Lukey b-day #2!

Holy schmoley. Little Lukey is now 2. Can you believe it!? He turned the big 0-2 on December 12th... but we did the majority of celebrating over the weekend, so we could celebrate with Nick and Talysha who came into town for the weekend. 

On his actual birthday, we laid low. Just the four of us. It was a mixture of still trying to unpack and get our second wind after the cruise, while still trying to make Luke feel special. Jeremy came home from work and the boys spent the evening playing football. Seth HAD to get his gear on.... soccer gear, that is. It didn't include any further clothes besides the shoes and shin guards.

Luke had a blast. Playing with the guys is his favorite thing to do. I am still trying to let them play rough. It's SOO hard for me. Mainly because it means that someone will end up in tears and I will then be the one who has to comfort them. But... in the moment, they always have a blast.

 We let Luke open Mom-mom and Grandad's gift to him: A GIANT tiger and GIANT crocodile. Luke looooves animals, especially tigers, so he was in heaven! The sound effects he makes for both of them is so freakin tender.... tiger is the usual growl but the crocodile apparently says "tick tock tick tock" like in Peter Pan. I love the things they catch on to!

Luke loved the animals, and Seth loved the velvet bag it came in! win win!

A few days later, Nick and Talysha came into town to stay with is and to go see Louis CK, who was performing in Denver. T and I spent an afternoon (it seemed like) trying to find a place that sells ice cream cakes. Meanwhile, Jeremy and Nick spent ALL DAY playing video games. Those boys were in heaven! It was dorky-cute. So much for spending the day in Boulder. Next time!

Cake time was so much fun! We found a nice oreo ice cream cake! Apparently, TCBY makes ice cream cakes so I kind of got in trouble for buying one from 31 Flavors. Aiding the enemy, he called it. 

I love how excited Nick is in these!

success!!

Luke got help from big brother Seth... actually, we relit the candles about 3 times so we could all take a turn blowing them out

Now, for a little bit about Luke in this moment in time.

Favorite food: not really sure on this. he doesn't discriminate much.  he adores salsa!! he could eat it plain, and usually does. He also loves him some bacon! he always gets very excited for pizza and chicken, though. he'll pound through an apple.... seeds and all. 

Favorite drink: again, doesn't discriminate much on this, either. He does water in the bottle, but if he has the choice of water or something else, it will always be something else: milk, choco milk, sprite, OJ

Random goofy/two-year-old thingies: 
-if he gets upset, feels slighted, etc he folds his arms, furrows his eyebrows and goes "humph!"
-i have to watch him carefully now. if he poops, he will take off his own diaper and throw the diaper in the toilet. that's fun.
-sometimes, he just licks his food. 
-he frequently kisses my belly
-he still sometimes likes to take naps in his carseat. he will pull it out, sit in it and shout until you come and buckle him in.mind you, he is WAAAY too big for it.
-he becomes obsessed when things have stains on them
-he could take a bath for well over an hour.
-sometimes when i an sleeping he likes to pull my eyelashes to wake me up
-his favorite song to sing is from Madagascar 3: afro circus
-he likes everyone to have their shoes on. he will kindly try to put them on for you, too
-most determined kid i know. we are getting into less altercations because now we can finally start to understand what the words are he is trying to say

i can tell there is a language barrier issue going on... not uncommon for those who don't speak Lukease. 

-he LOVES to clean! sweep, pick up, dust.... he loves it all

seth took this one. i found it on my phone. it appears lukey is multi-tasking

MULTIPLE people have told me that he is the most expressive child they have ever seen. I will not disagree. He can go from smiling, to pouting, to squealing with joy, to his "sympathy face", to being scared, to making goofy noises, to screaming at you with anger in the blink of an eye. He is all over the place with his emotions. It's a bit of a roller coaster, but they are all so funny and fun to watch

just woke up from a nap prematurely and hungry face

i wish you could hear him here... he is screaming at the top of his lungs!

loves him some guys

this is his concerned face. i don't have many pictures of this face, though he does it ALL the time!

this is the closest picture i have to his "ghost" face. If you say ghost, he gets this face then comes to run into your lap

pure excitement face. this is also usually the face he gives when he gets a present. any present.

goofy face. 

punchy face. we get this face a lot around 930 at night. it is followed by him licking you, jumping on you, and generally acting insane. jeremy's favorite.

truly sad/angry. 

 Hats. Luke loves hats. He'll wear them any time... inside, outside, cold, warm; it doesn't matter.

He ADORES his brother. He's always concerned about him, wants to play with him, and generally loves his company. 

they like to take Daddy's office chair into the living room and play "spin"

Talking. As of his birthday, I could understand Luke, and so could Seth, but that was about it. My favorite thing about his language is the pitches in it. If he is asking a question, he gets this REALLY high pitch for the whole sentence. When he's playing alone, I can hear him ask and answer his own questions. first the high pitched question, followed by an answer. over and over again. "DA DA?! owe(no) DEE DA?!! owe. EEEY YA?!! owe." Adorable. 

