Wilkerson Weekly

If You Can't Find Micah...

2012-01-25T08:19:00.004-05:00

Check the book bins!

10 to 1 you will find him in there hunting out this week's favorite. Currently that is Old MacDonald.

We'll be doing a lot of reading today because once again we are home bound. Micah is sick again! This poor child has the world's worst immune system. He had an ear infection on the 12th, finished his antibiotic on the 21st, and had strep throat by the 24th. Thank goodness for modern medicine or Micah would be one miserable boy!

The Plan

2012-01-22T20:02:00.004-05:00

Following Jared's graduation from law school, we will be moving to....

Amarillo, Texas!

Jared was offered a clerkship there with federal district judge Mary Lou Robinson. These judges get over 500 applications for just one opening, so it is a great honor for Jared to be offered this clerkship. We feel very blessed. Judge Robinson was appointed by President Carter, so she has a lot of experience. In addition she also has a career clerk who has been with her for over 20 years. Jared will be learning from the best. He will clerk for Judge Robinson for one year.

And then we will be moving to Dallas, Texas where Jared will work at K&L Gates.

Here's to real life! We eagerly await it!

What they just don't tell you...

2012-01-17T14:53:00.004-05:00

I know it's been said that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

But people fail to expand on this important truth: if the wheel gets greased and STILL keeps squeaking, that wheel gets dumped in the trash. Or else the entire bicycle is shoved in the garage and ignored.

I plan on teaching my kids the whole truth. I hope they pick up on it soon.

Because shoving them in the garage is not an option.

Wow!

2012-01-13T20:06:00.004-05:00

If this isn't proof that they look alike, I don't know what is.

Micah's First Haircut(s)

2012-01-12T12:18:00.020-05:00

Micah has come a long way since his baldy-baldy days of baby-hood.

October 2011

January 2011

March 2011

April 2011

July 2011

September 2011

November 2011

December 2011

We both just loved Micah's blonde curls. So while Jared and I both knew that his hair was getting a little on the silly side, we loved it so much that we couldn't cut it. But suddenly, just passing into the first week of January, his hair went from adorable to ridiculous. He started looking like a neglected redneck.

I didn't want to use clippers because I didn't want his hair that short and because I thought Micah would be afraid of them. I also didn't want to use scissors myself because the whole idea of holding sharp objects by a squirmy baby's head just terrifies me. Plus I really don't like the blunt bowl-cut look that is so hard to avoid if one doesn't know how to blend. And I don't.

I wanted him to look like this (my nephew Skyler):

I wanted the top to stay long, but the sides cut short and blended really well.

So, in hoping for the above, I took him to a cheap salon and paid $10 for someone else....

to give him a blunt bowl cut. Doh!

After a few days I just took the clippers to his head anyway. He did scream like crazy, but it was over quickly. And he looks much better now. So it looks like I'll be cutting his hair from here on out.

December 26

2012-01-11T08:59:00.023-05:00

We pretty much all wanted to get out of the house and do something extra special the day after Christmas. In honoring Skyler and Luke's pick we went to Chuck E. Cheese. There isn't a lot in Oxford, where Nathan and Sarah live, so we actually drove to a town in Delaware to go to Chuck E. Cheese. I thought it was funny that we went to church in Maryland and game time in Delaware. But I digress.

Here are a few pictures from our afternoon:

Ski ball was by far the family favorite. All the kids played, the adults had several contests which began in earnest after I discovered one of the ski ball (tracks? What do you call those?) was broken. It calculated my score way higher than it actually was-- although I also skied a pretty good game. I got several 4,000s. And I broke the high score of the day and was rewarded with a whole lot of tickets. Apparently you get 50 for breaking the high score. So the contest was to see who could break the current high score. And then who could break that high score. I fell out of the running pretty early. I can't remember if Jared or Nathan held the final highest score. Whoever won, we ended up with a LOT of tickets.

Cashing in the tickets!

Skyler REALLY liked feeding the tickets into the machine. As soon as we got a new string he rushed over to feed them in.

This tea cup was Micah's favorite ride. When you put the token in, it said something like, "Get ready!" When it would say that Micah would smile really big and clap his hands. I couldn't catch it on camera though. I even tried to video him, but he didn't do it for the video either.

Luke's favorite "rides" were the red car that takes your picture (We always leave Chuck E. Cheese with 10+ pictures of Luke in that car), the virtual ride that has a buckle (Luke didn't care about the ride-- he just wanted to fasten the seat belt buckle over and over and over), and this monster truck. Luke was actually too scared to put a token in because it was a pretty bumpy ride, but he would grip it and shake as hard as he could. He thought it was hilarious to make it bump.

So that was a fun afternoon. Later we played outside with the green soccer ball some more, and that night we had a big family dance party. Luke was very much into Sarah that night and wanted her to dance with him. Whenever she tried to take a break Luke would find her and say, "Do you want Sarah to dance?" It turned into a whole family dance party that was lots of fun.

Jared's cool moves. HAHAHAHA

The rest of the pictures are of us doing the "ceiling fan dance." That just means you spin in a circle until you get dizzy and fall down. Obviously, Luke was the leader of that dance.

And boom. I got pretty dizzy. Skyler was checking to see if I'm okay.

After the kids were in bed we played Ticket to Ride again and ate lots and lots of candy cane almonds. It was a great trip, and we hope we can visit again pretty soon.

Christmas Day

2012-01-10T19:08:00.015-05:00

On Christmas morning Nathan and Sarah humored us and woke their boys up early so that we could get our own crazy kiddos out of the back bedroom. They walked in the living room to see this:

Our boys' presents from Santa are in front of the couch, and Skyler and Zack's presents were by the fireplace.

I knew going in that Luke and Micah weren't going to be ecstatic about their presents this year. Micah because he doesn't really have huge preferences yet. He is happy with whatever, so while he doesn't get disappointed, he also doesn't get super excited. And as for Luke, well... it wasn't a stereo.

We've been working every day on playing pretend, so for Christmas he and Micah got toys to use for pretend games. They got a big car mat and LOTS of Little People things. Most of it didn't travel with us to Pennsylvania, but we used the money from Grammy to get some things off Ebay. In the end we were able to get everything that I most wanted for our pretend "sessions." And I am so glad that we went this route. After only a few weeks Luke's pretend skills have gotten so much better! He will take the people to school-- He buckles them all into pretend car seats on the bus. The daddy often goes to the airport to fly to Texas. We have done field trips to the farm. Usually I come up with the ideas and then Luke embellishes them. But he is putting in his own details now (like buckling the car seats), and he is starting to even pick our destinations, etc. He can play Little People (when I'm playing with him) for over 1/2 hour. That is amazing progress! So even though he wasn't crazy excited on Christmas morning he was still happy with them, and he likes them more and more all the time. Micah likes the Little People too. He mostly likes to open and close the doors to the houses and suck on the people's heads. But I know that he'll grow into them. He CAN drive the bus and airplane. So all in all it turned out that Santa brought great presents. And, in addition to our pretend toys, I made sure that they each had one present they would both be excited about.

Here is Micah's special toy. Those gears fit onto knobs, and then when you push the button they light up and spin. He uses this one every single day.

You can kind of see the soccer ball in the bottom left corner? That was Luke's special present. Luke's wish list for Santa kept getting more and more specific. First he told me that he wanted a Green from Santa. Just a green. Then it was a green ball. And finally, a few days before Christmas, he told me that he wanted a green soccer ball. Santa brought a blue and green soccer ball, and Luke was very excited about that! I sure am glad that Santa was able to deliver because when I told Luke we were going to the living room to see what Santa brought he shouted, "A green soccer ball!" He played with it A LOT on Christmas day. It was his favorite present. By the end of the Christmas holiday Luke ended up with 3 green balls. A family from the ward (I think) picked us for Secret Santa. Luke got a green football, and Micah got a cute bunny. Then on the 26th we went to Chuck E. Cheese (I'll post about it in the next post), and he got a mini green basketball with our tickets. So he was very happy with all his green balls.

One more thing about his picture: In the top left corner you can see 2 blankets tangled together. Like Luke, Micah is a little Linus. He loves his blue blanket. His favorite one is the one with 2 shades of blue. He can't go to sleep without it. Just like Luke, he also has the cutest little giggle reserved only for his blue blanket. And just like Luke used to do, he covers his head with it and tries to walk around. He always has bumps and bruises on his forehead from walking into things or tripping and bonking into things. But I think it is so cute that he LOVES his blanket. Although I am jealous that when Jared asks, "Where's Mama?" we get no response whereas when Jared says, "Where's your blanket?," Micah will run and find it.

Skyler gave Luke and Micah a barn to go with all of our other Little People things. The barn is Micah's favorite "house." It has the most doors to open and shut.

Opening another present from Skyler:

After breakfast ( a yummy egg and sausage casserole cooked in the crock pot overnight-- Genius!) we went to church. My family ended up leaving early because Micah was on total melt down. This boy really needs his morning nap, so unlike most people we are struggling with our new 9 o'clock church.

We had a healthy lunch of pretty much junk (cheese ball and crackers!) trying to save room for our super yummy turkey dinner. Nathan and Sarah fed us VERY well.

So while the turkey cooked we played outside.

Luke played soccer for a long time. Both boys were kicking balls around. I was so lame and didn't bring my camera out, so all of these pictures (actually almost all of them on the entire post) are stolen from Sarah's blog. So I don't actually have a shot with Luke and his green soccer ball. But we set up the cones, and then Luke would kick them down the "field" until he scored. When he scored he got to run to the side of the house and look at the vent. He is very interested in vents right now. (Sometimes at stores he tries to lay down on the floor in the middle of an aisle so that he can get a better view of the vents on the ceiling. It's a pretty awkward experience, but he hasn't tripped anyone yet. And most people just smile at him. Still, we're working on not laying down on the floor.) But the vents on the side of Nathan's house were right at Luke's eye level, and he was fascinated by them. He would run as fast as he could, kicking the ball every few steps, shoot it between the cones and then yell, "Can I look at the vent now?" and then run over there to see them. And then he would try to talk everyone into coming over to look at them with him.

Micah LOVES slides.

After dinner the boys played in Skyler's and Zack's new kitchen. Micah also liked the kitchen a lot. He kept wandering over to it. Whenever I couldn't see him I would check the kitchen and he would be there opening and shutting the doors and switching food around to new locations.

We also did a big Orton family video chat and that was fun. I hope we set it up to do it on a regular basis. Eric had a cool web cam that would let him add features to his face. He could turn into a shark, or add antlers, etc. to his face. He could even make his computer add the same features to whoever was talking. Luke liked seeing his face on the screen, so he would put his face right over the camera and make funny faces.

We played hard that day!

Originally I had a big wish list for myself as well as the boys. I wanted dishes. I wanted shoes. Etc., etc. I got a frying pan which was the thing I wanted the most. Jared said it was his present too. We also got a great trip to Pennsylvania with our Christmas money. We didn't really need anything else.

I have to say that on Christmas, as well as on Thanksgiving, I count my blessings. The gospel and my family are the greatest blessings in my life. It was good to be in church and listen to beautiful music. It was wonderful to be with Nathan and his family and to talk to my parents and my brothers and sisters. I am so happy that I have Jared and my boys! It was good to realize that we have everything we need and everything important that we want.

Christmas Eve

2012-01-09T20:46:00.025-05:00

Christmas Eve was a pretty eventful day. Micah woke up before 6 am, and Jared and I didn't want to disturb anyone, so we tried to keep him happy cooped up in our bedroom. That didn't work so well. Luke woke up soon after, and then it was even more impossible to keep them happy in our room because Luke knew that the toys were in the living room. We finally gave up and let them go out to watch a movie. While I was getting drinks for the boys Micah explored the cupboards-- he pulled out a glass lid for Sarah's frying pan, dropped it, and shattered it. So while Jared corralled the boys out of the kitchen I frantically swept up glass. Later we made embarrassed apologies.

Nathan wanted to get a card table because they were having extra company for Christmas Eve dinner, so Nathan and I made an early morning trip to Walmart. You can see some interesting people at Walmart early on Christmas Eve morning. I'll just leave it at that, except to say that I had no need to be embarrassed about being there without a shower.

After morning naps we went to the city park. It was super cold, and we didn't stay that long because the boys' eyes were running. But it was nice to get out for a little while.

Luke thought it was so funny that D rode on a sea horse.

Side note: I just love the nicknames that Luke creates. He calls Jared "D." Micah is "Mee-kee" or "B." I don't know how I got saddled with "Malls." So I guess I don't really love every nickname he comes up with. I mean, come on. How come Jared gets to be D and I have to be Malls???

All the boys loved the slides.

Zack liked going down:

And my boys liked climbing up:

Micah liked spinning the tic-tac-toe.

Funny faces.

Right before we left Jared helped Luke climb a tree.

Lovin' it!

After we got home I can't remember what we did. Probably just hung out for awhile. I can tell you what Luke did. All day he was OBSESSED with Skyler's little MP3 player and ball popper. He hardly came out of his trance all day. So he played with those things, and we did whatever. Then we started getting ready for dinner. Nathan and Sarah's friends came for dinner at 4:30 ish. We had a fun time eating aebleskievers and lil' smokies.

While the food was cooking Luke and Skyler had a dance party.

10 to 1 they were listening to "Trudge Trudge" (Backyardigans)

After dinner the kids acted out the Nativity.

