Luke-- One Year Old!

Luke turned one year old on January 7th! It's fun to think about how much he has grown this year and how it wasn't all that long ago that I was in the hospital giving birth. Luke is continuing to grow and learn new skills each month.

Luke now has 7 teeth, 4 on the top and three on the bottom. I keep waiting for his other front bottom tooth to come in to even things out!
Luke can eat pretty much whatever we are eating now, cut up in small bits. He really loves peas, yogurt, chicken nuggets, and deli meat. He doesn't seem to like very many grains yet-- he picks his way around tortillas, bread, and noodles. So he still gets his baby oatmeal mixed in with pureed fruits and veggies to balance that out. I guess he thinks he should be on a low-carb diet!
Luke has been practicing going up and down the bottom three stairs for several months. We came home from our Heber City vacation and he headed right for the stairs and climbed straight to the top! He also backed his way down the stairs too! I'm still amazed, he hasn't fallen yet. When he wants to go downstairs, he gets right into position to climb down on his tummy. I guess all of his practice paid off. It's been so incredibly nice to not have to worry about baby gates!
Luke is getting increasingly active and wiggly in church. He is no longer content to sit on our laps for three hours. If Kevin puts him down on the floor to play, he crawls off in a flash. It's crazy to think that Luke will be going to nursery this summer! I'm sure he'll have much more fun there than sitting in Sunday School. But maybe he'll miss jabbering in the microphone while Kevin is trying to conduct in Elder's Quorum.
When Luke gets tired, he starts to rub his eyes and pull at his ears and hair. He seems relieved to snuggle his blankie by his face when he goes down for a nap.
Of course, he also loves pulling other people's hair as well. Mine is a favorite, but he especially seems to enjoy bugging Violet while she's getting her diaper changed. He must think it's his opportunity for payback!
Luke has been very interesting in drawers and doors. He has his favorite kitchen drawers to empty and frequently unload the dishtowels, kid bowls, and kitchen sponges on the floor. He likes to grab a dry sponge and crawl around rubbing it on the floor-- I guess he thinks I don't do enough mopping! (and he's probably right). Pie pans are another loud favorite. If the dishwasher is open, he heads straight for the silverware bin. He'll sometimes close himself into a dark closet and have to shriek for help.
Luke has started to stand by himself for short periods of time-- not steps yet though! He picked up on using his little walked pretty fast and it's a favorite play toy now.
Luke loves his bathtime, but has begun to push the limits by wanting to stand up in the bathtub and try to crawl out. Good thing he's easily distracted!
Luke says mama, (ba)nana, and ut-oh. Ut-oh is a particular favorite when dropping Cheerios on the floor from his highchair.

Luke loves peekaboo and with play with his hands or a bib or a blanket. He is eager to clap for himself, and considers us telling him 'good job' his cue. It's cute to see him so excited!


Happy Birthday Luke!

Fancy Cora

Cora was so excited to go to a Fancy Nancy birthday party over the holidays. We made her extra fancy and she came home with some fun fancy accessories. We had to go to a store right after the party and she got several compliments about how fancy she looked!

Sledding

The cabin we were in was set a bit below the road, and that made for great sledding hills! Grandma and Grandpa especially helped to create 3 main runs and a few more experimental ones. It was fun to have lots of variety. The sledding was great! (and my tailbone is finally almost healed up from one unlucky bad bump).

Luke stayed out a little bit to watch and even took a couple of little sled rides.

Mostly happy sled rides... although I think this face is mostly sister-inflicted

Violet doesn't like snow coming up in her face, but she stayed out a lot and had a lot of fun.

Cora stayed out the most! She had the biggest grins on her face and absolutely LOVED it! She loved going by herself and switching off going with all the adults too. She really had a fantastic time-- it was so cute to watch her!

We spent an afternoon tubing at Soldier Hollow. I've never been before, and it was such a good time. The tow rope ride up the hill is a really nice feature! Violet cried the first time, took a little break, closed her eyes the second time, and then was all grins and happiness the rest of the runs (she didn't like the snow machine blowing new snow in her face). Luke did a pretty good job just being traded off at the bottom of the hill and watching. Cora was thrilled and loved every minute of it, especially since she conned most of us into towing her on her tube from the bottom of the sled hill to the tow rope. It was great, and I would definitely do it again!

New Years Week

Our fun week began with Grandma, Grandpa, Kristen, Sorayah, and Kylee arriving at our house New Years' Eve. New Years Day we got ready for our trip, took a chilly walk around the block, played, and had cousins over for dinner. These six cousins are all so close in age-- 2-6. It was pretty cute to see them run around the house and play all together!
Sunday after church we were off! Kevin's parents rented a cabin outside of Heber City for 5 nights. Keri met us up there, and Kurt and Jen came on Monday. We were only missing Kristen's husband, but it's been two years since even that many of us were all together. We were perfectly lucky that the snowstorm was a day or two before our arrival, the roads were easy to drive on and we had fresh snow for lots of sledding and pretty views. It stayed clear and sunny all week, perfect for all the playing outside we did.

