14 Months!!

Our Stinker is 14 months old and so very big....literally and figuratively. Sometimes he seems to act more like a 2 year old, and he's less and less of a baby every day {sniff, sniff, whimper...}. He is so much fun and absolutely hilarious, making us laugh all the time. Since I didn't do a 12 or 13 month update, I'm just gonna get right down to it. There's no way I'll be able to adequately summarize all that has changed in the last 2 months, but you'll get an idea!

• The Belly: At his 12 month check up, the Big Man weighed 31 lbs, 2 oz (once again, 99th percentile!). With all his walking, running, climbing, and bouncing, he seems to have slimmed down some in his face, waist, arms, and legs, but NOT in the belly. His belly is adorably huge and doesn't seem to be getting any smaller...in fact, most days it seems to only be getting bigger, but we love it!

Belly-licious.

• The Messes: He is into EVERYTHING and cannot be contained. I recently made him a shirt that says, "Human Wrecking Ball" because that so perfectly describes him. He would so much rather take everything out of the kitchen cabinets and drawers and play with bowls, rolls of aluminum foil, can openers, or spatulas than play with his toys. It's equally as exhausting trying to keep him out of the cabinets as it is cleaning up his many, many messes all throughout the day. He's hilarious, too, because when he gets into things he knows he's not supposed to have, he usually runs away with his loot as soon as he hears me say "No, put that back!"

Maybe we should change his name on his birth certificate...

"The dishwasher did it!"


"I'm just helping you get organized."


"Now where should I put this?"

"Hey, Mom, why don't you use this plug-in air freshener now that I'm around? It tastes like it'd smell really good."

• Playing: When he does play with his toys, his favorite things are his various blocks. He has a huge tub full of big Legos. While he's not into building things, he really enjoys knocking over our creations. His favorite thing to do with them, though, is to pour them all out of the tub and then knock them all around and together, making tons of noise. He will even sign "please", trying to get Phil or me to join in and make it especially loud. He also loves two other toys that involve blocks. One is that half red, half blue octagonal sphere thing with holes for the yellow blocks of all different shapes, that has been around for eons. He'll get it and say "open, open" so that we pull it apart and let out all the blocks. Then we show him where each block goes (the circle in the circle-shaped hole, the square in the square-shaped hole, etc.), and he puts each block in its own hole all by himself. He recognizes the star and always finds it first, saying something that sounds like "slaaaaaaahhhh", which we now know means "star". His other fave is a big plastic boat toy that my brother gave him that also has blocks of certain shapes. He will sit and put the blocks in the holes and take them out again for a good 5 minutes, which is an eternity in Luke Land.

Making tons of noise and loving it with the boys in Atlanta.

• Reading: Luke has recently become obsessed with books. His 2 faves that are always within reach (meaning strewn on the floor somewhere nearby) are the ABC book that Auntie Em gave him and the book we call his "oops" book. The ABC book is fabulous and has pictures of many of our family members, all representing a certain letter of the alphabet. He reads it several times a day, always pointing out the pictures of Mommy and Daddy, the iphone, the apples, Papa T., and Pops. The other book, the "oops" book, is a book called Green Hat, Blue Hat by Sandra Boynton and is the book that had him guffawing in a video with my dad (which I know I posted, but can't find right now). On each page, it shows an animal with some article of clothing on, like a red shirt, and the words "red shirt" underneath. It lists 3 animals like this, then a silly turkey with something on the wrong body part, with the word "Oops" underneath him. It says, for instance, "Green hat, blue hat, red hat....oops!" Luke thinks it's so funny when you get to the "oops" part of each page. He loves the book so much that he now will read it to himself. We'll hear him turning the pages and saying to himself things like, "na-nah, bah-bah, da-da, oof!" It's the cutest darn thing and makes us laugh every time. He loves to say "oof" all throughout the day, even when not reading the book, and also calls every Sandra Boynton book "Oof".

Reading his "oops" book to himself.