Joseph and Mary:

Luke was a shepherd:

And then a wiseman:

And Micah just crawled into this chair over and over:

Then we got the boys ready for bed.

While Sarah and Nathan helped the elves, Jared and I relaxed and watched some TV before turning in early. We kept looking at each other and saying, "Should we go help?" but then we kept sitting there. Um.. so sorry about that.

All in all, a great Christmas Eve.

The Great PA- Day 1

2012-01-02T21:38:00.016-05:00

We left to visit Nathan, Sarah, Skyler, and Zack on the 23rd of December. We had wanted to make a longer trip, but Jared didn't finish everything he had to do for finals until VERY late on the 22nd. (WORST SEMESTER EVER!)

Before we left for Pennsylvania Nathan emailed us what he thought was the best way to get to his house. It avoided DC traffic and so even though it was longer mile wise it would be faster time wise. Jared decided to trust the GPS instead, believing that the traffic sensor on it would send us the best way. WRONG. We should have trusted Nathan because we sat on 95 for a long time. But once we got there, it was nothing but good.

On day 1 we ate a yummy dinner, had a tour of the house, and then bundled back to the car to go the Herr's potato chip factory to tour the lights. I think it was the coolest thing we did over our entire trip. Even though it was chilly it was so fun and Christmasy. And the boys had tons of fun running around. I just loved to see Luke and Skyler chasing each other and laughing. And poor Micah was struggling to keep up. He failed, but he had a good time trying.

Micah was exhausted because he slept all of 20 minutes on the car ride to PA. But it doesn't matter how tired he is-- he'll be happy outside.

Of course the green lights were Luke's favorite!

I finally have a haircut that I really like, but unfortunately after riding in a car most of the day coupled with a windy, freezy night my hair looks terrible in all of the pictures.

I think Luke took this picture. Not bad for an amateur!

Nathan and Zack

We hiked all the way down to this tree hoping for great family photos, but when we got there we found that it wasn't actually a tree. It was just lights that looked like a giant tree from far away. Doh!

So we settled for a few trunks.

But we got some great shots of the boys by the manger.

We were yelling, "Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus!" but the boys would only look at the sheep.

Then we went home and got the boys into bed. Nathan and Sarah opened one of their presents early-- a game called Ticket to Ride-- and we tried it out. I really, REALLY liked this game and we played it 3 out of the 4 nights we were there. It has now been added to my wish list, right after HOUSE.

Exceptional

2012-01-02T20:15:00.005-05:00

I think that Micah is exceptionally cute.

Especially this morning.

Guantes

2011-12-20T10:56:00.004-05:00

Luke's favorite episode of Blue's Clues (OF ALL TIME) is Un Dia con Plum (otherwise know as "Blue's Clues Bird Said Hola") in which Steve and Blue learn many Spanish words one of which is guantes or gloves. Luke is very much into guantes right now-- although only of the useless variety. He won't wear winter gloves at the playground, but he WILL and even BEGS to wear cleaning gloves around the house. He just wears them while he plays with toys or whatever and every once in awhile will point to them and say, "These are my guantes."

On Saturday he even insisted on wearing one (yes, he had just one) plastic glove to the fan store, post office, and grocery store. We got some funny looks and more than one person asked, "What's with the glove?" Luke looked at them like they were the stupid one, and I'm sure that put them in their place. I mean, Duh!, gloves are just cool.

Condiments

2011-12-19T20:22:00.005-05:00

I think it's safe to say that my kids are quirky. They have the most bizarre obsessions. I've posted about Micah's love of boxes already. But his new love is condiments. Any condiments. This boy will get into the pantry and carry around the unopened condiments that he pulls off the shelf, such as the relish bottle featured in these pictures.

But his very favorite is mustard. This kid is fast, and like Luke, he has some incredible canine hearing. He can hear the fridge open from any room in the house, and he beelines over and steals the mustard before I even know he's there. He just carries around the bottle a lot of the time with a huge grin on his face. He also likes to open and close the lid. Most of the time I don't care. If mustard makes him happy, he can knock himself out. But the other day he really did almost knock himself out. He had stolen a bottle of ketchup and was walking around with it. And then I heard this scream! I ran over to the hallway and Micah was standing there with ketchup all over his face and his eyes squeezed shut. I guess he had fallen or something and the bottle had squirted him right in the eye! He was trying to get back to me and stumbling like a drunkard. Poor little tyke! But it didn't deter his antics at all. He still goes for the condiments any chance he gets.

O Christmas Tree

2011-12-19T20:13:00.003-05:00

Luke was so excited about a Christmas tree this year! He loved going to Miss Keegan's where he could see "Lubby's Christmas tree." (Luke has made a nickname for Caleb-- Lubby). And he would point out all the trees at Wal-mart, the bank, school, and everywhere else we would go.

He would ask, "Where is Luke's Christmas tree?"

So last Monday we got a tree and decorated it for our Family Home Evening. All day long Luke asked about when we were getting our tree. When the time came to get in our car to go get it, he was practically dancing. We ended up getting new lights too because our old lights were just clear lights, and Luke had asked two different Santas for a Christmas tree with green lights. So we got some multi-colored ones so that he would get his wish for a little green.

He was certainly excited to decorate it! And even more excited now that he has a brand new school bus ornament on the tree. He takes it off all the time and "drives" it around the living room before hanging it back up.

Hopefully next year we'll be rich enough to get an actual start to put on our tree instead of a make-shift pathetic bow. But, you know, whatever...

NANCY!!!

2011-12-19T19:38:00.008-05:00

On December 7 my very good friend Nancy came back from Florida for a visit. I was so excited to see her again! I have so missed this girl! Nancy and her family live in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida right now where Justin recently started a 2-year clerkship.

For five straight days we played and talked. Mostly just around our house, since Luke woke up the morning after she arrived with pink eye, and that threw a kink in some of our plans. Good thing that Nancy and Hazel are Go-With-the-Flow kinds of girls.

Luke and Hazel remembered each other. They were always such good friends, even though Hazel is almost 2 years younger. Their favorite thing to do while she was here visiting was to listen to "In the Jungle" and dance. They would laugh incredibly hard while they danced. And then they would stop the music, and that would be incredibly funny too. Peals of laughter! I hadn't heard Luke laugh that hard for that long in quite a while. He was definitely happy to see Hazel again.

Luke has always loved Miss Nancy, and he didn't require any warm up time at all. He was ready to climb in her lap from the get-go.

On Friday I had planned a big luncheon at our house so that Nancy could mingle with everybody. Unfortunately the pink eye situation damaged the guest attendance by more than 2/3. In the end it was just Nancy, Keegan, Stacy Nielson, Danielle, and myself. Nancy wasn't offended-- she understood that pink eye is contagious and that it makes sense for people not to expose their kids. But I think she was a little disappointed that she didn't get to see everyone.

Stacy Nielson and myself

Danielle and Baby Liam

On several of the days Nancy was here we bundled up the kids after their afternoon naps and went to the playground. My kids go absolutely stir-crazy if they don't get outside a little during the day!

We went to the Virginia Living Museum one day as well, but I forgot my camera. Is anyone shocked? And we stopped by very quickly to our apartment Christmas party so that the kids could see Santa. Luke asked for a Christmas tree. Imagine what Santa was thinking... "This poor kid. He doesn't even have a tree!" But he promised Luke that he had some good ones in his workshop that he'd send our way. I thought I had pictures from seeing Santa, but then I remembered that I actually took them with Nancy's camera. Oops.

It was such a great little visit, and the only thing I'd change is to make it permanent. Come back, Nancy!

Trying It Out

2011-12-14T09:05:00.003-05:00

Luke is trying out new phrases that he's heard us say more and more, and it CRACKS ME UP!

Here are just a few things he has said over the past few days:

L: "Is the light turned on?" (It's clearly on)

Me: "Is it?"

L: "I think so. But I'm not sure."

Last night, we were watching Blue's Clues, and I started singing along to one of the songs. Luke turned around with a very stern face and said, "Mom! Don't sing! That's a bad choice!"

And this morning I heard, "I figured it out! My nose doesn't have boogers!"

(Just to clarify-- the part he copied from me was: I figured it out. End quote right there.)

I think the funniest imitation I have heard was on Sunday night. Jared was making some phone calls for church, and Luke was listening to him. The calls weren't all the same, but a lot of them started out with Jared saying, "Hi this is Jared Wilkerson. I was just calling..."

Luke started copying him and picked up his play phone and would say, "Hi! This is Jacob Wilkerson. I was just calling..."

Ha Ha Ha! Jacob Wilkerson! Ha Ha Ha!

More Luke Quotes

2011-12-08T21:09:00.003-05:00

I wanted to record a couple of conversations Luke has had over the last couple of weeks.

At speech Luke was doing an activity with his therapist, Ms. Nelson. Luke pointed to one of the pictures and said, "That's a deer."

Ms. Nelson corrected him and said, "Actually that's a camel. Do you know what a camel is?"

Luke responded, "It's like a deer."

Jared was quizzing Luke on Spanish words a few nights ago. The conversation went like this:

J: Luke, what does libro mean?

L: book

J: What does cabeza mean?

L: head

J: What are pantalones?

L: pants

J: What about Lucasito?

L: Pipsqueak

Luke learns rules and figures out rules by repeating things to himself (often out loud) over and over. Lately he's been asking a lot of funny questions about good choices/ bad choices. So we have lots of conversations like this:

L: Do we hit Micah?

Me: NO, that's a bad choice.

L: Do we hug Micah?

Me: Yes (and then to clarify) When Micah wants a hug, that's a good choice.

L: Do we yell during the prayer?

Me: No, that's a bad choice.

And often Luke will ask a question and then answer it himself, like this:

L: Do we push B? NOooo, that's a bad choice.

But lately he's been having these conversations with(?) his teddy bear or his blanket. I hear things like, "NO, Bookie! Don't put your fingers in the fan. That's a bad choice." or "No, Bear. We don't hit. That's not nice. It's a bad choice."

Today Luke was playing the Bad choice/ Good choice "game" at Walgreens while we waited for some medicine. It was pretty embarrassing. And totally weird because Luke is NOT violent at all!

He walked right up to an old lady who was sitting in a chair waiting for her prescription and asked very loudly, "Do we scream at the lady?" I said, "No Luke. That would be a bad choice."

Then he looked over at a mom holding onto her little boy's hand and asked, "Do we hit that boy?" I tried to act normal and calmly said, "What do you think, Luke?" He answered, "No, that's not nice. It's a bad choice."

And then we walked over to the toy aisle to look around until they called us to pick up our prescription. Aack!

Birthday Boy!

2011-12-03T21:48:00.008-05:00

Luke's birthday was on November 27. Since that was a Sunday, we celebrated his birthday on Saturday instead.

This year was especially fun because Luke finally understood what a birthday means. I think celebrating Micah's birthday just 2 months ago helped create his expectations and excitement. He knew that a birthday means cake and a party. He could answer questions about what he wanted this year too, which was soooooo exciting for me. He told me that he wanted a cake with green balloons, a drum for a present, and a party at the bounce house. So that's what he got! (Sort of)

We didn't do a big party. It was actually very small. Enjoying the bounce house is a relatively new thing, and Luke still doesn't do great in big crowds or a lot of chaos. He tends to go off by himself, fixate on things (like fans or lights), or throw a fit when there are a lot of people around. So while we were sad that we couldn't invite all of his friends, we thought it best to keep it to the two friends he spends the most time with. Caleb and Rachel joined Luke at Inflation Nation, and then we had pizza and cake for lunch. It was a blessing that we didn't plan anything big because Micah was running a high temperature that day, so the whole celebration was a big of a "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" affair. I called Keegan on Saturday morning and begged her to let us do lunch at her house instead of ours to avoid spreading germs around as much as possible. She agreed. So Jared and Luke went to the bounce house while I stayed home with Micah. Then we swapped out, and Jared stayed with Micah while I went with Luke for lunch and cake. So we all got to celebrate with Luke a little.

I forgot to send the camera to the bounce house, but here are a few pictures from lunch and from opening presents:

First time opening a present all by himself!

We just love our silly, happy Luke! He truly makes us take a new look at our world and find excitement in the little things. Luke is excited to begin every day-- he starts each day running. He is (mostly) a gentle, loving big-brother. And he has become a cuddly, loving little boy. We love his hugs and snuggles.

Some of Luke's favorite things are: speed bumps, school buses, fans, air conditioners, books, Blue's Clues, the playground, school, drawing pictures, and band-aides. A new current interest is street names. He always wants to know the name of the street on which we are driving, and he remembers every name! When I make a turn he will tell me, "Now we're on Richmond Road," or whichever road we are on. He's almost always right, even distinguishing between 199-East and 199-West!

He loves to go on dates with D (his nick-name for Jared) to Chick fil A, Lowes, or the bounce house. He is excited to go to school, he's a great trooper about going to therapy, and he is overall our great little helper.

Oh, Luke! We are so proud of you! And we look forward to our many, many adventures ahead!

Turkey Day

2011-12-03T21:22:00.008-05:00

This year we had Thanksgiving at the church again, with a few of our friends who joined us last year along with a few new ones. We had a good time!

Once again I was terrible about taking pictures. I forgot to take any until the very end when the food was mostly gone and the kids were tired!

But here are the few that I got:

Temma and James brought delicious homemade rolls and sweet potatoes. Also an apple pie. (Sorry if I forgot anything!) Melissa and Jason brought green bean casserole, jello salad, stuffing, and pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. Yum! Keegan and Patrick brought mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and probably more. But I can't remember now what was there. Jared and I were in charge of the meat.

