Last few days of swinging

As the weather cools, the days of swinging are nearing a close so Mikey pretty much wants to go outside with dad the second he gets home every day. And of course, no one gets him higher than dad (he rarely even asks me to push him anymore.) THIS is how high dad gets him.

No wonder he's never interested in the swings at the park. What will we do when we move one day?!!!

A little more about Luke

Oh Luke, my cute little man. He will be 17 months next week. He is in such a fun, but MESSY stage. I mean, toys of course are all over, but he has the biggest effect on the kitchen while in his high chair. He's getting to the point where he wants to be quite independent when it comes to eating so he must have a spoon or a fork to himself. For the floor this works out about half the time. Half the time he eats the yogurt out of of the cup and leaves it on his tray. Half the time the yogurt cup ends up upside down on the floor.

When it comes to pieces of food, the floor never wins. As anyone knows who has ever played ball with this kid, he's going pro for sure. He can throw like no other and has been amazing at it since he was 9 months. Lance, of course especially loves it. I love it, too when he's playing ball. I do NOT love it when I try to get him to eat peas (or really any other kind of food, but peas are the most affective). Yes, he can get peas all the way from his high chair by the back door to the front door (for those of you who have been in our house, you realize that that is FAR!) But he doesn't just throw in one area. Food ends up in every direction and as far as he can get it. So my kitchen is never clean. Sorry. I just can't keep up.

And I know when he's done by two things that happen. First, he bends all his silverware. Yes, bends it in half. I'm ready to actually give him real SILVERware because he's destroying all our kid stuff. And second, as soon as he's done he rubs his hair as much as he can before I stop him. Yep, he sees me coming with the washcloth and he immediately starts rubbing his hair as fast as he can. Oh he kills me. But I just can't get enough of him. He is the cutest thing I've ever seen!!!

I especially love the yogurt running down his arm here

It's hard to tell by the angle, but notice the bent spoon

I never knew he liked spaghetti and meatballs until Mikey ordered it at a restaurant and Luke ate more than Mikey. And here he is with the leftovers. Still lovin' it!

But my favorite, FAVORITE thing he loves right now are the kisses! He loves to give kisses. I've been meaning to get pictures of him doing this forever, but I kept forgetting when Lance was around. Finally I had the camera close and he was in the mood so this was the best I could get taking the picture myself.

Oh, and one last thing, he keeps trying to talk and talk. He now talks as though we should understand everything he says. It's cute, but also frustrating for him since we really can't understand anything he says. Well, we can understand a choice few. There is 'ju' = juice; 'cheeeese' = for cheese (used when eating cheese and ALSO anytime he sees a camera); 'bauba' = bottle; 'bu' = books; 'wahtur' = water; 'mama' = mama, daddy, or pick me up; 'dada' = daddy, mama, or pick me up

Love him.

From the mouth of Mikey

Earlier this evening I was in the kitchen doing dishes while Lance was in the front room with both boys reading books. Mikey loves to read these Book of Mormon picture books (mostly the ones about fighting and war...he's such a boy.)

Well actually Mikey had chosen the one about Christ being resurrected. So Lance was explaining resurrection and was explaining how we would all be resurrected also one day. This is what I heard:

Lance: Do you know what it means to be resurrected? It means we'll live again and we will have perfect bodies and we will never get sick, and won't get hurt, and we won't get tired...
Mikey: ...And we won't get killed by gorillas!

......apparently that is Mikey's number one concern in life at the moment! I was laughing so hard that I was crying in the kitchen for like 10 minutes...in fact, I had to stop again just now to laugh enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Brothers...

They love it. Luke loves to follow Mikey around and Mikey loves to have him follow him around and make him laugh (unless he just woke up--then don't bother him). Mikey cries when we put Luke down at night before him.

Show time--Luke loves sitting in little kid chairs. He can't get enough of it.

Just being silly in the entertainment center before it got moved out to the garage.
Just too cute!

And "squeezy yogurt" time is a frequent occurrence

So tired...

This is what Lance came home to the other day. Guess who had already had a nap...
Mikey usually doesn't take naps anymore, but I guess we had had a pretty tiring day (to my great disappointment, I also rarely take naps... *sigh* Hey, maybe I shouldn't post this. I think it might not shine the kindest light on my mothering skills. Who lets their 16-month-old run around the house unattended--it wasn't intentional, I swear!)

I TOLD You So!

