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Toward the mudroom

November Wrap Up

Well, November came and went and was generally cray cray.  The weekend after Lukie's birthday I zipped off to the Twin Cities with three girlfriends for a mommy's getaway weekend.  Which is now on the calendar as an annual event.  The timing couldn't have been better and we all needed a little getaway.  The weekend was summed up by us all being grateful that the only tushies we had to worry about for 48 hours were our own.  Imagine?!?  

The weekend after that, Matt started de/reconstruction on the world's ugliest half-bath.  Buh bye purple walls, cracked toilet, and 80's lighting.  Helllllllllooooooooo chrome and marble.  Well...hopefully by Christmas helllllooooooo chrome and marble.  Who's the lucky little elf who will receive the highly sought-after yellow faucet for Christmas??

you better hope you've been nice this year!

So while daddy started in on the bathroom, I did my best to keep the kids well out of the way.  It was a great weekend so off we went for a little time outside.  Turns out, Boo Boo loves the trike.  Sure he can't reach the pedals and has come precariously close to toppling right off of it, but most of the time he hangs on pretty well and enjoys spending his time trying to get the bell to 'ding!'. 

 

mom, have you seen this?  it's the coolest

The weekend after THAT, was of course Thanksgiving.  We loaded up the family truckster Wednesday afternoon and hit the road to Rochester.  The kids were pretty good until the Dells but it was dinner time so that was understandable. But the worst part of the drive - that segment of hell between LaCrosse and Rochester - was indeed unpleasant.  Lukie would not sleep and wanted nothing more than to get out of his seat.  Genevieve complained that he was keeping her awake; I wedged myself between the two of them in the backseat to try to console everyone; Ralphie was drooling on everything in the trunk; and Matt was happily staring off into space, pretending he was on a tropical island with a cocktail and a swimsuit model.  All in all, it wasn't the worst drive we've ever had. 

And even though they were all hopped up on adrenaline upon our late arrival, the kids actually slept well Wednesday night (which, btw, was the end of that).  Thursday came and GG was all ready to help prep the bird!

making him fly

if you won't let me touch the bird, i shall grab whatever else is in reach.

teaching her young

sticking her arm in the cavity to shove the butter in there.  it got a big 'ewwwwwwwww!'

ready to roast this gobbler

headed to the playground while the bird cooks.  what a gorgeous day!

crazy driver

watching everyone prepare

yeah, this looks like only good things can happen

drinking out of a real glass and feeling very grown up

bon appetit!

boo stalking daddy during his annual post-thanksgiving-meal-flop

i'm full too, daddy!

annnnnnnnd...........this is where matt explodes

In addition to the general massive spoiling of the children, the real benefit to traveling to Roch is their chance to be as loud as humanly possible with permission. Enter Uncle Grant:

luke's omnipotent tongue might be his attempt to be all gene simmons

little girl, ready to rock

noise!

big finish

Lukas took the opportunity over the weekend to learn a few new tricks.  First, how to take years off my life:

hey mom, is this ok?  um no, it is not.

 Second, how to go down the steps backwards (an actual useful trick).

off i go - toodles mom

doooooooooooown i go

peek!  i surprise you!

the only thing better than thanksgiving dinner is thanksgiving dinner and cupcakes.

she jumped for like half an hour at the festival of trees.  happiness for all involved.

Meanwhile, we had some Mandatory Family Fun on Friday night, posing for family pics.  It's been probably close to 20 years since we've done this, so yeah, it was time.  The photographer came to us and kept saying things like "Ok, on two, I want you to say 'Turkey!'" which was benign enough.  But then he got to "Ok, on two, I want you to answer this question....one, two, does Jesus love you?".  Grant and I were trying not to snort and I was trying to say "yes!" to get the kids to smile.  Ugh.  Friend, know your audience mmmk?  As I told Grant, overall it was only like 70% awkward.  So: success!

coming to a christmas card near you

lukie sums it all up

winner winner!

So a few other November notes.  Besides learning to do the steps both up and down, Lukas has changed SO much in the last month.  He's now working on his 14th tooth.  That means he's gotten one every other week for the last seven months.  Which explains a lot.  He is now a champion walker and loves to 'run' towards me and Matt if we outstretch our arms.  Which is of course the best.  We've been blissfully bottle free for a few weeks...I swear if I never wash another bottle it'll be too soon.  His new favorite game is that Tupperware shapes ball, and he has an absolute FIT if we don't give him his own utensils to use at meal time.  He's actually getting some traction with the spoon too.  Future chef?  He's starrrrrrrrrrrting to use a few 'words'.  He can say 'night night' and makes the appropriate sounding grunts to tell me what sound the dog makes or what a baseball is.  He can follow commands like 'blow a kiss', 'swing your arms', or 'brush your teeth/hair', and is starting to be able to point out objects in books when I ask.  He loves to play this little game where we put him on the bed and pretend we're going to get him, and he just flops backwards into the blankets and laughs like he's the funniest thing ever.  What a difference a few weeks makes!

GG meanwhile has decided to skip the rest of her childhood right before our eyes.  She recently requested taking showers which I find to be a really big deal.  We let her shower on "hair washing nights" and she really thinks she's hot stuff.  But I still force her in the tub with L a couple nights a week to continue soaking up the cuteness.  She's now regularly using slang as part of her vernacular which is hilarious.  Specifically in reference to her favorite summer hit, Call Me Maybe, everything is now 'so bad'.  Mom, I have to pee so bad.  Mom, I really need a snack so bad.  Mom, I want to watch TV so bad.  She also speaks her own language and makes up her own words a lot.  Then she will translate for us.  She says she's speaking French, Spanish, or Italian.  Best of all, that little squirt is learning how to really try to manipulate her situation.  This conversation now happens frequently:
Mom/Dad:  Genevieve, sit down and finish your dinner/clean up your toys/wash your hands
GG:  But MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM/DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD
M/D: WHAT?
GG: I just want to hug you and say I love you.
M/D: silence
Foiled again.