Of course, as I mentioned, he's very keen to making animal sounds. Some are very interesting, like the crocodile "tick tick tick tock" or the dying dinosaur sound the giraffe makes. Also, just about everything has a sound effect. I need to record these. 

As I mentioned, Luke's emotions are all over the place, but one thing in consistent: if someone is sad, it makes him sad. He realizes that there is distress and he feels really affected. Sometimes he shows it in the form of a fake cry, with his hands over his eyes. Sometimes he just says "Seth sad" with furrowed eyebrows. He also gets very upset and concerned if a toy animal he is playing with has a perceived illness or owie. This can get him really upset... see above for his concerned face. He's really such a love bug!!

Jer and I have said this over and over, but he is the best person to give something to. He gets SO excited! It really could be anything.... toothbush, clothes, milk in his bottle. If he perceives it as a gift, he gets so excited. And the best part about it, is that he hugs it shakes it like you would a stuffed animal. He does this with just about everything. I need to get video of this. see above for pure excitement face.

Luke has been such a riot. He is so full of personality! Every day I can see him learn so many things. We are doing colors and shapes right now and he picks up on things so quickly! He is just a little ball of love and goofy packaged up in a really loud box. That pretty much sums up little Lukey. Seeing how this year goes and how he interacts with the new baby will be so interesting! I'll keep you updated!

cruisin!

first, big shout out to my main man Luke who turned 2 today! can it be? on the one hand, i don't want him to grow up and start talking sassy with me and everything else that comes with growing independence. on the other hand, i don't want to have this baby and be telling people that i have a three-year-old and one-year-old.... two-year-old sounds better, yes?

after getting some super snuggly time with lukey this morning, i came downstairs to find 3 walls sprinkled everywhere with chocolate milk. this included the tv! seth was determined to place the blame on luke, even though luke was upstairs, but about an hour later, he came to me and just said "it was me. i put chocolate milk all over the place! i am so sorry".... still in trouble but very glad he came forward. needless to say, no more chocolate milk. also, isnt that such a two-year-old thing to do? very surprised lukey wasn't the culprit, actually.

speaking of living room, look what we came home to from the cruise!

that niche from hell i hated.... gone!! boys are stoked to get playing in there once the carpet and railings are in. must say, i am pretty stoked myself! that also means that i can start doing up sadie's room since we will be moving the toys from the little play room into the BIG one! yay!!!!

before

after main level.... built in not finished yet

after upstairs: 455 added square foot playroom! hooray!!!!

now, onto the cruise! man, it was magical!

first, of course, was the waiting. waiting to get on the plane. waiting during the flight. waiting to get on the boat....  a lot of waiting and LINES. waiting + lines + toddlers = a hot mess. We only lost Seth once. I think there was only one true breakdown.... on the plane. that was fun. but ya know what.... i would do it all again for the adventure and memories that the waiting led to! i think a leash may be order next time. i used to judge, but methinks safety is more important than being judged by strangers. oh, and i found a picture of john lennon with sean lennon age 2 at an amusement park and sean had on a leash. if it's ok for john lennon, it's ok for me :)

Oceaneer's Club

 We got on the boat and first thing was first: we found the Oceaneer's Club for Seth and got him signed up! Seth probably spent 3/4th of his waking hours here. He was obsessed! it was perfect for him! they had character lunches, character dances, activities, you name it! he was free to do whatever he wanted within the confines of the space and he never asked to leave. he only ever came out when we made him! We only have a handful of pictures of him in there since after the first day, pictures were forbidden. All i can say is that whenever i picked him up, he was totally entranced in some activity!

 

Luke was only allowed in the club the first day, since it was open house.

checking out the boat

By night... all the clubbin left Seth exhausted. Can you believe that 1/ 2 the time he would even go back AFTER dinner?!! He would go for a couple hours until we got him out to take him to one of our nightly shows.

 Of course, the all-you-can-eat ice cream all day, every day!

Nemos Reef

Can't you tell these two are being mischievous? that fish is a squirter!

This was the only day Luke was in Nemos Reef. He much preferred the pool... even though technically he wasn't allowed. Not potty trained. My reasoning: every kid in the pool, potty trained or not, was totally going pee. Even adults. As long as I made sure Luke had pooped earlier, I felt I was fine. Judge me.

The Pool

When Seth wasnt in the club, he was in the pool! 

Sitting poolside, watching a movie on the BIG screen

the pool was really fun for the kids when the ship was rocking 'cause that meant that the pool water went side to side as well!

 Animators Palate

This was the best place for dinner for kiddos. there was so much to see on the walls. pictures constantly changing, the color and mood of the whole restaurant changed

Crush came out and talked to us! 

Seth loved when Crush talked to him! Crush called him "Surfer Seth"

second time at Animator's Palate: we all sat down and drew a character within the confines of the white space

at the end of the night, there was a musical number with our characters as the stars of the show! The black one is mine :)

the second to the right was jeremy's drawing of pregnant me.... that he signed with seth's name.

this was seth's drawing!

Football on the deck 

 Gingerbread Houses!

We were so excited to make gingerbread houses one morning! All 41 of us made them at tables by family. 

Everyone got involved. Luke would get a candy, put it on, take it off, lick it, then put it back. sanitary.

