EASTER EGG HUNT

Easter is this coming Sunday, and although we have no big plans to do anything for or with Luke, I thought I would at least take him to the Crayola moms Easter egg hunt this morning. He is still kinda young, so doesn't understand what he is suppose to do or what it is all about, but it was fun.

Each mom had to take 12 plastic eggs filled with a toy or stickers or whatever (no candy...to my horror) and all the eggs got 'hidden' around the playground, then each child got to go hunt for 12 to fill their baskets.
We found the first egg, and then by the second egg, Luke decided to put his bum on the wet ground right there and suck on a hard plastic egg... he was quite content to forget about hunting for the other 10, and just stay put.. clearly he is not hard to please, but, I found him 10 more eggs anyway.
I am looking forward to next year when he will be older, and more excited and able to participate properly.

Hanging out with his buddy Brent, after the hunt... they were sharing eggs, and testing there ability to withstand multiple 'collisions' with the ground (Conclusion: The plastic eggs all remained in tact and made it safely home) lol

"Look Luke... is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Super-Mom"

STUCK ON YOU...

Today is Monday... not my most enjoyed day of the week, I'll admit, and to start this day off on a blue note, Jake and I had a rough night last night... we had the craziest storm here, with insanely loud thunder that actually made my nightstand and lamp rattle, super bright lightening, two power failures, and multiple power surges. We also have this dumb carbon monoxide monitor in our spare room, that beeps the loudest ever beep if the power goes out.. so that woke us up twice too... obviously, Murpheys Law, on the night that we are being constantly woken up, Luke decides to sleep through the night...so we couldn't even blame our exhaustion this morning on him... the little angel slept soundly until 6:30am. So, this morning I was pretty grumpy, groggy and tired, and just not paying much attention to anything. I didn't realise that Luke had wandered into the back room... we usually have the door closed, because we have a lot of 'storage' in there that we still need to sort through, but on Saturday, the swing door in the kitchen broke, and now won't open, so Jake had to leave for work through the back room, and forgot to close the door again...which is how Luke ended up in there. Anyway, next thing I hear Luke whining... and then I see him coming out of the back room into the living room, crawling kinda funny... his hands were sticking to the floor... LOL... I just started laughing. Luke had gotten stuck to the fly trap that I had left in there (the same trap that failed to catch any flies)...his hands were completely covered in thick, sticky residue from the trap, and the trap itself was stuck under his arm to his pajamas. LOL.

So, straight to the bath we went... but soap and water didn't clean it off, so I had to clean his hands with 'Goo Gone'... finally, clean, changed and napping, I headed back into the living room and back room, on my hands and knees with the bottle of Goo Gone and a sponge, trying to locate everything that Luke had touched on his way out of the back room to let me know he was in a sticky mess. Needless to say, he made a big mess... there were sticky hand prints all along the floor, more sticky hand prints on the door, and multiple items in the back room that he had obviously decided to play with before coming to me for help to get him unstuck.

If you look carefully on this picture, you will see a sticky palm print, and a few sticky finger tips below it.

Never a dull moment in our house... not as long as Luke has any say about it...
...now to try and get the sticky mess off of his pj's. LOL

THAT BITES...TEETH AND TANTRUMS

Luke FINALLY has his first tooth... and number two is close behind. Both his bottom teeth have been visible for a couple weeks, but they were taking sweet time cutting through. The first one finally cut through a few days ago. I discovered it had cut through when Luke decided to bite my ankle, and it actually hurt. LOL.

Here is our silly little boy making a funny face, showing off his new tooth.

It's been a busy week for our little munchkin. In addition to cutting his first tooth, Luke has started standing unaided. He doesn't yet get up on his own, but he has started letting go of the furniture and of our hands. Today, he stood long enough for me to grab my camera and get a photo.

At our play date with Lukes buddy Brent, Luke had fun venturing in the backyard at Brents house, and playing on his play set. I was a little surprised that Luke was trying to climb up the slide... isn't that what older kids who can actually walk do? I think his sense of adventure is advancing faster than his little body. LOL. Crawl, stand, walk THEN climb.... we're missing a step here. lol.