• Mowing: His other obsession is mowing. Aunt Jo Jo gave him a mower for his birthday, and he LOVES it. It's always the first thing he goes to when we go outside and many times we have to bring it inside with us when we are done sweating to death outside. Recently Luke and I were in a baby consignment shop that sells clothes and toys, and Luke found the same mower that he has, laying down on a shelf halfway across the room. He started pointing and yelling, "Mow, mow, mow!" I looked at the shelf and didn't even recognize the mower for about 20 seconds, because of the way it was laying. I couldn't believe that he had recognized it on his own and from so far away. I now think if we were to show him big black blobs of ink on paper, he'd probably think they all looked like his mower. That is how much he loves his mower. When we were at some friends' house for the 4th of July, he immediately found the vacuum cleaner push toy, grabbed it, and started pushing it and chanting, "mow, mow, mow". You can imagine how excited he was when we went outside and found an actual lawn mower push toy! Later he took off into the neighbor's yard, running toward a partially covered 4 wheeler, pointing and yelling, "mow, mow, mow!!"

Luke on the 4th of July, having left the swimming pool to get in a little mowing.

Running away toward the 4-wheeler, chanting "mow, mow, mow."


Some serious mowing in the driveway.

• Teething: The poor Stinker has been working on getting his 4 12-month molars FOREVER! It's driving me nuts, because they wake him up during the night all the time. Thankfully, we can usually just leave him alone, and he'll go back to sleep, but it's still not fun for any of us. He's cut a few parts of most of the molars, but since they are so big, they all still have a ways to go. I know it can't be comfortable for him, so I wish they'd just hurry up and grow in. I feel like by the time these grow in all the way, it'll be time for new ones to start their eternally slow descent. Ugggghhhh.....

• Picky Eating: Luke has become a pretty darn picky eater....I realize you'd never believe it to look at him, but just trust me on this one. He used to eat whatever we fed him, but ever since starting on table foods, he's been really picky. He loves chicken nuggets, deli meats, turkey meatballs (that I make for him), pureed veggies and occasionally cooked, cut up veggies, any kind of cracker or chip, animal crackers, yogurt, and most fruits. He WILL NOT eat any pastas, breads, cheeses, or anything slimy or with a texture that he's not used to. You'd be surprised just how many foods this includes. It's so annoying and totally out of my league. I come from a family that will eat anything that is not moving, so I don't know what to do with the Stinker. I refuse to be the mom that lets her kid eat nothing but mac n' cheese (which he wouldn't eat anyway) and Lucky Charms for his entire life, so I'm going to have to figure this out with Luke. I am hoping that he'll come around eventually, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Enjoying his most favoritest part of every meal: his "baaaaah."

• Wicked Smart: As do all parents, we think Luke is a genius. I am no longer keeping a list of all the words he says, because I can't keep up. Don't get me wrong. He doesn't go around saying all of his words all of the time or putting them together to make sentences, but he just really likes to learn and say words. He is constantly mimicking what we say and when we say a word that he doesn't know but wants to, he will look at our mouths with such concentration and then start trying to move his mouth along with us until he gets the new word out, usually saying it in his own way, but close enough that we can recognize the word. He also understands soooo much. I can tell him to close the door or drawer for me, and he'll do it. We can ask him where something is, and he'll go get it. If I say, "are you poopy-stinky?" and he is, then he'll run to the laundry room where we always change his diaper. If he hears the garage door, he'll say "Da-da" and run to the door. If I mention outside, he'll run to the nearest door. If he wants something opened, he'll say "open, open." If I ask him if he wants chicken nuggets and he does, he'll do the sign for "eat". He asks for blueberries, strawberries, or his bottle by name. The other day he was saying "mouth" and pointing to my mouth. When he touched my teeth, I told him "teeth" and he immediately said "thhee." Ever since, he's been able to point out my teeth when I say the word or if I just point to them and don't say anything, he'll say "thhheeee". Two different times I showed him how to go backwards down our stairs and after that he was a pro, even changing on his own the way he used to crawl down our one step into our living room to mimic the new way that he learned to go down the big set of stairs. All of this may be what every other kid his age does, but because he's our first (and awesome), we think he's amazing!

I am sure there is tons more I could say about what Luke's up to these days and how much he's changed, but I can't think of much more to write about. So....I'll just appease you with more pictures!


Wearing Mommy's sunglasses. Daddy hates this picture because he says Luke looks like Elton John. Ha!

Posing with Mommy after getting her hair cut.


Wearing the last and only onesie in his closet. I had to get a picture because it made him look a little more like a baby again. I didn't want to take it off! They don't make onesies for babies who are the size of 4 year olds. Boo hoo.


Helping Mommy clean the house.
Riiiiight....


Sitting still to watch a little Wimbledon. For all of 45 seconds.

We love our busy, picky, messy genius of a man.
We just wish that time would slow down and he wouldn't get so big, so fast!