Eating with a fork!

We were eating spaghetti tonight and Luke seemed to have trouble with the noodles slipping out of his hands, so I decided to give him a fork and see what he did. You would never have known it was his first time to use a fork, he just dug right in and kept eating!! I was very surprised since our attempts with a spoon have not gone well. I am mainly just writing about this because he was so proud of himself and I thought these pictures were too cute not to post :-)

We have come a long way in a year, here was Luke eating on Christmas day last year. He wasn't too sure about eating anything but milk, he sure has changed his mind since then!!

Merry Christmas!!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great....busy, but lots of fun. We spent monday evening through Christmas morning with Vic's parents, then went to my parent's house Christmas day and came home today. Luke had tons of fun, and did much better than last year (when he was overly exhausted and screamed most of Christmas day). He still wan't too interested in opening presents, but once they were open he had lots of fun playing with his new toys. We are so thankful for having families close by to enjoy this Christmas with, and most of all to our Savior Jesus who we celebrate His birth this Christmas season. Here are some pictures from this week.

Christmas Eve at Nana and PawPaw's house

Luke opening his Christmas Eve present with Daddy, Christmas p.j.'s!

Christmas morning, Luke just wanted to carry around this candy cane with m&m's, he didn't care about any of his presents!!

Luke finally decided his new toys were pretty fun and started playing with them!

Luke grilling on his new grill! This definitely seems to be his favorite :-)

Wow, Luke hopped right on his new kawasaki and took off! He even likes to try some tricks like getting off while still making the car move, and standing up while he is riding. We are seriously considering getting Luke a helmet to accompany this toy!

Luke opening toys at Grandma and Granddad's house. Cool, a John Deere tractor set!

Luke enjoying the birthday cake we made for Jesus. Aunt Malissia commented that Luke looked like he has facial hair like Vic :-) Fortunately, this is just icing and I think we are a few years away from facial hair!


We went to ChuckECheese with Nana and PawPaw a couple days before Christmas. I am not sure who had more fun, Luke or them?!

Fun this week!

Luke and I went to see Grandma and Granddad for a couple days this week while Vic was in California. We had lots of fun as usual, Luke convinced Grandma to take him on the carousel at the woodlands mall (by screaming and pointing at the horses!) and we also tried to see Santa. Unfortunately, Luke didn't exactly take a liking to Santa, I hope he still brings Luke a present!! Santa tried to convince Luke to sit in his lap by giving him a couple toys to hold. Luke obviously didn't understand because he took the toys and ran off with them!! We gave up and left without a picture. Grandma also took Luke to McDonalds for his first happy meal. That was a big hit! We also were able to see Jessica and Sterling and play. Luke and Sterling are at the age where they just want whatever toy the other one has! As you can see, they even like to sit in the same space :-)

Luke loves carousels!

Luke's first happy meal, yummy!

Luke and Sterling "sharing" space in the drawer :-)

Thud!

Thud, that is what I heard this morning on my way to get Luke out of his crib.....which Ithen realized he decided that mommy is not necessary to get out of the crib if you can just jump out yourself! Ahhhh! I don't know who was more freaked out to see Luke on the floor, me or him! He was ok though, he cried for a couple minutes, then just wanted down to play. Vic left to go out of town this morning, so when he gets back, he will be converting the crib to the toddler bed, not something we were planning on this soon. Well, thanks to Nana and PawPaw for purchasing the convertible crib so we can continue to use it, otherwise we would have gotten very little use out of the crib!!

SNOW!

Ok, so it was only a few flurries....but in Houston, that counts!! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw snow today, I never imagined Luke would see snow at home this soon in his life. It usually only snows here about once every decade. Of course, when I saw the snow, I hauled Luke outside to try to get some pictures. He was much more interested in picking up leaves (as usual) than the snow, but I think he knew something was unusual because he did keep putting his hands out in the air like when he is trying to catch bubbles. Well, in case I don't get an opportunity to take a picture of Luke in the snow again before he goes to college, here a couple I was able to catch today.

Children's museum

Today, Luke and I met up with Jessica and Sterling for an outing to the children's museum. Luke has only been one time before and he was only about 6 months old that time. The most surprising thing to me was to see that Luke and Sterling are really outgrowing the "tots" area at the museum and were much more interested in running around in the older kids areas, although this kept Jessica and I very busy trying to chase after them!! We had fun though, it just makes me a little sad to see how fast Luke has grown. Luke's favorite activity of the day was banging on the cash register in the grocery store area at the museum, I finally had to just drag him away from it when it was time to eat lunch! Here are some pictures...

It was nearly impossible to get a picture of Luke and Sterling together, this was the best I could do when they were both sitting in the car

Walking on the trail in the tots area

Selecting fruits for his basket at the grocery store

Luke's favorite, the cash register!