I was super nervous about cooking a turkey (first timer here!), but it turned out moist and delicious-- minus the Gluten-free stuffing that I stuffed it with and which nobody (Luke included) ate. Jared and I suffered through the leftovers. But anyway, the meat was great. We brined the turkey overnight in a big storage bin in the fridge, and then we stuffed it and cooked it in a bag the next morning. A carved and mostly-eaten turkey doesn't look particularly yummy, but by the fact that it was well picked testifies to our success.

Before, during, and after the meal the kids ran around and played with the nursery toys. This is exactly why the church is such a perfect place for Thanksgiving. There's enough room in just one room to do everything and to keep everyone happy. Gotta love that!

Micah loved the activity tables.

Luke loved the rocking horse, which surprised me. Just a few months ago, I think he would have been too scared to ride it. But I loved seeing him rock out.

It's funny how Luke's interests often become the hot ticket. He loves vacuum cleaners, and during clean up he followed Jared around begging for a turn. He finally got one, and then every other kid wanted one too! They pushed the vacuum around, taking turns, for 15 minutes or more.

It's hard to believe that next Thanksgiving we won't be at the Williamsburg chapel! Time flies!

Feeling Awesome

2011-11-28T08:18:00.002-05:00

So no one in the entire blogging world probably cares about this, but I feel so awesome that I have to throw it out there to someone.

Jared and I started watching "Little Dorrit" yesterday, and the second I saw the evil Mrs. Clennam I knew that I had seen her somewhere before, but I couldn't place her. When she spoke I felt sure that I recognized the voice. I puzzled over it and puzzled over it, and started mentally going through the list of the (way too many) BBC miniseries I have watched. I kept picturing this woman holding a tea cup and wearing a maroon dress-- very fancy, so I knew she had played a noblewoman.

It was driving me crazy, so I looked up the full cast of Little Dorrit, and then Wikipediad the actress (Judy Parfitt). But I didn't recognize any of the shows listed. This kind of face recognition has happened to me before, and if I can't place it while I awake I will usually place it in my sleep. Sure enough last night I woke with a start-- She was the queen in Ever After, I was sure of it! But that was a well known movie, right? So wouldn't that be listed on her Wikipedia accomplishments along with the one episode of ER that she appeared in?

This morning I looked up the full cast of Ever After, and sure enough! She was the queen! How did Wikipedia miss that??? I am awesome!

Thankful

2011-11-25T20:58:00.003-05:00

While I am late in posting my gratitude, I have been pondering my many, many blessings lately. A lot of the things I am thankful for are personal, and they are written down in my journal. But I can give a short list of the greatest blessings in my life right now:

1. The Gospel-- I am so thankful for the strength, encouragement, and direction I receive from my Savior and Heavenly Father. I know that everything following is all tied up in the Gospel. The relationships I cherish are made stronger through the Gospel, and so many other things on my list were brought about by promptings and "angels" whom Heavenly Father sent to help guide me. Every single thing on this list is a gift from God.

2. Family-- I grew up in a WONDERFUL family. I don't know how I got lucky enough to come to them. I have awesome brothers and sisters and amazing parents all of whom offer me so much love and support. I love my own little family so, so much! My boys stretch me to my limit and teach me so much. And even though they are so dependent on me for everything they find a way to give back. I just melt when I see Micah toddle over with a big smile on his face. And just this week Luke gave me a big, big squeeze and yelled, "I LOVE Mama!" And Jared. OH, Jared. I'm just so glad that he's mine forever. And then there is my adopted family who don't actually have to love me, but they do! (You know who you are, and I love you!) And finally my in-laws who accepted me whole heartedly and made me a part of you. Thank you!

3. Friends-- There are so many people past and present who have made me laugh, listened to me when I cry, helped out when I needed help, trusted me enough to ask for help... I am blessed!

4. Jared has the promise of a great future job.

5. Luke's teachers. He has wonderful primary teachers and school teachers who love him and pay attention to him and his needs. They are so good at working with him and teaching him. I am amazed by his progress!

6. Therapists!!! We have met quite a few over the past year. First speech and occupational therapists with Luke and then a wonderful physical therapist for Micah. How amazing that we had these resources that have blessed our boys so much!

7. Dr. Megson (and the Lindsey family who told us about her): Luke has changed incredibly much since our first visit in May. Words cannot express...

8. Books-- I am thankful that there is a book available on nearly any subject, and I have learned so much from books this year as I have read and read as I work and struggle to be a better parent and to help my boys. I am grateful for the books that offer me a break, those that make me laugh, those that make me think, those that make me cry. I love the books my boys love because those are the ones that entice the boys into cuddling up on the couch with me. I just adore books!

9. Education-- I am thankful for all the ways that Jared has grown through his education and for the job that his education allowed him to get. I am thankful for my own education that taught me how to critically analyze and question facts and stories I am presented with, and I'm thankful for the home education that I received as well. I saw how to mother from my own mom, and I try to follow the things that she did. She taught me how to love, discipline, clean, teach, etc., etc., etc.

10. I am grateful for my journal. This year I have done better at writing in a journal, and the contemplation required as I write has strengthened me quite a bit. It's a habit that I am happy to be working on.

11. Probably weird to end on eleven, but whatever. I am thankful for talents, especially the opportunity to build talents. I have loved my piano lessons this year! It is fun to "master" a new skill each week and to lean something I didn't know before. I am learning some Christmas carols right now, and I just love to play them and marvel on the fact that just under a year ago I couldn't even read music...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

2011-11-22T20:19:00.001-05:00

Cupboards, Cardboard, and Obstacle Courses

2011-11-15T08:18:00.007-05:00

Micah has become a little explorer. I knew this day was coming-- I think Luke may have hurried it up a bit. Luke likes to hide under the sink. He drags his blankie in there and closes the door, and then he waits for Micah to find him. A few weeks ago Micah decided he didn't want to be the finder any more. He wanted in the cupboard. Now he crawls in there all the time! He also decided that not just this cupboard, but all cupboard are awesome! So he pulls open all of them. He pulls out dishes, towels, curling irons, hair spray. Whichever cupboard he can get to and whatever he can pull out is fine with him! He also loves to open dresser drawers and pull out the clothes. I've just stopped folding at this point (or I'd be refolding jammies 10 times every day). I just shove everything back in and move on with life.

In all of his exploring Micah discovered the recycling bin as well, and he fell in love with boxes! (Hence the cardboard.) He carries them around. This works great at church because Luke loves Band-Aids. You might be wondering what those two things have to do with each other. Well, I will tell you. Band-Aids come in a box. So I keep a box of Band-Aids in the church bag. Luke sits happily sticking Band-Aids all over himself during sacrament meeting, and Micah sits and shakes the Band-Aid box. I call that a win-win. I also call it weird. And so do other people judging by the looks we get.

Here is Micah with one of the many boxes he has rescued from the recycling pile. I followed him around trying to get a good picture. What that really means is that I ran around trying to get in front of him to get a good picture while he simultaneously ran around trying to get the camera. That doesn't usually work for a good picture.

But this one turned out pretty cute:

He just wasn't holding a box.

Anyhoo. What with his box and cupboard/drawer interests (oh, and he also REALLY likes plugs), our house has become a bit of an obstacle course with chairs, etc. positioned to block off the things he loves most. His pack and play is wedged between his crib and bookshelf to keep him from pulling all the books off all the time. (He still has access to all his board books. Did you really think I would keep him from reading???) Chairs or side tables block most outlets that are in use. There is packing tape holding several kitchen cupboards closed. And the bathroom doors have to be kept closed at all times.

Good thing he is so worth it!

Love It!

2011-11-15T08:15:00.003-05:00

Luke made this picture using watercolors and markers. He wrote his own name without any help! The little person you see is "Luke." I just love how his little faces have grown legs now (but no arms or bodies.) At least it has ears. Ha Ha. I just love it!

Brothers, Bananas, and Eating Update

2011-11-07T21:17:00.006-05:00

Several months ago our bishop gave Luke a blessing before we had a big and (it turns out) life-changing doctor appointment in Richmond. Among the many things we were advised and promised in the blessing was that Luke and Micah would have a very special relationship, and that they would strengthen each other. I've pondered this part of the blessing several times.

When Micah was having trouble with motor skills it seemed like chasing after Luke (and chasing after Cheerios) helped him to master his own body and start moving. Micah definitely wants to run after Luke. This is a more recent video of Micah walking just so you can see how much more stable his is now:

(Yes, you are hearing what you think you are hearing. I was most definitely listening to New Kids on the Block at the time I took this video. Hee Hee. Every once in awhile you just have to jump back to third grade, right?)

One area where Micah is a great example for Luke is with eating. Micah is overall a good eater, and he isn't too interested in baby food. One day Micah was eating a big boy banana, and Luke decided that he wanted some too. I gave him a banana, and to my total shock and amazement, he ate the entire thing! It is Luke's very first consistently gobbled-big boy-solid fruit. Woo Hoo!

And over the past few weeks Luke has acquired several other foods as well: pot roast (cooked super nice and tender), grilled "cheese" sandwich (I finally found a GF cheese substitute that tastes GOOD!), hot dog, chicken salad sandwich, pulled pork (the last two are works in progress), applesauce, and a few bites of grapes.

Now we need to work on table manners....

TENT!!!

2011-11-07T20:20:00.004-05:00

Two Saturdays ago Luke asked Jared if they could build a tent. I think he was imagining blankets over a table, but I didn't want to give up my kitchen table, so I had a better idea. I made Jared dig out the real tent (I thought it was a little 2-person) and set it up. It turned out to be bigger than I remembered. But both boys LOVED it. Luke especially loved it and spent the first evening opening and closing the door over and over and over. We dragged the crib mattress into the tent, and Luke slept in the tent that night. I didn't have the heart to take it down when the boys were having such a good time with it, so pretty much all last week our living room looked like this:

After the newness of the zipper doors and windows had (mostly) worn off, Luke started playing in the tent and not just with the tent. We played board games in there (Luke LOVES Candy Land!), read books, etc. His favorite game was going on a bug hunting expedition-- He got that off of Blue's Clues. Here's how we played: I would hide a bunch of plastic bugs that Aunt Jennifer sent and Luke would hunt around and find them and then bring them back to the tent where he would hold them up and name their color and look at them with his magnifying glass.

Random tidbit: Luke's favorite color is green. The green bugs were his favorite, and sometimes the bug hunt didn't go very well because after he found the 2 green bugs he would stop looking for the others. He HAS to be the green man when he plays Candy Land, and he always wants a green DumDum. We are almost out of Green Apple flavor, and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the remaining 150 +. I asked Luke what he wanted for his birthday. His answer? "A green."

Anyway, back to the tent. We had to edge ourselves around the tent to check email, sit on the couch, walk through the front door, etc. So finally on Thursday evening I decided it had been long enough.

Micah had already gone to bed, and I had just tucked Luke in and gone to detach the poles when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of the boys in the tent. So I got Luke out of bed and snatched one shot:

We will definitely do this again!

Trick-Or-Treat!!!

2011-11-03T12:05:00.006-04:00

This year Luke finally understood about trick-or-treating. I wanted him to be excited about it, so I had gotten a big bag of dum-dum suckers (which are pretty much the only candy he will/can eat since he can't have milk-- no chocolate!-- and won't eat chewy candy), and we started practicing about 2 weeks before Halloween. He would put on his "special doctor clothes" and knock on Jared's study door. When Jared answered Luke would yell "Trick-or-treat!" and get a candy. He LOVED practicing trick-or-treat. (To all the anti-candy parents out there: We did NOT do this every single day).

Anyway, then the ward trunk or treat was cancelled due to rain! But I REALLY wanted to take Luke trick-or-treating after we had practiced so hard. So I called up my friend Amber and begged to be invited for trick-or-treating. Her neighborhood was the perfect place for a first timer. She lives in a town-house community, so we could go to quite a few houses without walking very far. Luke had a blast! And even though Micah wasn't collecting any spoils, he had a good time too. He loves just being outside.

Meet Jack-O-Lantern!

2011-11-02T20:50:00.003-04:00

Luke was very excited to carve our pumpkin. While Jared was home teaching on Sunday night, Luke and I (mostly I) got the pumpkin ready to be carved. Luke was totally grossed out by the seeds and pulp and wouldn't touch it with his hands at all. He did pretty good with a spoon.

When Jared got home he and Luke carved the face. Luke told Jared that he wanted circle eyes and a happy mouth. He got it!

When I asked him if his pumpkin had a name, he looked at me like I'm an idiot, and said, "Jack-O-Lantern!" Oh, right!

School Parade

2011-11-02T09:08:00.009-04:00

On Monday the pre-school classes had a little costume parade at school. Luke, as you can tell, is the cutest doctor in the world. He was so good just calmly walking down the hall waving...

until he saw me!

Then he started making funny noises and trying to fall on the floor. So embarrassing when he does that, and I don't get it. He doesn't get away with it at school, and he doesn't get away with it at home. But there's something about mixing school and home that gets him all confused. Ah, well. By the third lap around the pre-K hallway he stopped acting silly when he saw me and just waved to me.

New things are often a bit overwhelming for Luke, and it takes him time to figure things out and process the experience. He talks about new and exciting things for several days--I think it helps him process what happened. Anyway, for the past few days he has talked about the parade in his own cute little way. Mostly he walks around saying, "Wave to your friends. Wave to your friends," and "Did you wear your doctor clothes at school?"

