Wishing...

Oh, how we want to go outside and play! Will it ever be spring????

Bathtime Bubba...

I've been wanting to take some pics of Luke during bath time, because he's just so darn ADORABLE all naked and roly-poly. Phil usually does bath time while I get dinner started, though, and we all know how often Phil takes pictures...(if you don't know, just count the number of pictures that I am actually in on this blog, divide it in half to account for the # of pictures that I take of myself with Luke, and then you'll have the total # of pictures Phil has taken since Luke has been born. you'll only need one hand for this math problem). Anywhoo...while Phil was out of town, I decided to get 'er done and am quite pleased with the all the chubby cuteness that I was able to capture. Good grief, I could just gobble this kid up. He's so darn YUMMY!!!!!


"You're not going to take my new toy away are you?"


"No? Oh goody!!!"


"...Cuz I really like frog legs."


Thank you Dollar Spot for these 2 new bath time faves.
Poor Yellow Ducky has been banished to the corner.


"Hmmm...which one of you do I love more?"


Would you look at the arm rolls. Too many to count. LOVE each and every one of them!


And the cheeks, too.


Hahahahaha!!

"Don't hate me cuz I'm beautiful."


"Such. Hard. Work. Getting. Around. This. Belly."


"Ok. Now I'm pooped."

Point, Basket.

Poor little Luke had yet another run-in with the toy basket. You may remember Luke's first incident with said basket:

Well this past Saturday, Phil got Luke up from his nap and took him downstairs to play. I was still upstairs when I heard sudden screaming and crying coming from the living room. Luke has been pretty whiny lately, so I just figured that it wasn't that big of a deal. When I got downstairs about 2 minutes later, Luke had moved on to the slide and was perfectly happy. I asked Phil what had happened, and he said something like, " Oh, he just kind of fell down and bumped his head on the toy basket. He didn't hit it very hard, so I don't know why he got so upset. I just kind of kicked the basket a few times to make the toys make noise, and then he was fine." No sooner did he say that than he looked over at Luke playing across the room and said, "Is that a bruise under his eye?" Sure enough, Luke already had a PURPLE bruise under his eye, and it'd only been about 3 minutes since the fall...
Oops.

About an hour later, with a snotty nose and a black eye. It looked a lot darker in real life, but Luke could have cared less. He was fine.


Looking like Vanilla Ice with a sweet line through his eyebrow. What's that about?


Dude, I've got a black eye, a nose full of boogers, and strep throat...
...I really don't need this right now.


A couple days later, he's still got the black eye, but a few less boogies.


Really? You're still taking pictures of my eye?


The Stinker loves to climb up and down this step into the kitchen.


Hmmmmm....what kind of mom would let her kid crawl around on such a dirty floor??


Peek-a-boo, I see you!

Ooohhhh....are these clean clothes? Let me help you with these.


Aaaahh...my work here is done.


Well, this looks like fun...


Sweet, sweet punkin.


The Luke O' Lantern and his gap-toothed smile.


Love the Stinker Bug!

Luke Loves Ava.

This week Ava's mom, my good friend Alisha, had her foot surgery, so Luke and I got to spend some more quality time with one of our favorite 4 year olds. Luke had so much fun with her. He just laughed and laughed at her and a couple times even cried when she left the room! Here is a funny video of the Stinker Man swooning over the older woman...until she throws herself at his feet. Then he's outta there.

He's got a ball and a domino, but he's all eyes for Ava.


"Hahahahaaaaa!!! You're positively hilarious, Ava."


Ava's jumping up and down and Luke's never seen anything so funny.


Still hasn't taken his eyes off her...


Just look at the love.


Please look at what she was wearing. She dressed herself. The boots are at least 2 sizes too big, and she HAD to wear the red bow instead of the pink one, because the red one was fancier..."It has polka dots!"

Best quote from Ava for the day:
We were in the car headed to our house, and I was explaining to her what we were going to do when we got there: eat lunch, put Luke down for a nap, then play. She said, "Yeah, and if you change Luke's poopy diaper, and it's a way big one, then I'm just gonna sit somewhere else."
Love her!!

New Tricks.

Luke is constantly surprising us with new tricks that he just comes up with without us even trying to teach him....and then the things we try to teach him, like sign language, he doesn't seem to even want to try to do. Oh well. We'll take what we can get.
Here are some videos of his latest talents.

He loves to "scare" Phil. He thinks it's hilarious and does it all the time now...especially when he's supposed to be eating.

Peek-a-boo is another favorite right now. He does it with everything--his bib, his towel, his snot rag, his puzzle board, or whatever else he can lift up to his face.

Sick and Hibernating...

Luke woke up last Saturday morning with a super snotty, gunky nose. He didn't have any other symptoms, but I kept him home all week, just to be on the safe side....especially since it's been so stinkin' cold around these parts. Turns out he has STREP! Who knew?

Anyway, being shut up inside all week has had us both going a little crazy. Here's what we've been doing to keep ourselves entertained...


Taking a few laps around the house for exercise.


Inspecting the dishwasher to see if the red lights are on.


Trying to figure out how they got a ball inside another ball.


Shaking our toys over and over.


Pushing our toys to the middle of the table.


Then getting really ticked when we can't reach them.


Getting excited when we figure out that we can walk to the other side of the table and reach them again!


Then dropping them under the table.


Contemplating the works of Mozart on our Baby Einstein Ipod.
(Thanks, Aunt Carol, for this fave toy!!)


Trying to make our cheeks and chins look as big as possible.


Doing a little yoga.


Wrestling with Doggy.


Learning a new trick:
Peekaboo!!


Where's Luke????


PEEK-A-BOO!!


(apparently he learned how to turn a diaper cloth into a Yasser Arafat-esque headscarf, too)


...And one of Luke's all-time faves right now is sharing an apple with Mommy (this was pre-diagnosis, obviously)...


Notice the double-handed death grip.

Now Mommy has to use 2 hands, because Luke has unhinged his jaw like an anaconda and is about to inhale the whole apple.


"Yeah. That's how it's done, folks."

And at the end of the day...


...actually sitting still for a few seconds to get some thumb time.


Sweet, sweet stinker.