Since U Been Gone

Nana and Pop Pop left this morning :(

We were sad to see them go because we had such a great time with them. We tried to keep busy to distract ourselves from missing them.

We went to Walmart and the boys rode in the cart together. They both loved it. Luke liked seeing everything and Jack enjoyed narrating what they were seeing for Luke.

After naps we headed outside to swim and try out the new water hopscotch Nana picked up for us. It was lots of fun. Just note to self for next time - make sure there are no fire ants nearby. I got the brunt of their wrath. We played keep away in the pool and had a blast.

Then we headed in where Jack and I made a pizza and baked cookies. As Jack commented at dinner - "Me make a really good dinner!" He's prerty humble about his cooking skills.

It was a fun, chill day. We just wish our visitors could have stayed to enjoy it.

Adventures With Nana and Pop Pop, Day 2

It was another full and fun day with Nana and Pop Pop!

We started out by heading to the park. After sliding, climbing, and spinning, we moved over to the splash pad, which Pop Pop couldn't resist. All the boys had fun in the water.

Then a trip to Target, followed by a trip to Jack Heaven aka Toys R Us. Can it get any better?

We got lunch and met Dallin at work so he could show off his office. Jack made a few phone calls and took care of business.

Then all the males (minus Luke) went shooting. They had manly fun and shot lots of guns.

Finally it was a yummy dinner of Raising Cane's, followed by delicious Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt.

We had a great day and will be sad to see them go back across the pond!

Adventures With Nana and Pop Pop, Day 1

We are lucky to have Nana and Pop Pop visit us for a couple if days and have already had a blast.

They've joined us on our morning walk, played many games of matching, read lots of books, wrestled, squeezed and kissed on Luke, and worked on learning their Jack-anese.

We also went to the water park again. Nana and Pop Pop were brave and went down some of the big slides. We splashed around and tried to beat the heat. The boys loved it.

After some naps and when Dallin got home from work (poor guy missed out on the water park fun), we went to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner. Jack and Luke loved the rolls and Luke kept busy the whole munching on rolls and chicken and flirting with every server that walked by (we were seated right by the kitchen, so that was a lot!). It was a delicious dinner.

We can't wait for Day 2 with Nana and Pop Pop!

8 Months

I honestly can't believe that 8 months have passed since Luke joined our family. He's grown and changed so much, especially in the last few weeks.

He is around 17 1/2 lbs. when I took him to the doctor last week when he was sick he weighed in at 17 lbs. 3 oz. He loves to eat as long as he can feed himself. He loves watermelon, bananas, and crackers. He makes a huge mess whenever he eats. He wants to eat whatever other people are eating and whines until you give him some.

He is in the process of dropping his third nap and going down to two naps a day. He still wakes up in the night. He loves when we sing I Am A Child of God before he goes to bed or down for a nap.

He is the ultimate momma's boy. He can't stand it when I'm even across the room from him. I have to be right next to him. Instead of crawling after me, he throws himself backwards, bonks his head, and cries even more.

He loves to play peek-a-boo. He thinks Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is fascinating. He likes toys that are loud. He prefers to be outside. He has the cutest grin and happiest little laugh.

He crawls around and pulls himself up on things. He is so proud of himself when he's standing.

We love our little Ukey, Ukey-B, Ukey Monster, Ukey McStuffins and all the other nicknames he has.

Water Park Heaven

For the last few days, Alayna has been staying the night at our house while her parents were out of town. She also works at the water park during the day. And it has been blazing hot the last few days. So today she took us to the water park.

As you can tell from the pictures, we had a blast. We will definitely go back again soon!

Matchy Matchy

Jack got a matching game last week. And he's pretty amazing at it. Like, he always wins. And I'm not letting him win. Occasionally he cheats a little or insists on having me "share" my match with him. But mostly he's just good. And his counting has gotten even better as he counts up our matches.

Anyone is welcome to play matching with Jack. Just be prepared to lose.

Living the Lukey Life

A few shots of what life has been like for Luke lately.

