Time for an update....

Luke is crawling up a storm, there is no stopping him now, and I have to remember to always keep my eyes on him! When he sees something he wants, he goes for it! And he has gotten good at pulling himself up on his knees and trying to reach for even more things! I lowered the mattress in the crib yesterday so now it is all the way at the bottom level. The mattress went from the second notch, skipped the third notch, and now it is at the fourth notch... he is just growing so fast and changing that I thought I would save myself 45 minutes (yes, that is really how long it took me to lower the dang thing!) and just put it on the lowest setting now! Luke's latest new thing if tossing his pacifier out of the crib. It doesn't matter if we have one or two in there, he tosses them both, and then he is upset! I guess he will learn that it he really wants them, he won't toss them. Luke will be 8 months old on the 24th! How time flies! He quit wanting to nurse a few weeks ago and has basically weened himself. He went form nursing 5 times to 4...3...really fast and for the last week he was only nursing at breakfast, and now it looks like he won't be nursing at all. So now it looks like we will have to start supplementing with formula. Not something we really wanted to do, but hopefully we will only have to supplement. Oh well, you do what you have to do, learn from it, move on and do better the next time. (no that is not an announcement!)

Michael had his second softball game last Monday. They did better in this game, scoring 5 runs, but because of the mercy rule, the game was still called early since the other team had much more runs scored. If you want more detail on the mercy rule or anything else, maybe Michael will amaze us with a post!

Last Saturday we met up with a coworker (and his wife) that Michael worked with in CA. Michael's sister was kind enough to babysit for us (thank you Angela!) in the evening. We had them meet us before we went out so they could meet Luke, and we visited for a while. Then we went to The Keg restaurant for some yummy steaks! I can't remember the last time I had such yummy restaurant steaks, probably before Luke was born! We had been to The Keg once before in WA, and liked it there, so we tried the one here. We had forgotten that it was on the pricey side...but it was worth it. Come to think of it, I think this may have been the first time that Michael had been out together in the evening alone since before Luke was born! Since it was a little bit more than we usually would spend when we do (use to) go out we decided to celebrate our anniversary a month or so early! It worked out fine doing that because now it looks like Michael will be out of town for training for two week in July, so he will miss our anniversary anyhow. But on the plus side, he will now get his travel expenses paid, and he will get perdiem! Oh, it looks like he will be in Atlanta, he's less excited about that!

Well, or fridge is now finally fixed. Since we have a Samsung, we had to find an authorized people to come and fix it, but it is now fixed, and out of all the things that have gone wrong and needed fixing around here, it was the cheapest...so that was good!

It's getting hot here now. Last summer wasn't as hot, so I think it lured us into a false sense of security and left us thinking maybe summers in Texas won't be that bad. HA. I was even preggo at the time...I want last summer back...without being preggo of course, we enjoy having Luke here with us! We try and walk in the morning, if we wait to late (like 10am) it is to hot for us to go, so we just stay inside the rest of the day! I am thankful that most days there is a breeze out, making it feel a little cooler than it actually is!

I think that this is a lengthy enough post, I have some pictures and video clips that I wil try and post in a few days!

The proof is in the pudding...

...or something like that! Well, anyway, here is a video clip of Luke crawling. This was taken yesterday, and I can't count how many times today that we have already had to pull him away from the TV stand, and he has only been up less then two hours! I was getting ready for a walk this morning, left Luke playing with his toys, and when I came back he was gone. I thought that he had crawled in to be with Michael, but he had just crawled on the other side of the couch and I just couldn't see him! I think I will start vacuuming every night, or roll Luke up in tape or flannel so he can help with all of Ender's fur!

So, Luke is pretty amazing...

...Getting so big and all! Let's see, he has two bottom front teeth, but I posted a picture of that earlier...I think he is getting more teeth because he is very cranky and he doesn't nap well. I'm just glad that he is still sleeping well at night! (knocking on wood as I type!) He has been scooting backwards and turning himself in circles for a while, and has now started to go forwards, not just rocking anymore! On Saturday was the day that he actually crawled, and I'm glad that Michael got to see it! This past weekend he also started to pull himself up on his knees! So that means that in the morning when we go in and get him, he is kneeling in the crib waiting with his smiley face ready for us to feed and play with him! We got Luke a bathtub seat. I couldn't find the one that I was looking for, but I found one that will work just as good. I will be posting pictures later this week, but he loves to sit and play, splash the water, and kick back and relax and gum the washcloth! It's hard to believe that Luke is 7 months old now...it's going much tooooo fast!

I forget that I can post more than just pictures and videos letting people know what is going on in our lives. But then on the other hand they say that a picture is worth a thousand words...is that how it goes??

Michael has been commuting to Farmers Branch now for about three weeks. He works 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM, so he usually leaves the house about 6:15, and he usually gets home about 5:15. That is if the traffic is good both ways! He got spoiled in Fort Worth traveling just 15 minutes each way! After a small personnel problem, he has finally received the promotion that prompted him to switch to the Farmers Branch office. He will have some training to do in July, I think that he is a little disappointed that it is in Dallas, because that means that he doesn't get perdiem, travel expenses, or mileage paid. Bummer! Michael has started playing softball with some guys from the ward. They had a practice last week, and their first game was last night. The game started at 9:30 but when he was home a little after 10 I was surprised. I guess that they didn't do that good (17 to 0) and called the game.

I keep busy. Although by looking at the state of my house sometimes, you would have guessed otherwise! Haha! Sometimes I try to nap when Luke takes his morning nap, but that doesn't always work. I am going to a scrapbook evening this Saturday. I printed pictures so I actually have pictures to scrapbook. I am going to make cards for a card exchange later this month, so those two things should keep me busy. I just have to plan on making my cards when Luke is asleep, so I can be uninterrupted! I try and take the kids for a walk in the morning...if I wait too late, it is much too hot to go, and then I have to worry about slathering Luke in sunscreen!

Hope you enjoyed the update, look for pictures and video soon!

He's so close...

...to crawling!!! I suppose it's only a few more weeks until he really starts going! Time to baby proof!

Mmmmmm donuts!

The finished product!

I was watching the food network the other day and Paula Deen was having a everything chocolate show, so I recorded it because it looked so yummy and I wanted to try the donuts. I had to search her web site for the donut recipe because it was easier than writing everything down while I was watching.

Now, I sometimes have a tendency to mess things up...even if I follow the recipe. I followed all of the instructions, but I would do one thing different when making the actual donuts. I should have used clean oil. They tasted like french fries because we like to make home made french fries, and I suppose I could use a different type of oil if I wanted to. But the donuts were very easy to make and form and cook. The chocolate sauce was a bit harder. It looked really easy when Paula and her son made it, so I thought there was nothing to it. Well, when it was done cooking, it looked way too runny, maybe I didn't cook it long enough, I don't know. So I ended up adding a lot more powdered sugar to thicken it up. It wasn't quite right, but the overall donut was a bust because it tasted like fries. Oh, and I had waaaay to much sauce left over for the amount of donuts anyhow. Maybe I'll get adventurous some other time, but probably not, since it is cheaper to go and buy whatever kind of yummy donut you want. And there is a lot less mess to clean up when you buy!

But they sure look yummy!

Hey, maybe this can be a loophole!

I think, well, Michael came up with a way for me to have a profile viewable for me and everyone else to see. So I created another account that we have attached to our family blog. So hopefully this will work....we shall see. I now have to remember who to log into if I want to leave comments places so the right profile sends people back to our blog.

Batman is wise!

Our big boy!

Luke is growing up way toooooo fast! We just can't believe it! I guess now it's only a matter of time until he is crawling all over the place!

He has also learned to hold his own bottle, I'm not quite sure when or how he learned to do that because he rarely gets bottles. But it's pretty cute I think!

There they are!

Little teeth buds! Look at those teeth coming in! You can just hardly see them, but they are there! I can feel them, I have felt them since Saturday. And he is letting us know how he feels about them, loudly! Actually since I have really nothing to compare Luke's teething to, I would say that for now, he is just as cranky teething as he is cranky when he gets overly tired!

Luke at 6 months!

Note: No babies were harmed in the making of these photos (I took all of the thorns off the rose).

I can now feel that his teeth have poked up out of his gums, and they feel sharp! He was really cranky today, I'm sure that will be the norm for a while, but we keep his little teething things in the fridge and swap them out. We had three teething things...now we have two...Ender happened to get one! I guess as Luke gets older he will learn now to leave his toys around or they may get eaten!

Totally Random!

Pearly whites!

Soon Luke will be cranky beyond all cranky. Soon Luke will not be sleeping well. Soon Luke will have some teeth! I noticed yesterday that I could start to see some little white bumps in the bottom front of his gums. Today I took a spoon and was lightly tapping on his gums, and when his tongue wasn't in the way, I could hear the spoon clinking on his soon to be teeth! Too bad Costco doesn't sell huge things of baby orajel! I can't believe how big Luke is getting. On the 12th he will be 6 1/2 months old!

On the napping front....he is doing pretty well. He will take about 2 or 3 naps, which is pretty normal for some 6 mo. olds from what I have been reading. We love that Luke is in bed about 6 or 6:30 and that he will generally sleep until 6:30 or 7 in the morning! We have been walking this week after breakfast, we try and have a walk about 8 am. If we go and walk in the morning before it gets too hot, we don't have to go out the rest of the day if we don't want to! It's been really nice this week, just to be able to be at home and work on firming up Luke's schedule!

Glad that April is over.

Even thought April was a shorter month, I am glad it's over. Too bad May is starting to turn out like April...expensive! We got our slab leak all fixed and under control, now all I have to do to wrap that up is send a copy of our receipts from the plumber to the water department and they will reimburse us a little for the leak. We have a little of a drip, drip, drip, dripping water in the refrigerator, looking into having someone come and fix that, too bad we didn't buy the extended warranty for the fridge we bought just over a year ago. Our AC is on the fritz. I noticed last week that it wasn't cooling the house, even after running non stop for over 5 hours. Well, come to find out that has a leak too! We had the AC people out last year to fill the unit with refrigerant since it hadn't been serviced since we moved in, and we were surprised that this summer that it needed 6 more pounds of refrigerant. Which meant that there was a leak. A rather large leak. So we will wait until the refrigerant leaks all out, we are hoping that we can ride out what's left and that it will take us through the summer (I know, that's asking a lot!). After there is no more, we will be replacing the AC unit. We could have just replaced the part that was leaking and with the new part, had a 1 year warranty, but for a little bit more, we get a whole new unit with a 5 year warranty. And knowing our luck, and the fact that we will be here for a few more years, we are going with the 5 year warranty! Things come in three's, yes?! Well, you would think then that we have paid our dues and we should be done for a while....wrong! We were on our way home Saturday and we had a tire blow out! It sounded loud and we thought that there was one of those supped up cars or something with a huge muffler problem, but when a little PT Cruiser passed us and the noise was still there we pulled over and surveyed the damage. So, we got 4 new tires for the car (that means that with in the last 6 months we have replaced 6 of the 8 tires on our cars). I guess the fact that we needed new tired anyway makes it a little easier to swallow, and we were just glad that it didn't happen on Michael's way to work, because today he started his commute to Farmers Branch (a little over an hour each way), and we were glad that it wasn't raining, or snowing, or dark, and that we did have the spare in good condition, and that everyone was okay, yada, yada, yada...And people ask me if I get bored all day at home...nope, not with all that has been going on here!

But... I am happy to report that other things are going well here, Luke is just getting cuter everyday (I will get to posting pictures soon, we have to back up the computer before that has problems too!) and we are really enjoying having him in our family. Luke really likes Ender and Ender is learning fast to stay away from Luke's little fingers that are now grabbing everything in sight! And Luke is working on learning how to sit up all by himself!

Another cute video

Luke loves his jumper! He has really getten the hang of how those legs work this week! We have more jumping videos, but one is enough for now! It makes me happy when he is happy! I'll try and post some 6 month pictures this week.

6 Month update

Luke had his 6 month appointment yesterday. It's hard to believe that it has already been 6 months! We weren't even home from the hospital 6 months ago, where does the time go?

Here are the new stats:
17 lbs
26 1/2 inches long
and I can never remember what his head measures, but all in all he is really proportionate, and he is average with all the other 6 month old babies. He still seems really big to me especially whenever I hold him!

He had 4 shots and only gave a slight whimper at the last one, and it was a tired whimper because he wanted to be back asleep.

His next appointment will be when he is 9 months old. My baby is growing up to fast, right before my eyes! I need to take more pictures and videos, at least then that will capture the things that happen fast that I might have otherwise missed!

Well, I'm sure you all want ot know...

