

Our Almost-ER Trip

Luke is borderline obsessed with basketball these days. He has a goal in the garage but has never had a normal sized ball to play with, since the goal was a hand-me-down. I've been meaning to get him a ball for months now, and every time I go to the store, I forget.

On Monday he and I were wandering around Target and I remembered to look for a ball. I found the perfect one - perfect sized AND it had the Little Einsteins on it. He was instantly in love, and held it in the cart with him while we finished our shopping.

I brought the goal in the house when we got home because it was too cold to play outside (at least too cold for the weather wimp that is his mom!) He had a blast playing most of the day on Monday - the ball even had to take a nap with him. When his Daddy got home Monday night, he couldn't wait to show him how he could shoot a basket.

Well he was playing, and he fell down. It was a pretty good fall, too; I remember thinking "ouch". He started crying, and it was a different kind of cry - one I'd never heard him cry. He was obviously in pain.

One thing we've learned with Luke is that if we act like nothing happened, tell him he's fine, and distract him with something else - he realizes that everything is okay and he goes on with his life. But if we act like something happened, it just makes everything worse and he gets very dramatic.

So we played it off, gave him hugs and tried to distract him. It didn't work. He kept crying, almost screaming in pain, and grabbing his left arm. So we took his shirt off to get a better look.

His arm didn't appear out of socket or dislocated because we could move it - he just cried every time we tried. I tried to distract him with some fruit snacks and he wouldn't even hold the bag. That's when we knew he was in legitimate pain. He kept pinching his elbow and whenever Nate would ask him where it hurt, he'd say, "in the middle".

We didn't want to rush to the ER if nothing was wrong, so we decided to watch him for a little while. We gave him some Motrin, figuring that if something was seriously wrong, the Motrin wouldn't help. He and Nate sat on the couch and Nate held his arm to immobilize it. As long as it didn't move, he didn't cry. They watched Madagascar and then we ate dinner. Two hours after it happened, he still wasn't moving the arm and if it moved accidentally, he cried.

At this point, he and Nate got in the shower and I called our pediatrician's office. The nurse I talked to was a gem. The best thing she asked me was "Is he in mild, moderate, or severe pain?" Um...lady, he's TWO! He doesn't know the difference - all he knows is that it hurts! Anyway she said that if he couldn't move the joint, or if he was in pain when we tried to move it, then he needed to be seen tonight. So I told Nate to get ready to go when he got out of the shower.

After the shower, I took Luke to his room to get dressed. He was standing in front of the space heater in his room and while he was distracted, I started moving his arm around. He didn't even react. After a minute, I pointed out to him that I was moving his arm and he wasn't hurting. He said, "Oh!" And from that moment on, he was fine. Nate came in the room, dressed and ready for a night trip to the ER. Luke tackled him upon entry. Needless to say, we did not go to the ER.

Part of me wondered if something was actually wrong, but the Motrin was camoflaging it. But we figured worse case scenario, he'd be in pain Tuesday morning and we'd just take him to the pediatrician and avoid the ER. He woke up at 6 AM on Tuesday. The only thing we heard to indicate he was awake was his ball bouncing on the floor of the living room.

He's been totally normal ever since. We aren't sure what exactly happened - maybe it did hurt and he was just scared to move it again because he didn't want to feel that pain again. We'll never know. We're just thankful that he is okay...and that we didn't have to make a trip to the ER on Monday night!

Oh...and I'm pretty sure that I got a couple gray hairs that night. :)

Loving on Daisy

Today presented a rare moment where Daisy actually let Luke near her without growling and running away. Luke was lounging in the recliner and he wanted Daisy to sit in his lap. So Nate put her up there...and she didn't jump down. They looked so cute all snuggled up together.





Poor Lily just sat by the chair, not understanding why she couldn't get in Luke's lap, too.

SNOW!!

We woke up Thursday morning to a blanket of snow on the ground. In North Texas, it's rare to have the grass completely covered by snow. That only happens once every few years.

Well the snow didn't stop at just a blanket. It snowed ALL. DAY. LONG. And the flakes were huge! Totally not normal for D/FW.

It ended up breaking the record for the most snowfall ever here - D/FW got over 12" of snow on Thursday. There is still snow on the ground in some places, and it's been three days!

We had lots of opportunities to go out and play and we took advantage! Who know is if this will ever happen again!

Schools were open on Thursday so Luke and I went out to play before I took him to school.

What the backyard looked like at 8 am:


Luke was so excited to get out and play in the snow. As soon as he saw the snow on the ground when he woke up, he started asking to go out.


Mom...where are my feet?!


Daisy was not thrilled with the situation.


But Lily loved every minute of it.


Mommy & Luke!


The dogs



I picked a bad day to have my car in the driveway.


Our street when I took Luke to school:


Mansfield National Golf Course:


We went out again in the afternoon when Nate got home so we could build a snowman. By 3 pm, all of our tracks from the morning had been covered up again.

Daddy taught Luke how to throw a snowball.


Our first snowman:






Our big snowman:






Luke and Daddy throwing snowballs at Mommy.


The final pics of the snow - Friday morning:


How much snow was in our front yard:


Luke and his snow angel:

The best part of having a big bed...

...is taking naps with Daddy.

Helping Daddy

Luke loves the fact that his daddy is building him a bed. He wants so badly to be able to help. So he found his little hammer and went to work.

The Building of a Bed - Part 1

When we made the decision to move Luke to the full size mattress, I showed Nate a picture of a bed I'd been drooling over for months now. The Pottery Barn Stratton Bed. And what was my handy husband's response?

"I can build that."

So guess what he's doing...he's building it.

It's not the exact bed, he has made some changes to the plan. But it's going to be similar.

The process began last Saturday. We headed to Home Depot bright and early that morning.



And picked up all the supplies.



Nate got started.


Luke supervised.


And I "helped" - see my shadow? I'm standing on some wood while Nate cuts it. :)


Later in the day...

Look! A drawer!


More pics of the building process to come...

Lots of Changes!

We've had some major changes at our house in the past two weeks!

Luke's toddler bed is HISTORY!

We decided that he had outgrown the uncomfortable crib mattress. Instead of purchasing a twin bed for him, we moved the full mattress from our guest room into his bedroom. Nate is in the process of building Luke a bed, but for now we've got the mattress and box springs on the floor in his room.

He LOVES having a big bed. He only sleeps on one side, though; never in the middle!


This past week, my mom and I found adorable bedding to go with his new big bed. We started out with a sports theme, but just happened to see airplane bedding at Walmart of all places and we fell in love! I gave Luke a choice between the sports and the airplanes and he choose the planes. He loves having an "airplane bed".




Keep in mind that we're in the very beginning stages of putting together his "big boy room". Nate is currently working on the bed (which I am super excited about!) and we still have to take down all the sailboat stuff, repaint, and find airplane stuff to hang up. I'm hoping that all of this is done by March...we'll see.

Since we took down the guest bed, we basically had an empty room. What to do with an empty room when you have a toddler with too many toys? Make a playroom!!

Luke loves having his own playroom. He will go in there and play for hours if I let him. All of his toys are in there, which means I have reclaimed my living room. YAY!! We're in the process of decorating that room, as well. We're going for a sports theme in there (you know we have to have a sports theme SOMEWHERE in this house!!) Stay tuned for pics as we get everything set up.