A TRIP "HOME"

A few months ago, Jake and I very spontaneously bought some tickets to Utah after chatting on the phone to his family... I had enough SkyMiles that I could get my ticket for free, so we only had to pay for one ticket, which was great.

We were super excited about the trip, and couldn't wait to see family again. It had been a year since our last trip out west, and we were itching for Luke to see his grandma and grandpa and his cousins. We were counting down the almost 2 months until it was time to go. Unfortunately things didn't go so well. We booked out flight there, to leave on a Friday evening, so that Jake could go after work... little did we know that Luke would not sleep on the plane, despite us flying through most of his regular night time sleeping hours. The turbulence was awful on both flights, we circled in the air for an additional hour, due to bad weather holding up the incoming planes, our second flight was delayed, and Jake ended up horribly air sick! We finally arrived at 1:30am (3:30am North Carolina time)... after a nightmare 12 hour journey! For another 3 hours, Luke still would not settle down for the night... finally, he passed out next to us and we all got 3 hours of light, sleep before the sun rose, and the day began! Fortunately Luke settled in perfectly after about 2 days, and he was great for the rest of the week. Jake however spent the first day recovering from his air sickness, and then proceeded to get a cold... As his cold started to improve, I got sick... with a 'mystery illness'... I didn't have typical cold symptoms, but I felt dreadful, and that's how I spent the remainder of the week. So, our exciting family vacation didn't quite goes as we had hoped.

All that said, it was really great to see the family again. I was so excited to see Luke interacting and enjoying time with his cousins. He had a cousin(s) to play with every day that we were there... and he thrived on the attention, and of course he just LOVED his Grandma's endless supply of fun toys, that he could only dream of having here at home. (Oh, how I long for a Deseret Industries to open in North Carolina)

On the topic of the D.I.... I did have some fun while we were there... I shopped at the D.I and raided Sara's shed (Jakes sister), and found a whole stack of little 'treasures' to decorate my very bare home. Of course, by a whole stack, I mean more than I could fit into my suitcase, but it really just barely puts a dent in my home decor. LOL. I would keep them well in business if they opened up a store here. One of my most exciting finds, were some curtains I found... I got a really cute striped curtain with a matching valance for $4, and another blue pair of curtains for, get this... $1 for the pair! I have put the stripe valance in my kitchen, and I am going to cut up the matching stripe curtain, to make additional valances for my dining room...The blue ones I am saving for Lukes big boy room, when we have another baby! I had to buy a $5 hand luggage suitcase at the D.I to be able to bring all my things home. LOL.

DAY 1: MEETING THE FAMILY

PONY RIDES FROM GRANDPA

PICNIC AT THE PARK

LUKE WAS PICKING ALL THE GRAPES OUT OF THE FRUIT BOWL... GRAPES ARE HIS NEW ALL TIME FAVOURITE FOOD!

RAIDING GRANDMA'S PANTRY

PLAYING A DUET... ALL THE COUSINS SEEM TO LOVE THE PIANO

TIME FOR SWIMMING

LUKE WON'T BE FALLING OUT OF THIS TUBE. lol

HUNTER, ANNABELLE, LUKE & LANDON...

FEEDING THE BIRDS! lol

COUSIN HUNTER BEING SO CUTE

I LOVE THIS PICTURE OF LUKE AND HUNTER

WE 'TRIED' TO GET A PICTURE OF THE COUSINS... IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SUCH A PERFECT SETTING, BUT LUKE AND KADEN WEREN'T FEELING IT THAT DAY! lol

MY SWEET BOY

A MOMENT WITH MOMMY

'CUDDLING' WITH GRANDMA...