 Pluto

 Rocky Seas

The first 3-4 days on sea were brutal. i definitely developed some balancing muscles. the crew members said it was the most rocky the boat had been consistently. 

Micky Food

Seth refused to eat anything Mickey. He didn't want to hurt him.

Character Dance Party!

One of the days there was a midday dance party in the atrium. At first, not so many people. The boys had a lot of room to dance in their own little way. As the party went on, it became insanely crowded! Characters included Goofy, Max, Mickey, and Minnie

let me set up a story. at one point, boston just wanted to lay on the ground. this was before any characters came out. i said, sure, why not but go off to the side so you dont get stomped on. that's when the characters started running down the stairs. first, there was Max.

Max ran down and tripped over Boston, who was already kind of not loving the dance party.  Max tumbles over and leaves Boston upset.

had to make this one bigger. Max tries to help Boston up, who is now terrified at this point! Boston screams at the mere sight of Max! you can see Boston in the bottom left of this picture. 

Boston was FINISHED and hung out with me on the sidelines but Seth and Luke were still  going strong

By this time Mickey and Minnie came out and there was no way for me  to even budge in there to get a pic. you can see seth mid picture here. 

Mosaics 

 Slide

Seth adored the yellow slide! he would go on it over 20 times without stopping for a breath!

they had to check his height the first time he went on. he was tall enough but every time he went down the slide, he had to check that he was still tall enough. This went on about 20 times before the slide watcher told him, through laughs, that he really didnt have to check every time. i thought it was cute.

 Luke and Minnie

Luke was a wee bit in love with Minnie. Every time he saw her, he had to go see her and just hug her. Even if there was a long line, Minnie would hold him for minutes at a time and Luke could just close his eyes and pat her back.

The ARR-cade

Jer took turn with each boy to take him to the arcade. I only have pictures of Luke, since I wasnt there when Jer took Seth.

Pirate Day

To say that people get decked out for pirate day would be an understatement! We signed Seth up to go to the Bibbidy Boppidy Boutique to get his pirate on. Since it was Paula's birthday the first day of the cruise, we sent her as a present. We also missed Boston's birthday, so we sent his as a very late b-day present as well! 

Doesnt she look good! tattoos, sword, makeup, glitter, face gems, necklace with gold coin, and a map!

Boston did great! He loved it!

Seth was actually hesitant! He was dead set on NOT having a beard.

Jack Sparrow costume

Luke was too little for the boutique, but he rocked the bandana 

Family of the Cruise

Not sure why we were chosen as this, but we did not complain! Day one we got a letter saying that we were chosen as the "family of the cruise" and that our room would receive random room service every day! I missed a few pictures, which included cheese and cured meat tray, assorted gourmet cookies,  and mixed berry plate. 

seafood tray

chocolate covered strawberries tray

brownies, cheesecake, eclair

San Juan

Jer and I actually got off the boat! Denise watched Luke while Seth was in, where else, the Oceaneer's Club. We hiked up a steep hill, through the colorful town. Then, we made it to a big old fort at the top with amazing views!

this just made me laugh: "where anything can happen".... like, date rape? doesnt sound appealing. 

Awe, the cute couples

you can see our ship in the back

gorgeous view from the WW2 lookout

just us by an old door i liked

 Perry the Platypus and the Stroller

 Luke's two favorite things! We weren't going anywhere in this picture.... he just wanted to be buckled in. Had to have his Perry.

 Exclusive Character Meet and Greet

Because Jer's parents and grandparents were part of the concierge level, we all got access to a top level lounge where there was a secret meet and greet with a character.... Donald. All of the pictures of the boys with Donald are on Shayla's camera, so I don't have any, yet. But trust me, there was a lot of love.

We also enjoyed some awesome Disney treatment, snacks, and drinks... just for us! The lighting was also great to just take some nice family pictures!

All of the great grandchildren, minus one

so many cameras going.... no one looks in the same direction

 Castaway Cay

I cannot express how much i LOVE Castaway Cay (aka Disney Island). It is everything you would expect a Disney Island to be. Pristine sandy beaches. SO clean. really, something for everyone! We hung out at the beach the whole day! I would be happy going to that beach every day!

water was colder than you would expect at first

crabby friend

that sand gets into everything!!!!

lunch time!

IF we were sending out a Christmas card, this would be the pic.... FYI we are just going to send a New Years/New Baby card :)

Seth was STOKED to meet them!

Boston... not so much

Seth had some cold coins from Pirate night that he lovingly gave Hook! It was received with a HUGE hug and a pirate dance

Luke loves the ladies

 Homeward Bound

SO SOOOOO sad to go home! The flight home, however, was a lot more calm and peaceful. More sleep and less chaos. Thank you electronics. Also, thank you Granny and Pa for the 

Thank you Granny and Pa for an unforgettable trip! I cannot think of one thing that would have made it better! Every detail was accounted for... every need met. We were SOOO lucky to be able to go and  spend a week with 41 amazing family members. It was ALL about family... just as a vacation should be. Being away from Utah, it meant even more to us to get to share time with people we miss so dearly. Thank you! THANK YOU!!!