Flashback Friday

Being first time parents, we were very cautious with where we took Luke before he had his 2 month shots. In fact, the only place he went during his first 2 months of life, besides an occasional trip to Target, was an Auburn basketball game, and he was strapped in the baby bjorn the entire time.

A couple of days after he got his shots, Luke took his first trip to Indiana to meet Ryan's family. Luke was an excellent traveler, he slept most of the way, and we were even able to feed him in the car.

Meeting cousin Hillarie for the first time
Luke was the first great grandson on the Sparks' side, there were already 5 great granddaughters (4 born in the same year!)
You should've seen the chaos at Christmas this past year!

Posing with cousins Chloe and Hillarie

While we were in Madison the biggest snowstorm (I would call it a blizzard) in decades hit. It snowed for several days, it was gorgeous! They got about 2-3 feet of snow and my mother-in-law said she hadn't seen snow like that since she was a kid.

Madison blizzard of '08...
yes, that is my husband wearing SHORTS in a BLIZZARD

Luke loved being bundled up in his blizzard gear!
Luke is wearing a sweater that Ryan's grandmother made for him when he was a baby

We thought it was pretty cool that Luke experienced his first blizzard during his first road trip, but we had no idea what was in store for him on his second road trip just a couple of weeks later...stay tuned for next week's Flashback Friday to find out what other weather phenomenon Luke experienced at only 2 months old.

Big Bro, Little Sis

Haven't taken many pictures of Luke and Aubrey together, so I decided to try a little photoshoot today, here are the results:

Had to put them in their Big Brother, Little Sister shirts

Kisses for the "bay-bee"

Luke quickly got bored of posing for pictures...

And decided Aubrey needed her diaper changed

Aubrey's diaper must have been "kinky" (stinky), Luke had to retreat to the other side of the couch

Luke's been in the blog limelight, so here's some of just Miss Priss

Wordless Wednesday

My brilliant child learned how to climb in and out of his high chair, the only problem was the chair took hold of his shirt and wouldn't let go

He did this at least 3 times the other night and instead of helping him, I laughed at him and ran to grab my camera

Last Week

My first few weeks with two kids under 2 I was just doing enough to survive...making sure both kids were fed, clothed, and had clean diapers.

The past couple of weeks I have been trying to get back to more of a normal routine...cleaning, laundry, running errands, as well as blogging and meeting friends for lunch.

While I was trying to get the house straightened up, the kids were learning to fend for themselves:

I "taught" Aubrey how to feed herself

Luke watched a lot of Your Baby Can Read and Veggie Tales

Aubrey worked on strengthening her neck with tummy time

Luke learned how to tell me to change Aubrey's diaper...
if you can't understand him on the video he's saying "kinky" (stinky)

Notice the piles of dirty laundry in the background (& Luke's still in his PJs), I'd been trying to get the clothes in the wash all day, but something else kept coming up with the babies preventing me from getting the dirty clothes off the kitchen floor and into the wash.

Doing all my chores around the house, taking care of the babies and trying to get out into the "real" world got to be very overwhelming for me. I felt like nothing was getting done...if I focused on straightening up the house the kids were being neglected, and if I gave the kids all of my attention, the house looked like a disaster area. I know some people may say to take care of the kids, and the othe stuff doesn't matter, but it's important to me that my house be neat & clean.
After some encouragement from Ryan and spending some much needed time with the Lord, I realized that I don't need to be worried or stressed about getting all these things done, just focus on one thing at a time and things will get back to normal in time.

Flashback Friday

Two years ago this month, Ryan and I were headed to the doctor's office to find out if our first child was a boy or girl. We were both so excited and would be happy with a boy or a girl, but I knew that Ryan wanted a son.

After what seemed like hours of waiting for the ultrasound technician to check all the baby's organs and make sure it was healthy, she finally said " do you want to know what it is?". We both said yes, and she turned the screen around and said, it's a boy! I turned to look at Ryan to see his reaction and just as she said the words, he yelled, YES! For the rest of the time we were in the ultrasound room he was literally dancing back and forth in the room, he was elated and so was I!

Luke really looks up to his daddy, and they have a lot of fun together doing "guy" things like playing dodgeball in the house...that'll be a post for later.

