Luke's Words

Luke is 18 months now.  Here are the words he is saying now:

Mama
Da-da
Da (dog)
Doh Dah! (Go Dawgs!)
Doda! (Georgia!)
Uh-oh
Dih (Katie)
doudigh (outside)
bah (ball)
Mah (more)
Aaaaa (I want to brush my teeth)
ssshii (shoe)
na-na (banana)
deh-doh! (Let's go)
duh da-da (Love Da-da)
duh mama (love mama)
doss-shhii (goldfish)
hi
bah (bye!)

He still doesn't use very many words, and hasn't spoken any sentences yet (other than Go Dawgs!) but it really seems to be clicking now, and I'm sure pretty soon we won't be able to get him to stop talking!

Luke's 15 Month Check Up!

Luke turned 15 months old on June 8th. Since he's almost 16 months old (in a couple days) I figured it was time to post his 15 month update. We went to the doctor for his check up on June 14th. He had a couple of shots, and they checked to make sure he was hitting his milestones and growing.

The nurse started out by asking if Luke was walking unassisted (check!), clapping hands (check!), responding to his name (check!), speaking 5-10 words (....). I really had to think about that one. He has been saying "Mama, uh-oh, dih-dih (Katie), Dada," and I was struggling to think of another word that he says on a regular basis. At the moment I couldn't think of any more words, so I just gave him the benefit of the doubt and said, "Oh, yes. Sure he has 5 words." Since then he has been repeating words that we say more, even though he does not consistently use those words on his own. He definitely has some sounds that he uses for certain words like "Schhhhh" for shoe and some sound that we can't understand that he says every time he sees Maggie.

At his 15th month appointment, Luke weighed 26.06 pounds (89th percentile), he was 31 inches tall (11th percentile), and his head circumference was 19.25 inches (94th percentile).

He is wearing 12-18 month shirts, and he goes back and forth between 12-18 month shorts and 18-24 month shorts. Of course, the 18-24 month shorts are not as tight on his belly, but they come down to his ankles!

He loves to play with any kind of ball, zooms cars around while making zooming noises, and throws pretty much everything just for fun. He has been watching Grampa practice his golf swing, and now he puts his hands together and practices his swing whenever he's standing around or sitting in his carseat, high chair, etc.

He is very good at figuring out how things fit together and loves things to be in their correct place. He has gone from a very quiet baby to a loud, rambunctious toddler! He thinks that every animal says, "Rrrrrrr." "Luke, what does a lion say?" "Rrrroarrrrr." "Good. What does a cow say?" "Rrrroarrrrrr." "No, a cow says, 'Moo.' What does a fish say?" "Rrrrooaarrr."

He is still our happy boy. He loves to play with his big sister. He LOVES to play outside. He gets mad if I open the garage door before we get in the car, because he doesn't want to get in the car ... he just wants to go straight outside the garage door to play. He is not afraid of the water in the swimming pool. He thinks that he can live under water. He does not like to be held in the pool. He just wants to swim around on his own.

Here are some pictures of Luke at 15 months old:

April 2012

 We have been very busy since our last post.  

Here are some pictures from April.

 

Katie had a Science Fair at school.  She did a great job telling numerous teachers, community members, and judges all about her project. 

 

We went to Orlando for Spring Break and went to Disney for one day.

 

 Then, we went to the beach for a day!

 We celebrated Easter.

 And the next weekend, we celebrated with the cousins at Aunt Kat's house.

Luke learned how to walk!  He took his first (unassisted) steps on April 21, and he has been a walker ever since then!

Trying a video, but it may not work...

Luke's 1st Birthday Party

We had Luke's 1st birthday party at our house on Saturday (right before we all went to Champion Kids for Katie's party). We had pizza and the BEST cupcakes, watched Luke (with Katie's help) open presents, and then watched Luke attempt to throw his smash cake on the floor. He did not want to have anything to do with the cake. I even put a little dab of icing in his mouth and he screamed at me. He tried to throw his giant cupcake on the floor about 7 times before we decided to let him be done. He was pretty traumatized by the whole cake experience, and it took a few minutes to calm him back down after it was all over.

Here are some pictures I have from his party. I will have to add more pictures later, because I was not able to take as many as I would have liked as I was too busy catching a cake as it was being repeatedly tossed off of the high chair tray. (Hopefully Pop and Colleen can help me out with this!)

Katie's 4th Birthday!

Can you believe this cute baby just turned 4 years old yesterday!?!

We just celebrated Katie's 4th birthday!
Katie really wanted to invite all her friends to her party, so this was her first "friend party." We went to Champion Kids, and had tons of fun!

At four years old, Katie is a smart, energetic, fun girl! She loves dance class and soccer. She also loves to sing in the choir at church. Just a few months ago, she learned how to read. She knows sight words and can sound out words. She's curious and asks questions about the world around her all the time. As a matter of fact, she's talking ALL the time, so she's either telling us something she knows, or asking about something she wants to know.

We cannot believe how fast Katie continues to grow. Everyday she learns something new, and every day she seems to be taller than the day before. It is so much fun to watch her grow in to a sweet, loving, compassionate young lady. She's the BEST big sister Luke could have, and the best helper for Daddy and Mommy. She has had a few meltdowns, but she seems to save it for home ... just for Mommy and Daddy. Overall, she is a good listener, follows directions well, and even though she has recently become a little too aware of "stranger danger" she is still outgoing and friendly to everyone she meets.


Katie is 41 inches tall (82nd percentile) and 41.6 pounds (90th percentile).

Here are a few pictures from Katie's party:

Luke Timeline

Look how far Luke has come in one year!

Just a few hours old

4 Days Old

1 Month Old

2 Months Old

3 Months Old

4 Months Old

5 Months Old

6 Months Old

7 Months Old

8 Months Old

9 Months Old

10 Months Old

11 Months Old

ONE YEAR OLD!!!

Happy 1st Birthday, Luke!!

Can you believe this was one year ago?!?

And here he is now ... !!!

Today Luke turned ONE!!! I can't believe it's been a year already. Luke is looking so grown up, especially looking back at all the pictures from last year at this time!

Luke is still not walking, but he did walk up and down the hall at church last night, holding on to just one hand (while we were waiting for Katie to get out of choir).

Has has just a few words, still: Mama, Dada, Dihdih (Katie), ball, bahbah.

At Luke's 1 year well check at the doctor, he weighed in at 24 pounds (87th percentile). His head circumference was 18.5 in (77th percentile), and his height was 29.5 in (37th percentile).

For his birthday, we went out to eat dinner at his favorite restaurant, JD's. He loves to eat the chicken, shredded cheese, and ESPECIALLY the baked beans there.

Luke's birthday party will be on Saturday. We are having his party at our house for the family to come to. I can't wait to see how he does with his smash cake!


Here is a picture of Katie and Luke at their 4 year/1 year doctor appointments today:

Luke is 11 months old!

On February 8th, Luke turned 11 months old! Now that Luke is 11 months old, he is really enjoying moving around a lot. He cruises around a lot, but is still not walking. He stands up and balances for a little while before he topples over, but he does not seem anywhere near taking an unassisted step yet. He pushes his walking toys around, but won't let go. His crawling is super fast now, so he doesn't really see a need to learn to walk!

He still has only 6 teeth (four on top, two on the bottom), but still keeps his fingers in his mouth all the time. We keep expecting a new tooth all the time, but nothing has popped up yet. He had his first ear infection during his 11th month. He was so pathetic. I stayed home with him from school, and he slept on me for 7 hours that day. Then he slept for the entire night. He just finished his 10 days of medicine, and seems to be feeling much better!

Luke loves to play with all his toys now. He stands up to play with his toys, and today I even caught him climbing on top of his riding train toy to try to stand up on top of it! He loves to throw every.single.toy out of his play area. He is a true boy in that way - he likes to destroy anything that someone (usually Katie) builds, and he loves to pick up things and throw them. We think he really enjoys the crashing sound.

Luke's favorite place to play is the bath tub. He crawls around and throws everything into and out of the tub. For a couple days, all he wanted to do in the tub was spin around in circles and he loves to splash all of the water out of the tub. He also thinks it's funny to throw himself backwards and land flat on his back in the water. He doesn't seem to be nearly as bothered by hitting his head on the hard floor of the tub as I am!

We finally bought Luke some real tennis shoes and some other dressy shoes. He seems to be doing better about keeping them on his feet, just a tiny bit maybe.

