It's a bird, it's a plane . . .

. . . it's Superman! OK, he is playing with a doll, but I think the man of steel's allowed to do just about whatever he wants. Luke's school held its annual Fall Festival today. The children got to wear their costumes to school, and they all kept them on for the whole day! They got to do lots of fun activities during the morning, from a bean bag toss to bouncing in a bounce house, and got goodies at each stop along the way. After the festival, each class had an individual party. Luke's class ate pizza & cookies and decorated a little pumpkin. Needless to say, all the kids in their costumes were precious! Luke & his buddy Landon were both Superman. Spiderman, Dorothy, a couple of witches, Minnie Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, and a princess all made appearances, too. I feel so lucky that I'm able to go to his parties and see how much fun he has at school.

Pumpkin carving time!

Luke & I carved our pumpkin today. He's been asking to do it for about two weeks, but if you carve a pumpkin too early here, it's likely to start stinking if the weather gets hot again (which it usually does.) Since we're leaving for South Carolina on Friday, I figured we'd better go ahead and do it today or we'd miss doing it all together. Last year Luke didn't have any problem sticking his hand in the pumpkin and scooping out the pumpkin goop, but he wanted no part of it this year. He did use a scooper to get some of it out, but in true three-year-old fashion, he was done scooping after about two minutes. After choosing the pattern, he helped me paint it on and helped cut the pumpkin just a bit. He liked it once we were done and is looking forward to seeing it tonight with the candle in it.
Scooping out the goop!


Mr. Jack O' Lantern!

Texas weather

There's a saying around here . . . if you don't like the weather, wait a while because it's sure to change. We've definitely experienced that this week.

-Monday's weather: cloudy, rainy, high of 75
-Tuesday's weather: sunny & very warm, high of 85
-Wednesday's weather: sunny & hot (almost 90) till about 5:00 when a cold front blew in and the temperature dropped to about 55 by 6:30
-Thursday's weather: cloudy & cool; high temp, 60
-Friday's weather: sunny and COLD in the morning with a low in the upper 30's; forecasted high is 71
-Saturday's weather: sunny and warmer with an expected high of 80
-Sunday's weather: sunny and cooler with an expected high of 65

I just finished a load of laundry that contained shorts, t-shirts, jeans, and sweatpants. Crazy!

Pumpkin patch

Today was pumpkin patch day! We went to the Big Orange Pumpkin Farm up in Celina, about 15 minutes from here. We fed longhorns, sheep, and lots of goats, took a hayride, ate lunch, and picked out a couple of pumpkins. Luke's very much in his weird smile phase, so he looks pretty goofy in all our posed pictures. I love capturing his natural smile, but it doesn't happen very often. On the way home he said, "I had so much fun at the pumpkin patch." I'd have to agree.

Daddy's little helper

I recently bought a bulletin board to put in Luke's room. Because the frame had a finish on it, it needed to be sanded before I painted it blue. So one night, Gary & Luke got the sander out and got to work!

Up, up, and away!

We went to the Plano Balloon Festival this weekend with several friends (it's kind of like Freedom Weekend Aloft for all you SC folks.) There are two balloon lifts every day and all kinds of food and merchandise vendors. There's also a neat kids' area with inflatables and crafts for the kids to do. We took a picnic dinner and watched the balloons from on top of a hill. Luke did three different inflatable obstacle courses and had a blast. Considering he's so cautious in so many areas of his life, he's fearless when it comes to what I would consider quite adventurous activities. He loved the balloons, too. We see hot air balloons a good bit around here, but it was neat to see them close up and to see so many at once. Luke loved the G-Daddy and pirate balloons; my favorite was, of course, the Target balloon! Skydivers brought in the American and Texas flags; I think we all enjoyed that most of all. The weather was perfect, and it was a really fun evening.

Rainy day

Yesterday was a rainy day - the second one we've had in about six months. Although we desperately need the rain, Luke & I were going a little stir-crazy by late afternoon, so we decided to get suited up and head outside. He was sporting three different animals: a dalmation raincoat, dragon rainboots, and a duck umbrella. What's even funnier is that he only has on a shirt and sweater vest under the coat (he decided not to put his shorts back on at some point during the day after going potty.) He had lots of fun splashing and running around in the rain, and since rainy days occur once in a blue moon around here, I thought I'd take some pictures of this special day.

TMI

This will surely be too much information for many folks (including my husband who will no doubt be mildly perturbed that I posted it), but read on. Here's a conversation from this morning:

Luke: "I'm a tooter boy."
Me: "What is a tooter boy?"
Luke: "I toot a lot."
Me: "Well, you sure do. You and your daddy."
Luke (to Gary): "I'm your son."
Gary: "You are? Why is that?"
Luke: "Because you and I toot a lot."

Oh, out of the mouths of babes!

CSI: McKinney

Go Gamecocks!

Saturday night's game aside, we're still the biggest Gamecock fans in Texas! And has anyone ever looked cuter in a jersey? Look out, Sydney Rice!

