sunday night dinner

Sunday night we went to dinner at Joe's Farm Grill (yum!) with Jeannie, Holly, and Corey. Luke kept Holly and I very entertained as we waited for the others to order and come sit with us. Luke was up to his usual crazy behavior and showing off his tricks.

Jeannie even gave Luke his first taste of ice cream. He would have devoured every last drop of her ice cream if we had let him. The entire time he was eating the ice cream, I kept think of Traci and her Coldstone post and how proud she'd be of him. At one point, I think he even made the "squee!" sound because he couldn't contain his love for the stuff.

Sugar rush sweetheart?

We ended the evening by walking with Luke around the grounds of the restaurant. Its a cute place that has nice open grassy areas all around it and as Luke is definitely a boy, he loves every second of getting to be in the grass...and rocks...and dirt. I can see this becoming an issue with laundry someday in my near future.

We had a great time at dinner with great family. Can't wait to do it again soon!

scariness

Luke is a really tough kid. He's smacked his head various times throughout the past week without causing so much as a whimper. A chair leg, the edge of his drum, corner of his toy basket, the side of his crib. You name it, this kid's head has come into contact with it at some force over the past week or so. Each time, he rolls over gets up and keeps moving. I get more scared by the whole ordeal than he does.

Luke's weakness? A silly baseball toy that Keith and I got him for Christmas. He is absolutely petrified of the thing. Ever so often, I pull it out and I put him down next to it to see if his phobia has passed. I tried again on Sunday and this is what happened:

He tried to get away so fast that he pulled himself up onto the ottoman that helps corral him in the family room as he's crying and spazing out. He was shaking like a leaf, poor thing. The toy in question is the one that look like a t-ball stand behind Luke. I know Keith is watching the whole thing and I'm taking pictures, but we think its kind of hilarious. And in my defense, I think he has a cute booty. See?

Once Luke got up on the ottoman, we put him on the other side so he could see the toy in question and *hopefully* realize it isn't out to get him. He seemed relatively calm and stared carefully at it.

My parents always told me if you fall off a horse, you get up and get back on again. I thought the same analogy would apply to Luke and this particular situation. The more exposure he gets to they toy, the less scared he'll be of it. Right?

Wrong. He got away even quicker the second time. Maybe instead of learning the toy was harmless, he learned a much more effective and speedy route away because-Man!-he was out a lot quicker the second time.

So now the toy has been designated to a spot that assures me that Luke will not be escaping the confined space of our family room through the chair legs of our kitchen table chairs anytime soon. He plays with his toys closer to the couch and periodically shoots the look of death at the baseball toy. He refuses to go after a toy that comes within two feet of the thing. It's like the lost toy has crossed over to the dark side and is lost for good to him.

He always manages to keep things interesting.

bad banana

Keith and I like to eat bananas. They are a relatively healthy food that we consider to be fairly yummy. We consume quite a few bananas every week and always have some around. Being as we are trying to be much more cost-conscious recently, we decided to to try the bananas from Costco. It makes sense-a greater quantity of bananas at a seemingly great price. No! They fool you!

Bananas at Costco are green. Lime green. Not a normal color of banana. We thought this meant they would ripen in a few days and be ready to eat. Not so, my friend. The bananas went directly from the shocking shade of green to brown. No stop at yellow in between either. So what do you do when you have bananas that look like this?

Throw them out? No! Compost? No! Banana bread? Heck yes! I made banana bread and it was super yummy. As the saying goes, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade...or if you buy bad bananas, make some fabulous banana bread.

yummy goodness

I have been watching a lot of the Food Network channel on our TV lately. I have this desire to be a better cook and a better baker, just better in the kitchen altogether. No offense Mom, but we were never really taught the art of cooking unless you include hot dogs and cereal as something that requires cooking. You know I'm right.

Anyways, I was watching Giada and she based an entire show on my favorite meal of the day: breakfast. One of her recipes was making cinnamon rolls. I've had a severe aversion to cinnamon rolls since my 18th birthday when I caught the flu and became sick with said rolls and macaroni and cheese being the only two things in my stomach. I shudder at the memories. Ick.

This is seriously one of the first times these things have looked even remotely appealing since then and they seemed fairly easy to make. Tonight, Keith and Andrew got to be my guinea pigs to see if these really tasted as good as they looked.

The recipe starts with pre-made frozen bread dough that I had to let thaw (notice my poke marks to make sure it wasn't still frozen):

The filling mixture. I actually roasted the almonds on my stove and chopped them myself! Who would've thought? I was actually supposed to use hazelnuts, but I've never had those before and since I was risking making these in the first place, I wanted them to have a nut that I'm familiar with.