On the weekend, we enjoyed a picnic at a local park with a few of our friends and their children. Luke is such a cutie, and I just love how photogenic he always is. He is such a little poser.

Look  at these little dancing toes...

He also had a great time playing with the big kids. Here is his friend Isabelle taking him down the slide. 


On a less positive note... at 10 and a half months old, Luke has officially thrown his first set of tantrums. A milestone I am not thrilled about. Yesterday in Walmart, Luke got upset and pulled a full on screaming, kicking, arching his back, and trying to slide his arms out of my hands moves. When I tried to get him to walk with me because he refused to go in the cart, he pulled the 'jelly legs' move so that I couldn't get him to stand. I was not amused with the screaming, struggling little monster I was dealing with. It was tempting to leave him there and pretend I didn't know who he belonged to. What happened to the terrible two's??? Shouldn't I still have at least another year before I need to deal with tantrums? Though I suppose we can't only have happy, good phases of growing... our little man has always let us know that he is strong willed and wants to be independent. As his Gogga says, it's "the world according to Luke"...and so it is, so we take the good with the bad, and love him unconditionally anyway...though that doesn't mean I have to like him everyday. LOL.

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY

Ok, so yesterday was my birthday... I have officially started the old age milestones... I am now a quarter of a century old... WOW, putting it that way sounds really ancient...

It was a fun day. Jake took the day off cos I hurt my back and was struggling to pick up Luke (perhaps a sign of my sudden aging??? lol), so we made the best of his day off work, and went birthday shopping (shopping doesn't require heavy lifting. lol). I got a gift card from my family, and Jake let me choose out a few things from him... it was lots of fun. I got a few things for the house... a couple picture frames for some pictures I bought a while back that I put in our living room, I also bought some floating shelves for our living room, which we still need to mount, then I got a picture for our bathroom, and a fun little 'chef guy' menu board decoration for in the kitchen. I also got a cute pair of shoes, and a summer dress for church. So it was a great shopping spree. Mid shopping we went to a Japanese restaurant/take out place and had some lunch. When we headed to the car, I spotted another little surprise. Jake had snuck into Harris Teeter and bought me some flowers, and some Lindt mini easter egg truffles, and some chocolate coated oreos... yummy... they were all waiting on the front seat of the car. So sweet.
When we got home, there was a package on the door step...another birthday present. YAY... I really love opening gifts. It was from Kim and Spence... I got a really awesome mini scrapbook kit, with the pages and supplies all included. I have no shortage of photo's to put in there. Now just to find some Luke free time to scrap book the album without having to barricade all the bits and pieces so that chubby little fingers don't snatch them. 
After some rushing around to get the house tidied up, and Jake trying to get his delicious cinnamon rolls baked, a few of our friends arrived for a FHE evening, with some hanging out, chatting, and stuffing our faces on buffalo wings (courtesy of Wayne and the OUTBACK steak house), and some white chocolate raspberry cheese cake, and of course Jakes prize winning cinnamon rolls (though he reckons they only graded at a C+)
Who could believe that 6 adults and 4 young children could possibly create that amount of noise volume. LOL. Luke was LOVING the chaos, and the 3 other boys running around playing together. He didn't whine once, and was totally content to just chase after the other boys, and play in the chaos. Clearly this boy needs a sibling... anyone giving away a 2-4 year old? (I am sooo not ready for another newborn in the house)
And that everyone, was my quarter of a century birthday celebration.

