Birthday Road Trip Part 1

This year we have two little boys and two birthdays to celebrate. Since their birthdays are right at a month apart, we decided to go home and do a party with family and close friends. It ended up working out great, and turned into our summer family vacation.

For the first couple of days of our trip we stayed at Mimi and Poppy's in Atlanta. We stayed busy while we there. Here is a little of what we did:
1st stop-Grandma and Grandpa Fessler~this was their first time to meet Luke
Golf with Poppy, Uncle Andrew, Uncle Daniel and daddy
Birthday boys having fun at Chuck E Cheese. I haven't been there since it was called Showbiz!
After Will and Luke's first train ride. My little train enthusiast Will had a blast!!
Before the laser show at Stone Mountain.
Three cousins having fun before the laser show.

We had fun in Atlanta, lots of new things to experience. Next stop, Marmie and Poppy's house in Chattanooga for the big party!

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.

PGA here we come!

You see this guy? This two year old little boy has become quite the golfer. He loves to play on his golf course in the backyard. It basically consists of hitting balls from one side of the yard to the other. He uses real balls and real clubs and he is pretty good. In fact I would venture to say that he is better than me.
Last week, he went to play golf with his daddy and his poppy. They took him to Kiawah Island and he played 4 holes at Cougar Pointe, where Mike works part-time.

If you don't know much about golf, then know this. Next year the PGA championship will be hosted there. That is the the fourth major of the year. Not on that course, but on the island. The courses are nice, very nice and greens fees are equivalent to a car payment. And my two year old had his first golf experience there. Not too shabby. Oh, and I was told that he did pretty good, until a big black bird stole his pb&j sandwich out of the cart. It was kinda downhill from there. But, he had fun, his daddy and poppy had fun, and his mama is proud!

10 months!

Luke is 10 months old now and he has decided to start taking steps! Oh my gosh! It has been funny to watch him hit milestones. He has beat Will by a couple of months on all the major ones from sitting up to now learning to walk. I guess it is true that the younger siblings pick up on things faster because they have an older sibling to watch. This little one is cracking us up daily! He has a cute personality and loves to laugh!
So...what is this little one doing now?
*Taking steps-he has been doing this for about a week, he will take a few and then fall, but he has also been able to walk across most of a room
*drink from a sippy cup
*dance-he loves music and loves to dance!
*sprint crawl-after Luke falls from taking steps he literally sprints across the floor on all fours!
*climbing stairs
*eating more and more table food
*into everything, I have to watch him like a hawk!

A Friday Night Out

Last Friday night, Mike and I took the boys downtown for a family night. It was kind of impromptu, but it was a ton of fun. We ate at Yo Burrito, went through the Market and ended up playing in the pineapple fountain at Waterfront Park. They boys had a blast. Mike and I had a blast. We can't wait to do it again! Here are some pictures from our fun night: