Grandpa & Grandma!

My parents got to visit again!!! They arrived Friday morning and stayed till early Monday afternoon. We really enjoyed spending time together. Luke is very much bigger than he was at 3 weeks when they visited last time!

They enjoyed playing with him every chance they got!

Mom made Luke a seasonal Snoopy pillowcase for a little pillow. Since his nursery theme is Snoopy, she can make a new pillowcase for every season - they ALWAYS have new Snoopy fabric for each season/holiday! I already had purchased some 4th of July Snoopy fabric since that was his due date, so she whipped up another pillowcase out of that fabric while she was here. :)

We tried out Luke's high chair for the first time while they were here. He looks so cute in it! I put it on the farthest recline position since he's still little and isn't actually eating - just joining us at the table. :) He seemed to like it pretty well!

We went to Nathan's parent's house for some family pumpkin carving after church on Sunday. My dad and I both carved one - as well as several of Nathan's family - we had a large gathering of carved pumpkins when it was all over! (We also cleaned the seeds to bake them).

I finished Luke's halloween costume on Monday morning so that we could take some pictures of him in it while they were still here... but I'm not going to post those until after we go "trick-or-treating" tonight. :) We're probably going to go to Nathan's parent's house and maybe his sister's house to show off Luke's costume. Come back soon to check it out! (The picture here is an amazing display of God's endless creativity on Monday morning.)

The next few days are going to be full! Nathan and I have dentist appointments tomorrow evening and I might be meeting with a friend during the day. Friday morning is Luke's 4 month check-up, complete with another round of immunizations. Saturday evening is Nathan's work holiday party.

I went shopping earlier today, but Luke was getting fussy so I came home before I had gone to all the places I wanted to. Running errands is getting more and more tricky since he's more alert than he used to be. He won't just sleep in his car seat or stroller as easily like he used to. Which means my windows of "happy Luke" time is only about an hour long. :( And that includes driving. You can't get a whole lot done in that amount of time. Hopefully his awake time will continue to get longer so that he will be happier for longer amounts of time. While it will be tricky to keep him entertained at home for longer stretches of time, it will make running errands a lot better. :)

Cute as a Button

Lest you be horrified that I exclude Luke from one of my posts (see the post below for pictures of the fire), here are some of his recent pictures - he just keeps getting cuter!

I decided to try out using the carrier with him facing out. I had stopped using it because he's just too heavy, but I thought it might be a nice rest from carrying him in my arms when I go get the mail. He really is getting too big for the carrier, though - I can hardly buckle the thing around his tummy! I'm not sure how they expect any larger babies to fit in it - there's no room for expanding that part. Oh well, I enjoyed the trip to the mailbox without having to carry all of his weight (about 15.5 lbs) in my arms.

Here he is in a sweater my younger sister made! He wore it to church on Sunday. Thanks, Heidi!

And here, Luke is modeling some surfer overalls that his Grandma Maloney got for him since he's a little California boy!

Cinnamon thought she'd get in on the action - Daddy's lap is a popular hang-out spot!

And here's a video of Luke practicing his head lifting this morning - he holds it up pretty good sometimes, but rests in between tries. This video doesn't capture how high he has lifted it before, but it's still pretty cute!

Fire Storm

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past several days (or possibly in another country), you've no doubt heard about the recent rash of brush and forest fires here in Southern California. There were 12 different fires in the course of 3 days! God was gracious to us and allowed us to be far from the major blazes. There were, however, two smaller fires that started very close to us (one on Sunday morning - even closer to our church, and we had to evacuate the service early!) (another one on Tuesday morning that was put out quickly, but flared up again in the afternoon). Thankfully, those fires were both contained very quickly and didn't spread to the homes. It was a little nerve-racking and sobering. Cinnamon didn't like the super-scoopers flying overhead. :) I found myself holding Luke closer and more often - my mother-bear instincts were starting to come out in full force! He was oblivious to all of it though, and was content to just make sure he got his milk on time! :)

Here are some pictures that I took of the fire from our house. This first one is smoke from the larger fires north of Santa Clarita on Sunday that could be seen near us.

This one is of the second fire on its second flare-up Tuesday afternoon. It was just over the ridge across San Fernando Road from us. I saw 3 helicopters and 1 super-scooper flying - they squashed this fire very quickly both times!

These two pictures are the sun being obscured from the smoke as it starts to go down at 4:30pm on Tuesday, and the smoke being slowly cleared from the sky. It was pretty crazy - one half of the sky was thick with smoke and the other half was really bright, beautiful blue.

If you want to see more of the pictures I took, they're in my album on our Hughes Picture Site: http://gallery.hughes-etc.com/.

Sitting Tall

Luke is doing great! He is *FINALLY* holding his head off of the mat when on his tummy!!! I suppose he was holding it up before, but his face was always pretty smushed into the mat. Now, he gets some serious height. :) It tires him out though, so he still spends a good amount of tummy time with his head down.

Luke's also doing great "sitting". He still needs to be held or propped up, but since he can control his head better now, he really enjoys being upright and looking around. This is him in a little toddler-sized chair that Nathan and his siblings would play in at his grandma's house - now his mom has them for the new set of grandkids!

Too Cute!