Back when Mikey was a little younger and not quite the talker he is now, Lance would get him so say little things that were funny to hear a little child say. Now and then I would warn him about something he was teaching (warning, threatening--same thing) that would come back and get us. Well the day has come.

This particular little word of wisdom from father to son was in regards to what we do at stop lights. He taught him the following responses:
"What do you do at a green light?"
"Go"
"What do you do at a red light?"
"Stop"
"And what do you do at a yellow light?"
"...FLOOR IT!"

Yes, I warned Lance...

So the other day in the car Mikey suddenly said to Lance, "Daddy! Miss Ashley (his preschool teacher) said we slow down at yellow lights!"

Lance (of course thinking, oh no, Kristy was right--as usual) said after a long dreading pause, "And…uh…what did you say?"

Mikey's response was as expected: "I told her that you FLOOR IT! But she said that you slow down."

*Sigh*...so embarrassed. I expect to be called in to see the teacher any day now.

Luke

It's been another month or so since I've given an update on Luke. He's now 15 1/2 months and gets more and more fun every day. It's great (for both the boys AND for mama) because Mikey is enjoying playing with Luke more and more so they can entertain each other for longer stretches. I usually only have to yell out to Mikey to stop taking things away from Luke every so often--it's an improvement.

He continues to work on his words. He quite regularly says bottle (bahbuh) and will try to imitate our words when he's in the mood. He also says, "cheese" when we pull out the camera. So cute.

A little while ago when we were sitting down to dinner we were doing the usual with all eyes on Mikey trying to get him to sit still and say a prayer and do all he's supposed to do. Well I happened to glance at Luke in his high chair as we said to Mikey, "let's say a prayer." Just as we said prayer Luke grabbed his forearms in the folding-arms manner. It was so cute! He only held it there for a second before continuing with his meal, but it was so funny--we had no idea. Watch what you do! The kids are watching! :)

Love you, Luke!

Has given me an earthly comb...

Mikey loves to sing. One of his favs, of course, is "I Am a Child of God." For most of it he either sings the right words or mumbles the words. But one phrase he sings loud and clear: "Has given me an earthly COMB!" Kills me every time.

My Baby....

...has started school. :( That's right, folks. My little Mikey started preschool this last week. Okay, actually I'm the baby because yes, I shed a tear or two when watching him walk away into the school. I just can't believe how big he is!

He has been doing so great. I wasn't sure how he'd be because at the orientation a few weeks ago he didn't want Lance or I to leave his side. But come d-day he hopped right out of the car and went inside.

Here he is just after he jumped out of the car. He wouldn't have even looked back if we didn't make him!

Note: You may have noticed his ridiculously cute Spiderman book tote bag. He loves it...and so do I. Okay, maybe it's because I made it... :D He is not allowed a back pack because the school says they are too big for these little kids and they will crush art projects they bring home. So here's the thing: cutesy, little girly tote bags? Found in plentiful quantities in all such stores such as Target, Walmart.... Manly, little boy bags? Not a one to be found. The closest I came to finding anything not so girly was a Rolling Stones bag--not exactly my ideal candidate for my 3-year-old to be carrying around idealizing. So in steps my trying-to-be-creative-mom side. I had less than a day to produce something he could use that didn't have pink stripes on it. So off to Joanns. They had all I needed for a little boy appropriate bag.

PS: And so it begins. After his first day we asked, "So Mikey, what did you do at school today?!" Mikey's response: "I don't know. Nothing." Sigh.

The Big 3-0

This is about a week overdue, but... Happy Birthday, Lance! Yes, he has finally caught up to me and left behind those childish 20's. We all had a great time celebrating his birthday and he had a very "successful" birthday. First, he got to go golfing the morning before his birthday and shot his best ever 18 holes, by far. I may not completely appreciate this, but I can appreciate how excited he was about it. :)

The second thing was finding out that he landed a rather highly sought after clerking position at the Attorney General's office in Salt Lake that will last through the rest of law school and all the way through taking the bar. My store-bought gifts just couldn't compete with such successes!

The boys were very excited to celebrate to loved giving birthday hugs.
I made a cheese cake and my mom made that sign in the back with her cool new scrap booking paper cutting machine. (She also watched the kids so we could go to dinner and go to a movie--quite a novelty for us.)

Happy Birthday! We love you!!

"But he likes it!"