When the parade was over we went back to the classroom for center time. I just followed along because we had to leave for Luke's eating therapy in 40 minutes, and I wouldn't even be able to make it to our house and back before it was time to leave. Hopefully I was a little bit helpful and not too much of a distraction.

Luke made a spider's web, and then he helped Ms. Sara carve a pumpkin. He didn't like touching the seeds at all. He put his hand in for less than 2 seconds, and then wanted to wash his hand right away. I suspected that would happen because he did the same thing at home when we cleaned our pumpkin.

Then he made a necklace.

I also got to spend a few minutes with Luke during his speech instruction with Ms. Kathleen. He did very well-- he was a good listener for her, and he picked up on a new activity very quickly. He responded to all her questions, and he didn't act silly with me in the room at all. I was very proud of him! He has come so, so far! I was very impressed by Ms. Kathleen as well. She had very visual tools to help him, and that is so important for Luke. She spoke clearly and rephrased questions or statements if he didn't understand. I am so glad that Luke is in such a wonderful program. Hooray for Blayton Elementary!

Pumpkin Patch

2011-11-02T08:32:00.009-04:00

I think it was about 2 weeks ago that Luke didn't have school on Friday. The following Monday his class was going on a trip to Pumpkinville (a local pumpkin patch), and I wanted to prep him for it.

So that day (the Friday before the field trip) we met up at Pumpkinville with some friends.

Such a ham!

Micah had lots of fun crawling around in the pumpkins and eating grass. He wasn't much of a walker then. (He is CRUISING now-- although there is a LOT of tumbling amid the cruising!)

Luke loved loading the wagon chalk full (is that the expression?) of pumpkins, but then said he didn't want to buy any or take any home, so we unloaded them all and pulled an empty wagon back to the front. Well, empty of pumpkins. Luke and Micah rode in the wagon.

Then we went on the hay ride. This is the part I really wanted to prep Luke for because last year he FREAKED out on the hay ride, and we had to get off. I talked to him a lot about the hay ride for a few days before we went to Pumpkinville. I told him that it might shake and that it would be bumpy and noisy, but that it was lots of fun and NOT scary. He was apprehensive getting on, but then I started asking him, "Is it noisy? Is it shaking?" and telling him that it was so silly. After a few minutes he relaxed and got really into it. His favorite part was when we rode in the big mud puddle.

So Luke did great! And his teacher told me that when he went with his class he didn't have any problems at all! I am so glad that as his language and focus has gotten better it is easier to talk him through what is going to happen and what things will be like. It helps so much when I can prepare him!

Micah wasn't sure how he felt about it.

After the hay ride we had a little picnic and played for a bit until it was time to go home. It was a fun trip!

I was sorry that I missed Luke's field trip when he went back to Pumpkinville with his class. They were meeting there right during Micah's nap time, and I just felt too bad about messing that up for Micah. He had a bad night the night before, and he was so tired! Plus, out little Micah Trooper just gets dragged along everywhere, and I decided that some days need to be all about him.

Pete the Cat: I love my white shoes

2011-10-27T13:46:00.004-04:00

Ms. Sara said that Luke's call just LOVED the book "Pete the Cat," so when it showed up in the book order as a deal with book AND CD, I couldn't pass it up. The book was sent home on Monday afternoon, and Luke has listened to it at least 20 times a day for the past 4 days. We have all memorized the book. This is Luke reading the book-- it is split up into 4 videos because Little Micah was being a bit of a pill, and I kept having to put down the video camera.

(Micah bit me)

Micah Walking

2011-10-25T08:29:00.001-04:00

Micah is taking first steps now. He started taking one or two last week. Now he can walk about halfway across a room. He is faster crawling, so he still prefers that. But he is getting braver and better with his walking everyday!

Drama

2011-10-21T14:23:00.009-04:00

On the 10th of this month Luke woke up with his left ear looking like this:

I sent a note with his teacher asking if she would have the school nurse look at it and let me know if she thought I should call the doctor. The nurse checked it periodically during his time at school and then called and told me she thought I should call and ask my doctor for her opinion. So I called the doctor, and the nurse at the doctor's office told me to give him Benadryl and monitor it for 24 hours. It was quite a bit better Tuesday morning, but it took about 3 or 4 days for it to get back to normal. I'm still not sure what caused it, but I think it may have been a mosquito bite.

That Thursday (the 13th) we hit a deer coming back from a reading event at Luke's school. Luckily Jared was driving because my reaction was to throw both hands over my eyes. We weren't going fast, and Jared slammed on the breaks, so there was barely a bump when we hit the deer. We were all fine--not counting the deer (who was also hit by the car coming in the opposite direction)--, and there wasn't much damage to the car. The headlights had gotten pushed in (but were still intact), and the hood got bent. After talking to the insurance company and then after Jared tinkered around with the car a bit, we decided not to have it fixed. We didn't want to pay the deductible for a car that we most likely will not have for much over a year. But Luke was wired over it. Right after the accident he kept yelling, "What did Luke do? What did Luke do?" I think he was mostly concerned about the loud noise the breaks made. I explained to him that an animal, a deer, ran into the street and bonked the car. He wanted to know where the deer was, and then Jared got philosophical/ religious and told Luke that the deer's body was on the street but it's spirit was in heaven. Luke kept looking up at the sky trying to see the "deer flying at the stars." He kept saying that "the deer is hiding up there." Now when we drive on that street he tells me about the farmer and the policeman that took the deer away. I'm not sure how he came up with that explanation, but there you have it. He still talks about the deer bonking the car every day.

This week on Monday Luke was helping me cook pancakes. He was standing on a chair next to the stove, but he fell or bent over. Somehow he hit his lip on the pan and burned it. When he woke up on Tuesday his lip was swollen and looked sore. We called the doctor because I just didn't know how to help it since he kept licking it and touching it. The doctor wanted to see him, but the visit turned out to be mostly a lecture on my bad parenting. I left really shaken up. And now I am REALLY dreading Micah's 12 month check this coming week. I think I want to change doctors but am unsure how to do it. I talked to some friends about it today who both switched over to my current office because they both hated the other one (There are only 2 pediatric groups in Williamsburg). I wanted to know what they didn't like about the other office. After hearing their experiences, it didn't sound like I would like the other office too much either. They love their doctor at Sentara, but how do I change doctors and stay in the same group? Ahhh! The drama!

Then to add to the mix we've all been sick this week. It seems like there is no end to real-life drama.

Micah's Birthday Party

2011-10-21T14:01:00.007-04:00

We had a little get-together about 2 weeks ago for Micah's birthday. We just invited friends to join us at Chickahominy Riverfront park for a cookout. It was a fun afternoon. The weather was very nice, and we had a relaxing time talking with friends. I wasn't sure how many people would make it since we had the party during Fall Break, so there were a lot of hot dogs leftover. Party favors ended up being a package of hot dogs and buns for each family :)

Micah had a good time crawling around and eating food that had fallen to the floor. Kind of gross!

Micah is still pretty confused about the cake/ candle thing.

But Luke helped him out again.

We're glad that we have you, Micah!

Inflation Nation

2011-10-13T20:44:00.011-04:00

Last Friday night we went to Inflation Nation as a family. We weren't sure what to expect because last time we went (a year ago) Luke wouldn't do anything but look at the fans.

But he was so into it! He went right into the bounce house and jumped around, slid down the slides, flipped over the inflatable bars (What are those things called?) and generally had a blast! He only paused to look at the fans a few times and was redirected immediately without a fight. Wow!

They had one "bounce house" designated for kids aged 1-3 years. It was Micah's own little paradise. He crawled right in. At first he was a bit hesitant because he kept falling down. But then he got the hang of it, and just went crazy laughing and crawling and sliding.

Such a fun evening. Hope everyone got to do something fun for fall break!

Just for Amber

2011-10-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

Corn?

When did Micah eat corn?

HaHaHaHaHa

Hope you had a great trip to Utah!

Is there anything cuter...

2011-10-12T08:35:00.002-04:00

than a sleeping baby?

Say Cheese!

2011-10-12T08:21:00.009-04:00

Two weeks ago Luke was learning about feelings at school. He would come home and say things like, "Was Luke happy at school today?" and "If you bonk your head, it would be sad." At the end of that week he brought home a laminated sheet of paper divided into 4 parts that had pictures of Luke making happy, sad, angry, and scared faces. It was sooooo cute!

So (Silly me!) I figured that Luke would be able to do a happy face on command. These are his attempts at a happy face:

He is FINALLY (sort of) smiling in the last one.

How did his teacher get him to pose???

Progress

2011-10-07T08:19:00.002-04:00

Micah took ONE step yesterday!

Okay, it was admittedly a step--teeter--tumble.

But it's progress!

So it turns out...

2011-10-06T06:45:00.008-04:00

that I have the WORST HAIR CUT in the world for sleeping on wet hair.

I think I'll wear THIS to the bus stop.

Holding Hands

2011-10-03T09:18:00.002-04:00

The other day we were crossing the street. I reminded Luke that "we hold hands in the street." He looked up at me, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and told me, "I want to hold just Luke's hand!" Then he tried to walk across the street.

Sometimes I feel like I'm raising Amelia Bedelia.

Elementary

2011-10-03T09:15:00.002-04:00

Luke just calls his school "Luke's school" which is probably normal, but I wanted him to know the real name of his school.

I said, "Luke, can you say Blayton Elementary?"

He said, "Blayton L-M-N-O-tree"

Mmm...it does kind of sound like the alphabet song.

One Year Old!!!

2011-10-02T14:10:00.018-04:00

Micah's birthday was on Thursday, September 29th. That morning Luke had occupational therapy, and then we had to drop him off at school, so the morning wasn't much of a celebration. But it was funny that, as we were out and about, soooo many people asked me how old Micah was, and I got to say, "He's one year old today!" So he received birthday wishes from many, many people.

When we got home (later than usual), Micah took a super long nap. When he woke up, I gave him his first present of the day, a little toy piano that he really enjoys. Micah likes anything that makes noise!

We didn't do anything big to celebrate Micah's first birthday. We were planning to have a cookout with friends, but the boys were sick through the beginning of the week, and we weren't sure when they'd get better. We didn't want to plan an event until they were both well, but now they are! So we'll hopefully celebrate with friends this coming weekend.

His actual big day was pretty low key, but I tried to do some of Micah's favorite things. After Luke got home from school we went to the park-- Micah loves to swing! Then we stopped at the store to get frozen pizza and donuts. Micah had never had a donut, but he loves pizza, so it was a good birthday dinner for him!

Luke wasn't sure how he felt about his Gluten Free/ Dairy free pizza, but he was a trooper and ate several bites.

After dinner, Micah got to play around with (and in) the dishwasher for an extra long time. It's one of his favorite things to do!

I had the donuts ready to be served as soon as Jared got home. We stripped the high chair and Micah and lit the candle.

Micah was fascinated by the flame.

Luke demanded that we sing "birthday dear" instead of the regular Happy Birthday song. We compromised by singing both.

Luke helped Micah blow out the candle.

Micah didn't waste much time before digging in!

He definitely likes donuts!

We'll find out how Micah likes cake when we have his Birthday Cookout this upcoming weekend. I'm thinking he's going to like it.

After donuts we wiped Micah off and let him open his other toys-- bath toys-- and then stuck him right in the bath. Micah LOVES taking a bath (minus the part when we wash his hair), and he got to play for longer than normal. All in all, I think he had a good day.

Thank you Mima and Papa, Grandma and Grandpa, and Grandma Debbi and Grandpa Terry for the birthday money! The money that hasn't yet been spent will go towards Micah's new car seat that we will get as soon as he reaches 20 pounds. It should be pretty soon now!

Eavesdropping

2011-09-28T22:16:00.003-04:00

During Luke's speech therapy sessions I sit in the observation room and watch and listen to what goes on. Today Luke and his therapist, Ms. Nelson, were doing a sorting activity. Luke would pick a card from a pile and then have to put it in the proper category: something we eat, something we wear, or an animal. I was so glad I was eavesdropping on their conversation because this is what I heard.

Ms. Nelson: Luke what's on your card?

Luke: It's a doggie. (Pause) What's the doggie doin'?

Ms. Nelson: What is the doggie doing?

Luke: It's sitting down. (Pause). Does the doggie have a bum?

Ms. Nelson: What?

Luke: Does the doggie have a bum on it's back?

Ms. Nelson: (very confused) I don't know. What?

Luke: Does the doggie poop on the grass?

Ms. Nelson: Um...Probably. Luke, do you have a dog at your house?

Luke: Yes!

(Side note: We do not have a dog)

Ms. Nelson: What's your dog's name?

Luke: Doc

Ms. Nelson: Your dog's name is Doc?

Luke: Annabelle

Ms. Nelson: Your dog's name is Annabelle?

Luke: Yes!

Apparently Luke takes serious ownership of other people's pets. Hope that's okay with you, Mikey. And you, Grandma Debbi.

A Better Comparison?

2011-09-28T22:06:00.005-04:00

It's hard to get a really good comparison because I couldn't find any pictures of both boys wearing the same clothes, doing the same thing, and making the same expression. But tell me this: which picture is of which boy?

Okay, okay. That wasn't hard at all. Maybe they don't look alike after all...

(But they do!)

Look Alikes???

2011-09-28T21:45:00.003-04:00

When Micah was really little I didn't think he and Luke looked very much alike. But the older they get the more similar they look. People tell me all the time that Micah looks just like his brother. I don't agree with the just. But I would say definitely related.