He's busy eating. He LOVES watermelon more than anything. I'm pretty sure he could eat a whole watermelon himself. But he'll settle for a teething biscuit every now and then.

He loves to pull himself up in the bath tub. I've even discovered he is tossing things in there when I found his missing teething ring in there last night before bath time.

He is slowly getting back on track with his sleeping. In fact, we may be late for church this morning since he's still napping. He looks so sweet when he's asleep. I love sleeping baby lips.

Ellow

I got a text from Dallin on Wednesday saying he was bringing home dinner. The picture was of a turtle. And he did bring it home. He had found it stuck crossing the road.

We did not eat it.

Instead we put it in a tub of water and Jack named it Ellow, short for yellow, his favorite color.

Today we took Ellow to a bayou and let it go.

Farewell, Ellow. You were a good one day pet.

Too Many Milestones

Luke has had the busiest week of his little life.

He has cut 3 new teeth so far. I would imagine that the 4th isn't too far behind.

He had his first stomach bug. He threw up a few times, the worst of which happened at church while I was trying to teach Primary. He ended up spending the rest of church in a onesie. I took him to the doctor and he said it's a viral bug going around.

As if that wasn't enough, he also learned to pull himself into sitting position on his own and pull himself up on things. And then, he started officially CRAWLING! Luke is a big boy now and things will never be the same.

Unfortunately all of these have wreaked havoc on his sleeping. A few weeks ago we did some sleep training and got him to the point where we could just put him in bed and he'd go right to sleep with little or no fuss. Now things aren't going as well. Bedtime is still ok, but naptime is impossible because the little stinker thinks he needs to sit up all the time. It's hard to fall asleep sitting up. And it's hard to stay asleep if you were sitting up when you went to sleep (see picture below)

Hopefully when the dust from all these milestones settles, we can go back to our regularly scheduled naptime.

The Party Don't Stop

In case you haven't noticed, our library is pretty awesome and has lots of fun activities. Yesterday we went for story time and were pleasantly surprised that there was a concert by the children's group, The Kinders, instead. I think this was the boys first concert. Jack liked dancing to the tunes, especially the song "I Like Being A Kid." He is in an orange shirt in the pictures. Luke kept busy making friends and trying to crawl.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

As previously mentioned, Dallin got a new battery for Lightning McQueen and the 4-wheeler has A LOT more power. Jack loves it, even though he rolled it within the first five minutes of riding it. He wants to go out and ride it constantly.

And so of course it had to rain, rain, rain all day. The only time it wasn't raining was when we took Luke to the doctor (oh the joys of teething and a viral stomach bug). So yesterday we must have sang this song 500 times:

Rain, rain, go away,
Come again some other day,
Jack and Ukey want to play,
Rain, rain, go away.

We finally got a chance to go for a walk right before bed, after bath when the boys were already in their pajamas. Jack had to wear his boots in case he saw a good puddle to jump in.

Funny thing - as soon as he woke up at 6:15, he started begging to go on a walk. I put him off, saying after breakfast and getting dressed. As soon as we head to the door to go, it starts pouring rain again, even though the sun in shining too. What luck! Silly rain, Jack wants to play!

I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home

Our Father's Day didn't go exactly according to plan. Dallin got called out to work on Saturday and ended up staying in Lafayette. Luckily they switched him out so he could come home for part of the day. When we got up, the boys recorded a video to send to him.

He got home while we were at church. Jack was so excited to give Daddy his present, but fell asleep in the car on the way home. As I was getting him out of the car, he raised his head, exclaimed, "Daddy's truck is here," and then promptly fell back asleep.

Once he woke up, we gave Dallin his gifts. We made a card with their footprints that said, "We want to follow in your footsteps."  And we also got him a ratcheting set and Jack got him an apple and orange at nursery.

We had his requested dinner of steak, mashed potatoes, and Arkansas green beans with butter cake for dessert.

Dallin and Jack put a new battery in Lightning McQueen, so now he has more power than we know what to do with.  Jack can go really, really fast.

Happy Father's Day to our Daddy!