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:

Big Boy Will

I have been watching Will for the past few weeks, just observing him as he goes about his every day life, and it dawned on me that he is such a big boy now. I know that might sound silly, but when you are used to telling a 2 1/2 year old how big they are, it seems normal. This kid is knocking our socks off with the things that he is doing and frankly, we are proud of our big boy.
Here are the latest things he is doing:
*Copying- Will has learned so much from just watching us! He literally wants to do everything that we do! The other day we were outside watching Mike cut the grass. Will got his lawnmower, watched his daddy and copied exactly what Mike did. He picks up on everything, including tiny details. Now when Will plays with his lawnmower, he pretends like he is pulling the starter, just like his daddy does. It is really cute!


*Helping-He has helped me for sometime now, but now he is able to do things that he hasn't before. He loves to get things for me. From getting a spoon out of the silverware drawer to getting socks out of his drawer, he is excited to help when can.
*Reading-oh my, this little boy is a child after my own heart! He LOVES to read and adores the library! His favorite books tend to be about trains or trucks, but he also likes boats and the Biscuit series.

*Talking-This kid has so much to say! He is able to carry on a conversation with you now and he is so cute as he thinks about each word he is going to say. You can tell he really wants to get it right! He loves to say, "Nope, not yet!", "Yep", "Mommy, I hold you", "Where are me?", "I wub you mommy!" and "I a big boy!". Every morning when we get up, he always asks where his daddy is. He wants to know if daddy is golf course, coffee shop or church! We know he is listening to us, because he will say the things that we talk to him about in conversations with different people. He is getting somewhat nosy and loves to ask "What is it?", "What happened" or "What did Gukie do, mommy?" when I say something to the effect of "Oh no!".
*Learning-Last week I started "homeschooling" Will. We went to Wal-Mart and got him some supplies, and after my friend Danna sent us some materials and websites, we got started. We are having a blast! We started with the letter A and have now moved on to B. We are making an ABC book and doing different activities with the letters, including painting, reading stories, and nursery rhymes. We are also working on scripture memorization. Genesis 1:1 is this month's verse, he is doing pretty good. We might get 20 minutes a day, but he is excited to learn. I am proud of him!

*On being a brother-This is an area where we are struggling. It is so hard as a parent to watch Will with Luke, one minute he loves him, the next he is pushing Luke over as he walks by. He can't stand for Luke to touch anything that belongs to him and naturally Luke only wants to play with Will's toys. I have been told it is just a phase and not to worry too much about it. I am looking forward to them being playmates very soon. Here's hoping that they will be close friends as well.

Will is such a sweet little boy. He is all boy and very active and rambunctious, but he is also compassionate and always up for a snuggle. He is my big boy!