We spent the week playing the Wii, hot-tubing (beautiful stars at night! almost as good of views as camping), tubing at Soldier Hollow, visiting Olympic Park, snowmobiling, and taking a trip to Provo to see the Carl Bloch exhibit (amazing!). In between all of that, we were sledding, sledding, and more sledding on the hills around the house. It was a week filled with fun!

Kristen knitted these beautiful hats for all the girls and Luke. They are darling!

(even if Violet refused to cooperate for a picture!)

Luke the pro skier

I was pretty impressed with the museum (free!) at Olympic Park. Lots of hands-on exhibits. It was fun to walk through. We saw a few of the skiers from the Australian team practicing their jumps too.

Sorayah, Cora, Violet, and Kylee in the bobsled

Kevin's parents rented snowmobiles for the day on Wednesday. The cabin was in a gated community that has access to National Forest snowmobiling areas. It was fun to go explore there a bit, and fun to go around the neighborhood too. Cora and Violet loved it... and each took a nap on one of their turns too.

Luckily Kevin was up for driving, because I sure wasn't. He took us down and up some steep hills!

Cora and I

The view from the cabin-- there's a lake back there too. I think it would be a fun place to rent in the summer as well.

Grandpa, Kylee, and Violet

We had a little early celebration for Dawn's birthday too

The whole gang-- after a great farewell dinner at Tucano's in Provo. Now thankfully I can switch out our family picture-- my last one is from when Cora was 11 months old-- we have added 3 family members since then! And hopefully we can get Byron in the next one :).

Snow, Snow, Snow

We had a big storm a few days after Christmas. It was just the right kind of snow for making a snowman and for having lots of fun.

Luke had fun too, well most of the time. Here he doesn't look too thrilled, does he?

Luke didn't stay out for too long, but he did like watching his sisters play around, and even made his own snow angel.


The almost-finished product-- Kevin added a hat, gloves, and a snow shovel later. Since we've had such cold temperatures since the storm, our snowman is still up!

Luke at 11 Months

Well, Luke has been 11 months old for... well, over a month now, but better late than never to collect the post-it notes from around the house listing the things he was doing at 11 months!


Our cute little Luke is growing so much! Here's what he's been up to this month.
Luke is cruising! He can get around to pretty much wherever he wants to go, and has long arms and quick grabby hands. We still trying to figure out where to put the crayons so that Cora and Violet can reach them, but Luke can't.

Luke is growing more attached to his blankie and likes to use it for a pillow at bedtime.
Luke can clap, give high fives, and give (wet, slobbery, open mouth) kisses. I'm been trying to teach him to blow kisses, but once his fingers get that close to his mouth, he can't resist sticking them in. He is interested in the stairs, but only the bottom three steps, he's scared of going any farther than that.
He loves to eat, especially when it's not baby food, but eats the most when there's a lot of variety being offered. We can usually get him to eat a few more bites if we clap and cheer for him.

Luke loves bath time, especially experimenting with how much he can splash his hands and feet in the water and always seems a little surprised about the amount of water that splashes in his face.
Luke likes pushing the stools around. The coloring bench stools are his favorite-- they are nice and light.
Luke has 6 teeth now-- his 6th one just popped through and he is much happier now
Luke is cheerful most all of the time. He really is a very happy baby. He makes the most noise at mealtime if he thinks we're not feeding him fast enough. Luke puts up with his sisters' best intentions very well, and doesn't seem to mind too much that he rarely gets to play with a toy all by himself. He is good at squawking if the girls take too many liberties.
Luke still loves shiny things and buttons. He takes a phone or toy and turns it over in his hands over and over checking it out at all angles.

Luke likes playing with the musical instruments, especially the cymbals and the clapper, which he can make the most noise with the easiest.
Luke loves playing with balls. He likes to throw them... and other toys too. People ask all the time if having a boy is different than the girls. I haven't noticed too many differences yet, except this desire to throw, and he started making car sounds much earlier than the girls. I think he's also more attentive to vehicle sounds out the window too. I'm sure there will be more things later on!
He loves looking in the mirror in the mother's lounge at church and gets distracted from nursing easily in there. Luke won't nurse with a blanket on anymore, so it's a good thing he only nurses about 3 times a day-- early morning, about 10:00pm, and in the afternoon.

He's got a super ticklish neck.

He's more aware of new people than he used to be, but he still warms up pretty quickly. Luke is super generous with his smiles and laughs, and is just delightful!