They call him The Tank

My family enjoys calling Luke "The Tank." They think he's very stocky and tank-like when he walks around. He looks like he's going to knock over anything and anyone in his path. Well, that and the fact that he'll eat anything that doesn't run away from him.

We went to Dr. Brown's office today for Luke's 12 month check up. She dispelled the myth that Lukie is chubby and tank-like. She weighed and measured him and it turns out that he's still a pretty small guy. He weighs 19 1/2 pounds which is at the 6% and 28 3/4 inches long (20%). She said he's still doing pretty well with his skills especially his speech. He can say words like Daddy, Ella, Jane, David, Banana, moos, and clucks like a chicken. I asked her why she thought he was so low on the weight chart when he had been up around the 25% at the last check up. She's not sure but her theory is that because he started to walk earlier than typical baby (he walked at 10 months and the average is 12 months) he started to burn calories at an accelerated rate earlier (all babies start to stop gaining weight at a fast rate once they start walking and thus, burning more calories).

He also enjoys a good dance. Ella likes to sing to him while he dances. The dance mostly consists of bouncing around and swaying side to side a little bit. He also enjoys running around the house carrying his Farmer Tad Fridge Farm (an excellent toy from our good friends at LeapFrog by the way. I highly recommend it) and hitting the button to make it play music.

Arrrrrrrr Matey!

Last night was trick or treat for the kiddos. Ella and Myles were pirates (Arrrrrrrrrr) and Luke was their parrot. Aunt Robbie constructed them a pirate ship complete with sails and a skull and crossbones flag that fit over Myles's little red wagon. Aunt Robbie should've been a carpenter with all the skills she has. I made Luke's costume this year because I couldn't find a parrot costume that I liked.

While we were out trick or treating, my Mom and Aron's parents handed out all kinds of candies and mini containers of playdoh. I hear that the playdoh was quite a hit. Much to Aron's dismay, I still have not let him be "Full Size Candy Bar Guy." He wants to be that guy that hands out a full sized candy bar to all the kids. This year he decided that his ultimate dream would be to hand out the full sized candy bar AND a can of Coke. I told him the instant we win the lottery he will be allowed to do that. Until then, I'm just going to be a meanie and squash his fun.

Our friends, Matt and Kortney, came over with their daughter, Kaylene, to help us trick or treat. Kortney made Kaylene's costume and she is way more skilled than I am in that area.

After trick or treating, we all came back to our house and enjoyed a variety of soups, bread, cookies, birthday cake (for Aron--Happy 29th!), and pie. Mmm...mmm...good.

P.S.--I used some photoshop magic to white out our For Sale information. You never know if there might be a psycho who stumbles across the blog.

Ears Are For Listening

The kids. They hear what they want to hear sometimes, ay? Ella has been picking up on phrases that I say that probably aren't the nicest things to say. Like when Aron is nagging at me (an every day occurrence) to do something, I tend to mutter under my breath "ok, ok, you're killing me." The other day Luke was pulling at Ella's sippy cup trying to get a drink of her milk and I heard her tell him "Lukie! You have to stop. You're killing me!" Hmm...probably not the worst thing she could say but not the nicest either. I guess I should stop saying that, huh?

BUT she also picks up on the good things I say, too. When she's being a good girl, I try to make sure I reward her with a little something. I try to reward good behavior as often as giving her a negative consequence when she's not behaving. When I give her whatever it is (be it a special hair clip or a sticker or whatever), I tell her that she's been a good girl, that I'm proud of her, and that she's special to me. The other day, she was eating an apple. I asked her if I could have a bite. She leaned over, kissed my arm and said "Sure. You know why? Cause you're special to me, Mommy."

Oh, the sweetness. I think I could make a batch of cookies with all the sugary sweetness that kid has.

Luke's Big Speech

Luke likes to talk now. I mean, he really likes to talk. He'll tell you all about anything and everything. He's learned how to moo when he sees a toy cow (that trick is courtesy of Grammie). He also makes engine noises whenever he plays with his cars or tractors. A favorite pass time is to point at Jane and tell you all about whatever she's doing. This of course is a series of non-sensical syllables but the point is that he's learning how to tell people a story. He pauses while you answer him. Once you stop talking he continues with his story. He's learning how to be a polite listener that way, I guess.