Luke is just getting cuter every day! It's fun to see him grow and start to do a few new things. :)

He's holding his hands together sometimes now. I think it's just adorable when he does this! Here are a few pictures of that.

There was room at the table at family dinner this week, so we put Luke in the high chair! He was a little small for it still, but seemed content for most of dinner. He even grabbed onto the loopy toy you see on his tray. :)

Luke still doesn't seem interested in lifting his head off the ground when he's on his tummy. He does pretty good holding it up when he's sitting, though. Another new mom at church suggested I try propping him up on a Bobby. Since I don't have one, this long pillow was about the right size - and he did really good lifting his head up when propped up on this! Very cute pictures resulted! Such a big boy!

Cinnamon had just stiffed his head, so Luke was curious!

"Daddy's chair is just a little big for me!"

"See my nice church outfit?" His first picture in the "picture chair" at Grandma Hughes' house.

Laughing!

Luke's laughed before, but I was able to get him going pretty good here:

He normally plays around the house in at least a onesie, but I was trying him out in just a diaper to see if it helped him feel any more "free" and interested in rolling over, etc. It didn't seem to make that much of a difference, but his tummy was exposed and just asking for some love! :)

Last night, we visited Joanna, Cameron & Vijay! It was Nathan's first time meeting Vijay, so it was fun to see him holding the baby. He was comfortable and confident - now that he's had a little baby of his own! :)

Enjoy these pictures I took this morning! He wiggles a lot when he smiles and laughs, so that's why he often looks like he's trying to attack the camera! One picture shows that he is starting to lift his head up, but it's only for a very short time still. Later this morning, he was on his tummy and when he got mad, he lifted his lower half off the ground quite high, with his head getting a little elevation also. He seems to be chest-surfing. :)

Busy Weekend

Thursday, we caught Cinnamon expressing her curiosity of Luke. :) So far, this is as far as she'll go in her investigations of him. I'm guessing things will stay amiable until Luke can chase her around the house and pull her tail! :)

Some cute pictures on Friday.

Some videos of Luke practicing his sitting and head-holding. He does pretty well when we hold his hands - you can see him concentrating and working his muscles. :) The first video must have been too close to his naptime since he's not very excited about exercising right then - a lot of times he'll be super smiley when we practice sitting. :)

We did the SCV Pregnancy Center's Walk for Life on Saturday morning. Luke slept almost the whole time we were walking. It was fun letting people see him. After that was over, we met up with the rest of Nathan's family at Lombardi's, a pumpkin farm place that opens up to the public in October, complete with pony rides, hay bale mazes, etc. They had already done several things when we got there, but we could enjoy a little bit of it with them. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on the morning taking as long as it did, so I didn't have a bottle along with us. He got very fussy when we got to Lombardi's, so I left to feed him in the car, then rejoined the group. He still wasn't in the greatest mood until he good a good nap at home later.

That afternoon, Luke and I went to Joanna and baby Vijay's baby shower! It was fun to see them again. They're doing well - still adjusting to everything, but Vijay is growing. He's still smaller than Luke ever was since he was born early (Joanna's due date still hasn't arrived yet). It was fun to take pictures of everyone. I think Naomi took the one of Joanna and Vijay - I can't take credit for that wonderful shot!

And here's a picture of the baby sampler I made for Joanna. It took me about a week to complete, and I finished it a little bit ago, but I couldn't post it before because I hadn't given it to her yet. :) Along these lines, I have also changed the title of my blog - to reflect my love of cross-stitch!

Sunday, I got to introduce Luke to Carol at church - she had been home from church ever since he was born and had never met him. Since he's now in the nursery, I found her after the service and let her hold him. Such fun!

3 Months Old

Here is the long-awaited post for Luke's 3 month milestone! I guess it's not really that late, but I've been meaning to post something for quite a while. Sorry to those out there who feel deprived when nothing new is up here! :)

Sunday was Luke's baby dedica-tion! It's really more a parent dedica-tion - our commitment to raise Luke in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Gary, our brother-in-law, was on hand in the front row (he was in the worship team that Sunday) to take pictures for us. And he took a nice family shot afterwards also. :)

Tuesday, we got a new front door! It's a six-panel door, so it looks more homey than our old, plain flat door. We got a new one because the old one didn't fit properly and was really hard to close - not because we wanted a prettier door. But that was a nice benefit! :) Nathan and I had the task of painting it after the installers left - that was a fun challenge to work on together. We didn't do a very professional job, since neither one of us knew what we were doing, so there are some places we'll probably touch up this weekend. :)

Tuesday was also Luke's 3 month birthday! He's getting so cute. He celebrated this milestone by getting over his week-long stuffy nose. He still had some congestion in the morning, but by the end of the day, he was doing much better. I managed to grab a picture session after his bath and right before bed (so he's already in his pajamas), since we were consumed with the door all the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I tried again to stretch his feeding schedule to 3-1/2 hours (I had tried a couple of weeks ago, but he didn't do very well, so it was probably too early). This time he did wonderfully! He slept when he was supposed to without crying before he was supposed to get up (there's usually always a time when he wakes up in the middle of his nap, but he usually puts himself back to sleep). He ate MUCH better than he had been eating the past few days, so that made me very happy! So, we'll see if he can keep up the good work as the days go forward. :) Here are some more cute pictures I took yesterday. Enjoy!