A MOMMY'S MIND

Climb into the shower..."ooh, nice and warm", get my hair wet, wash my face with my nice Loreal cleanser, brain switches on, "Luke has diarrhea, should prob go get some pedialyte at the store... hope Jake and I can still go out tonight...it's been 8 months since our last date night... what should I wear? I really wanna look cute... never really get to dress up much these days... Need to hurry in the shower...the bread machine is about to beep...baking cycle is over... I hope I didn't flop the bread... who loses count when you only need 4 cups of flour??? ...still need to fold the laundry in the dryer...hope the poop stains come out of Lukes onesie....that reminds me, I still need to clean the softener mixture we used to remove the wall paper borders out of the stain remover spray bottle... do I need more stain remover?... should prob grab some while I am at the store.... I think we need milk too... what did I do with that shopping list from last week?... ", grab the shampoo, squeeze some into my hand, and proceed to wash my face...a second time....with shampoo... "Hope Luke only has diarrhea and isn't getting sick... maybe then I can still leave him with the sitter... should prob clean the bathroom and vacuum the living room, in case Tish does come babysit for us...I wonder if I should grab something for her and Hunter to have for dinner...they are going to be here quite early... I need to write another shopping list...more shopping... it never ends...no wonder Jake is always stressed out...life is expensive... I hope he is feeling better today...he is probably tired...maybe a night out will be good for both of us...I should iron his shirt...he will probably wanna wear that with his dark jeans...are they clean? Do I need to do more laundry today? We are almost out of laundry detergent...need to add that to the list...softener too... maybe I should go to Walmart... no, but I wanted to get more yoghurt from Target...Walmart never has our kind in stock... I wonder when the seeds for our vegetable garden are going to arrive? We need to get our boxes built this weekend... why is this face wash getting so frothy?... wait, this smells different... Oh my gosh Carla, it's shampoo..." Rinse the shampoo off my face, get some more and start washing my hair... "focus Carla, you need to get this right..."

And so this is a sampling of my minds inner workings from this morning... and most other mornings... what ever happened to showers, being a time for relaxation and time out??? LOL... I love being a mommy, but somehow it's even exhausting when Luke is asleep and I am trying to have a few minutes to myself.

STORY TIME

A couple of the local libraries near us, have story time on various days of the week. Today we went to the story time at Nashville library. Luke doesn't really pay too much attention to the stories yet, but I hope that taking him as often as possible, will encourage him to develop a love for books when he is a bit older. He does love being in a new environment though, and he likes being around the other children. 

LUKE, NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE STORY

Today, we had a story about animals, and then we had a fun little activity where we all had to go around the library and find the hidden leprechauns (it was St Patricks day yesterday).

LUKE FOUND A LEPRECHAUN

AND DECIDED TO EAT HIM...

All the kids got book prizes for finding the leprechauns... Luke 'loved' his book

"HOW TO CATCH A HEFFALUMP"

Then we had craft time, which Luke is really too young for, but he sat for a few minutes, looking like a really big boy at the craft table, and ate the fruit loops that the bigger kids were using to make their rainbows. Turns out, my smart boy, doesn't like the sugary, unhealthy cereal that so many parents feed their growing kids these days... Good choice buddy.

Of course we couldn't leave the library, without some play time at the big fun toy they have.

After story time, Luke was knackered... he promptly fell asleep in the car on the way home.

"I LOVE DADDY"

Sometimes I forget that even though Luke is only 10 months old, he is actually really smart, and he is a real little person, with thoughts, and feelings, and he gets happy and sad.
Yesterday, was the perfect example of this. Monday night was the last time that Luke had seen Jake.... Jake left for work before Luke woke up on Tuesday, and then he had to go straight from work to some 'meetings' for church, so he got home again after Luke had already gone to bed. Then, on Wednesday morning, Luke woke up, just as Jake was getting together his keys and about to run out the door... I quickly ran and grabbed Luke from his crib, and darted into the kitchen so that Jake could say goodbye to him before he left...it had been a while since they had seen each other. Usually, Luke doesn't at all react to Jake leaving... I always presumed it was because he didn't really understand what was happening, and he didn't care, because I am still here, but yesterday morning, as I went into the kitchen with Luke, to say goodbye, Luke got SUPER excited. He squealed, and stiffened up his body in my arms, the way he does when he is really excited... he was just sooo happy to see his daddy...Then, Jake kissed him goodbye, and ran out the door... this is when to my surprise, Luke got REALLY sad, and started to cry. My heart broke...
Our sweet little boy, had noticed the long time it had been since he had last seen his daddy, and couldn't have been more excited to finally see him again...and then daddy left again and this made him sad.
It really amazes me how smart such little children can be, and how accurate their emotions are. He loves his daddy, and he misses him when he is gone... though, I suppose that is to be expected when you have a daddy as great as he does.