This is the rolls placed in the dish just after I put them together. I had to let them sit for 45 minutes before baking them so that the dough could rise. I was skeptical that they would get larger, but man did they!

The final product. The boys said they were really good, but I think I might leave the cloves out that the recipe called for next time. Just a smidge too clover-ish for my taste.

All in all, I have to admit that I was pretty impressed with myself. I feel like I took a baby step today towards a.) eating cinnamon rolls again and b.) becoming more adventurous in the kitchen. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to make next...

a few points of interest

1. It hasn't been quite two months since Luke's first hair cut, but we are fast approaching the need for another one. His hair has grown over his ears and gets amazingly puffy at times. When he gets out of the bath, this is what it looks like:

See, he does have some of my genes in that little body somewhere. Heaven knows Keith doesn't have any curl to his hair.

2. The boy loves him some spaghetti.

3. The boy also does not have any top teeth to speak of yet. He smiled big enough from the spaghetti to show proof. (Sorry it's a little blurry!)

4. Luke is just past 11 months old, probably a month away from getting his last bottle, and he *finally* figured out how to hold his own bottle. Better late than never? Nah. He also figured out how to chuck it across the room when he thinks he finished, 2 ounces into an 8 ounce bottle. I'm fairly certain this is a skill he could have lived without knowing.

5. My directions: Keith, hold still and smile while I get Luke's attention so I can take the picture.

6. Luke loves to hold some one's hand and walk along beside them now. He even reaches up for your hand and gives you this big smile. This is Keith walking Luke to get ready for bed one night.

Their ends.

practice with grandma

My parents came to visit again this weekend and to surprise my uncle for his birthday. It is so nice when they get to come visit and it was especially nice this time with the weather being as gorgeous as it was. Luke and Grandma got to spend some quality time together outside practicing Luke's walking skills. 

I think this picture looks like Luke's America's Next Top Model action shot. You know the ones where they have to jump or make it look like there were in the middle of doing some important sports move? Yeah, that kind.

kid of a thousand faces

Over the course of about 10 minutes, these are some of the faces Luke made. Keith always says that I'm very expressive with my face, so maybe this is a little bit of me in Luke.

souljaboy: out of practice?

I have to get this out.

Last night around 11 p.m. (which, mind you, is WAY past my bedtime), I receive a text from someone identifying himself as "Jesse Souljaboy." Apparently some random girl had given him my phone number instead of her real one so that this guy wouldn't be able to contact her. Thanks. Really. The guy didn't seem to understand that I wasn't the girl he had met and he kept questioning why I had given him the wrong number. Um...if I had given you the wrong number, I wouldn't be talking to you! Duh!

The whole debacle got me thinking. I know that I have been out of practice with the whole dating-thing for awhile. I mean, Keith and I started dating when we were 15 and have been married almost five-and-a-half years at this point, but when did it become okay to contact someone for the first time after getting their number by text at 11 p.m. at night during the week? And why would you insist on being called, not just Souljaboy, but Jesse Souljaboy (I was corrected when I mistakenly called him by just Souljaboy during one of my reply texts)? Who would take someone seriously that called themselves that? Come on. My maternal instincts almost wanted to help the kid out and point out all the mistakes he was making as to why he had received the wrong number in the first place. Almost. Like I said, it was way past my bed time.

Am I so out of the loop that this is common place now? Is this really okay?

Mental note: remind Luke texting at close to midnight with a ridiculous nickname is dumb and never recommended if you'd ever like to hear from the girl again.

12-1=11

I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that Luke is *11* months old already. He's becoming such the little man and it's going by so quickly.

Luke has continued to improve his walking skills over the course of the last week. He can make it from our kitchen table to the couch completely independent of any assistance. It's amazing that he'll go to the chairs, stand himself up, and walk away from the chairs as if it's no big deal. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with my mouth hanging open, trying to calculate how much precious time I have left until he's running like a madman through our house. Speaking of kitchen chairs, he's figured out how to get through the chairs which has posed another new obstacle for me as I learn the various ways I get to chase him around the house. But how can you get upset at this?

The way that he gets excited at the most normal, everyday things is precious to me. I still have to remind myself that he's still seeing things for the very first time, not the millionth like myself. He starts to breath all heavy, almost panting like a dog, while breaking into this huge grin where you can see his tiny dimple in his chubby cheek. He likes to stand on his toes so he can get a better look at things; he's already starting to sport some Waltemeyer calf muscles.