He likes to tell you all about the big haul of birthday presents he got, too. He especially enjoys his Sesame St tool belt as he is modeling in this picture. I think you can see the Ernie screwdriver and the Oscar the Grouch hammer. Both of which he tries to use on our kitty, Jane. Poor Jane. Ouch

If you didn't know me...

you might think that all I ever do is sit in this chair with one of my kids and the cat.

The Finale--Me Thinks Me Need Cake Edition

Sunday was my family's turn to celebrate Luke's birthday. My grandparents, ARobin/UJeff/Myles, and my parents all came over to celebrate. Luke got to eat a bunch of cake and ice cream for the second day in a row. Mmm...tasty...

Birthday-palooza part 2

On Saturday, we had Aron's family over. We celebrated both Ella and Luke's birthdays that day since Aunt Annie is really busy and lives far away. I opened the front door while we were waiting for AAnnie and UKevin to come. I found the kids standing in the doorway watching for them. (See also bottom picture)

Aron's Granny was supposed to come to the party along with Aron's Grandpa but she ended up not feeling well so she went to the hospital. It turns out she has atrial fibrillation which has responded well to medication so she should be fine. She's supposed to get out of the hospital tomorrow.

Granny Lindy made Ella and Luke special cakes.
Ella's was a doll cake--her dress is a decorated cake. Luke's was a special little cupcake just for him. Both cakes were a hit! (See top picture).

All too soon it was time for AAnnie to head home. Ella missed her a bunch after she left so we decided to call her to say hi on her long drive home. At the end of the conversation, she told her "Love you, miss you, bye" which is her typical sign off but this time, she kissed the phone and then gave it a hug. It was very sweet.

Weekend in review--part 1

You know it's been a busy weekend when I have to blog about it in multiple posts.

On Friday, a friend of mine (Steve) came to visit me and the kiddies. You can tell that he doesn't have kids because he thinks it a riot to bring presents in the form of loud, annoying toys. Curse you, Steve! This visit's selections included a large Tonka Truck (see also top picture) and a large tub of legos (see bottom picture).

He also brought me flowers (always a good choice. You can never go wrong with flowers). The kids and he took turns pushing each other around the house while riding in the Tonka truck. I tried to give him my kitty, Jane, as a housewarming present for him but he rejected the offer. I offered her several times and several times he rejected her. Poor Jane.

House

In a weird twist of fate, the house buying might be back on. Will post more when I know more.

Ella's Sweet Ride

On Saturday, the whole fam went to Grammie and Poppy's house to watch the OSU game. After the game was over, Poppy got ready to go out to combine one of his fields of soybeans. He asked Ella if she wanted to come along for a ride--heck ya, she wanted to come!

The field Poppy went to was over at my Grandparents house so he drove over in his car and we followed after him as soon as Ella went potty, put her shoes on, got a snack, etc (this took about 15 minutes because she's very slow at getting ready). The whole drive over to my Grandparents Ella talked non-stop about how she was going to drive the tractor and about how she was a big girl and ready to ride on the combine. She was very excited until we got there and she remembered exactly how big the combine is. She was a little nervous about getting in but I told her I would ride along, too. We all climbed in--Poppy shared his seat with me and Ella sat on my lap. She was a little nervous at first but then I started explaining to her about how the combine works. She watched it cut the soybeans in the front while the rotating part of the head pushed the cut soybeans to the side. Then it goes to a part that we couldn't see where the soybeans are taken out of the plant. After that, it gets spit out behind the combine where it holds all the soybeans until you're ready to dump them out. She enjoyed watching the whole process after she got over her initial nervousness. I told her about how soybeans make soy burgers, soy milk, and baby formula. She thinks that they get made into marshmallows, too, but I told her they were mostly corn syrup and air. I don't think she really believed me but who knows, maybe I'm wrong.

I'm sorry to say I didn't get a picture of her steering the combine. Maybe next time.

