Build and Grow

Last Saturday Luke and Jared had a daddy/son date to Lowe's Build and Grow.  Twice a month Lowe's puts on a free clinic where kids can make a fun project.  We had never gone before, but I had always thought Luke would enjoy it.

I registered him online (pre-registration is required) at the following site:

http://lowesbuildandgrow.com/pages/default.aspx

and then he and Jared made this monster truck together.

You can tell that Luke was pleased with the end result.  Jared said he stayed focused and interested, and they were the first ones finished.  While Jared and Luke did manly things Micah and I popped next door to do our weekly Walmart shopping.  I had anticipated the craft taking about an hour.  Luke and Jared were done after 20 minutes, but as Lowe's is Luke's all time EVER hang out, he didn't mind waiting.  He saw fans, air conditioners, tractors, lawn mowers, bath tubs, washing machines, and all the other things that he just loves.  I think Luke had a good Saturday!

Valentine's Party

Luke had a little Valentine "party" at school.  For the first few minutes the kids sang songs.  Luke REALLY likes "Going on a Bear Hunt"-- he was very into it.  I was so happy to see him interacting with friends and participating in all the activities.  I, of course, forgot my camera.  But Ms. Nozomi (Luke H's mom) took some pics for me.  It's great to have friends with cameras!

There are a lot of rules about food in schools these days, I guess.  The food served has to be prepared by someone with a food handler's permit (which means that it has to come from a store, etc.)  The school provided cupcakes.  So I made Luke a Gluten free cupcake of his own.  

Luke was happy to sit by his best friend, Luke H.

After the party we went to Luke H's house to play for just a bit.  The boys had a great time pushing trucks and shoveling snow.

Funny Things

Luke has said a lot of funny things lately.

Last night, on our way to Sam's club, Luke asked about his antibiotic.  I told him that he was all done taking it.  Then he asked about his probiotic.  I told him that he would keep eating that everyday.  He was quiet for a moment and then asked, "What about a lullaby-otic?"

This morning I played a little trick on Luke.  When he figured out that I was kidding he yelled out, "You psyched me out in the end!"  (That's a line from the theme song on the show "Psych.")  We had a conversation a few weeks ago when he asked me what that means, and I had explained that it means to trick some one.  Pretty smart to remember that.

He is also all about making up excuses and explanations to try to avoid getting into trouble.  Micah is not supposed to get his ears wet because of his tube surgery.  He got an ear infection last week after dousing his head with water during his bath.  This morning in the bath both he and Luke rubbed bubbles from the bath all over his head.  I told Luke that he can't put bubbles or water on Micah's hair because we don't want his ears to get wet.  Luke looked at me and said, "Well, you didn't do a good job washing it.  So I had to."

Also a couple weeks ago we had a family from church over for dinner.  They have a three-year-old son.  After prayer, Luke tattled on Gabriel for not closing his eyes during the prayer.  We pointed out that Luke couldn't know that unless HIS eyes were open.  His response was, "Well, Gabriel was copying me," as if to say: We both did it, but I  was the original.  I'm not sure why that struck all the adults as hilarious.

Happy Valentine's Day

from these two little heartbreakers!

Tumbling Class

We started a family tumbling class on Saturday mornings.  It's officially called "Mommy and Me," but there are quite a few dads that come so Jared doesn't feel out of place.  Jared and I switch off between helping Luke and helping Micah.  It is a very unstructured class, and if I was hoping to raise the next Hamm twins I'd be disappointed.  But since we have two free spirited boys with short attention spans, unstructured works great.  If they lose interest with an activity they can wander over to the balance beams and no one cares.  So it is a lot of fun and is working out great.

Working on a front roll

Balance beam

(Luke loves the low ones but is a chicken on the higher ones)

Waiting for his turn with the teacher.

So Grown Up!

Micah is all of a sudden looking so much more grown up!  I don't know if I'm ready for him to be so big.  And so opinionated.  He has STRONG feelings about his Thomas clothes.