Luke really loves real people food now. If we are all eating, he will not be happy with just a jar of baby food or baby puffs. He wants exactly what we are all having. He loves bananas, chicken, grapes, green beans, spaghetti, and more. But if he could have it his way, he would never eat anything but cheese all the time for every meal.

Luke does not really have many words at this point. He says Mama, ball, baba (for any type of milk or food), Dada, and he says the same word for Katie's name all the time, but it's hard to decipher ... it's something like deh-deh. He really makes a lot of noise but doesn't really say much of anything!

11 months have flown by!

Time to start planning a first birthday party!!!

Luke's 10 Month Post

Luke celebrated 10 months on January 8th. His 10th month was filled with fun activities and special times with family. During his 10th month, we celebrated his first Christmas. He started to crawl consistently (on his hands and knees, rather than his usual army crawl). He learned to clap his hands. He pulled up to standing for the first time and has started to cruise around a little bit holding onto furniture and toys. He ate lots of new finger foods during the month. His favorite foods during his 1oth month were cheese and tiny bits of chicken. He said Da-da early in December for the first time, and during his 10th month he began saying it more consistently.

Luke was scheduled to have surgery during his 10th month. His surgery was scheduled for January 3rd. However, just a couple weeks before his scheduled surgery, his clogged tear duct cleared up on its own. That was definitely an answered prayer for us!

At 10 months old, Luke has 6 teeth...4 on top, and 2 on the bottom. He keeps his fingers in his mouth all the time. He still wakes up every 4-5 hours during the night. He still wears 9-12 month clothes (sometimes 12-18 months), and he has actually started wearing shoes on a more consistent basis (although, he still keeps his foot balled up like a fist and we can only fit the squishy shoes on his big ole feet!

I can't believe how close Luke is to being a big one year old!

December 2011

December was a very busy and eventful month. On December 1st, Luke said, "Da-da" for the first time. He said it several times, but hasn't really said it consistently since then.

In the middle of our eventful month of December, we had a VERY eventful week. It was the week of December 12th. It was Daddy's first week at his new job. He flew out for training in Baltimore, and that's when it all started. While he was out of town, I noticed that Luke had a new tooth. (He now has 3 on top and 2 on the bottom.) On Tuesday, I brought home some easy reader books, and Katie read 10 of them before quitting. All of a sudden, it seemed she had turned into a reader!

On that same day, I noticed that Luke's clogged tear duct was looking pretty clear. (We had scheduled him to have the surgery to clear it up on January 3rd.) I kept waiting for it to goop back up, but it didn't. It seemed his eye had healed on its own! So, no surgery for us!!

Also, during that week, Luke sat up from lying down on his own for the first time. He also pulled up to standing from sitting down. AND, he learned to wave. AND, he crawled for about three "steps" without his belly touching the ground for the first time.

So, to summarize: During the week of 12/12/11, Katie learned to read, Luke got a new tooth, he sat up by himself, pulled up to standing, learned to wave, crawled up on his hands and knees, Daddy started a new job, and Luke's eye was miraculously healed! What a wonderful week!

Ok, on to the rest of December. On 12/20 Luke clapped his hands for the first time. By 12/28 he was crawling consistently up on his hands and knees. There were so many firsts and milestones for Luke (and Katie) during December!

We celebrated Luke's first Christmas during this month, and spent lots of time with family.
Here are some pictures from December:

Here is Zammo, our Elf on the Shelf.
Katie REALLY enjoyed finding him in his new hiding spot every day during the month of December.

Luke enjoyed lots of new finger foods.

This was one of the funniest moments from the entire month. Katie was trying to rock Luke and sing him a lullaby. He was obviously trying to escape. She kept saying, "Come here, Luke! I'm trying to sing to you and rock you!"




Cute Christmas pictures:

Christmas with Mommy's side of the family in Locust Grove:

The cousin scavenger hunt

The cousins

Luke found the perfect place for a nap!

Luke enjoyed his new tricycle at Honey and Pop's house.
Where are the rest of the pictures I took at Honey and Pop's house?!?

Fun in the bathtub

After Christmas, we went to the Pink Pig.

Luke's first time riding in the shopping cart at the grocery store. He loved driving the spaceship cart with his sister.

At Grandma's house, Katie and Luke enjoyed their new toys from Grandma. They enjoyed playing together.

What a wonderful month!
It's months like this one that remind us how blessed we are!