Train

Luke seems to have a different favorite toy each week. Last week it was his train set.

He only likes the straight pieces. I think they're easier for him to link together. The thing is that in the Ikea set, there aren't very many straight ones. Luke doesn't seem to mind. He sets them up with the tunnel at the end. He puts the train at the top of the tunnel and says, "On mark, get set, Goooooo!" and then watches it run down the track and fall off onto the floor.

Oops. This picture is out of order. (Luke setting up the starting line)

"So funny!"

Easter

A few days before Easter, I felt a big improvement. In the mornings I felt relatively well and even made it to the grocery store for the first time. I was only lay down/ throw up sick for a few hours in the late afternoon and early evening.

We hadn't planned anything for Easter, but our apartment complex put on an egg hunt for the little kiddies, and we decided to take Luke.

Waiting for the hunt to start

Ready, Set, Go...

We were excited that Luke understood the hunt this year. He looked around for the eggs and knew that he was supposed to put the eggs in his bucket. Dada had to hold the bucket.

The eggs were gone pretty fast, and as soon as they were Luke was ready to move on to bigger and better things... like the A/C. If you were wondering, it was off. I'm positive of this because Luke told us at least 10 times.

Smelling the "popcorn" on the way home

Later that day Luke was playing with his eggs and he got one of them open. There were M&Ms inside. Luke LOVES M&Ms! After that he hurriedly opened the rest of his eggs looking for "siminininims."

Sunday was a rough day for me. Since we were home all day, I didn't take any drugs and apparently I still need them. So we didn't do any traditional Eastery things that day (like eat a big ham dinner). We watched conference though, and that's pretty Eastery. And Luke got a new Blue's Clues movie from the Easter Bunny.

But on Monday we dyed our Easter eggs after our FHE lesson. With Luke's help it took about one minute to dye all 12 eggs.

He hogged all the eggs.

Loading the cups

Admiring his handy work

And done!

The finished result. How beautiful.

Spring Break

My mom had originally just planned to come during her Spring Break from work, and my dad was going to join us for a few days. As you already know, my mom came for a lot longer. My dad came as planned, but unfortunately we didn't get to do all that we planned to do. Friends watched Luke a few times so they could go to Jamestown and Yorktown. Hopefully next time they come we can do the picnics at Wallermill, the day at CW, and everything else. My parents are such good sports though. They reassured me that they came to see my family more than Williamsburg and that they were happy with the trip. Whether or not that's really true I don't know, but I do know that Luke enjoyed their visit. He misses his Mima and Papa!

Update on Family Drama

I know I haven't blogged in over a month. Believe me, I DO have an excuse. At the end of January Jared and I found out that I was expecting. By week 5 I was feeling queasy and tired. By beginning of week six, I was having trouble doing simple things around the house and taking care of Luke. I had to start leaning on friends quite a bit. By the end of week six, I could barely sit up. By week 7 I was useless. Luckily we have a GREAT ward and WONDERFUL friends. My friend Keegan volunteered to set up a schedule to arrange for people to take care of Luke. Someone from church took Luke every morning and someone else took him every afternoon. I cannot express my gratitude. Often I cry because I feel so overwhelmed at the kindness that people have showered on us. I am so thankful. In general, I also just cry.

I have to send a very special thank you to my mom. She came to save us the end of February. I was 8 weeks, and I couldn't stand up without getting sick or blacking out. And on top of that, Luke got bronchitis. He couldn't be around other kids for 5 days which meant that I couldn't rely on friends, Jared was starting mid-terms and I was desperate. I called my mom, and she came to the rescue.