Clearly, she is buttering us up for Christmas.  We have stuff going on every weekend this month - so more to come!

Baby Boy Turns 1!

Lukie turned 1 last Saturday.  A year already.  I knew it would go fast and I have tried really hard this past year to be present for those precious, fleeting baby moments.  Even so it's hard to remember that he was ever so, so tiny.

 

Luke at age 1 is a funny little dude.  He has really started to love interacting with toys and books.  Every night after bath Matt reads to GG and I read to Luke.  I spread out his 10 or 12 favorite picture books on the ottoman and he will stand there and choose which one he wants, then hand it to me.  We read it, put it aside, and repeat until we've gone through almost the whole pile.  The current fave is Goodnight Gorilla, which has seen so much love it's falling apart.  In any of the books, he will 'klunk' a page to show it a little extra affection.  This is especially adorable in a peek-a-boo book which has a little mirror page, so he klunks himself.  No lack of self esteem for this growing boy.

Nighttime books are about the only time Lukie will sit still.  He loves anything on wheels and has been making things 'go' for months.  He'll stack blocks and he's started to dance at the music table.  The last couple of days he's figured out how to get on his walker/race car and hollers to be pushed around (luckily, Big Sis thinks this is a fun activity too.  My hamstrings can only take so much).  His favorite hobbies include getting into whatever GG has, and systematically disassembling anything that resembles an organized pile.  This goes double for baskets of clean, folded laundry.  Best of all, GG has given Luke several new names, the latest of which is "Fun".  It's adorable.

   

Luke doesn't really have any words yet, yet he does not struggle to communicate.  If he wants something he'll point and holler 'DA!', and the da-ing will become increasingly louder the longer he is made to wait.  He can mimic the cadence of phrases like 'uh-oh', although that usually happens as a warning that he is about to drop something, instead of after.  He will "da-da" all day and night.  A few months back I was changing him and I leaned into his little face and said, "can you say mama?  just try it.  maaaaaa maaaaaa."  That little turkey looked me square in the eye and whispered daaaaa daaaaaa.  He knew exactly what he was doing which is why I'm sure there will be no shortage of jabbering in a few short months.

Let's see, other milestone stuff.  He's been nearly off the bottle for a few weeks now (he gets just one after nap), he's doing pretty well moving to one nap a day, and he'll be moving into the next room at school in just a couple weeks, where they sleep on mats.  I remember being horrified when G reached that point too.  My baby!  

Eating continues to be one of Luke's strong suits.  He's got 11 teeth, including two eye teeth, which explains why he's been such a gem about every other week for the last five months.  He's also got a two year molar bumping through.  At his one year check up Monday Boo Boo came in at 30.5" and 22 pounds, the 75th and 35th percentiles.  Still long and lean.  Favorite foods include any kind of fruit, and anything with syrup.  Sweet tooth, anyone?

good morning, birthday boy!

he's chowing so he's good

where'd you get those eyes, mister?

see those cheeks?  full of smushy banana goodness

So last weekend we celebrated our baby boy.  Grandma Heidi and Pop Pop came in to town (a record number of visits this fall) on Friday, and we ventured out to Marty's for pizza Friday night.  Thank god they have a few video games to keep the birthday boy's attention while waiting for the chow.  Saturday - the big day! - started off as usual; ballet for G, grocery store, etc.  But by midday the kitchen was filling up with smells of cupcakes and we were in gear to deck out the dining room.

my lovely assistant

customized party hats ala big sis

monthly shots from the first year - so glad i had the good sense to steal this idea from you, robin

a little puffy paint poster

and some big tissue balls for fun

 

i would like to take this time to publicly apologize to lukie for putting him in a purple bib for his birthday.  none of the blue ones were clean, kiddo.  no worries, it takes a real man to wear hearts

K&K and Uncle Steve also made it over Saturday night.  Although he had taken an ok nap, Luke was rapidly fading so we had to get cracking on the smash cake the millisecond dinner was done.  It was totally worth it.  The boy absolutely understood the purpose of a smash cake and we were howling as he tore it limb from limb.  Nothing like a little buttercream to perk you up.

best big sis ever

birthday boy is skeptical

the cuteness factor here kills me

cannot be bothered for a photo

let me just take a little nibble here...

is anyone looking?

so annoyed

there is so much cake in his mouth it's actually spilling out

yes!  let's drum it!

annnnnnnnd we have lift off

After a little washdown and some jams we headed back downstairs for presents.  GG was more than happy to assist and she's still playing with the toys like they're her own.

le giraffe for all of those back toofers

showing off the card she made for him

cautiously checking out gg's gift to him

yeah, let's play!

To cap off his birthday evening, Luke decided to start walking.  He's been doing this "Thriller" move for a week or so now (one leg firmly planted while the other shuffles in a circle) but apparently enough was enough and buh bye, off he went.  A couple days later crawling is still his transport of choice, but there is truly no going back now.

We were planning a trip to the library on this drizzly day, so I decided to bring along the camera and get some shots of our one year old somewhere other than his high chair or the bath tub.  Here's the big boy at age 1.  Love you, little man!!

do these books make me look smart?

ahh yes, here's the one i was looking for

this one got great reviews, mom

see right here?

squirrel!

loving the bean bag chairs

why push one thing when you can push two?

just like big sis, this kid loves sitting in little chairs.

think picasso used this technique?

or this one?

on to year 2!