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.

The birthday boy

It's hard for me to believe it, but Luke turned 3 yesterday! He's been so excited about his birthday and has been counting down the days. When he woke up yesterday, he was thrilled his birthday had finally come. We had a Thomas party in the afternoon, and lots of our friends came to help us celebrate. He had such a blast playing with all his friends, but his favorite part was, of course, opening the presents. It was a little chaotic as all the other children tried to help him open the presents, but we all survived and Luke got some fun new toys. His favorite present was the Diego Rescue Center. Gary & I gave him a big boy bike which he has already learned how to ride (he has obviously inherited Gary's athleticism and not my complete ungracefulness!) A friend from church made his completely awesome Thomas cake which was a huge hit. Even though it was 100 degrees yesterday, the day was better than I could have imagined!

Luke, the musical

Luke loves to sing. He loves it so much that he often makes up his own songs. The other night he was singing about his bath toys, and a couple of weeks ago he was singing the praises of chocolate (something along the lines of, "Chocolate is so good and chocolatey!") It's so funny to hear him making up these songs, but it's even funnier when he asks me to sing them when he's done. I'll tell him I don't know the song, and then he'll tell me he just taught it to me. I need to pay better attention! Wouldn't it be nice to have such joy in your life that you wanted to sing about everything?

Mr. Smarty

I think Luke is so smart! Ok, I know I'm completely biased because he is my child, but he constantly amazes me. A few days ago, he asked me to help him draw a "k" so he could write his name. I watched him write an "L", then helped him a bit with the "u", showed him a "k", and watched him write the "e". He did most of it himself, and even though he didn't quite get it all on one line, I think it's still pretty good considering he won't be 3 for a couple of weeks! I think that pretty soon he's going to be smarter than me so I'll have to get some kind of full-time tutor to help him out!

Remember the Alamo!

Before we left town Wednesday, we went to the Alamo. It's right in downtown San Antonio and was definitely worth the trip. The building is a little underwhelming when you first see it, but once you go inside you realize how big it actually is. A distant, distant cousin of Gary's, Micajah Autry, fought and died at the Alamo, and it was neat to make that connection.

Dinner with Shamu

The highlight of our Sea World adventure was Dinner with Shamu on Tuesday evening. Dinner was served behind the Shamu show arena by the training pool. After we ate, the trainers told us more information about the whales (which are actually the largest member of the dolphin family), and they brought them up close for everyone to see. It was so cool to see them that close!

Sea World

Our first order of business Monday morningwas going to see Shamu. Luke's been talking about Shamu for several weeks now and wondered why he wasn't at the hotel when we checked in. We hit Sea World bright and early Monday morning and had a blast. We fed the dolphins as soon as we got there - what at treat that was! They swim right up to the edge of the pool to eat the fish. You can even touch them if you're quick enough. We saw a dolphin & Beluga whale show next, and it was really neat. Luke like seeing all the acrobats jump into the pool from way up high.

Luke feeding the dolphins.

Feeding frenzy!

After the dolphin show, we went to the Shamu "Believe" show. That's where things went a little sour. We were sitting in the "splash zone", and boy did we ever get splashed! We were all soaked, and Luke freaked out! He started crying and said he wanted to leave. So we watched the rest of the show from up high where there was no danger of getting wet. Despite getting wet, the show was fun to watch.

The day was saved when we went to the children's area after lunch and rode rides (by "we", I of course mean Gary & Luke rode rides.)

San Antonio

Casa Rio restaurant on the riverwalk.

This week we took a little vacation to San Antonio. It's about a 5-hour drive from home, but Luke did really well in the car, thanks to lots of movies and our DVD player. We got to San Antonio Sunday afternoon and after buying enough clothes to last me a few days (since I left ALL my clothes at home), we took a walk on the riverwalk. The San Antonio river runs through the middle of downtown San Antonio, and there are shops, restaurants, and hotels on either side of the river. Luke really thought the river was neat and asked all week when we were going back. We ate dinner on the riverwalk Sunday and Monday nights and took a boat ride Tuesday night. San Antonio is a pretty city, and we all enjoyed our vacation.

One of the many bridges on the river.

Enjoying the breeze.

Our Tuesday night boat cruise.

Happy Birthday, America!

We had a grand ol' time yesterday! Thanks to G-Mommy, we were all decked out in flag t-shirts. Landon, one of Luke's friends, had a birthday swim party yesterday morning, and we swam and swam and swam. Luke's doing really well this summer in the pool, and swimming has been a favorite afternoon activity. After nap we had another pool party, and Luke & Gary swam some more. It was a little rainy, but it cleared up enough to get in the pool. All of us were tuckered out yesterday evening!

Luke & Landon's sister Chloe enjoyed "pushing" Gary in the pool.

Landon & Luke taking a well-deserved lunch break.

Dallas World Aquarium

We went to the Dallas World Aquarium on Monday. It's such a neat place! They have fish from all over the world, plus exhibits with other animals. Luke loved the penguins and the flamingos, but his favorite animal was the jaguar (I didn't get a picture of it.) Luke wasn't in a picture taking mood, so I'm just posting pictures of some of the animals.
The shark tank.

Love those Florida flamingos!

Silly boy

What can I say other than Luke is his father's child?

"Come on, let's have some fun . . .

. . . it's all about Jesus' love." Our church held Vacation Bible Camp the week before last, and this was one of the songs we sang every day. We had about 500 children in attendance, and it was a great week! Although we had a few glitches every day, overall everything ran smoothly and the kids had lots of fun and learned all about Jesus. The theme was "Fiesta!", and the entire church was decorated; the 2 women in charge of decorations did a fabulous job! Even though Luke was technically in the nursery, they still did a few activities related to the theme, and he had a really good time. Every day there was a message that was reinforced through all the activities, and anytime someone said the theme, ("Jesus is our friend", "Jesus is our leader", etc.), the kids all yelled "Viva!" and raised their arms in the air. Luke especially liked that part as well as learning the motions to all the songs. Here are few pictures from the week.

Luke and his friend Kaylee gettin' down to one of the songs.

What a crowd!

Say what?!?

Gary & Luke played outside for a while this evening, and when they came in, Gary told me that Luke cracked him up outside. Apparently he looked at Gary very seriously and said, "Help us help dogs find a loving home." As best as I can figure, he got this from some kind of advertisement on the Nick Jr. website. He won't say exactly what it's from, but he enjoys saying it and repeated it several times tonight. So, I beg you, hear my son's plea and, "Help us help dogs find a loving home."

The artist

Yesterday evening Luke & I were outside playing when he decided he wanted to draw with chalk. He did a little scribbling, and then he drew three circles on top of each other and called it a snowman. He then said he needed to give it eyes and a mouth, and sure enough, he did. I asked him to put hair on it, and his reply was, "Usually they don't have hair." He drew some anyway, and I think it's pretty good for an almost-3-year-old.


This is the head and hair of the snowman. It's hard to see the eyes and mouth, but they're there!











This, according to Luke, is our baby - note the lifelike qualities of the body and head. I hope it's not this big!










The sun.














A porcupine.