LANDON, PUTTING ON THE MOVES WITH THE FRISBEE

I noticed when looking through the photo's that we got some 'funny' faces and 'views'... I had a good laugh at some of them... 
Here are my favourites

So despite the illnesses, and the dreadful flight, we still had a great time.
I am very blessed to have a wonderful in-law family... everyone gets on well with everyone, and we always have a great time... chaotic, DEFINITELY, but always good! Sure, the Geddes family have their quirks... as is quite clear in the above picture. LOL... BUT... perhaps that's why I fit in so comfortably... I am not one to claim that I come from a 'normal' gene pool... Just to clue you in a bit, I'll add
MY MOST RECENT FAMILY PHOTO... LOL

So life is good... we have great families, and we miss them often! One day, hopefully we'll live closer, and enjoy this 'organized chaos' more often!

SUMMER TIME FUN

North Carolina has been hot and 'summery' for quite some time now. We have had temperatures well into the 90's (30's Celsius) just about every week for a while already.
Luke and I have been doing some fun summer activities when we can.
Last week, we went for a walk with Crystal and her son, Brent... Brent and Luke are becoming great buddies. Luke is getting very comfortable and familiar with Crystal and Brent, and their home, and Brent calls Luke, 'Uke'... I love it :) He is such a sweet boy!
When we went for our walk, we stopped at a little duck pond in Crystals neighbourhood. The boys had some bread to feed the ducks, but Luke just ate all of his...stale or not. LOL.
(All my 'on-the-go' photos aren't as great quality as usual, because I have a smaller camera that I keep in my diaper bag, which doesn't take pics as good as Jakes camera does)

Today is a scorcher... 96'F is the forecast (36'C)... though it worked out perfectly, because a few months ago I signed up for the 'spray park'... in Rocky Mount, there is a great park that has water 'features' all over a big concrete slab, that kids can play in.. it also has a train that goes around the park, and some fun rides... They have reserved the spray park for 1 hour, every monday morning from today, through August (for a fee), for little kids and their families, so we paid to do that so that Luke could enjoy it without fear of getting knocked down by teenagers playing rough etc. Many of the Crayola moms are signed up too, so Luke and I can enjoy it with friends, and Jake can join us on holidays like July 5th. Anyway, today was our first time there, and what fun it was! Luke really enjoyed the water for a while... then he got hungry and tired, and needed a snack, so we sat in the shade and rested a bit with a snack. 

After our snack, we enjoyed a train ride around the park before heading home. It was a fun fun morning for both of us!

So, summer is here, and we are trying to enjoy it as best we can with some time outdoors doing fun things. Now that Luke is walking, it's so much easier.. though he refuses to walk on the grass. LOL... only on hard ground! Some days though, it's just easier and more pleasant to stay indoors where it's air conditioned, because it's just soooo HOT outside.. but, hopefully we can have a few more fun outings in the sun this summer!

UP & DOWN, UP & DOWN...

A while ago I posted a blog about the slide that a very nice lady gave to us for free, for Luke! Well, at first, Luke showed very little interest in it. He was still a bit too young I think. Then, slowly he started showing an interest, and tried to climb up it. He has now been able to climb up the slide with fair ease for a while, however he hasn't been able to get down yet. He would kinda just step off the top, and hope that one of us would be there to catch him.
We have been trying to show Luke how to go down on his belly, feet first, like we have been teaching him to climb off the bed or couch.
Well, about a week ago, he finally attempted it on his own... he did it a couple times, but then when back to his 'I jump, you catch me' routine.
Today, Luke has his buddy Brent over to play... I think he decided it was time to act like the bigger boys...
He went up, and down, up and down the slide over and over again... and then he got smart, and decided that his Snuggle Monkey needed a turn too... I thought it was pretty cute... he would climb up the back with Mr Snuggle Monkey, and then when he reached the top, throw Snuggle Monkey down the slide, and then go down after him, only to go around the back again, and start over. LOL.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

It's so fun to watch him developing new skills, and changing into a little boy. He is definitely a very physical boy...he likes to climb, and rough and tough it all the time.