CRAYOLA MOMS PLAYTIME

Every Monday, Luke and I go to the Crayola moms play time and the DEPC Center (Down East Partnership fr Children)... The Crayola moms group has the play room booked for 2 hours every Monday...and it's a great play room, so Luke really enjoys it.

In the play room, there is a wooden fort, that has 6 steps going up to the top. Usually, just the bigger kids (the walking ones) go up there, but yesterday, Luke decided he wanted to see what all the fuss up there was about. Seeing as we don't have stairs in our house, I didn't think that he would figure them out too quickly... I was mistaken. LOL... I clearly underestimate my sons determination... he tackled the first step a little slow, but once he had that one down, he was up the remaining 5 in a flash...
 

PLAYING WITH HIS BUDDY IN THE FORT

Luke is still figuring out the 'friends' thing.. for the most part he just crawls around and finds toys he wants to play with, or if he has an interest in someone in the playroom, he uses them as leverage to pull himself to a standing position (good thing he is one of the younger kids, so still has the advantage of being smaller when he is trampling on the other kids. lol)
But, he enjoys the change of scenery and the kiddy friendly environment, where I am not constantly telling him, 'NO'... in the playroom, he can go where he wants and take, touch and play with whatever he wants.
I think that as we continue to go to the Crayola Moms activities, he will learn to share, and be buddies with other kids, and develop some good social skills. He is already a little social butterfly. He really loves people.

OUTSMARTED

On Saturday, Jake and I tackled the task of painting our dining room. Painting while Luke is around can be quite challenging, but we need to get our home done, so we just tried to keep Luke busy, and more importantly, out of the dining room. We don't have any baby gates, so we just tipped our dining room table onto it's side and used it to block the entrance to the dining room. Luke is too short to see over it, so we left a little gap, so that if he wanted to, he could still see us. Well, Luke wasn't going to have any of this... he wanted to be in the dining room, and he was going to make sure he got in there...

And he did...

FIRST HE PUSHED THE TABLE OVER SOME MORE... A LITTLE FATTY CAN'T GET THROUGH SUCH A SMALL GAP...

THEN HE SHIMMIED HIS LITTLE TUSH THROUGH...

MADE IT!!! Now, what chaos can I cause???

ON A LESS SMART NOTE, LUKE DECIDED TO CLIMB UNDER OUR COFFEE TABLE...

HE QUICKLY REALISED HE DIDN'T LIKE BEING TRAPPED UNDER THERE...

THE RESULT WAS THIS!

'OCD' AND A GOOD SALE

Some of you might have already realised that I am a bit OCD in certain areas... I like things to be a certain way.
Well one of my OCD's and addictions, is organizational and storage stuff...shelves, cute little canvas totes, matching tubs and buckets, neatly labeled containers and colourful boxes, etc etc
If I had an unlimited budget, I guarantee, I would spend a LOT of moula in Targets storage department.
They have fun little baskets, and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets for organizing closets, toys, kitchens, pantry's, etc. I could just spend hours there...

However, all these fun and functional things are usually quite expensive. Organizing in style costs money... so I can look, and I can dream, but I can very rarely buy. LOL.