Luke at 9 months

Micah at 11 months

What do you think?

Why Children are Bad for Your Self-Image

2011-09-25T08:08:00.002-04:00

This morning Luke swatted at my bicep and asked, "Is Mama's body shaking like a ceiling fan?"

I told him to stop whacking my arm.

He switched to trying to pull up my shirt so that he could see "Mama's big fat tummy!"

Awesome!

The Green Underwear

2011-09-23T08:34:00.003-04:00

This morning I told Luke to go to the bathroom and get his white big boy underwear. He came back with his green underwear.

I said to myself, "I thought those were dirty. Huh," and put them on Luke.

A little while later I found half the clothes hamper emptied onto the bathroom floor.

So they were dirty.

Oh well. I'm going to let him wear them anyway.

You bit my finger!

2011-09-19T19:53:00.002-04:00

So most of you have probably seen this video:

Well, today the boys were playing over by the stereo, and all of a sudden Luke screamed and started to cry. I ran over, and he was holding his finger. He didn't hit Micah or anything, but he was very upset. He told me that Micah bit his finger. I told him not to put his finger in Micah's mouth. I know by experience that is a bad idea! I hate it when that kid gets a forbidden object in his mouth. Getting it out is dangerous!

Writing

2011-09-19T15:09:00.007-04:00

Luke has been learning how to write the letters in his name. He mastered the L several months ago. "Straight down. Straight over." He learned how to do the U in Texas maybe? It's been a few months now. "Down. And up." But this week he learned how to do the K and the E. Those ones took a long time because he just couldn't figure out where to place his pen. I finally added some dots and now he can do it. For the K he says, "Do the line. Make a dot. Put the pen on the dot. Go up. Put the pen on the dot. Go down." And for the E he says, "Line. Dot. Dot. Dot. And out. And out. And out." He talks himself through the letters every time. It's pretty darn cute.

making an E

Good job, Luke!

Ah, Luke!

2011-09-18T10:06:00.003-04:00

This morning it was pretty cold in our house, and Luke was running around in a pull-up. I told him to bring me some pants so that he wouldn't be cold. He came back with a pair of jean shorts.

The past week at school Luke has been learning about himself. I guess that as part of the unit they've been talking a lot about bodies because Luke keeps pointing things out and asking questions such as, "Does Ms. Gina have a neck?" I guess all that body talk has him thinking about all the parts of his body because he has also asked, "Does Baby Micah have a bum?" and "Does Mama have a pee pee like Luke?" We've dealt with awkward questions before what with breast feeding and all and have had several conversations about how we do not talk about certain body parts or touch certain body parts. But with all the new questions this week, Luke is once again walking around and repeatedly coaching himself, "We don't talk about it. We don't talk about it," as well as, "We don't touch other people's bums." I really hope he doesn't say these things at school, but he probably does.

For the past little while Luke has been sleeping in our room on an air mattress because we have been "sleep training" Micah. The strange thing is that Micah started sleeping through the night without crying right as we geared ourselves for letting him fuss it out. So what had been waking him up if it wasn't hunger or fear? Well, we have discovered that Luke talks in his sleep. At least one of his dreams seemed to involve getting in trouble. He yelled out very clearly, "I need to be a good listener!" which he often tells me to try to get out of time out. He also had what seemed to be (for him) a very scary nightmare in which he cried and moaned, "The cup fell down! The cup fell down!" He also cuddles his blanket and croons, "Bookie! Bookie!"

We moved Luke back to his bed last night after several weeks of sleeping in our room. Micah cried and cried and wouldn't go to sleep because he could see someone else in the room, so we had bring Luke out to living room until Micah fell asleep (which then happened really quickly). Micah slept through until around 4:30 and then woke up crying-- the habit of night waking resurrected during his sickness. So I went in to nurse him. About 1 hour later Luke woke up crying, and that woke up Micah. So I'm not sure if Luke will be moving back to our room or not.

Bribery works wonders with Luke. But the things he accepts for bribery are so bizarre. We could get him to do most anything in Texas by promising to let him drive Mima's car, Papa's "junky green car" or Amber's car. That works pretty well here too most of the time. But his newest interest is the speed bumps in our apartment complex. He will try pretty much any new food if he can go outside and walk across a speed bump after he gets it down.

What a crazy boy!

Lucky Seven

2011-09-18T09:05:00.004-04:00

Little Micah just cut his seventh tooth. Now he has 4 on top and 3 on bottom.

I suppose this is just one more sign that he is growing up. I can't believe he'll be a year old on the 29th!!! How did time go so fast?

Smiley Face

2011-09-14T11:09:00.002-04:00

Luke drew this smiley face at Miss Keegan's while Micah and I were at the doctor on Monday. I think it is so cute!!!

1 out of 10

2011-09-12T20:12:00.002-04:00

Today was not a great day. I'd give it a 1.

Micah was running a temperature (104.2) and only wanted to nurse. All day long. Actually that's been going on for 2 days, but yesterday Jared was here to help. So today was especially bad because we're out of underwear, Luke is out of socks, and I had to get all the laundry done, etc. with a baby clinging to my front. Awesome! In all the excitement of one-handed laundry I spilled bleach all over Luke's favorite underwear-- Green-- and the only pair he willingly wears. They are now yellow.

We couldn't get in to see the doctor until 2:15 pm. Micah has a bad sinus infection. I waited at Wal-greens for an hour with a screaming and SUPER hot baby who still just wanted to nurse, but was denied while we were sitting in Wal-greens. I finally gave up, just bought some Advil to tide him over and came home. Luckily Luke had school and then got to play at Caleb's house most of the day because he does not do well when ignored. In the little time I did have with him today he kept pulling my hair clip out of my hair, climbing on my head, climbing on my back, climbing on my shoulders, climbing on the table, climbing on the windowsill, and escaping from time out. (The only thing that saved him was that amid all that climbing he did give me many hugs and kisses. I actually kind of loved that part.)

Thank goodness for the Taylors! Not only did Keegan watch Luke for me for almost 3 hours during the doctor appointment and pointless Wal-greens trip, but Patrick came and stayed with Luke (who was in bed. Yes!) so I could go back to Wal-greens to try again. I got back and gave Micah his first dose of antibiotic, thinking to myself that "This is a HUGE dose!" Halfway through the syringe I realized that the instructions were for 4 milliliters and NOT 4 teaspoons. So then I had to call poison control.

And now that Micah is asleep I get to fold all that laundry because that is something you just can't do one handed.

First days of school

2011-09-08T10:08:00.007-04:00

Luke started school on Tuesday. He had been asking for weeks and weeks to ride the bus and go to school. We went to Meet the Teacher last week, so Luke understood that he was going to a new class with Ms. Sara and Ms. Gina. He had also been warned that he might have a new bus driver.

Luke was so excited to go outside and wait for the bus. It was a long wait because we weren't sure what time the bus would arrive. Last year the bus would come around 7:45 am. It didn't come unitl 8:15! With all that time to just sit and wait, Luke started getting creative. He decided he wanted to wait on the car.

I had to run inside for baby wipes because both Luke and Micah had black palms and knees. Apparently I REALLY need to wash the car.

Right as I got them all cleaned up, the bus arrived. Luke was a pro! He grabbed onto Ms. Daisy's hand (glad I warned him there might be a new driver!) and climbed right up.

It's been so fun talking with Luke about his day at school. He can tell me so much more about what he does! After the first day he told me that he went in a tunnel. He also said that he did shapes and "did the blow dryer." I told him that I didn't think there was a blow dryer at school and that he was being silly.

Yesterday, when Luke came home, he mentioned the blow dryer again. And I realized that both times he talked about the blow dryer I had just finished praising him for using the potty at school, so I thought he must be talking about a hand dryer in the bathroom. I asked him if he used the blow dryer to dry his hands and Luke said yes. But then I opened up his take-home folder and found this picture from the first day:

Oops! Sorry, Luke, for not understanding! There really is a blow dryer at school.

I think Luke is going to have a good year.

There is nothing like...

2011-09-07T12:02:00.001-04:00

finally getting back into my pre-pregnancy clothes

only to have a stranger at the bus stop

ask me if I'm pregnant.

First Talk

2011-09-06T13:51:00.003-04:00

Luke gave his first talk in primary on Sunday. The topic was "the scriptures teach that the gospel will be preached in all the world." That's a pretty intense topic for a 3 year old, but Luke did a great job. He was very excited to talk in the microphone! This was his talk:

"All the people who live on the earth are Heavenly Father's children. Heavenly Father loves all of his children. He wants everyone to know about Jesus Christ. The scriptures teach that the gospel will be preached in all the world. D&C section 90, verse 11 says that, "every man shall hear the fulness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language." Missionaries teach people in their own language all over the world. Some day many of us will learn a new language so that we can teach other people about Jesus Christ. I am happy that the gospel will be preached in all the world."

Luke did a great job!

Masterpiece

2011-09-05T15:19:00.019-04:00

Welcome to my boys' room!

the sign on their door--

I painted this 2 years ago when we were in Texas after Jared's first year.

View when you open the door

I tried to take pictures in a circular fashion. This would be when you enter the room and turn to the left a little. Then the pictures move to the right and circle the room until they reach the door again. I also did close ups of some of the details in the room.

above Luke's bed

My mom sewed that map for me, and she followed my instructions perfectly! I bought a clearance curtain rod at Wal-mart and spray-painted it red. And voila!

I painstaking measured this fabric so that each piece would match up. It took forever! I had everything measured and cut out before Micah was born but never did the sewing. Jared's mom sewed them for me when she and Dad came to help after Micah's birth. They turned out just as I imagined. They are reversible-- here's the cowboy side.

and the denim side

My mom painted the cowboy picture. She copied the cowboys from the fabric on their quilts (FREEHAND!) and then transfered it onto the wood and painted it. I made the Lil' Cowboy sign by hot gluing rope onto painted wood. These things were also created 2 years ago.

Jennifer got this horse basket for me. It's actually an Easter basket but I use it to hold the desitin. The red baskets are for diapers and wipes.

The rocking horse was a loan for the pictures, but it looks so cute in the room that maybe eventually....

I love how it all came together! And just under 3 years!

Boy Braggin'

2011-09-02T10:33:00.008-04:00

My boys play great together! Luke LOVES to play with Micah and often asks Micah to come play. Sometimes when I'm snuggling Micah, Luke will tell me, "Micah wants to play with Luke in Luke's room." When I say that I think Micah just wants to cuddle for a minute Luke will insist, "NO! Micah wants to play with Luke!" Micah is interested in Luke's stereos too, so that is their one conflict. Micah also likes Luke's Bookie (baby blanket) but usually Luke is willing to share that-- at least for a minute. They are an awesome team!

Luke is just doing awesome! This week I am especially proud that he is being a brave eater. He has had a new food every single day! He ate a bite of carrot, applesauce, some hot dog, smoothie (Costco smoothies are dairy free!), and (though not really new) 1/2 a chicken breast in one sitting! The amount of chicken was VERY new. He even asked for more!

Yesterday was meet the teacher at Luke's school. He is excited to ride the bus again and play with friends at school. I think his new teachers, Ms. Sara and Ms. Gina, will be very good with him. They were pre-warned by Ms. Alicia about his CD player obsession and didn't act like it would be a big deal at all. While we were there we also got to see Ms. Alicia and Ms. Kerry as well as Ms. Kathleen, the speech teacher. They were impressed by the difference they saw in Luke. As Ms. Kathleen asked Luke questions I could see her eyes get bigger! He wasn't answering any questions at the end of school last year, and right then he was telling them all kinds of things! It was a pretty funny conversation--

Teacher: Luke, where did you go this summer?

Luke: Luke went to Mima's house.

Teacher: What did you do there?

Luke: Luke pulled the string.

Teacher: What string?

Luke: The string on the ceiling fan!

Luke has also made HUGE progress with sensory processing. I guess the progress in eating goes in that category because he made so much progress with textures. But he is doing well with textures on other parts of his body. He will now walk barefoot on grass and sand. He will even LAY DOWN on the beach. He asks to go in the shower too which is amazing because he used to freak out if water splashed on his head. He is no longer afraid of the vacuum cleaner or garbage disposal. And finally Luke is doing better at staying with the group. We went to the beach on Wed. with some friends, and Luke (for the most part) stayed close to me and interacted with peers the entire time. That had to do more with the fact that they came to play with Luke than that Luke went to them, but still! They laughed together, and I was so happy to see it.

Potty training is still a bit of a struggle. If you look at the picture of Luke and Caleb you will see a big, wet rock to the right of Caleb. Luke peed on it and then stripped down naked.

Micah was not quite as big of a beach bum as Luke is becoming. Mostly because I tried to keep him from ingesting too much sand. But he still had a pretty good time too.

Micah is also doing great. He is a fast crawler now, and he is pulling up on everything! He can let go now when he is standing and keep his balance. That new talent allows him to get into all kinds of trouble. He can get into the markers on Luke's easel, the tissue on the side table, the toilet paper, the toilet water, etc. He can also pull things down on his head. Micah will meet with his physical therapist on Wed. morning and will probably be exited from the program.

He is being a super eater too! He eats a lot of "big people" food, but his favorites are oatmeal, toast with jam, bananas, and pulled pork. When I made the pork I found out that Micah is a fan of meat! I made the pork in the crock pot, and that made it perfect for him because it was very tender. Micah being a good eater is a great blessing for our family because it helps motivate Luke to try new things when he sees Micah do it.