The first time Ryan held Luke

Daddy gave me my first taste of real food, banana pudding, at 8 weeks old!

Note: We're not in the habit of feeding desserts to infants, Ryan just wanted to see what Luke would do if he put the spoon up to his mouth

Napping with Daddy

Ryan made sure from day 1 that Luke knew exactly what team he was going to cheer for.

Go Cats!

Watchin' Kentucky play basketball

After Kentucky lost...this happened quite a bit that year

Dough-Doughs

Ryan and I have started a Sunday morning tradition since we moved to Birmingham, every Sunday on our way to church we stop by Krispy Kreme for some hot, delicious doughnuts. Luke has always had a sweet tooth and loves our "dough-dough"(as he calls them) tradition.

Everytime he sees the white & green box he shouts, "dough-dough"!

Yummy!

If we continue our tradition through Luke's teenage years, but he could work at Krispy Kreme and get us an employee discount!
He already owns part of his uniform:

Looks like he's ready to work...might have to leave the sippy cup at home

Here's Luke saying "dough-dough" and showing us how enthusiastic he is about his doughnuts, but running to get one

Wordless Wednesday

Since last weeks wordless Wednesday was pictures of Aubrey in the tub, this week I'll do Luke in the tub.

I was playing with his hair, we(my sisters and I) used to do this with our hair
Guess a boy's hair shouldn't be long enough to make a mohawk, time for another hair cut!

Cassetts

There's been several things that happened over the past couple of weeks that I wanted to blog about, but just haven't had a free minute to get on the computer, so I'm going to try to catch up this week.

One morning last week while I was feeding Aubrey I realized that I hadn't heard Luke in a while, which is usually not a good thing, so I walked into the kitchen and find him crouched behind the table like this:

He found Ryan's old "boom box", purchased circa 1995, and was very intrigued by all the buttons.

He had to get down really low in order to touch every single button
Disclaimer: Luke is not wearing mismatched PJ's...don't sharks (on his shirt) swim with turtles, racoons, bears, & aligators (on his pants)?!

When he figured out that one of the buttons made something open, he tried to get down low enough to make the cassett player open and close, but he lost his balance and fell over...
thus the big foot sticking up in the air

This is the "toy" he found in the cassett player...doesn't it look like he's saying,
what in the world is this thing?

Glad we don't have lots of cassett and VHS tapes laying around, they can make a huge mess if left with an unattended toddler... I remember my sisters and I having so much fun unraveling those things!

1 Month

Aubrey turned one month old yesterday! So far, she has been much more laid back and less demanding that Luke was, but over the last couple of weeks she has let us know that she has a voice that demands attention...in other words, she's crying a lot more :)

We went to the doctor today for a short check up and one shot. She weighed 10 lbs (80th percentile) and was 21 1/2 inches long (60th percentile), which means she's gained 1 lb and grown 2 inches since she was born.

Luke was feeling a little left out at the doctor's office, so right before the doctor left, he decided to trip over the stair on the examination table, fall and bust his chin! His chin and tongue were pretty bloody, but thank goodness it was just a bad scrape and bruise, not stitches necessary. The doctor checked him out and bandaged up his chin.
This is not him crying after he hurt his chin...this is how pleasant he is when he wakes up from a nap that wasn't long enough.

Back to Aubrey...
I'm going to try to take her picture in this chair every month to see how she grows.

Aubrey at one month old sitting in Luke's chair (which will be her chair in a year or so)

Aubrey at 2 days old
(didn't get a newborn picture of her in the chair, but she's wearing the same onesie)

Aubrey has started to try to focus on our faces, and she made a sound the other day while Ryan was holding her that sounded just like she was saying, "Hey". Luke is still pretty good with her, he's already figured out that there are only 3 things that newborns do: eat, sleep, & poop. Anytime he says her name (ba-bee or Au-ree) it's followed by "gunk"(milk), "ni-nite", or poo-poo...he's very good at telling us what she needs!

Flashback Friday

My sister called me earlier today saying she was waiting on Flashback Friday, and I had totally forgotten that today was Friday. So today's post will be short and sweet.

