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!

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!

A day in Spokane

We drove from Montana back to Spokane the day before our flight back to Texas. We enjoyed an hour or so at Riverside Park downtown, where Luke enjoyed running around...

...looking around...

...and riding around!

He also got to check out the geese in the river...

...and walk over a bridge all by himself!

We had a great time in Spokane for the short time we were there, and followed up our trip to the park with Thai food with my cousin, his wife and their daughters. Lovely end to a lovely trip to the Northwest!

Luke's 1st Birthday

Luke turned 1 on June 26! He had a lot of presents to contend with...

...including some that weren't wrapped. (Whoops!)

He got the hang of opening gifts a lot better than he did at Christmas.

Oh look, a Corn Popper! (As seen in church nurseries across the country!)

He also got to try chocolate cake for the first time! He wasn't really sure what to do with it... but he had some help.

Happy birthday, Luke!

Luke goes shopping

We didn't buy this... just took it for a test drive.

Luke's belly laugh

Luke and Ryan played peek-a-boo together and it had them both in stitches! Watch:

Luke-powered playtime

Tummy time

Luke is starting to tolerate tummy time much better.  He's learning to hold his head up a little bit at a time, but still gets pretty upset after a few minutes.  I guess once he figures out how to turn over, he won't be so upset about it anymore!

Baby fun time!

Last night after Luke's bath, the three of us got out his playmat that we haven't really done much with yet. Now that he's getting older, he is starting to take more interest in things he can see and hear, like the mirror in the picture and the zebra with the rattle in it (you can see the zebra's tail next to Ryan's face). He's starting to learn how to shake his hand a little when we put a rattle on his wrist, and while he doesn't know how to grasp things and hold onto them, he seems more interested when I take his hand and help him touch different textures of toys. It's fun to watch him grow into a little learning and playing machine.

He's not really enjoying tummy time yet - mostly he just kind of lays there and buries his face in the playmat and screams. But it's important, so we make sure he can breathe and let him scream it out for a couple of minutes before we flip him back over. He recovers pretty quickly, and since he's already doing well at sitting up (with support of course) and holding his head up, I know it will be pretty soon that he's able to push himself up while he's on his tummy!

Dance, dance, dance

Luke was wide awake Sunday evening, so to wear him out a little bit I put some toys on his wrists and let him flail around in his crib for a few minutes.