Just for some perspective, here was Luke playing at the museum almost a year ago

Pictures

Fortunately, we were able to get some better pictures via a professional than the one we tried to get on Thanksgiving (see thanksgiving post!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! While we had reinforcements over today (grandparents), we decided to try dressing up and taking a family Christmas picture to use for our Christmas card.....it did not go well. We will be attempting to get a professional picture tomorrow morning, but if that doesn't go well either, this may be the picture that everyone receives from us. :-)

Despite what it looks like, we had a wonderful day with our family and we have much to be thankful for this year!

Oh Christmas Tree!

If you know Vic and I at all, you know we love decorating for Christmas. Even though Christmas was fun last year, we have really been looking forward to it this year since Luke can do so much more. We decorated our tree this morning, and I of course had high hopes of getting cute pictures of Luke putting his own special ornaments (i.e. unbreakable and without choking hazards!) on the tree. That of course did not happen. Luke did have fun....hoarding the ornaments in his own special pile, hiding them in his toy bins and ripping ornaments off the tree as fast as we could put them on. Oh well, we are thankful for a happy healthy one year old this Christmas season and we'll just keep the important ornaments out of his reach!

Hmm...which one should I grab next?

I got it!

Maybe mom and dad won't notice my own pile of ornaments!

This is the only picture that came close to what I was trying to get!

Little Turkey

We had a playgroup yesterday with other kids from our sunday school class. We made a really cute thanksgiving craft, turkey hats :-) Well, let's just say that that Luke wanted nothing to do with his turkey hat and was not impressed with craft time. Notice in the picture that Luke is the only child refusing to wear his turkey hat! Oh well, Granddad pointed out that maybe Luke wanted to be a pilgrim and not a turkey because he is smart enough to know what happens to turkeys on Thanksgiving :-) I think that must be it....

Mommy wins! (sort of) I was determined to get a picture of Luke with his turkey hat on!

Busy Week

I have been a bad blogger lately, but I have a good excuse! Luke and I were out of town all last week while Vic was in London for work. So, as usual, Luke and I made our way around Houston visiting all of his grandparents. Unfortunately, Luke got a stomach bug while we were gone and also seemed to pass that onto all of his grandparents...oops! But we did have some fun while we were gone, and we are glad to be back home with Vic. Another reason I have been a bad blogger lately is because I cannot get any decent pictures of Luke! He moves too fast and never looks at the camera. This is such a fun and cute age, I wish I could better capture it, but you just have to see it in person. Luke is saying a few more words these days. His favorite word seems to be "Boo!" He loves to be scared and chased around and now he tells us "Boo" all the time. He also seems to really love hiding things, Vic caught him taking small grocery items out of a bag and hiding them everywhere...under the sofa, in my shoes, you have to be careful you don't leave important things in his reach over here or they disappear! Here are just a couple pictures from lately, this is the best I could do :-)

Riding the train at the zoo with grandma and granddad. He had a lot more fun than the expression on his face shows!

Checking out the tree and Christmas decorations at Nana and PaPa's house. Luke did pretty well, he only took off one ornament. We're about the start decorating at our house, so it should be interesting to see what he does!

Reading a book with PaPa, the only time he will slow down and sit still :-)

All dressed up for church. Notice that due to Luke's constant running around, he is starting to look a little slimmer in his clothes :-) He is also getting a little pickier at what he eats, I hope he doesn't take after his dad!

The big day!!

Today was the big day for Uncle Matt, he and Malissia got married!! It was a beautiful ceremony and fun reception. We are so excited for them and glad that Luke now officially has an aunt. Luke was surprisingly well behaved (especially after being out late last night for the rehearsal dinner). He even sat still and quiet on the front row during the wedding, with the help of a cell phone and some measuring spoons :-) Here are some pictures from today:

Ready for the wedding!

The guys (my dad, Matthew, Andy and Vic)

Malissia and Matthew

The Rhodes family after the wedding

Cutting the cake

Luke with Nana and Pawpaw (who helped tremendously to take care of Luke so that Mommy could enjoy the wedding!)

Luke loved picking apart the flower on Vic's tux, fortunately, this was after the wedding!

Matthew and Malissia leaving for their honeymoon

Halloween and rehearsal

We had a really big weekend, it was Uncle Matt's wedding!! Last night was the rehearsal, so Luke of course wore his costume since it was halloween. While the rehearsal was going on, we took Luke to the carnival at my parent's church. There wasn't a lot that Luke could do, but he had fun playing some games and mommy and daddy collected some candy :-)

When Luke sees the camera now, he walks toward it (because he tries to grab it!), so many pictures I take now of him are close-ups :-)

Luke and daddy playing games

Uncle Matt and Uncle Andy with Luke at the rehearsal

Outside the chapel