We've started feeding Luke more solid foods, but it's been a difficult road as he *still* only has those bottom two teeth. Thus far, Luke likes potatoes, ravioli, cheese, pears, yogurt, and best of all, Mickey-shaped chicken nuggets. He doesn't like to be fed the baby food anymore, but we have to to get a good amount of calories in to make sure he stays healthy. Pop learned the hard way this weekend that Luke doesn't take well with being told how to eat his food or what food to eat; he laughs when you tell him no. Doesn't matter how firm you are when you tell him, too. (Told you so, Dad.)

Luke continues to be a happy, healthy, thriving kid who is becoming continuously more difficult to photograph for his monthly chair picture. After attempting to nose dive from the chair, he made a break for it and never looked back. With the exception of the chair part, I'd say that last sentence pretty much sums up our last eleven months. The best eleven months.

a day at the park

I'll add more to this post a bit later when I get all of my pictures dowloaded, but for now I'm just going to add this picture that Eric took. It's *officially* one of my most favorite pictures of Luke.

new toy

We bought Luke this ball last week at Target. We went with the intent of getting him one of the big balls, but he could get his hands around this one better and he laughed hysterically at Keith while he chased it down the aisle. For some reason, he gets a kick out of having it thrown at his head. Definitely has to be something inherited from Keith.

I apologize for it being dark and long. I can't figure out how to edit it and accurately save it on my computer so it will load to blogger.

a visit to treeland

I would like to start by saying that I think the people at Treeland must get sick of seeing Luke and I show up at Treeland because we manage to distract a good portion of the employees during the time we are there. I'm sorry.

Luke and I really wanted to visit though, so we made the trip in today. Luke got to spend some quality time with Aunt Holly and even helped her answer the phone a few times.

Keith was in and out for the majority of the time we were there. During one of his brief stops in, he and Luke got to spend some time together. Luke kept trying to take all of the papers out of Keith's pocket. Do you see how big Luke is ?!? We measured while we were there and he's 31 inches long. It's hard to believe he's grown 10 inches since he was born. Crazy.

We also took a family picture. If I don't ask to be in pictures, you'd never see me on here.

Donn (aka Ta Ta, Grandpa, Bampa, Boompa...whatever Luke decides to call him) spent a good chunk of time with us but tends to be a little camera-shy. I'll work on that. I think Steve, the manager of Treeland, was feeling a bit jealous and left out. I caught him making this face:

Luke seems to really like seeing everyone at Treeland. Or at least I hope he does. My guess is he'll be spending LOTS of time there when he gets older.

the mange

After the stray-ratty-dog debacle, we have been monitoring Rosco very closely. Apparently this sarcoptic mange thing that the other dog had is highly contagious and we were super worried that either Rosco or us would get the disease. It's spread through mites that burrow in the skin of the dogs (and humans too!) and causes excessive itching and hair loss. Can you imagine if I had to cancel a play date with Luke's friends because he and I have the mange? How do you explain that without sounding like a total goober?

Rosco is a typically itchy/licky dog. He's been this way since we've had him and it drives me crazy. The sound of dogs licking is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I even shudder at the thought. Ew. Anyways, Rosco has stepped up his itchiness over the course of the past few days and has even broken skin with his nails during two of his scratchy spells. Hence, Rosco ended up like this:

The t-shirt helps to protect the wound that is already there and deter him from further scratching. We thought we should take him to the vet to make sure he didn't develop the mange (must be said in a very ominous, booming voice). Although we'd been joking about the mange over the past week or so, we seriously didn't want Rosco to have it (or spread it to us, for that matter). Off to the doctor we go.

Prognosis: not the mange. Just a dog with skin allergies and an ear infection. So we come home with this, minus a significant amount of moola, to keep Rosco healthy and less itchy.

Well worth the peace of mind and lack of further licking noises.

thisclose

It's almost time. Tonight he started taking actual steps on his own without us having to throw him forward. We were only balancing him before he took off. We are so proud of him...but so completely terrified of having to run after him soon!

random fluff

This is merely a mish-mash of pictures and stuff that didn't quite merit a post of there own, but I still wanted to share.

1. New shoes. Who doesn't want to show off a new pair of shoes? Luke needed some sandals for the weather we've been having lately. His standard monkey shoes don't quite go with shorts.

2. Future American Idol? Luke has really taken to singing. He'll sing along to the music on TV or the radio. He'll sing along as he's playing the piano keys on his activity table. He'll try to sing a song after you do (Itsy Bitsy Spider is his personal favorite). He'll even just sing to himself as he's playing and there are no other sounds.