Mikey loves to play with Luke, but often plays a little rough. When he reaches that rough stage I ask Mikey to stop or be softer or whatever. His common response is, "but he likes it!" And I have to admit, Luke frequently laughs at Mikey's antics, even if it's just before Mikey goes too far and makes Luke cry.

One of Mikey's favorite activities, as of late, has been dragging Luke across the floor by his ankles. He does it along the carpet or the kitchen floor. We get worried about Luke's belly getting rug burn or him getting otherwise hurt so we keep trying to stop him (even though, again, I have to admit that Luke does sometimes laugh at this.) But finally the "otherwise" happened. Luke and Mikey were playing out front in the driveway. Suddenly there was a not so quiet scream coming from the front. Lance ran out to find Mikey, once again dragging Luke by the ankles, but this time it was across the driveway. Poor Luke cried for the rest of the night on and off. You can see the somewhat healed injury on one of his wrists. There was a matching one on the other wrist. It was so sad. And Mikey seems to have finally stopped dragging Luke along the floor--outside or otherwise.

14 months and change

It's been a little while since I've given a Luke update, so here we are. He's now a little more than 14 months old and he's been doing lots of great things. He makes us all laugh lots and lots. He's getting big enough that Mikey actually wants to play with him a lot of the time and it's so cute to see.

Luke is LOUD has been babbling for a long time, but suddenly we are actually getting a word or two. "Mama" and "daddy" have been staples for awhile, but now "thank you" is his response to everything. Of course it sounds a little more like "deet doo!" I love it.

One of his favorite activities is throwing things down the stairs. There is generally a pile of shoes inside our back door at the top of the stairs to the basement. When no one is looking this is what happens.

Luke just sits at the top of the stairs and throws all the shoes down.

Sorry, I just can't resist the sleeping pictures. He's such a cutie!

At least he finished the bottle before falling asleep--that doesn't usually happen.

Our biggest accomplishment in the past few weeks is the walking! On July 22 (our anniversary) Luke started taking 2 steps at a time.

And now a few weeks later we're a champ!

Shhh! Don't talk so loud!

We have reached a great point with Mikey. It's that stage when a child is very observant--too observant for their own good. Mix that with the desire to share every thought a child has with you and the inability to talk in any level other than maximum decibels and you have Mikey. So by "great" point I mean "embarrassing" point.

Some examples:


The first one happened a few days ago at the pool. There was a man there who only had one leg. I had noticed him a little earlier, but didn't take any thought of him. Later in the family locker room, in comes that man. Lance saw him just as he heard Mikey, "Hey dad!" He knew exactly what was coming next and tried to stop it. "Mikey, be quiet, let's go." Mikey, undeterred, couldn't get over this new sight. "Daddy, that guy only has one leg!" Lance continued to try to quiet him and move him along. "Yes, Mikey sometimes people get hurt."

Mikey was quiet for a moment, obviously thinking. Suddenly he pipes back up, "He must not be able to drive good at all!" At that point, the nice man turned around and nicely asked Mikey's name. He then called him over and showed him is prosthetic leg (as he didn't have it on prior due to swimming). Mikey thought it was the coolest thing and long after that wanted to go back and see it again. Thank goodness for a nice guy who frequents a gym filled with kids who probably have done similar things.


Next up happened during our experience donating blood. Yes, we were crazy and took our kids, but we only remembered the drive last minute. We had to trade off watching the kids. While Lance was back getting his finger pricked and answering questions about any questionable activities engaged in since 1977, I was desperately trying to keep the kids in the gym and in a relatively small space. Suddenly I looked over to the cookie and juice corner just in time to see a woman faint. Mikey didn't notice right away, but with all the fuss everyone gathered and started watching the scene unfold. They got the lady lying down, but she was unconscious. Suddenly Mikey noticed. He took one look and yelled to me "Is she de...is she...is she killed?!" I quickly tried to pull him into me and tell him quietly that she was just sleeping for a minute. (She was fine, by the way.)

An hour later, both of us were done with paperwork and Lance was hooked up to the needle. This time we were sitting over by the cookies to try and keep the kids quiet. Suddenly they rolled a man out on the gurney who had apparently fainted a while before and hit his head. He had been lying behind a screen while they tended to his head. And once again, right as the man rolled right in front of us, Mikey yelled, "Is he killed, mama?!" Of course Lance missed both occurrences. Luck of the draw for me, I guess. (Lance note: what the?! what's with this donation center? I've never seen so many people faint and hit their heads. Every time I turned around someone else was either on the floor or on a gurney. It was like an episode of ER or something.)