Micah has had some big adjustments the past few weeks. I'm trying to move in the direction of weaning him. The biggest change so far is that I've stopped nursing him to sleep. I feed him 1/2 hour earlier than normal and then lay him down when he's still awake. He cries for a little bit, but then he goes to sleep on his own. He's also had a few nights when he had to tough it out and cry for a bit in the middle of the night. I think at 11 months he can make it at least 9 hours! Luckily he doesn't seem to hold it against me. He's always happy to see me in the morning. What a great, forgiving, and tough little guy!

I love my boys!!!

Little Cowboys

2011-09-01T07:48:00.017-04:00

We finally took the cowboy pictures for the boys' room. None of the pictures with both the boys turned out well-- we could not get them to look at the same time! But I LOVED so many of the individual shots. I probably should have narrowed them down a bit more, but I didn't. So here they are!

Our Hurricane Weekend

2011-08-31T07:16:00.006-04:00

The effects of Hurricane Irene started Friday night-- just a lot of rain that continued all day Saturday. I was expecting to lose power, probably for a few days. So I had started prepping earlier in the week and making an inventory of what needed to be used up. I didn't do a lot of cooking, trying to get rid of all the left overs. On Saturday morning I cooked the rest of the chicken from the freezer, and it was good that I did. The wind started picking up late Saturday morning. We lost power on Saturday right after lunch time and didn't get it back until Monday night around 6 pm making it about 53 hours without power.

Here are some of the things we did on Saturday to pass the time:

Our friends the Taylors live in our same complex, so they came to spend the day. The boys did some coloring. (You can see the rain, rain, rain on the window).

Luke acted out sleeping beauty-- he was the prince. Patrick didn't like that game.

Just kidding. Luke just has this weird thing about smelling people.

Jared and Patrick played all kinds of balance/wrestling/hand games. I think they were the most bored of all. They even braved the storm before it got too bad because Patrick just had to have pizza for dinner.

Luke and Caleb played lots and lots of games together. I'm glad we had friends to pass the time with.
It really started picking up early in the evening and we decided to make it a sleep over, so the Taylors stayed the night and the adults got to play games for the first time since Micah was born and probably even before. It was so nice! Too bad we wasted it on a hand of Skip-bo thatwould not end! Our apartment got a little bit of damage, but nothing severe. We had a leak on one spot of the roof I guess because there was some water pooling on the kitchen ceiling that started to drip. Now there is a big, ugly stain there. But that's nothing to really complain about. I'm so thankful that we were all safe.

It didn't look too scary outside expect for one tree that thrashed around and swayed like crazy. Judging from right outside our windows we didn't think there was much damage at all. But Sunday morning we went for a little walk and saw lots of trees and branches that had fallen. There were places on some of the buildings were siding had torn off. So there was more than we had expected.

Overall having no electricity turned out to be a fun adventure and the cause of a lot more family time than normal. It was awesome! We drove to the beach to play and look around. We went to the tennis courts to let Luke ride his bike a few times. We went for a walk. We hung out at home and played games. We cooked together on the camp stove. And one night Jared and I read together by candlelight and just held hands for awhile. I loved it!

My only regret is that (ONCE AGAIN!) I didn't take pictures when I should have. When will I ever learn?

Yuck!

2011-08-23T21:48:00.003-04:00

The bad part about Luke being practically potty trained is that we can't keep the child locks on the bathroom doors anymore-- Luke needs to get in there in a hurry. And he isn't always good about closing the door when he's done. Or flushing.

Today Micah discovered how fun it is to splash in the toilet. With yellow water.

Yuck! And scrub down!

Luke Quotes

2011-08-23T15:32:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we were at Trader Joe's, and Luke was carrying a bag of Rice Chex and snacking. When we got to the checkout the cashier asked him, "What've you got?" Luke looked right at him and answered, "I got pants." Then he pulled on his shorts and clarified, "These are my pants."

Today we met up with my friend Stacy and her kids to swim at the Y. Luke was pretty excited about swimming. He said, "Luke swims like a fish." I asked him if Tucker swam like a fish. He told me, "Tucker swims like a frog."

On Sunday we were checking out the air conditioners after church (like always!). Luke was looking at the biggest-- it's his favorite. When I told him it was time to go he said, "He wants to see the medium one!" and then, "He likes the small one!" I hadn't even noticed but sure enough there were three air conditioners lined up in a row: small, medium, and large. How smart for Luke to label them like that!

Papa

2011-08-22T10:03:00.004-04:00

My dad flew back to Virginia with us when the boys and I returned a few weeks ago because there was no way I was going to make it through security or the flight on my own. I was so glad he was willing to help!

We got to do a few fun things with Papa. Of course I didn't bring my camera to any of it. We went to Jamestown beach where Luke "swam like a fish" and to Yankee Candle and Jamestown Settlement. It was a fun short visit, and we look forward to having Mima and Papa visit us one last time when Jared graduates next May.

And now I think I'm finally caught up from the summer.

Magic Moments

2011-08-16T10:15:00.002-04:00

Today, for the first time, Luke gave me a big BIG hug and without any prompting said, "I love you!" I gave him a big hug back and as my eyes filled up with tears I was about to give into my gushy happiness...

when Luke looked up at me again, grinned, and said "Boob."

Well, at least there was magic for a moment.

Undie Jams

2011-08-15T11:32:00.001-04:00

Master Crawler

2011-08-15T11:31:00.003-04:00

Micah became a master crawler about 2 weeks before we came back to Virginia. It was right about his 10 month mark. I think we have a physical therapy GRADUATE.

Mikey's House

2011-08-13T16:06:00.008-04:00

We visited Mikey and Cara's new house the weekend of our long San Antonio trip.

Jared had a concert with his firm on Friday night, and I wanted to have a bit more time with Cara and Michael since I knew that this would be our only time to visit before we all headed back to Virginia.

The boys and I played at the house on Friday while Michael and Cara were at work. Early that morning they had dropped Doc (their Weenie dog) off at the vet to get fixed. Mikey had left me the truck just in case we wanted/needed to go someplace. I told him that I'd be way too scared to drive it anyway. And as it turned out Cara had to work late and Michael needed to get Doc before the office closed. So I had to drive his HUGE truck to downtown Austin. I was so brave! And as it turns out, I really like driving big trucks!

Luke spent the best part of Friday and Saturday running back and forth between the air conditioner and the swing. During the other part of his day he stole Cara's blow dryer and played with ceiling fans. Luke LOVES Mikey. If Mikey was home I was not wanted/needed. When I asked if he wanted to swing with me he'd say, "Want just Mikey."

Micah enjoyed having more space to crawl around in.

Saturday morning Michael did some yard work, and Luke liked watching him. He loved blowing the leaves. I think he did this for 40 minutes straight.

Around lunch time Jared got to Mikey's house and we went out to lunch at Mimi's Cafe. This picture is Micahel and his wife Cara with Micah. My favorite part of the weekend was getting to know Cara better. The first time I met her was at their wedding, and of course I didn't get a lot of time to talk to her then. We got to talk more at my dad's retirement party and then at their house. I wish I'd had more time. Hopefully when we end up in Texas Cara and I will have a lot more time to chat and play (and shop!). She's a cool girl!

Thanks for letting us visit!

Week in San Antonio

2011-08-10T10:38:00.024-04:00

The week after my birthday the boys and I went back to San Antonio with Jared so that we could spend a week together and so that I could get a better feel of the city. I was nervous about the trip because Jared was staying in a very small pool house in the Heiner's backyard and because I am terrified of driving anyplace I am not familiar with.

This is the pool house where Jared was staying. It was nice but small. It was almost like a studio. This room served as the bedroom/ living area. There was a small bathroom and teeny kitchen downstairs.

A lot of things made the trip worth it, but the best thing of all was seeing how excited the boys were to see their dad.

On Monday the boys and I mostly hung around the pool house other than a little bit of shopping. Being at home wasn't as bad as I had anticipated because Mr. and Mrs. Heiner allowed us to use their yard, so we spent a lot of time playing on their swing set. Mrs. Heiner also let Luke come into her house and even offered to watch them for me while I took a shower. Luke loved it because they have a giant Great Dane named Max, a little pink stereo on their fireplace hearth, and lots and lots of ceiling fans. That evening we picked Jared up from work and went to dinner and the laundromat. Luke liked ceiling "the lots and lots of washing machines."

I can't remember what the boys and I did Tuesday afternoon, but we did something fun and that night we went to Taco Cabana for dinner.

In this picture you can't see Jared pacing back and forth outside while talking on his cell phone but that is what he did the entire time we were at dinner. It was an important call for his calling at church, but I was still frustrated because meanwhile Micah started to cry and Luke pooped his pull-up and tried to strip down buck naked in the middle of the restaurant. I was dealing with Micah and Luke had been outside following Jared around, so I didn't realize what he was doing until I noticed a group of guys at the table kiddie corner from us all stopped with mouths gaping open. I turned to see what they were looking at and there was Luke with his shoes and socks off and his pants half-way down. So I had to take him into the very dirty bathroom and try to change him one handed while I held a squirming baby in the other hand. So that was not the best day.

But luckily Wednesday was much better. The boys and I went to the Children's Museum in downtown San Antonio. I was so brave. I just plugged the address into the GPS, drove all the way downtown, parked in Jared's parking garage and walked us over to the museum. Both the boys had a blast!

There was a big trolley in the entrance of the museum that Luke went back to "drive" several times.

Luke's favorite part was the ball exhibit. He put the ball down a hole and the ball would shoot through pipes up in the air.

Micah liked crawling around and chasing the balls, so spent the most amount of time in this exhibit.

We saw some fish.

and a giant night-bright.

Luke drove Micah in a train.

There was bubble exhibit, and airplane exhibit, a telephone exhibit, a bank exhibit, and then a mini grocery store where kids could shop and scan their groceries.

Luke had so much fun! Several weeks later he still talks about the "nuseum."

Later that evening we went to the River Walk. Both the boys enjoyed looking at the water and seeing the lights and fans in the restaurants.

We went on a little boat tour around the River Walk. Luke still talks about things he saw on the tour: ducks, birds, water, fans, people singing (a Mariachi band).

It was good to have the week with Jared.

The Big 3-0!

2011-08-07T09:59:00.004-04:00

I turned 30 this July and was able to spend my birthday with many of my very favorite people eating my very favorite things. Jared came to Houston on the morning of my birthday, and we all went out to lunch at Los Cucos-- the BEST Tex-mex in the world! And later that evening Jennifer and Mom H. threw me an awesome birthday bash complete with balloons, flowers, and my favorite Mom H. cuisine-- chicken spaghetti and "healthy" bars. Yum! I was so glad to be with my family-- by birth, marriage, and adoption!

Me and Mom H

My bestest friend Jennifer and I

Cathyi Watkins was my young women's leader when I was younger and I have been so blessed to stay in contact with her. I was so glad she came!

My parents!

My love!

MICAH!

The hightlights for Micah were trying chocolate cake for the first time and stealing Annabelle's bone.

LUKE!

As anyone who has partied with Luke will know, a party isn't a party until he takes his clothes off. Luke has stripped down to his diaper in too many places to list this summer as he still can't handle a spill. Luke's highlights were the fans-- any fan! and watching Annabelle do her tricks. His favorite part is yet to come... (Are you salivating with anticipation?)

Dad H

AMBER!!! (How did you not make it into any pictures?)

Ode to this chocolate fudge cake-- words can hardly describe :)

The final highlight!

Jennifer's boyfriend, Victor, drives a red BMW convertible. He was kind enough to let Luke drive it. Luke was pretty much in heaven. The only thing that could have made it better for him was if he'd been given the keys.

Overall I was spoiled rotten and went home full and happy. I am so, SO lucky to love and be loved by so many wonderful people. (And to all my siblings-- "I wish we could've hung out. It was my birthday.") And I was also lucky to have an entire cheesecake waiting for the next day. That is another ode all in itself.

Games and Hair

2011-08-06T16:04:00.004-04:00

My mom taught preschool for years and years and has a stockpile upstairs of the neatest games for preschool aged kids and younger. Luke had so much fun playing these super educational games that incorporated a lot of the skills he is working on in Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy like pinching, matching, and sorting. She helped me make my own sets of the games to bring home.

This game is really easy to make-- just cut out a big circle and use a protractor to create 10 equal sections. Draw a color in each of the 10 sections. Then color the end of 10 clothespins with the corresponding colors. The child then matches the clothespin to the wheel and clips on the clothespin by its match. We made a number wheel as well.

Amber was a beautiful model. Take note of her super cute haircut. Right after our trip to San Antonio we were feeling brave and both chopped our hair. She loved hers, and I hated mine. It was the first time I ever cried after getting a hair cut. When I came home in tears my mom and my friend Jennifer talked me into going back and having the parts of my hair fixed that I really hated. They fixed up my bangs and raised the back a little, so the second go-round dried up my tears. I still don't love my hair, but at least I won't be wearing hats every day.

(Pictures of my hair are coming)

Katy, Texas

2011-08-06T15:26:00.010-04:00

My cousin Emily lives in Katy, Texas about 20 minutes distance from my parent's home. So while I was in Houston over the summer I was lucky enough to get to visit her with my sister Amber and the boys. We had a good long chat and got to catch up-- there was a lot of catching up to do because as most of you will be well aware I'm not very good at keeping in touch with people. Once again I didn't take pictures of the most important people or events (in this case Emily and her two boys), but I did nab a picture of Luke and Amber on the trampoline because it was so new and novel. Luke used to freak out when we put him on a trampoline, but he had a blast this time.

