Luke's 2nd Birthday Photo Shoot

I took advantage of having enough helpers to stay home with Ava and accompany me and Luke on our picture taking extravaganza while we were in Dallas.

As a fledgling 2 year old, Luke is extremely hard to get pictures of. I got alot of him running and spinning and climbing. He could hardly stay still. But I guess then, these pictures are truly indicative of his nature at this age.

In the past few months he has become a slave to his fear of separation. He never seemed to mind much before, but more and more lately, and now to the extreme, he clings and cries in new situations or places where there are alot of people.


He screams for the babysitter and insists on being held the whole time we are gone. I am positive that he weighs 40 lbs. He's asleep right now or I would go weigh him. When he wakes up, I will, and if 40 lbs. is a lie, I'll edit this. Anyway, he must be held by the babysitter and cannot even bear to look at her face. He just keeps his head on her shoulder the whole time. It makes for tired arms.

And sadly, he has started to do this in nursery too. A place he formerly looked forward to is now his nightmare.

I just hope this phase passes quickly. He is too heavy to hold and too cute to see sad.












I wasn't optomistic about these pictures as I was taking them. But they didn't turn out as poorly as I thought.

And once I've gotten home and seen them big on the computer, I realized that my most favorite picture of Luke to date was a simple snapshot I took after he munched on the cake decorations.


I think it's nearly the cutest thing I've ever seen.



Are you ready for this?




Really, if you don't think this face is the essence of cute, then you have no heart.


Are you really ready? Brace yourself.


You should probably click on this to make it big.



Happy Birthday, Big Boy!

Luke's party and the fourth

In a mad dash before we ran out the door for our trek to Dallas, I remembered a fabric remnant I had been holding onto since last year sometime. I never got around to using it last fourth of July and I was determined to use it this year.

I started with Ava's skirt first and barely had enough time to throw Luke's shorts together. And yes, I am very aware that I didn't match the plaids on his shorts. I was just lucky to get them done!


Ava loved her skirt and I am sure it was mostly due to the ruffles.




And Luke's shorts were too big (better than too small I guess!) mostly due to the lack of sufficient elastic (I pinned them!). We'll probably be seeing them again next year.



We celebrated Luke's birthday as well. I stole my sister, Leah's idea for the cake. It was really fun to make and turned out pretty cute too.



Luke had fun snacking on all the decorations as we were putting it together.

He loved being sung to,


and he loved eating cake and ice cream!




He played with each gift as it was presented to him.



He can now add a toy garage, ginormous legos, some new trucks, a new puzzle, and soon some new trains, to his toy collection. Thanks, all you present senders!


We decided to lay low that night and watch the fireworks from a distance on Mom and Dad's balcony. But once they started up, Ava kept saying, "let's go ober der!"

So in a split second decision, Mom, Ava and I hopped in the car and made it just in time to see some a little closer.



I had fun playing with my camera. Next year I might make it a priority to have a tripod...




All in all we had a lot to celebrate and a lot of fun doing it!

Happy Birthday Luke and America!

We're in Dallas this weekend and today we are celebrating two birthdays!

My Mom put an interesting post on her blog which includes some thoughts and words of our country's founding fathers.  

Some are comforting, some are almost prohpetic, and all of them gave me some new insights.  

One she didn't use, but stuck out to me was this, said by Abraham Lincoln:

"America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."

And another favorite from George Washington:

"Although guided by our excellent Constitution in the discharge of official duties, and actuated, through the whole course of my public life, solely by a wish to promote the best interests of our country; yet without the beneficial interposition of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, we could not have reached the distinguished situation which we have attained with such unprecedented rapidity.  To Him, therefore, should we bow with gratitude and reverence, and endeavor to merit a continuance of His special favors."

I know that this land is a promised land, brought to order by God.  And I believe that His hand continues to be upon it.  I sincerely hope that we can continue to merit His special favors. 

God Bless America!

And for more, visit Momma's blog 

As Steve Miller says,

"You're such a pretty lady. You're such a sweet girl. When you dance it brightens up my world."


Today was the last of 4 sessions of ballet/tap.




I would say that Ava has come a long way, but she hasn't. Really, once a week for four weeks is fun but not too substantial.


