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.