Luke is 19 months old!

Today Luke turned 19 months old. He's really turning into quite a little person! Several friends from my moms' group at church suggested that I write down all the words he can say at some point, so here goes:

• Daddy
• Mommy
• Hailey ("Lee-lee")
• dog ("dah" or "DOOOOOOOH") like you would say "dough."  There's a long emphasis on the O.
• school ("coo")
• shoe ("sue" a very s sound on this)
• tree ("tee" with a point at a tree)
• night night ("ni-ni")
• bye
• hi
• ball ("bah")
• spoon ("spoo")
• car ("ca")
• sit (to the dogs)
• go
• me
• mine
• no (one of his favorites!)
• bath (more like "ba" but he says it in context)
• Grandpa ("pa-pa")
• Grandma ("na-ma")
• Nannie ("nah-nee")
• Robin ("Ba-ba"... we joke that she's Aunt Bob)
• Meme
• Amen ("A-bee"... always at the end of a prayer)
• Cold (Ko)

Many of these words have an up-swing in the sound.  Like Nah-nee will always end up higher in tone.  There are probably more that we're not quite recognizing yet, too! He also likes to sing in church when we sing hymns, even though he doesn't know all the words yet.

A day at the park

We had some beautiful Texas winter weather and decided to stop by a park for a while so Luke could run around. He has been on a slide before, but wasn't really confident about going down by himself... until now. He went up the playscape and down the slide like a CHAMP!

Christmas Eve Eve 2010

We had a pretty low-key Christmas celebration at home on the 23rd.

Luke got lots of art supplies to go with his new art easel...

...lots of new clothes...

...a mug... hey, wait, that's Mommy's mug!

...a new soccer ball (or is that football?) from our friend Chris...

...and a new percussion set! We must be crazy! Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Santa visits KVUE

Every year, Santa Claus comes to KVUE, where Sarah works, to tape a special Christmas show that airs on Christmas Eve. All of the kids at the station and their families get to come for the taping, which means Ryan got to sneak behind enemy lines and enjoy some holiday cheer.

Everything went really well, as you can see above, until Sarah got the bright idea to take away Luke's candy cane...

...which did not go over very well.

I believe he's giving Mommy the evil eye here. Yep, moral of the story - taking candy away from a baby is HARD. And will result in an hour-long meltdown. Don't do it.

Autumn in Texas

Behold, the confident stride of Luke at 16 months!

And his smile, as sunny as the Texas sun in fall!

He is indeed his father's pride and joy, and looks great in jeans.

We love playing outside in the fall!

NXNW Oktoberfest

Ryan and Sarah love beer and never miss an opportunity to raise Luke right.

That's right, Luke is too cool for Bud Light.

We went to the North by Northwest Brewery Oktoberfest to enjoy some local beer...

...yes... we enjoyed most of it before we remembered to take a picture...

...and we also got to check out the polka bands, although it was a little too crowded to dance. But we all enjoyed the music!

Luke got the opportunity to show off his many faces to our fellow revelers.

And he tried out the bounce house...

...although he didn't get much beyond the entrance and never got up to jump.

But we did meet up with Adolfo and Pinty the Bear! We'll definitely be back at NXNW next year!

Best Burgers Tour

This fall, Ryan embarked on a quest to find 7 of the best burgers in Central Texas. He went all over Austin and even way out to Copperas Cove to check out all kinds of burgers!

Luke likes to go out to eat, and will usually try new foods.

On our trip to Cafe Canela, Ryan and Sarah enjoyed burgers and Luke mostly stuck to black beans.

Yep... this one made the list. Maybe when Luke has more teeth, he can enjoy sinking them into a Cafe Canela burger, too!