Boring picture, but this was all I could get...I had to stay out of the way! Our slab leak is now fixed! We Had to wait about a week for the people to come out and detect the leak, but they were able to fix it the same day. Luck was on our side, and the leak was in the garage. If it was in the kitchen, which is where we feared it would be because worse things have happened (like 3 different floods in less than 2 weeks) that would have meant jackhammering in the kitchen, possibly ripping out cupboards and counter tops, ripping out tile, and then after the fixing was done because we would have to make things match, new tile in the kitchen and dining room since they are connected, new cupboards if they weren't able to save the old ones, and new counter tops. As much as a new kitchen would have been nice...no thank you! Not in this house, maybe if we knew we would stay long term. (by the way, this will be the second summer in a row that we don't have to move!!! And at the end of May it will be a tie for the longest address that we have ever been at!) So the slab leak was a pretty easy fix, well, it looked easy. Instead if jackhammering in the garage, they rerouted the plumbing from the water heater in a different direction and bypassed the leak and connected it up on the other side. Doesn't make sense, don't worry I had to see it to know what the guy was talking about. We now just have a hole in the laundry room wall that we will probably wait til we move to fix, but we have hot water again, and the side of the yard that was all flooded and steamy is now all dry! And to cover all our bases, we thought it was a good idea to have a home inspecter come out and make sure it was done good. Because tthe last thing we wanted to have happen when we tried to sell this house, was it not pass some code, and have to re do the whole thing at our own expence. Everything checked out good and we have peace of mind now! All is good again. (knocking on wood!)

Tub time!

Luke loving the bath water! It's so much fun to see him move like that and to watch him watch himself and know that he is figuring out that he is doing what he is seeing! It was funny to watch because Luke kept trying to grab and reach his toes, he was even trying to roll over in the little tub! Maybe he will actually take after Michael and learn how to swim and really enjoy the water. I have made a few other posts since I've been back, so if you haven't been around for a while, they have gotten buried. I am really inconsistent about my post making!

Luke and his hair

In October In November


In December In January


In February In March



In April

I forget, until I look back just how much hair Luke was born with, and how dark it was. I was surprised it took so long for him to start loosing his hair. Even in February Luke still had a pretty good head of hair. By March you can tell that it's starting to thin. Now it is quite thin, and when we lift up the long parts of his hair, we can see the short hair growing underneath, and it also looks much lighter!

The start of pictures and updates

Who is bigger? It's kind of hard to tell isn't it?! This is Luke with his cousin Mira. Mira and Luke are about 3 1/2 months apart, Mira being older! I think we decided that Mira was just slightly bigger! I love the face that Luke has in this picture! Luke has his 6 month appointment on April 25, so I'll be able to let everyone know just how long he is and I will also have a new weight!

Well before I left to go up to Seattle, I didn't quite get everything on my list of things to do complete. That's nothing new really it seems that I always overload my lists and I only get done the most important things. One of the things on my list to do, that didn't get done, was to clean out the fridge. It wasn't that bad to start, but let's just say that the Au Gratin potatoes that we had for dinner before I left had turned into old rotten potatoes! I guess I should have checked the back of the fridge sooner.

So we have come to the conclusion that we just have the worst luck when it comes to anything that relates to the plumbing of the houses that we buy. We can deal with the replacing and repairing of the toilet tank fill valve thingie (it's just a matter of doing it), but all other issues that have the potential to be spendy to fix...that's where our luck runs dry. I noticed the other day when I got home that the tile in our kitchen felt warm when tile is supposed to feel cool. Upon further inspection, I went out to the garage and the floor there was also warm, and the water tank was making a running water noise. We both ran out of hot water while showering (we even spaced out the showers by several hours) and the force of the shower was weak. One call to the plumber...anyone want to guess what the problem is? I didn't think so...we have a slab leak. Basically the pipes that are under our foundation and connected to the water heater have a leak and or leaks. I guess that would explain the increase in the water bill the past 2 or 3 months. And because it is from the hot water side, we can feel the heat. An appointment has been made for next Wednesday for some detection and repair. Hopefully the leak can be detected within a couple inches, that way they won't have to tear up the kitchen and garage. So in a nut shell there goes the difference in the raise that Michael got (oh wait, you haven't heard...Michael hasn't made a post updating the path of his career?) and the tax money that will come later and who knows what else. I guess it all depends on how extensive the leak is.

Post to come soon

Recovering from the aftermath of traveling! New pictures soon too!