Luke fell in love with Mima. At times it was actually hard for me to watch. Since I was so incapacitated and spent almost all day in bed, Luke started to prefer Mima to me. In fact when my mom tried to give him to me to hold, he would cry and twist away. He stopped asking for me and to this day (almost a week after she left) Luke asks for Mima. But he's started coming to me again, and that makes me feel a little bit better. But my mom did more than take care of Luke. She did all the shopping and cleaning. Plus, she was my nurse. She brought me herbal tea in bed, food, ice, medicine, etc. She also entertained me by reading. (I didn't mention before that I have a difficult time reading because my head starts spinning and I start to feel really sick. For this reason and because I can't sit up for long periods of time, I haven't blogged and won't blog again for a while).

My mom ended up being Luke's nurse too. About two weeks after she arrived, his cough came back. Mom took him to the doctor where he was diagnosed with pneumonia, an ear infection, and an infection on his big toe as well. He was put on an antibiotic and told to come back in a week. The next week we were told that while his one lung was a little better, it had spread to the other. Luke was given a nebulizer and had to do breathing treatments 3 times a day.

He hated it.

I guess Jared was feeling left out of all the drama, and he had to do something to get his own share of attention. He had a biking accident the Saturday before my parents left and hurt his right ankle. It was swollen and extremely painful. We spent 4 hours in the ER on Sat. night/ Sun. morning where we found out basically nothing because his foot was too swollen to get a good x-ray, but he got a lame boot out of the bargain.

After a few days of hopping and crawling he is now able to put some pressure on his ankle, but it still hurts him a lot and keeps him from exercising. For all we know it's broken.

And that's our drama. Next time I make it to the computer, I will blog about my dad's visit and our other adventures.

Thank you to everyone who is taking care of Luke this week. May God bless you for your service.

A Gift from Grandma Debbi and Grandpa Terry

Mom Herrera was so good to support Luke's cooking fetish by sending him velcro cuttable fruit and vegetables. They're a puzzle and food all in one. Luke doesn't quite get the puzzle part yet, but I suspect that he's too lazy to put them together himself rather than that he can't because he will put the peel on the orange. Thanks a lot Grandma Debbi and Grandpa Terry. Luke loves his new present.

More of Luke Talking

It's kind of hard to hear everything that he says, but he shows off quite a few of his vocabulary words in this video. As you can see, most of his talking is just telling what things he sees. He's really into labeling things. I suppose that's normal?

Snowed In

It started snowing on Friday night (all through the night). Saturday the snow continued. I don't know how much we got exactly, but it was probably around 6 inches. Jared had forgotten a few books at school, so he ventured out in the snow on Saturday morning. He said he slid once, and while I freaked out while he was telling his story he acted like he'd had a good time. Boys! Church was cancelled on Sunday due to the icy roads, and school opened late on Monday. I'm too big of a scaredy cat to do ANY kind of driving in ANY kind of ice or snow. But we didn't have much food in the house, and we really needed to get to the grocery store, so Jared came home from school between classes on Monday to run Luke and I to Wal-mart. Today will be my first time venturing out anywhere that I had to drive myself in 4 days. We're going to play group in a few hours.

Our tracks in the snow

I didn't take Luke out to see the snow until Monday. He had a cold all weekend, and I didn't want him falling down in the snow and making it worse. As it turns out, he wasn't very interested in the snow at all. He never tried to touch it or anything. He was, however, extremely happy to be outside after 2 days couped up in our apartment. AND he was very happy about the cold weather because it meant most of the units were running. He spent the whole time running from one unit...

to the next...

and the next...

and the next.

Building with Dad

I love watching my boys play together.

Best Buddies

A-Peetcher

Luke loves to color a-peetchers. We color several times a day. He also loves to draw with his sidewalk chalk, but as it has been raining and then snowing, we haven't been able to do that for over a week. Luke calls his coloring books, crayons, markers, and the finished product peetchers. He also calls the hand mixer a peetcher too. Not sure why, but it is starting to change. I would always say, Mmmm mixer. So now Luke says Mmmm pixer. But back to his coloring...

Luke stole Dada's highlighters.

He colored a picture.

And his face.

People Who Imitate Owls

This is Luke "reading" his Alphabatics book. His favorite page is the O page.