Luke the Builder, part 2

Last Saturday Luke & Gary went to the kids' workshop at Home Depot, and Luke (with Gary's help) built a birdhouse. Gary said he did a good job hammering in the nails but would get tired after a while and ask Gary to finish. He was so proud of his little birdhouse! We painted it later that afternoon, and he did a pretty good job. Yesterday we all went to Lowe's kids' clinic where he was supposed to build another birdhouse. They had run out of birdhouse kits by the time we got there, so Luke got to choose whatever he wanted to build. He chose to build a racecar. I got some good pictures of him hard at work. This is such a good way to spend Saturday morning, especially since it's free!

First day of school

Luke's first day of three-year-old preschool was Tuesday. He was very excited to go back this year, especially since he has the same teachers as last year. He also knows more than half of the other children in his class, so this was a relatively easy transition. Our biggest challenge is getting him to go to the bathroom at school. So far he hasn't gone at school and tells his teachers he's just going to wait for me. I'm sure he'll eventually go once he's more comfortable (hopefully, anyway!) I only got two pictures Tuesday morning because my camera batteries ran out and I didn't have any extra. His favorite place to be is on his top bunk, so I had to take the pictures of him up there.

Guess what kind of backpack Luke's wearing? That's right . . . Thomas!

Once upon a time Luke smiled nicely. Now he just makes this weird face when we ask him to smile. I assume it's just one more thing he'll eventually outgrow!

Luke the Builder

Luke got a set of Lincoln Logs for his birthday, and it's quickly become one of his favorite toys. It took him a little while to figure out how to build on his own, but now that he's got the hang of it, he can build pretty neat houses. This is actually one of the smaller ones he has built, but he was in a picture-taking mood this morning, so I snapped some quick photos.

Mr. Organization

My mom sent these wall stickers to Luke last week, and he wanted to put them on his toy chest. Notice how they're not randomly stuck on - the fire trucks are together, the stop signs are together, the stoplights are together. Hmmmm . . . I wonder where he gets that from?

A big bed for Luke

Luke is officially in his big boy bedroom! Because he is resistant to change, we started this process several months ago when we went to look at bedroom furniture for him. We finally decided on a bunkbed and chest of drawers, and we got the bottom bed and the chest last week. The top bunk came today, and the room is finished! It took several weekends of cleaning out, painting (thanks to my dear husband), putting together, and straightening up, but it's finally done. Luke's been sleeping in the bottom bed for about a week, and he loves it! He's excited to have the top bunk because it makes the bottom bed even cozier, not to mention it's fun to bounce around on the top bed. He likes to spend time in his room playing and is having fun discovering toys he previously had forgotten about. Every day he finds something new that he hasn't played with in months.


I love finding a good deal! The bookshelf in the corner came from Home Depot. It was on sale for $12.97, and the red & blue bins were $2.97 each. I found something similar at Target for almost three times as much!





I'm not doing much as far as decorations go, but I found these wall hangings at Pier 1 Kids and thought they were made for Luke. The lamp was another bargain for $15!

The world according to Luke

Here are a few more funny things my child does and says . . .

-Time is a variable. Something that happened this morning could have happened, according to Luke, earlier, yesterday, last night, last year, or possibly last summer. He just knows it happened sometime before this very minute.
-He has started to call Gary & me "Mom" and "Dad". It's the rare occasion when he calls us "Mommy" or "Daddy". He's 3 going on 18.
-He always calls his thumb his "thumbkin".
-Many of his sentences begin with, "Listen to me," as in, "Listen to me, Mom. I do want to watch TV right now." He's awfully bossy!
-Any time he sleeps, whether it's in the middle of the day or at night, he considers it a nap. We count down the days till we're going to do something by how many naps he has to take. For example, there are 3 more naps till Daddy comes back this week.

I have said several times in the past few weeks that whoever coined the phrase "terrible twos" obviously never had a three-year-old boy. Despite that sentiment, Luke still makes me laugh every day (although I'm glad school starts next week!)

Return of the big-headed baby

I had my 20-week ultrasound yesterday (I can't believe I'm 1/2 way through!) Everything looks good and normal. The baby looked at us the entire time and didn't seem a bit shy. This little fact will come as no surprise to those of you who know my rather large-headed son . . . the baby measured 20 weeks, 3 days, but the head measured 21 weeks, 5 days. Oh well, at least I feel very sure that having another C-section is definitely the right thing to do.

Birthday, part 2

Luke and "the kids" - Benjamin, 9; Hannah, 11; & Ethan, 7

We've been in Greenville, SC for the past week visiting family. My mom had a second birthday party for Luke when we got there last Wednesday, complete with another Thomas cake (made by my sister and nephew Benjamin) and presents. Luke finally got Lofty (a Bob the Builder character) and Edward (a Thomas engine); he was desperate for both these gifts, so they were well-received. We had a good week visiting everyone. For some reason I didn't take a lot of pictures but have posted a few that I actually did get.

Fun at the waterpark.

Luke's getting a lesson from Hannah, the maestro.