Ava was SO excited to take "bow-way". SO excited. I told her she got to take tap as well. But she wasn't too thrilled with the idea and expressed her desire to focus solely on "bow-way". Luckily she became fond of tapping and stomping and clapping after the first class.

And let's just say, tap seems to be much more up her alley than the graceful movements of plies and pointed toes.

But all that really matters is that she had fun, right?! And she did love it! Her favorite part had to be the "outfit". Especially the ballet shoes.



Luke, on the other hand was never very thrilled with sitting in the studio for an hour. And I was never very thrilled with his nearly 40 pound body mass, wallowing all over me as he fussed and cried to "GO!"

My photographic opportunities were severely compromised this morning as I had to hold a screaming, heavy Luke in one arm and my camera on the other.

But here she is performing their tap routine.


"We got to be stars today, Mom!"


Playing her jazzy pretend trumpet,


And here is where I'm thinking she might be more suited for basketball, like her old woman.




Ava loved Miss Susie, her teacher.


Even Luke enjoyed the show.


And I haven't decided whether or not to enroll her in the next session or not. She would love it, I'm just not how much more wallowing I can handle.



Based on how much she enjoyed the classes I shouldn't read too much into this but, even as her career as a ballerina has barely gotten started, she's already hung up her shoes!

2

Now that he's two maybe we should stop calling him Lukey.

We've said from its inception that "Lukey" is probably not a name he'd like to be called when he gets older. But despite our not so fervent efforts to stop, Lukey remains.

And so does his delicious sweetness.


And his paci.


And his fun smile.




And his rambunctious boyness.





And his tender heart.



And his figure-things-out mind.




And his soft skin.




And his big baby blues.



And his ability to melt my heart into a big, sloppy puddle of love.


Happy Birthday, to my Sweet Love-Boy!

As I was putting Ava to bed last week, she was telling me about the kind of dream she would like to have that night. Sometimes we talk about the good things she can dream about so she doesn't worry about having bad dreams.

She listed a few possibilities like dreams about candy and ponies. And then she said,

"Mom, I know my best dream. The best dream is when I went to the hospital to meet Wukey when he came out of your tummy."

I couldn't agree more. He is a dream come true.

Don't be fooled, this whole post is random

First off, a few random items of business that have nothing to do with the rest of this post.

Does this photo remind you of any character from a movie?


Am I strange to be reminded of Elijah Wood in Lord of the rings?

Between the shaggy hair, the big blue eyes, and the dirty face, I think he could pass for a hobbit.

And secondly, I had to write down something Ava said in church last week. During the sacrament, when things were particularly quiet, in her loud voice (whispering has not been mastered), Ava says for me and the surrounding four rows to hear,

"Mom, when Jesus Christ sees us being kind does he make Santa Claus give us presents?"


Also, we had a really great weekend with my parents down here for a visit.

We made Dan this shirt for his father's day present. He loved it. I hope I can keep adding hand prints to it with each new addition.


And having two dads to celebrate with is a good way to go! We are lucky to have Mom and Dad so close!


While they were here, Luke got a much needed haircut.


He needed a haircut reeeaaaal bad.




I know I have written about how much he detests getting his hair cut before, but if it is possible, his hatred has grown. A lot.

Such a conniption of screaming, flailing, and caterwauling has never been displayed. If you were only listening from another room, you might be sure we were performing torture of the cruelest kind.

If he only could have held it together for a minute or two, we could have ended it much sooner. Instead this dragged out into a two part process of horror.


But I think the end result is pretty astounding given what we had to work with!

And now that I am finished with the random stuff, I am thinking I'd just be better served to accept that this was enough to qualify for it's own post and start new, but I'm not. I'm just going to tack this on right here...



I have been feeling very fortunate that we have been staying busy and not feeling too lonely. I guess we have plenty going on because, again, we didn't need all of the activities I had planned.

We did make Peanut Butter playdough and it was a hit!


I am wondering if I made a little mistake by making this edible stuff. Luke has had few encounters with playdough and I'm worried that he will now think all playdough is edible, though I am sure after one bite of salt dough, he'll reconsider.


Raisins and Cheerios make super nice decorations



and it feels good to squish them in.



One other random tidbit, Dan surprised me with a new lens. I'm still figuring it out, but I think I like it!



And in the queue this week, even though I'm sure we won't get to them all:

making regular playdough
Making baked doughnuts
shaving cream and food coloring