So as a side note, I want to throw out an update on Luke. He is doing just awesome! Since starting a zinc supplement, just as his doctor predicted, he is accepting a lot of new foods. He will now eat Ian's chicken nuggets, deli ham, grilled chicken, sausage links, real banana bites, and real apple bites. In order to eat the fruit there is some bribery involved, but he does it! He will also eat Chex now and has had Rice Crispies a few times. He is answering more and more questions every day, and it is fun to have the beginnings of "real" conversations with him. He walked on the beach-- BAREFOOT!!!, swam in the pool even getting his hair wet, took a REAL shower, and just generally touched lots of new textures. We are so excited about his big, big progress!

Emily lives right by Katy Mills Mall where there is a Rainforest Cafe. We had taken Luke there 2 years ago (the last time we were in Texas for the Summer), and he loved it. So I was excited to bring him back and watch his reaction.

He was excited from the get-go, even trying to swim in the "river."

The restaurant was very accommodating of Luke's special diet. The chef came out and talked to us and made a special order of French Fries (just cooked in new oil that didn't have any Gluten in it) just for him. I was so impressed! The hardest part of Luke's diet is trying to eat out. I also ordered Luke a special monkey icee. He loves blue icees from Target, but he would not drink from the monkey cup and stole Amber's Sprite instead. Luckily Amber was down with an icee.

Luke loved looking at all the animals.

But the elephant...

and the fish were his favorites.

Micah was there too, but he slept the whole time, so sorry! no pictures of Cutie Jr.

San Antonio (Trip #1)

2011-08-05T16:21:00.012-04:00

On July 7 my parents, the boys, and I went up to San Antonio to visit Jared. Jared had a dinner party for work that night that he wanted me to attend, so we brought baby-sitters. It was a pretty fun dinner, but afterwards I told Jared that I just didn't know how to answer the question, "So what do you do?" because I don't want to say that I just stay home. What I do is hard, valid work. Plus I want to express how much I LOVE being with my boys. Jared told me that in the future I should answer that I get to take care of my boys full time. I like that-- that is definitely my answer. I get to take care of my boys full time.

The next day (on Friday) we had to keep ourselves entertained while Jared was at work. We went to the San Antonio zoo in the morning.

We went to the zoo in Houston 2 years ago, and Luke wasn't that into it. This time he loved looking at the animals (almost as much as he liked looking at the ceiling fans!)

After we saw all the most important animals, Luke and I rode the train. Afterwards we keep talking about the "very loud tunnel" that we rode through.

Later that afternoon, after naps, we found a Chuck E. Cheese and played for a while. Luke has DEFINITELY become a fan of Chuck E. Cheese!

Later that night we had a "Mormon" dinner with the members at the firm. It was a nice evening getting to know some people. And here I didn't have to feel awkward about anything because when I got questions like "What do you like to do?," I could talk about reading Shannon Hale books and other people had read them too. Everyone was very nice. And it made San Antonio seem pretty appealing.

On Saturday we met up with my sister Amber who was finishing a week as an EFY counselor. We ate at Chick fil' A where Luke spilled juice on himself and had to strip down to his diaper. So then we went to Wal-mart to get a new outfit. We tried out the Kiddie Park, went swimming, made an unexpected pit stop at Jack in the Box, and mostly had fun. I wish I'd taken more pictures because we went there to see Jared and came back with zero pictures of Jared.

But it was a great weekend (minus getting stuck in traffic for 2 hours on the way home!)

Houston

2011-07-12T11:10:00.007-04:00

The boys and I came to Houston to be with my parents so that we can see Jared on the weekends. While I am great at bringing my camera places, I'm terrible at taking it out of the cases and actually shooting a few pictures. So sadly I have very few pictures of our visit here. But here are a few:

Luke liked watching Casey from the very beginning but wanted to stay on his side of the gate. After our first week here, Michael and Cara came to Houston for my dad's retirement lunch/party and brought their Weenie dog, Doc. Luke warmed up to Doc, though strange as it may be he was willing to kiss the dog and rub the dog with his face a lot sooner than he would try touching and petting Doc. But after Doc went home Luke became a lot more confident with Casey. He follows her around getting just close enough for Casey's tail to hit his tummy. He thinks it is so funny! He also likes to feed (and overfeed) Casey.

Luke loves all the radios at Mimas house and the many, many ceiling fans and light switches. And he has really warmed up to water. Mima, Amber, me and the boys went to the splash pad, and Luke even put his head in the water. Truthfully, he had a hat on when he put his head in the water, but it was still a big step! And afterwards he put his back and legs into the water. So the next day we took him to the swimming pool. He threw a fit about it and said he didn't want to go, but as soon as we got there he jumped right in, swam around, floated, put his ear in the water, crawled like an alligator, and has been asking to go back. So we have been a few times now.

Luke has had so much fun playing with Mima. She has so, so many great games for him! That is the benefit of having a mother who majored in Child Development and taught preschool for years and years. Luke has done matching games and other games that work great with his occupational therapy. One of his favorite games is "Silly Bubbles." My mom put just a little bit of dish soap into some water and gave Luke a straw. He had so much fun!

Luke also loves playing the piano with Mima.

Luke loves, LOVES it when he gets to see Dada. The first time Jared came down Luke had to show him his pee pee in the potty every time he went, and he climbed on Jared and begged to be thrown around. After Jared left for San Antonio, Luke kept saying, "Luke go to San Antonio!" I am kicking myself for not taking any pictures with Jared! And this past weekend we did go up to San Antonio and spent lots of time with Dada, but dum-dum Mama didn't take any pictures with Dada once again! This weekend I'll take a ton!

Micah loves having lots and lots of attention. He would probably prefer not to have so many coaches and amateur therapists around, but with all the extra intervention he has made some big steps in his development. He is starting more solid foods. He loves Cheerios! And he is drinking out of juice boxes, so he is becoming a pro with straws. He never would take a bottle and wasn't coordinated with a sippy cup, so this is the route we have gone. He also started army crawling (to get those Cheerios!) and can get into a sitting position on his own.

Micah is also so excited when we get to see Dada. He will grin, grab at glasses, and giggle. (Nice alliteration there!)

And I am the happiest of all to see Jared! Six weeks apart was way too long, and these weekdays in between our visits are too long as well.

Heavy Balls

2011-07-12T11:01:00.006-04:00

Right before leaving Virginia, my mom and I took Luke bowling. We thought that given his love for spinning things he would like seeing the ball spin down the alley. Throw in things getting knocked over and a heavy ball and he should be in heaven.

Seeing the ball come back seemed to be his favorite part, but he also liked picking up the "heavy ball" and carrying it to the ramp.

He lost interest after awhile and only wanted to look at the ceiling fans. So when I ask him about bowling, he always responds, "Was there a ceiling fan at the heavy balls?"

So while bowling was fun, I don't think it will be a weekly event. We can look at ceiling fans for free.

My Boys, My Boys, My Boys

2011-06-22T13:29:00.005-04:00

We are so proud of our boys!

Luke: Luke has made so much progress in a lot of areas. But his 2 biggest areas of progress this past week are with eating and potty training. Luke has gone from refusing any kind of meat at all to taking baby bites of grilled chicken, deli turkey, and deli ham. Last night at dinner I was coaxing Luke to take a bite of grilled turkey and he said, "I want the ham." I handed him a slice, and he ate the whole thing! My mom and I just stared at each other like, "Is this real?" In addition, Luke is consistently wearing his big boy underwear without any accidents. He even likes to use the toilet at new places now (friends houses, church, therapy office). Once he decided he liked the toilet, he has pretty much trained himself. We couldn't be prouder of his progress!

Micah: Micah is also making a lot of progress. He is sitting on his own now to the point that I can walk out of the room for a minute and not worry about him falling over. He can reach for toys on the sides (bend down and steady himself to straighten back up). He is using his pincer grasp like a champ. He rolls from back to tummy pretty much every time I lay him down on his back. I even sometimes find that's he's rolled onto his tummy while he's sleeping. We met with his physical therapist again yesterday (the 21st) and she was very impressed by his progress as well. Our next assignment is to give him tummy time everyday with the express purpose to help him shift weight onto one arm and reach with the other as well as pivot his hips from side to side while he is on his tummy. He doesn't like to do it. Right now he keeps both hands down on the floor or raises both to the side in a Superman position, but I bet he'll get the idea of what he needs to do very quickly.

Having two boys who need a little extra help makes each step of progression feel like a miracle. I cry with happiness every few days over our little victories. It is definitely true that struggling makes one more aware of God's hand in one's life and his overwhelming presence and love.

2-Year-Old Class Graduate

2011-06-22T13:13:00.006-04:00

Last Friday (the 17th) was Luke's last day of school for this school year. He went to school for a little less than 3 months, but he made a lot of progress during that time. He especially made big jumps with his socialization and ability to transition after he started the GF/CF diet.

This is Luke with his teacher, Miss Alicia. She is such a good teacher: so patient, kind, and loving. I'm glad that Luke could be in her class.

We went to visit Luke's school last Thursday so that my mom could see Luke at school, see the classroom, and meet the teachers. It was an early release day, so school was only an hour and a half long. This meant that the kids ate breakfast, played outside, and then went to the bus. Very short and sweet. But we had a good time playing with and watching Luke on the playground.

We hope that next year Luke has teachers just as wonderful as he did this year.

Home Therapy

2011-06-18T07:30:00.007-04:00

Each week we get "homework" from Luke's therapists. I try to do as many activities as I can. Some of things we do are jump on the air mattress, carry heavy things around the house, play direction games, speech cards, threading beads, playing play dough, drawing on Luke's easel, and playing in shaving cream. Most of the time, we have a lot of fun.

But some days disaster strikes.

Luke tried to put his ear on the shaving cream, and discovered he didn't like it at all. Well, Luke, I guess you live and learn.

Preschool Fun Day

2011-06-12T14:22:00.010-04:00

Since this upcoming week will busy and since the last 2 days are half-days (which in pre-k means the kids only go to school for an hour and a half) the preschool celebration was last week. They had an outside fun day with activities and centers set up so the kids could wander and play at will. Afterwards Ms. Alicia had made a slideshow of pictures from the school year.

I was late getting to the outside party because I wanted Micah to get a good morning nap. I got there in time to push Luke in the swing for a little bit.

Luke had a good time watching the slide show. But the best thing of all was the present of a CD with the pictures on it. Luke was happy to just open and close the CD case.

We had lunch together.

Journal time after lunch

Center time-- playing with A.

Making a teddy bear with Mrs. K

Luke has enjoyed his pre-school experience so far. He is lucky to have 3 very patient and loving teachers and access to wonderful services and resources.

The Butterfly Exhibit

2011-06-11T13:23:00.013-04:00

My "Poor-me!-my-husband-will-be-gone" present to myself was a new pass to the Virginia Living Museum. I had one the first year we lived here, and I loved it! I've wanted one for awhile because it is so fun to go with friends. I bought it in May, and we have been quite a few times already. Last week we were able to go with my friend Rachelle and her two (almost three!) kids. This week, on Thursday, we met up with my friend Stacy and her son Tucker.

It was a rough beginning-- Luke spilled his drink all over himself in the car. Luckily I had a spare outfit for him! We got some funny looks as I pushed him into the museum without his shirt on, but we went right into the bathroom and got him cleaned up and dressed. Right as I finished dealing with Luke, Micah wanted to eat and poop. But we were finally ready to go play!

Luke had so much fun playing with Tucker. He was (as always) a bit of a jumper from thing to thing. But he did focus on a few of the animals.

Looking at a snake

We'd never seen this before!

Riding the Frog

Waiting so patiently

Climbing the log

Because it was so hot, we decided to skip the outside exhibits and took a gamble going to see the rotating exhibit at the museum. Right now it is a big exhibit on butterflies. It was great! So, so kid friendly. We played in there for almost an hour. The boys had a blast! And Luke was very engaged and exited. It was perfect for everyone because since he was so into everything I got to talk to my friend Stacy instead of running after Luke. Even Micah got out of the stroller to have a good time.

Luke can't wait to show Mima the butterflies!

Therapy and Progress

2011-06-09T18:13:00.002-04:00

Micah met with the physical therapist from CDR last Friday. She was very helpful and taught me some easy exercises to do with him every day. Somehow (I HONESTLY can't figure out how I'm balancing so much!) I have done the exercises with Micah every day, and he is making some fast progress. Yesterday he rolled from back to belly all by himself! For the very first time! He did again today, so hopefully it is sticking. He is also balancing so that he can play with toys to the side, and he is propping up on the palms of his hands for a few seconds.

All on his own he is figuring out the pincer grasp, and he is so very proud of himself when he gets a puff into his mouth. Eating is one of his favorite things to do!

Diet Changes

2011-06-02T07:20:00.005-04:00

I have been doing a lot of reading and talking to people and encountered almost daily the advice to try a Gluten free/ Casein free diet to help everything from severe Autism to ADHD. I read that a lot of children with sensory integration issues have digestive problems (which Luke seemed to be experiencing) and that Gluten and Casein seemed to be extra difficult for these children to digest due to damage in the intestinal tract.

