Happy Birthday Luke!

Luke one year ago

Luke today

How fast does a year go by? Way too fast, especially when you are a parent. Saturday we celebrated Luke's first birthday. I have been thinking about our lives over this past year and can't imagine what it would be like if he wasn't here. He has brought so much joy and happiness to our family. He makes Mike and I laugh constantly. He adores his big brother, who when no one is looking adores him too! He is a sweet boy and I look forward to watching him grow.
Here are some of the things I hope we never forget about Luke at this age:
*He loves to dance!
*He is always smiling, especially when I am holding him!
*He loves to get into everything. His favorite spot right now is the toilet. All bathroom doors stay shut at our house!
*He loves to play with his brother.
*He is interested in books, not in reading them, but in turning the pages.
*He loves being outside.

Sweet Lukie, we love you so much! Thank you for making us smile everyday!

Fourth of July

We had an eventful Fourth of July weekend. We had family and friends in town visiting: Mimi, Joy, Andrew, Sherri, Rachel, Jacob and Brenna. Our little house was full, but we had a blast! There was lots of laughing going on, but there usually is with this crowd. We cooked out, we went downtown and worshiped together at River Church. Mimi and Sherri even sent Mike and I out on an impromptu date night. After everyone left, Mike and I relaxed with the boys and took them to Riverfront Park in North Charleston for fireworks. Both boys loved them, we were not sure how Luke would do, but he squealed in delight and could not take his eyes off of them!

Monday afternoon I tried to get a picture of the boys in their flag shirts. Evidently, the boys didn't like my idea. Here are some of my attempts:

Luke at 11 months

Look at this cutie pie! My little one will be a year old in a few short weeks. Before that happens I want to remember some fun things about him at this age:
*He is walking! Everywhere, all the time, no more crawling for this guy!
*He is eating solids at every meal, he officially gave up baby food a few weeks ago. He loves bananas, watermelon, graham crackers, green beans, spaghetti...basically anything we eat, he wants to eat. He especially loves the applesauce in the squirty packs. He gets excited when he sees those!
*He adores being outside and will get upset if he sees you go out and you don't take him.


*He is sitting in a big boy car seat, we turned him around a few weeks ago and it has made both of our lives so much easier.
*He loves the vacuum cleaner and squeals when he sees it!
*He loves making big messes for his mama to clean up. Luckily, he is cute and when he smiles at me it melts my heart, so he pretty much gets away with it.
*He loves his big brother and wants so badly to play with him. They play great in the bathtub and they even have moments wrestling around on the floor where they are both laughing and enjoying themselves. This gives me great hope that these two will be great friends one day.