Saturday, January 8, 2011

the wonder place

Luke and I met up with a dear friend and her two awesome kiddos yesterday at the wonder place.  Luke and I have never been, and he had a great time, I know we'll have to make that a regular place to visit!  I think Luke's favorite part was the water table.












I have a video of Luke playing in the water, but blogger is being too slow for me to upload.  that or i'm too impatient.  details.



Friday, January 7, 2011

Christmas. In Pictures.

Christmas Eve.  We always have Christmas Eve with my side of the family.  It's always so much fun, and with a baby, it was even more crazy than usual!  Almost all of family was there (except for 2 cousins and their husbands) which meant about 28 people crammed into my parents living room.  Last year we had Christmas Eve dinner catered by Porterhouse (in Hot Springs) and it was so good, we did it again this year.  It takes a lot of the stress out of Christmas Eve so we can just enjoy each other!




(we had a wardrobe change into Luke's Christmas pajamas)

Christmas morning.  We came home Christmas Eve and celebrated Christmas morning alone as a family.  Luke could have cared less about opening gifts.  He was more interested in eating pancakes and his bottle.  I think he was just still so tired from the party the previous night.





After we opened gifts and had breakfast at home, we packed up and headed to NWA to celebrate with Chris' side of the family.  We got up there around noon and as soon as we came out on the north side of the 540 tunnel, we were greeted with snow flurries.  We had a wonderful time visiting, but were so tired by Sunday!

Luke's shirt says 'Arrrr we there yet?' :)




Poor Baxter was plum tuckered out, too!

Luke's first Christmas could not have been more exciting for us!  Like I said, Luke really liked the eating part of Christmas, but was not at all into opening gifts, he did however, enjoy crawling on top of them :).  I'm so glad we could spend Christmas with both sides of our family, but man oh man were we tired!  We've gotten all of the Christmas down and have organized Luke's toys as they were taking over the entire living room.  We really are so blessed to have such a sweet little boy and amazing family!

Monday, January 3, 2011

11 months

eleven months

one of my favorite things: he smiles so big his cheeks force his eyes close

Letter to Baby

Baby Yuke (aka Luke),

Well, I suppose this 11 month milestone couldn't come fast enough for you, but I still look at you and wonder how we came so far so fast.  We went from seeing you wrapped up in a NICU bed receiving light therapy for jaundice and monitors all over you to chasing you from room to room.  Phew!  We're exhausted!

Crawling is your main mode of transportation these days.  Last month you were army crawling, this month you've mastered the fine art of crawling on all fours.  And you're fast.  And when you get excited you stick your lips out and breathe in and out of your mouth like you're sucking your drool back in just in time before it falls out of your mouth.  I like to call it your ducky face.  It's PDQ (pretty darn cute).  And you've figured out how to get from point A to point B in the house.  Not just in the room you're in, but in the entire house.  It makes it interesting some mornings when I'm trying to get ready and can't keep up with your wherabouts.

In addition to crawling, you are pulling up on everything that will be still long enough to let you get your feet under you.  Which is my way of saying Baxter stays out of your way :).  You crawl over to the couch head first (because that's when you know you've reached your destination) and once your head bumps the couch, you stand up, and walk over to the side table.  This is where you pulled my (thankfully) cold cup of coffee down and waved my mug around like it was the first place trophy while I was putting your car seat base in my car yesterday morning.  You knew you were in trouble when I walked back in the door from the garage and caught you red handed.  I guess we both learned a valuable lesson from this.

You still say 'mama' and have started saying 'daddy'.  You can wave goodbye and give kisses and nod your head 'yes'.  It's really cute and we have a few videos of this, but it's really our only proof, because at Christmas, you refused to do any tricks for your Grandma and Grandpa.  Stinkapotamous. 

We've tried some new foods, and you like chicken and diced carrots.  You still love sweet potatoes and bananas.  And apparantly, you wouldn't let your Mrs. Kristin eat her banana because you demanded it all.  You're quite the banana bully.

We've had a few more firsts this month.  Your first Christmas.  Your first time saying 'daddy'.  You learned to motorboat.  The first time you shut the door on your finger.  Your first hot dog and black beans and rice.  And the first time to push a walking toy around a room.

Next month, when you're 1, can I still write Letter to Baby, or do I need to change the title to Letter to Mister?  Let me know...

We love you most.
Mom and Dad