EVERYTHING WALKS

Luke has been walking for close to 8 weeks now... it was on and off and first, but it's been steady and frequent for a little over a month now. Funny thing about that though, is that it seems that since Luke started walking, everything else has started walking too. I seem to take twice as long in the morning to get ready, because my cosmetics, or my hair brush or one of my sandals just walk off! Last night it was time for bed, and I needed to take my contacts lenses out... but, it seemed that my contact lens holder had also walked off. I found it hiding under the slide in Lukes play room. This morning I found two other little walking culprits... they were hiding too...in my washing machine!

So it seems, that my home has come to life... everything walks, and hides and Luke is the leader of the pack...
I wouldn't so much mind all this walking, if only everything would learn to walk back too. LOL :P

LUKE LUKE LUKE

I have a few new pictures of our little pumpkin, so I decided to do a quick blog about his latest activities, events and milestones.
Well, Mr Luke is ON THE GO... nonstop! He is walking faster and faster, and just getting everywhere and that means he gets into everything.  I have lost all hope of having tidy, clean home, because we have a little tornado that lives in our house. So my once OCD ways, are slowly fading into the past and 'mom slob' is more what we have these days... sad, but true! Trying to keep up just seems like it's not worth the energy, when an hour later I will just have to do it again.

In other events, Luke has reached a few new milestones in the last month or so:

• He can now climb up his slide by himself... we are still working on showing him how to slide down safely.
• He can identify by pointing when you ask him to find, a ball, a dog and a banana, in his little alphabet book.... he is a master at showing you where the ball is, but we have just barely learned to point out the dog and banana, so although he knows those, they need a bit more practice. 
• He is finally learning to give himself a drink from his sippy cup - for the longest time he couldn't tip it enough to get a drink out.
• He can now stand up just straight off the floor, without having to pull himself up on furniture.
• He has 5 teeth - 3 on the top and 2 on the bottom... #6 is can be seen but hasn't yet cut through.
• He has moved over from formula onto cows milk, although just like his mommy, he will only drink it with a touch of flavouring, so we put a small teaspoon of vanilla Nesquik in it just to take that yucky milk taste off.
  
  I am sure there are more things that I am forgetting, but that's all I can think of right now. He is constantly learning new things, and we are always in awe at how fast he grows and changes... I really should be better at writing down all these new developments.
  
  Some recent photo's of Luke:
  
  This is the reason why you probably don't ever want to eat dinner at our house. LOL
  Luke loves to be naked, and most nights when he is done bathing, he will just about fight you to the death to not have you put a diaper and pj's on him, so because we have laminate/tiled flooring right through the house, which can handle accidents, we have started allowing him a few minutes of 'freedom', which is thoroughly LOVES... well, last night he made his way into the kitchen, where Jake was unloading the dishwasher.. before we new it, Luke was playing in the dishwasher, while peeing on the floor right next to it. Probably not the most hygenic situation, but we saw the humour in it. LOL :P
  
  Slightly difficult to see, but if you look where the arrow is pointing, you'll notice a rather sizely puddle of pee. LOL
  
  
  Luke LOVES his Tonka truck... his favourite thing is to go for rides in the back. I guess he won't be little enough forever, so we often push him around the house, which he really enjoys...last night we got a few pics of little naked boy riding his truck...
  
  
  
  His other new fascination is golf balls. Jake was playing with some golf balls the other day, and since then, Luke loves playing with them too, BUT, this is always the outcome of letting him have a ball.LOL
  

FAMILY PICTURES

This morning we had a friend of ours, Tricia, take some family photo's for us. It got HOT HOT HOT and really humid super fast...even though we were there by about 8:30am. It was a really pretty place that we went to, so the scenery is great, unfortunately, Luke wasn't in the most co-operative mood, so you'll see that he doesn't have his usual handsome, charming face on in some of the pics. These are some of my favourites (minus Lukes sullen looking face. LOL)

I saw a cute frame idea at my friend Rachel's house. You take a decorative curtain rod, and hang 3 full sized photo frames from it, with pretty ribbon, and then mount it to the wall.. well anyway, I was thinking of maybe using these 3 pictures for the 3 frames.