Well, tonight I got so excited because I was able to get a toy organizer shelf for Luke...ON SALE.
I have been looking at these shelves online for months, but usually they range in price anywhere from $60-$200, so I didn't actually think we would ever get one. Then this week, completely by accident, I came across the Target sale ads on the internet (I was looking for something else at Target) and there it was... my organizer shelf, hugely on sale for $37.00

So I had much fun tonight, assembling the shelf - picture it... me with a drill excited about sorting out Lukes toys. LOL

And here my fellow friends and family, is my pride and joy of the evening (yes I love organizing things...with fun storage stuff...THAT much)

Added Bonus: I know Luke is going to LOVE throwing all the plastic tubs on the floor, so hopefully that will help to keep him more interested in his toys, and occupied for a bit longer, because he still has the attention span of a flea on most days, and can't play longer than about 2 minutes on his own. LOL

SNACK TIME AND RASPBERRIES

Luke is very quickly turning from baby into a little boy. He is just barely cutting his first 2 teeth - they aren't through yet, but you can see them right there - despite his toothlessness though, we have been giving him whatever we eat for about a month or so now. He has had curry, bobotie, chicken, pasta, Talapia and a whole variety of other 'big people' foods. For the most part, he seems to enjoy them - in fact, he is slowly starting to refuse his baby food and just beg from us. LOL.
A new favourite of Luke's which he clearly does not get the taste for from me, is cheese... he LOVES string cheese. Right now we have the mixed cheddar and mozzarella string cheese and he devours one with lunch or at snack time everyday. I have even started packing cheese in the diaper bag, because it keeps him happy if he gets niggly while we are out. LOL. Other favourites of his are canned peaches (I buy the kind in 100% juice, instead of syrup) and mandarin oranges. He also loves yoghurt, and cream cheese or avocado on toast. Note the lack of vegetables mentioned... he hasn't quite developed the taste for big people veggies... so I still have to get a jar of squash or green beans into him every now and then.

Lately, he has also started to realise that the fridge is where we keep the food... if he hears or sees you open the fridge, he is there in a flash, trying to climb in and help himself. 

WHAT SHOULD I HAVE FOR LUNCH?

PERHAPS A MANGO...

...AND MAYBE A DRINK OF LEMON JUICE

The other day Jake was giving Luke some raspberries right after his bath. He has a very hearty laugh, but I just love how his whole face reacts to the ticklish raspberries.

He is growing so fast... in less than 2 months, he will be a 1 year old.

THE CAT IN THE HAT MEETS LUKE...

Today, at a local bookstore, there was a 'party' on to celebrate Dr Seuss' 106th birthday. There was cake (it was free, so naturally it was gone in a flash) and they had 'The Cat In The Hat' come in and visit the children and let them get pictures taken. There was suppose to be Dr Seuss story time too, but I think with all the chaos of everyone trying to meet The Cat In The Hat, story time never came to be.

PLAYING WITH ELMO (HE WAS FOR SALE AT THE BOOKSTORE) WHILE WE WAITED FOR OUR TURN TO TAKE PICTURES

So many of the kids there didn't want to go get their picture taken, because they were afraid... one little boy, perhaps about 4 years old, got pretty upset at one point when The Cat In The Hat got too close. Funny thing about that, is that Luke was probably the youngest child there, and I had a number of people say that he is probably just going to freak out when I take him up to meet The Cat In The Hat... but that's the thing about my little monster... he is yet to be afraid of anything. In his almost 10 months of life, he has literally faced everything, head on.... hyperactive dogs, snooty cats, skittish lambs, and The Cat In The Hat...Luke just looks them in the eyes and shows no fear. I am not sure if that is a good or a bad thing... isn't fear sometimes necessary???

CLEARLY LUKE LOOKS ABSOLUTELY PETRIFIED...Lol


NOT THE LEAST BIT INTERESTED IN GETTING HIS PICTURE WITH THIS FUNNY LOOKING CREATURE...

Anyway, after our cake and pictures at the Dr Seuss party, we headed into the mall, and Luke, daddy and I shared some cinnamon pretzel sticks and a cup of lemonade... Luke had his fill of sugar and fun for night, and now he is passed out... though, sadly, I doubt it's for the night!

GETTING ALL SUGARED UP ON HIS PRETZEL STICK