Happy Luke-Day!

It was Luke's birthday yesterday. We didn't do much to celebrate because his parties aren't until this coming weekend. We're having one with Aron's family on Saturday (Aunt Annie and Uncle Kevin are making the long trip for the occasion) and my family on Sunday. He will have plenty of opportunities to eat tons of yummy birthday cake so please don't worry that he will be deprived.

Luke has been talking non-stop lately. He has started to work on perfecting his "Daddy" and it has evolved into more of a "Daa-ee" sounding word. He has also starting calling our kitty by her name (her name is Jane but from him it sounds more like "Ayyn-ee"). He is able to say "Duh" for duck. Basically, anything that starts with the letter D he'll at least attempt to say. We tried to get him to say Poppy over the weekend but it didn't work so we had him calling my dad David. It worked enough that he could get out "Day-i." Pretty good for such a little guy.

We have busy week coming up. Today there's not much planned but tomorrow is Grammie Day (think fun Disney movies from her library). Wednesday is Granny Lindy day. She's going to attempt to take Ella to Miss Lori's story hour while I'm at work. We'll see how that goes. Thursday is Grammie's story hour for Ella and Miss Lori's story hour for Luke. Friday my friend, Steve, is coming for a visit before he moves from Detroit to California : (

Leaf me alone

Aron decided to take a day off work yesterday so he was with the kids all day. I was a little worried about how it was going to go but it sounds like it went well. They had all kinds of leaf raking fun together.

Random Cute Pix

This picture was harder than it looks

Do you know how hard it is to get 2 small children to sit still and look in the general direction of a camera both at the same time? It's hard.

Go Bucks, anyway.

Lukie's First Birthday Pix

I tried to get Luke's first birthday pictures taken last week. Unfortunately, the night before we were to get them taken, he took a head first dive into the fireplace. Then he fell into the side of the toilet (yuck) then he fell yet again into the side of the sand box.

This was the unfortunate result. Check out his fat lip. So, you can see why I didn't want to take him to get his picture taken when the only purpose it would serve is to document the abuse of my poor baby.

Blog update: house edition

Well, the house that we were going to buy is in the process of being sold to someone else : ( We just couldn't sell our house fast enough is what it boiled down to. Aron and I are both really disappointed but are trying to remain optomistic that another perfect house will be right around the corner...both literally and figuratively--we really like our street/neighborhood so we would like to stay here.

Blogging Foul, Man

To all the faithful Ella and Luke fans:

Forgive me bloggers for it has been 12 days since my last post. I will now barrage you with a flurry of blogging fun.

Peek a boo!

Lukie is quickly approaching his first birthday. Granny Lindy has taught him a trick just for the special day. When you ask him how old he is, he can hold up one little finger. How cute is that?!?!

He's also started to make intentional sounds for certain people--I wouldn't exactly call them words but he's working on it. He calls Aron "Daaaaaaa" and Ella "Ayyyyy-uh." I don't think he has a word for me yet.

When he gets up in the morning, he immediately starts pointing toward Ella's bed. He likes to wake her up by pouncing on her while she tries to hide under the covers. They're so cute together. I think this is both of their favorite parts of the day. They just laugh and laugh and laugh. They think it's the most hilarious thing in the world to play together.

What's in a name?

In this picture you will see Ella standing next to a dry erase board thing. In her hand is a dry erase marker (Con, stop laughing now. This isn't training. Yes, it is erasable and no, she isn't an eye doctor). Anyhoos, Ella was sitting at her table in the living room when all the sudden she says "Mommy. Daddy. Come quick!" Aron and I went running in there thinking that there was an emergency or something. She points at her table and says "Ella write her name." What? Aron and I looked down and sure enough, she had written her name. I didn't guide her hand or anything. You can see the E, then on top of the E is an L. Next to the L is a 7 looking thing but to the right of the 7 is another L. Way off to the right is her A. I know it's not all neat and tidy or even all in a row but it counts as her name in my book. She was very proud of it, too. She wanted to know how to spell other people's names but she didn't those as well--looked more like scribbles than anything.