18 months old!!!

I can't believe my baby is 18 month old!! He's just the cutest little thing (see exhibit A, B, C, D, and E below.) Although, don't let Mikey hear you call Luke cute. As you may or may not recall Mikey made explicit distinctions of who is cute and who is not. Luke has graduated from cute to a boy. I guess that's to make room for the new one on the way...?

Anyway, Luke keeps growing and doing more and more things. He continues to be a huge HAM! Every time he sees the camera he immediately strikes a "cheese" face above. (Except, of course, when we really want him to like when sitting on Santa's lap--that picture to come shortly.)

Luke is a SUPER jumper. He walks around all day just jumping. And it's quite impressive at his age that he actually gets off the ground as much as he does. He continues to be obsessed with balls. I mean more than most boys. He cannot even see a ball without dropping everything and throwing a fit unless he gets it.

That brings me to the less fun skill he has acquired--throwing tantrums. Yep. The first time you say no he just drops his head into his hands and covers his face (which I have to admit, we kind of think is cute.) But then the next stage is on the floor rolling around. Oh well, what do you do? It comes with the territory. :)

Notice his hands in this picture--those are mashed potatoes. They are actually all over his face, too and all throughout his hair. The kid hardly eats so when he started kneading the potatoes I gave up and focused on Mikey while Luke played. But in the end he actually ended up with most of the potatoes in his mouth! He just had to lick them off of his finger after making sure there were no lumps.

I also cannot believe my baby is in nursery!!! He is a champ with nursery (and I can't believe how enjoyable those second two meetings are when you just get to sit and listen!!! I completely forgot!) We took him about two weeks before his 18-month birthday. Lance sat with him the first time and said he did great. So the next week as sacrament ended and we were gathering up our stuff, Luke started to run to the back of the gym. He frequently does this (to pretend to shoot basketballs--seriously, he stands there under the basket and focuses and shoots over and over) so I didn't chase after him right away. But then he ran out the door! So I started after him. I didn't catch up to him until he was IN the nursery room. He ran straight to nursery!

He is just so 100% opposite from how Mikey was. Mikey cried for a month straight and still struggled for awhile after that. But I attribute the difference to two things. First of all, I have taken Luke to the day care at the gym since he was three months old. So he's used to me dropping him off and he knows I'll come back. Mikey had pretty much never been away from me. And second, Mikey is still in nursery. So Luke has Mikey there to feel more at ease. Anyway, I LOVE nursery and I'm so glad Luke does, too!

Luke is quite the roller in his crib. He is all over. So Lance I got a laugh when we found his little arm hanging out of the side.

And speaking of Mikey, Luke has, of course been long entertained by Mikey, but he's just started to really notice and freak out when Mikey leaves. Mostly it's just when we drop Mikey off at school. He immediately starts saying, "Mikey, Mikey!" and then screams as Mikey closes the door. I get sad that Luke is sad, but it's also so cute to watch them become more and more inseparable. I love it.

As happy and hyper as Luke is most of the time, don't be offended by his scowl. He can give a scowl like no one else and he just does it a lot. Also be careful when you put on his coat. Be sure that you're okay with him having it on forever. At church he was wearing a long sleeve shirt under his big thick winter coat, but it still took the whole meeting to take it off! When you attempt to take it off he just screams, "No!" and grabs any part you are trying to pull on. When coming in from playing in the snow he screams when you take off his boots and will walk around with hats, gloves, coat and snow pants for as long you allow it.

Just to finish things off here is a little video of Luke. I don't know why Lance started this "Bonsai" thing, but Luke loved it repeated it over and over again. It was cracking us up.



Love this kid!!