Then, about 2 months ago (since Luke has started speaking more) Luke started telling me almost daily that his tummy was hurting. So I was thinking about trying this diet but was scared to start because Luke eats so few things. He was basically eating pureed baby food, bread, and milk. But I finally decided that we needed to bite the bullet and make some changes to see if it worked to help him.

Luke has been off of milk for 2 weeks and gluten (wheat and oats) for 1 week. So far he has stopped complaining that his tummy hurts, his chronic runny stools have cleared up, he is sleeping better at night, AND he has made leaps and jumps in his development. He is focusing better, and has made a big increase in the number of verbs he is using and in the complexity of his sentences. We've gotten great reports from school and from his therapists and are so glad we tried this.

His progress makes the challenges of this diet completely worth it.

(And as an added benefit, I've lost 3 pounds!)

Saying Good-bye

2011-05-30T14:01:00.006-04:00

We are so, so sad that the Sorrells are gone! They were great to hang out with because I loved Nancy, Jared liked (can't say love for a guy, I guess) Justin, and Luke LOVED Hazel. He would be playing with a toy and stop and say, "Show Hazel," even when Hazel wasn't here.

So the weekend of graduation we packed in as much of the Sorrells as we could get. This is Luke and Hazel's last play date:

On Sunday morning the boys and I went over to their house for breakfast so we could see them one last time and say good-bye.

Good luck in Florida! We miss you!

Toofers and Teetering

2011-05-30T13:49:00.003-04:00

Micah's second tooth is well out of the skin now, and he is glad to have the worst part over with. He has been much happier the past few days. Micah is doing better with solids, but his favorite part of eating is still spitting the food all over Mama.

Micah is doing much, much better sitting up on his own. The picture is blurry because I was trying to hurry. I never know when he's going to topple. Sometimes he'll sit on his own for 5 minutes or more! But he still hasn't figured out how to catch himself with his hands, so if he bends too far reaching for a toy... TIMBER!

And a quick update on Micah's evaluation: We met with a physical therapist and speech therapist from Child Development Resources about 2 weeks ago. Micah has about a 2 month delay in his gross motor skills, so he does qualify for services. He will see a physical therapist at our home twice a month to work on rolling from back to tummy and putting pressure on the palms of his hands. We hope his stint into therapy will be short lived, but we are so glad to have so many wonderful resources available to us.

More Firsts

2011-05-23T21:34:00.006-04:00

Micah cut his first tooth last week. In this picture, it had just broken through the skin. The way the picture turned out, you probably can't see it at all. But I was trying to show you all the same.

Today his second tooth just barely poked through the skin.

Also today Micah accomplished the big first of getting a Gerber Puff in his mouth all by himself! He looked so proud!

Last Friday was a big first in Luke's life: His first school field trip. He has been learning about farms and animals at school, and his class went to Colonial Williamsburg to look for animals. Most of the animals were hiding, but they did get to see some horses and some sheep. I was surprised by how well behaved Luke was walking with his class. Apparently he's only crazy when I'm around. What does that mean about what kind of parent I am???

Walking with his class, holding the rope

Looking at the sheep (with Max)

Checking out the horses

It was fun to meet up with his class and to see Luke so grown up in big-boy school. I can tell that he likes his teachers and his classmates, although he definitely stayed apart a little bit more than the others, as you can tell in the picture with the horses.

Luke had a big first today at his occupational therapy. He loves Miss JoAnn's stereo. She is the receptionist at his therapy office and is a real trooper about letting Luke climb up on her desk to check out her stereo and CDs when he's done with his session. I've been telling him since last Wed. that if he wants to see Miss JoAnn's stereo he has to ride the scooter on his belly to get to it. And today he did it! Miss Cronin had never gotten him to do it before, and today he just climbed right on! I teared right up as I watched him drag himself over to the stereo. Progress! Sweet, sweet progress!

Why my cousin should come to William and Mary

2011-05-19T12:44:00.008-04:00

Dear Spencer, Sara, and Drew,

This is a post especially for you, just to convince you to come hang out with me. (Can you tell that I'm lonely with Jared gone?) Here are some of the reasons you should come to William and Mary:

1. You would get to hang out with your really, REALLY cool cousin and her awesome family.

2. I would investigate all your housing options for you and make sure you get a good place to live.

3. Jared would share all of his study materials and outlines with you-- he has a lot. A LOT!

4. No matter which ward you ended up in, you would be in a GREAT ward. (But you should be in ours!)

Here are just a few examples: Women I hadn't even met volunteered to help with Luke and bring me dinner while I was pregnant with Micah. A nice lady in our ward has adopted me while Jared is gone and has volunteered to help me go to the park, etc. On Sunday Luke pitched a HUGE fit in the pouring rain because he wanted to look at the air conditioners, so I ended up ditching the diaper and church bags so that I could carry Micah and Luke (who was kicking and screaming) to the car. One of the priests saw my struggle and ran through the rain to bring me my bags.

5. We have made such great friends here! You will too. I've already met 2 of the couples who are coming next year, and they are both really cool.

Just a few of some great people you'd get to meet!

(All but one of the girls in our year had a baby over the past school year)

6. You get to hang out at Colonial Williamsburg all the time for just $10 a year. It is the most beautiful place!

7. You will be close to the beach.

8. Trader Joe's-- you probably won't understand that one, but it is an awesome grocery store.

9. History! History! History!

10. You have a scholarship! Did I mention SCHOLARSHIP?!!!

11. Canoeing at Wallermill park

12. Busch Gardens (I've actually never been, but I hear it's rad)

13. You have everything you could ever need (Wal-mart, Target, kickin' outlet mall), but still get a small town feel

14. People here are so nice! Perfect strangers are completely happy to hold my baby for me while I go to the bathroom (I don't do that a lot)

15. The YMCA is income based, so even poor people can have a gym membership :)

If you need more reasons, give me a call. I will do my best to convince you!

Milestones

2011-05-17T06:55:00.001-04:00

Here are a few videos from recent milestones in our kiddos lives. Micah actually started solids awhile ago, and this first video is from the first part of April. He's gotten a lot better at keeping the food in his mouth by now.

Luke said his first prayer in primary on May 1. I was on my way back from Utah, so I missed it. I snuck my friend Nancy the video camera so that I could see it. I say see because no one could hear a thing. I think the first prayer/talk/scripture in primary is a big milestone.

And this Sunday (May 15) Luke learned how to string beads! This is one of the skills he is working on in occupational therapy, and he finally figured it out. I am so proud of him! He is a master of using scissors and can string beads. Now he just has to figure out buttons...

Division of Labor

2011-05-14T16:54:00.002-04:00

Over the years, especially over the last 3 years while Jared has been at William and Mary and I have been at home, we have fallen into a very predictable division of labor. Basically if it has to do with buttons or screwdrivers it falls on Jared, and I don't touch it. If it has to do with cleaning, feeding, or buying it is my domain.

That works fine when we're together, but now that Jared is in Texas we've both hit some roadblocks. First of all whenever the phone goes out (which happens waaaay too often) Jared always fixes it. It hasn't gone out yet, but it inevitably will. So I hope all of you out there who call me have my Trakfone number for when the time comes. Secondly, I don't touch computers except to do my blogging, email, and writing. I can't upload pictures to Facebook. I don't change the ink in the printer. And if it is any kind of new program or formatting I get Jared to do it. But I'm having to step into his shoes just a little to touch the buttons. Yesterday I had to call Jared 3 times before I finally figured out how to change the ink in the printer. I'm waiting for his call to figure out how to download and print about 60 cover letters from Googledocs. Grrr.

Meanwhile Jared will be going to work on Monday with some poorly ironed shirts and a belly full of Lean Pockets.

I think we need each other.

A Few Favorite Family Pictures

2011-05-13T14:28:00.007-04:00

A big, big thank you to the Howells for taking family pictures for us before Jared took off for Texas. We finally have pictures with Micah! Oh, what a happy family!

First Comes Love

2011-05-04T11:44:00.016-04:00

Then comes marriage. My brother Michael's marriage.

Micah and I flew out to Utah last Friday to be at my brother's wedding on Saturday. It was a quick trip; I wish it could have been longer! But here are a few highlights:

The wedding, of course, was the biggest part of our trip. It was wonderful to be in the temple with Michael and all my family. I didn't meet Cara until I got to congratulate the couple in the sealing room. That was too bad because she seems really, really cool. I'm glad we'll get to spend time with her over the summer and get to know her better then. The sealing took place on Saturday afternoon, and the reception was later that evening. We had quite a bit of time to be in the temple grounds during pictures. It was beautiful, but COLD! It actually snowed on Friday.

My brother Eric and Aunt Liz

Eric's wife, Monica (L.) and my sister Megan (R.)

My nieces Brenna and Taylie

It was so exciting to see Michael and Cara come out of the temple as husband and wife! This is them greeting all the family that were waiting outside.

Cara and her dad

Talking to one of the little people

I wish I took more pictures while we were hanging out outside instead of just shivering and chatting. There were a lot of people there! Michael's best friend from high school was his best man, and it was crazy to see Robert Cates again.

While Michael and Cara were taking more pictures, Nathan Amber and I went on some errands. We had lunch at some place (can't remember the name) with the best sweet potato fries ever and then went to Desert Book. Then Amber and I went to check out the church history museum until it was time for the reception.

Micah was so good the whole trip, and he laid on the charm for the reception. He had cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents just eating out of his hand.

Who could resist this?

Micah with Grandma and Pa King

Micah thought Brandon and Ryan were hilarious!

The handsome groom

Chatting with my sister Amber and my cousins, Amy and Laura

Soaking up Mima and Papa

One of my best friends from college came to the reception so that I could see her. Thanks for coming, Tessa! I wish I took a picture with her, but alas, Retrospect! As you can tell from this last picture that I dragged it out as long as possible trying to talk to everyone that I could. We were the last ones to leave. I love seeing my family and wish I could do it more often.

Congrats, Michael and Cara!

6 [7] Month Check-Up

2011-04-27T15:27:00.003-04:00

Micah didn't have his 6 month check-up until last Friday (at almost 7 months). He was sick at the time that his 6 month appointment was scheduled, so instead of getting immunizations he got a big old shot to clear up an ear infection.

But better late than never. Hear are his 7 month stats:

Height: 27 inches (56%)

Weight: 16 lb 10 oz (21%)

Head Circumference: 17.25 in (39%)

The doctor was a little bit concerned because his weight had gone down a little. I had asked her how much I should be pushing solids, and she told me to continue with rice cereal and fruit/veg once a day but to stick to breast feeding beyond that, since breast milk is more calorie rich, until his weight picks back up.

I asked about his late motor skills as well. She told me about an organization called CDR: Child Development Resources that have specialists who can come to our house and do an evaluation and teach me some exercises to do with Micah if need be. So we have an appointment set up for next Wednesday. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Isn't he just too cute for words???

Bath Time Giggles

2011-04-27T15:05:00.003-04:00

It Was a Hit!

2011-04-27T14:51:00.005-04:00

Shout out to Aunt Jenn, Grandma Debbi and Grandpa Terry!

Thanks for the great Easter package!

(Ignore my talking in the video. I'm supposed to be playing What is it doing? and What am I doing? and What are you doing? games with Luke all the time, so that's why I'm asking him those questions.)

My favorite was of course the horse basket. It looks great on the dresser! It is the cutest wipe/ desitin holder of all time. I looove it!

Can't wait to see you guys!

Easter Celebrations

2011-04-26T15:33:00.014-04:00

On Saturday (while most of the hubbies were studying) the mommies met at the park to have an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos. After playing for a bit a few moms hid the eggs on one of the play grounds while the rest of us kept the kids (mostly Luke) from running off.

They're off!

Luke took off running with everyone else and climbed right up onto the gym, so I thought he got the idea. But he ran right past all the eggs and went to the slide.

He got a little bit interested once I showed him the eggs had candy inside. He was really happy with this one-- M&Ms-- his favorite.

But then he found one with jelly beans. He took one bite, spit it out, and went back to the slide.

But he was happy, so if he preferred the slide to egg hunting, that was fine.

Here's a picture of all the kids who were there. There are a lot of law school kiddies. And not all of them were there either.

My dad always did an Easter jelly bean hunt for us kids. It was so fun! We would wait in the kitchen or outside while my dad hid jelly beans in the living room and dining room. It could have gone into more rooms, but I mostly remember crawling around under the dining room table. Afterwards we would sit in a big circle and trade to get the colors we liked best and divvy up the beans so that we had an equal amount. So this year I had a mini hunt for Luke. I hid the beans in his bedroom. There was no divvying up afterwards because Luke won't eat jelly beans, so he found them and Jared and I ate them. Yum!

He did try one or two before he decided that he really would rather just find them.

The Easter bunny did leave a few toys for the boys: Luke got a cookie sheet and shaving cream, shoelaces and beads. Micah got a new chew toy because I lost his favorite elephant and some new summertime onesies.

On Sunday evening we were luckily invited to join a friend's family feast. I had forgotten all about Easter dinner and had been planning on leftovers. So that good meal was greatly appreciated.

At the meal I realized that we hadn't done anything to celebrate the true reason for the holiday except have a short talk before church about why Easter was a special day. Next year I want to do much better and do an Easter eve program much like we do on Christmas Eve. We will read the resurrection story and find some way to act out/represent the empty tomb. I would like to get pictures of some of our ancestors and talk about how they will live again. I definitely want to make it more special and meaningful. After all Easter is really more monumental than Christmas and should be treated in a special way to remember why we celebrate.