And lastly. This happened tonight. Luckily it was within the quiet walls of our own home. After dinner I was in the kitchen cleaning up a little and Mikey and dad had returned to their Wii bowling game. Suddenly Mikey called to me:
Mikey: "Hey Mama, we have what you have!"
Me, confused: "What?"
Mikey: "We have what you have!"
Me: "What do you have that I have?"
Mikey: "You know, those things that have milk?"
I stopped and thought, "No, he can't really be thinking that." I looked up at the same time to see this, Mikey's Wii character on the TV screen.

Yes, it was what he was thinking. (For those not familiar with Wii characters, those are actually arms.) Mikey continued, "Remember? Luke had to eat from them? Hey, dad! See!? We have what mama has?" Lance and I were both shaking with silent laughter that brought tears to our eyes.

Oh, Mikey. He brings just a bit of fear each and every public outing.

Soccer!

For the last 6 weeks Mikey has been taking soccer. At his age, in our city they don't actually play games, but just work on skills. A parent must also attend the class so every week Mikey and daddy would head out to soccer. Mikey loved it and his SKILLS are now awesome. On his last day they had a little game and all got trophies. Mama and Luke tagged along for the last day to see all excitement.

Always stretch!

Practicing some overhead throwing

Luke loved all the excitement, but did not love having to stay in his seat. Crawling through the middle of the floor after the soccer balls, though, would not have been appreciated.

Look at those kicking and stopping skills

Now some videos...

Check out Mikey's throwing skills in action

Luke was so excited for Mikey

I missed one good shot of Mikey dribbling, but luckily I captured his goal shot!

The trophy was even more than Mikey could have hoped for

Happy 5 Years!

That's right, folks. It's been 5 whole years!

5 LOOONG years... (JOKING, Lance! ONLY JOKING!) Yesterday we celebrated our 5 year anniversary and actually I can't believe how quickly time has gone. Though looking at these pictures and then the decrepit old lady I see in the mirror, the time has definitely passed! :)

Look at my pretty flowers :)

I tease Lance every year because the night before he married me he was throwing up. Of course, I think maybe I should be the one to feel bad about that.

Good thing I looked so hot. That probably made him go through with marrying me even though the thought of it obviously made him vomit the night before

That's right. We kiss. Sorry, our blog just went PG-13

Ahhhhhh

Okay, I know it's all about me and Lance, but come on, how cute is that! My 18-month-old niece definitely stole the show and I was happy to give it to her.

Welcome Home!!!!

Just wanted to give a big warm welcome to my parents who just returned from serving a mission in Tampico, Mexico for 3 years. They got home a week and half ago and it is so great to have them home! Welcome!

Summer Time!

I was going to find or write some cute little poem about what fun there is to be had in the summer to open this particular blog...but then I didn't. So anyway, summer is definitely going full speed ahead and both boys seem to be loving every minute of it. They can't get enough of the outdoors and I can't even mention swimming unless I'm prepared to do it!

Now that dad is back home, the boys can't get enough of him. His work schedule now is way more lax than when he's in school so we see a lot more of him. When he is around he is almost always number one. I feel slighted for about 2 seconds, but then realize that I then get a minute to actually get things done. :)

They LOVE to read books with dad and I know dad can't get enough of "Goodnight, Gorilla" and "There's a Wocket in my Pocket." ;)

Mikey was SOOOO excited to get his first pair of "gobbles" and "shooters." He couldn't wait until we got to the pool.

Luke and Mikey could pretty much take turns in dad's super swing all day (it swings like 10 feet up in the air, I kid you not)

Luke is thrilled by this both when he's pushed and when he's just sitting. We can give him one big push and he'll just go until it stops and then sit there looking around for awhile just content to be outside. Of course, it's still so much more fun when he's swinging and there is someone in front of him to grab his toes.

Like I said, Mikey couldn't wait for the pool. Two against one--a little unfair don't you think, boys? He's littler than you both! (There wasn't actually any water in those--fyi, but it was really cute to see Luke imitate the others and pretend to squirt back)

And of course, what would summer be without a little bit of camping

Mikey and dad had a fun little camp out in the backyard

Mikey was so excited (as you can imagine)

And what would camping be without roasting marshmallows (albeit on the gas grill)

Time to tuck in for the night with half a dozen books and popcorn. (And Mikey actually slept very well!)