February is my favorite month of the year for two reasons: one, my birthday is the 22nd and two, Valentine's Day is the 14th...that means 2 gifts and 2 nice dinners within a week of each other ;)

Here's what Luke was up to last February.

One of my favorite things Luke wore when he was an infant was these tennis shoe socks, they were so cute...too bad his feet were so big, he grew out of them after a few months

Look at those cheeks...I think he was storing up nuts for the winter :)

Luke's 1st Valentine's Day

Taking a nap in mommy & daddy's bed

All dressed up for mommy's birthday dinner at our favorite French restaurant in Marietta

Gettin' ready for Spring Training

Wordless Wednesday

I've decided to join in on the fun of Wordless Wednesday!

Miss Priss enjoying her sink bath while desperately trying to figure out how to suck her thumb

18 Months

Luke turned 18 months old on the fourth of July, so I'm a little late with this post, but we've been pretty busy around here lately!

Both Ryan and I always thought of Luke as a little guy until Aubrey came and now he seems huge! He started talking about 2 months ago and learns new words everyday. He is constantly saying mommy and daddy just to get our attention, which is fine with us because we love to hear his voice!

One of his newest tricks is "counting" his toes; he first learned this from Your Baby Can Read, and we've been trying to teach him to count to five, but for some reason he's only picked up on two & three. He'll be sitting in his car seat and all of the sudden we hear "too, tree...too, tree...too, tree...". We look back and he's taken his shoes & socks off and is touching his toes as he "counts".

We went to the doctor Monday for his 18 month check up, and I was very worried about how it would go, because he has started to realize what happens at the doctor's office, and I had to take him and Aubrey by myself. Luke was such a trooper, we had to wait forever, and he happily entertained himself with the doctor's rolling chair and all the drawers and contraptions on the doctor's table. He was a little nervous when the doctor was examening him, but he never cried and did everything he was told to do. He even gave the doctor a high five when he left the room! He only cried for about 30 seconds when he got his 3 shots, I was so proud of him...he really is getting to be a big boy! Luke was 75th percentile in height and 30th in weight.

Another thing Luke learned just this past week is how to put his shoes on...well it was just one shoe and it was on the wrong foot, but it's a step in the right direction! Here's a little video of this milestone. Sorry the video is sideways, I need to figure out how to fix that!

Disclaimer: That is NOT Luke's extremely full diaper hanging out of the side of his shorts :)

Luke has brought so much joy to our lives, and we are so grateful that God chose us to be his parents!

Our First Week Alone

My sisters have been bugging me to update the blog this week, and I tried to explain to them that this is the first week that I have been alone with a toddler and a newborn, so blogging hasn't been high up on my priority list.

I decided to take a little break from housework and baby watching to post a few pictures from this week...maybe I should get back to baby watching, as I write this Luke is ripping up some papers from one of Ryan's work boxes...hope they weren't too important.

We had a wonderful 4th of July; Luke and I went to my Aunt and Uncle's new Big Red Barn for swimming, fishing, and lots of food!
Luke had a blast sliding down waterslide...he wasn't quite old enough to slide down from the top, so Aunt Kat helped him slide down from about half way up

That night all four of us went to Homewood to watch fireworks. I absolutely love fireworks and was very excited that we decided to get out and watch them. But, I have to say I was a little disapointed... not in the acutal fireworks (they were awesome) but they were so far away! I prefer to be so close to them that they light up the entire sky. My favorite place to see fireworks is over the lake or ocean, then they light up the sky and the water!
I left my camera in the car, so we don't have any pictures of Luke watching the fireworks. He really enjoyed seeing the fireworks and kept shouting "Oooo" and pointing to them. I guess Aubrey wasn't in the patriotic mood, because she slept through the whole show.

Luke is still really enjoying his pool. When Nana and Papa were here on Friday they taught him how to "swim" in his pool.

Kicking his legs
Putting his face in the water

Chillin' in the pool

I haven't taken many pictures of Aubrey this week, but Ryan wanted me to take this picture the other night, because he said that her and Luke are starting to look like brother and sister.
You can't really tell from this picture, but her hair sticks up everywhere (especially after a bath)...she gets that from her daddy :)
Here's Luke around the same age as Aubrey is now

After uploading this picture of Luke, I might want to change my mind...they do kinda look alike!