Luke and Audrey at the Pool

Eileen sent me this pic the other day when we put the kids in the pool. It's funny because you can see a bit of their personalities. Below is a pic of them from about a year ago.

Luke's 2nd Birthday

I had to quickly upload this video of Luke after opening a present from Pop-Pop and Mamma Rose.

Videos

Luke loves his bedtime routine, which includes brushing his teeth! We replaced the medicine cabinet, so I kept the old one down at Luke's level for a while.

He ran laps after the second attempt. Just unacceptable. Sometimes he gets confused and throws a basketball like a football, or a baseball like a basketball, etc. We're working on it. He's doing so well throwing, though.

Sometimes when I need to press "reset" with Luke, I do this...."Go LUKE!"

He has been doing this cute "flex" thing lately....it's at the end of this video

Just a sample

While sitting down for some toast today, here are the words that Luke said in a 5-minute span:

Ba-ball, bird, fly, toast, please (3x), break, please (7x), bird, shoul (8x), George, bird, George, bird, Wiggles, Baby, Wiggles, Baby (2x), A-do, No, pray?, cereal, ba-ball, a-do (3x), George, a-do (2x), buk (2x), a-do (5x), draw (3x), gabackaball, draw (2x), crayon (5x), haf (2x), gabackaball (3x), draw (4x), on paper (3x), gabackaball (9x!!!), yea (2x), yea George yea, out (2x), No!, No-No (4x), seat, a-do (2x), George (3x)

Translation

Ba-ball: football

gabackaball: basketball

shoul: shoulder

A-do: all done

buk: milk

haf: help

Watching Kiddos

Eileen had her baby on Monday evening.  She had a very short labor--about four hours from start to finish--and has a very entertaining birth story as a result.  We watched Audrey for a couple of days to help out, and it just happened to be the same two days that I usually watch Camera.

We were also in Charleston last weekend, so hopefully we'll get some pics of that trip up soon!

I'm Back Baby!

As many of you know, our laptop broke towards the end of January, and our blog suffered as a result. We also couldn't find our camera cord until earlier this week. So let's pretend that February 2009, the twenty first month of our dear son's life, never happened. There is something funny, however, about people calling you to complain about how you haven't posted on your blog. Anyway, with the new laptop and the camera cord, we feel reborn. We're like a phoenix rising from Arizona.

So to answer your question, Luke is doing awesome. He is saying so many words and is getting so big. Here's a pic or two from Monday when we got 6 inches of snow. Ironically, we had a warm front come in this weekend, so we had temperatures in the 60s on Saturday and Sunday. It was just wonderful. So Luke and I went to shoot baskets for the first time, and Luke was so excited. Our friends have a little court in their backyard, so Luke ran down the hill to the court and was like, "GABACKABALL!! GABACKABALL!" He then proceeded to hold onto a little boy basketball and would periodically bend his knees and then jump up in the air and let go of the basketball. Too cute. I wanted to do the whole "father holds up the son who then throws the ball into the basket", but I'm 5'5". So we worked on footwork and "playing with heart" instead.

Today I was reading one of his number books that goes from 1-10. He's saying numbers now and constantly counting. In the book, he always skips ahead to 6, because there are 6 footballs and 9, because there are nine basketballs. So on the basketball page, I said, "Luke, how many basketballs are there?" He started counting: "Won, two, fee, fofivsixxxxx(he says those three very fast), eigh (he has never said seven), niiii. Then there was a long pause and he goes, "Niiiin........gabackaballs." That's right: he put an "s" on gabackaball! I was cracking up.

Random video from January that is funny. This is still sort of the "old" Luke before he was talking a lot and having opinions about the stimulus bill.

If you don't already know, we recently closed on a 2 bedroom condo, and moved into it last weekend. It's literally in the same building and is right next door to our old place. So we own both of them, so if we wanted, we could knock down a wall. But we're trying to rent it out. Anyway, Luke is now sleeping in his own room in his own bed, and he loves it. And we think we're pretty darn cool for having 2 bedrooms.

Here's a video of Luke helping me shovel. As you can see we had a large turnout of homeowners.

Life after the Super Bowl

When you love football, it's always sobering to be faced with the end of another season. No more team to cheer for; no more fantasy football; no more playoffs. Sad, indeed. But what has surprised me is seeing Luke deal with this reality for the first time.

I will preface this by stating that Luke will see sports-related things and point them out to you, even if you don't see them. A couple weeks ago, Em was in Target and all of a sudden Luke started pointing to this guy and saying "ba-ball" which is his word for football. This guy wasn't carrying a football, however, he was wearing a Green Bay Packer hat. So she thought it was pretty amazing that he recognized the Green Bay Packers logo of all things. However, it gets better. When she walked closer, Luke specifically pointed to the NFL logo on the hat and said, "Ba-ball! Ba-ball!" Wow, the power of branding!

Then the other day Em was eating Frosted Flakes and he started saying ba-ball again, but this time we were like, "No Luke, this is cereal! And no, there's no football on!" But he was so adamant about it; he kept pointing at the box and saying ba-ball. Lo and behold, there was this really really small NFL logo (again with the logo) on the side of the box. When we gave him the box, he then pointed directly at it, said ba-ball, and put the box down, having made his point.

There are many other "ba-ball" moments. He never misses a beat. He really enjoys watching it. There are really strange coincidences where it's a little scary. He'll cheer especially loud on 3rd and long, he'll yell, "Go! Go!" when someone is taking off, and he's always clapping. Plus, on Sundays after church, when we get in the apartment he calmly goes to the tv, says ba-ball in a normal tone, and will often turn the tv on himself. He doesn't do this on other days. I'm glad that I'm instilling a relationship between church and football in him from an early age.

So anyway, Luke was living life and enjoying all the fun that the NFL has to offer. This leads us to the week before the Super Bowl. That hard week when there is no football. He did all his normal gestures as I've described above, so I had to look him in the eyes and gently tell him that there was not going to be any football on today. I tried to temper that statement with the fact that the championship was going to be the following week, but I could see Luke trying to process this earth-shattering moment in a young toddler's life. He was so confused! Poor guy!

I didn't talk about football all week, and then Sunday afternoon Luke and I were hanging out and I told him, "Guess what son? I have a present for you!" And I turned on the tv and there was the pre-game with plenty of football imagery for him to get the point that football was on. He was so happy!! He started sprinting up and down the hallway, and he would just point and point at the tv saying ba-ball. So cute.