Playing Catch Up Again

Phew! It's been almost 2 weeks since I've posted any pictures! Life just keeps on trucking along and the blog just sat here. Thankfully for the grandmas, etc. I didn't stop taking pictures in that time - just stopped sharing them with you. :P Well, here are the highlights. As always, you can sift through ALL of the pictures I've taken in our album on the Hughes website (although they probably won't be up until tomorrow). Enjoy this tour through our recent days! :)

Playing with crayons - he liked this much better than actually coloring with them!

Drinking from his "Luke" mug - unfortunately when I actually put a little water in it, he took a nice sip from it, then proceeded to dump out the rest of the water on the ground!

Enjoying the Laker's basketball (junior-sized) that my parent's got for him in April.

In an effort to organize the nursery toys a little bit, I've put all Luke's stuffed animals in this sports-themed hamper my mom got us - Luke enjoyed looking in and pulling the animals out. :)

Playing outside.

The Hawaiian outfit we got Luke - since it has a collar, we had him wear it to church that Sunday.

Can you smell "fall" in the air? It's been getting chilly in the mornings sometimes, so I dressed Luke in a very fall-ish outfit for our 8am trip the grocery store. :)

Petting Cinnamon - a rare occurance that she stayed put for.

Enjoying his tongue! He'll also actually mimic you when you stick your tongue out to him - probably one of the first thingw he copies - he's pretty independent-minded as far as that goes.

I bought Luke some new shoes now that he's walking. He'll need to learn how to walk in shoes when we go outside, and I figured it would be good to help keep his feet warm on our trip to Oregon next week.

Lining up ducks on the edge of the tub!

Raisin-foot. Probably the first time I remember noticing that he'd gotten all raisin-y in the bathtub - we had a fun time playing and splashing!

Enjoying this old mouse while I worked on the computer (I was probably working on snagging Treasuries on Etsy). :)

Walking with Daddy in his new shoes! We went for a short walk to help him get used to walking with shoes - most of the walk we each held a hand while he walked between us. So fun!

Vijay turned 1!!! We enjoyed being at his birthday celebration Saturday morning.

Saturday evening, we had a family celebration for Hannah's 6th birthday! I took my cross-stitch bibs along to have BJ model them for my Etsy shop. This one didn't make it in my shop since it doesn't highlight the bib very well, but it was cute - he really liked this one and kept trying to eat it! Hannah got a poofy, twirly skirt for her birthday that happened to match her Barbie doll cake. Also - she lost her first tooth during dinner! Congratulations, Hannah!

After regressing on the walking front during a head cold, Luke rallied and regained his confidence this Monday! He walked all over the house, holding onto this empty soda bottle, happy as could be. Hopefully I'll get the video up soon so you can see that too - very cute!

Playing in the play house and Grandma & Grandpa's house.

I designed and stitched this Valentine's Day bib in a day & a half! It's the next one in my line of holiday bibs - go check it out!

Uncle Matt came over last night to play Halo with Nathan while his girls were at AWANA. Luke was getting ready for bed when he got here, so we let him show off how he could walk. Then, Matt put Nathan's headset on Luke's head and pretended to play with him. So cute! In the first picture, I think he likes the normally forbidden remote control better than the Xbox controller. :)

Bethany & Karis came over today and we enjoyed seeing the two of them walking around together! It was our first time visiting since Luke could walk well. They discovered that the garbage can makes a great drum set!

Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Very cool article that my friend had on her blog: Understanding Abortion Kills Children: Are We Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Know the Truth

"Open your mouth for the mute,
For the rights of all the unfortunate.
Open your mouth, judge righteously,
And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy."
Proverbs 31:8-9

This video is heart-breaking. Please watch it and realize there is A LOT at stake this November 4th. Make sure you watch the entire thing - the last scene had me in tears.



For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;
Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book were all written
The days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
Psalm 139:13-16

Picture Mosaic Quiz

If you want to enjoy this fun "quiz" too, here are the instructions:
1. Type your answers to each of the questions below into the Flickr search engine.
2. Pick your favorite image from the first page only.
3. Copy and Paste the URLs for each image into Mosaic Maker (or save the pictures as your favorites and then have MM retrieve them for you).
4. Save your mosaic to your computer and upload it into your own post (be nice and also copy the code to give credit to the photographers at the bottom of your post).

1.) What is your first name?
2.) What is your favorite food?
3.) What high school did you go to?
4.) What is your favorite color?
5.) Who is your celebrity crush?
6.) What is your favorite drink?
7.) What is your dream vacation?
8.) What is your favorite dessert?
9.) What do you want to be when you grow up?
10.) What do you love most in life?
11.) What is one word to describe you?
12.) What is your flickr name?

1. Hughes Street evening sky, Cape May, 2. fiery mum, 3. "My Silhouette...", 4. بــحـط قــلـبـي بــيـن يــديـنـك هــديـه, 5. It's finger lickin good, 6. Winter sunset, 7. It Was Hot Today, 8. The midnight fantasy (365/96), 9. dusty rose, 10. Linn Park, 11. Sunbeams at Lonavla, 12. Graphium leonidas & Sarah lovaniensis

Good Walking!

Check out this video footage from this morning - Luke's walking up a storm!!!

http://sarahhughesvideos.blogspot.com/2008/09/walking-really-well.html

Jane Austen Quiz

Take the Quiz here!

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

HAWAII

Nathan and I had a wonderful time in Hawaii for our belated 6-year anniversary trip. And actually, it probably counts for last year as well, since Luke was too little to be able to go anywhere. :) Grandma & Grandpa Hughes graciously agreed to watch Luke while we spent 5 nights in Oahu! Enjoy the pictures:

The first hotel room they gave us had 2 small queens instead of the king we reserved, but had a nice view, so I made sure to take pictures from the balcony while I could. :)

Pretty flowers everywhere!

We really enjoyed relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean - that's what Hawaii's for, right? :)

The hotel had several little penguins in residence - they also had a stuffed animal of a penguin that we got to take home to Luke.

We had quite the experience taking the city bus up to the Polynesian Cultural Center. The first bus we were on overheated on the highway over the mountain, so we all got out and waited by the side of the road till the next bus came by! Then, we squeezed our full bus of people onto their full bus of people - standing sardine-style in the aisles. :( By the time we arrived at PCC, most everything had closed, but we enjoyed some of the sites, the Samoa presentation, dinner and the evening show. Needless to say, it was way more money than it was worth since we only experienced a small fraction of what they offer, but since we went all the way up the island to get there, we figured we'd might as well do something there. We paid extra to be driven home on a tour bus - no more standing in the aisles for an hour and half!

We visited Pearl Harbor and went out on the ferry to visit the Arizona Memorial. Kind of sad to know that you're standing over the grave of hundreds of men who weren't able to get out of the ship as it was sinking.

Classic vacation: a very yummy virgin strawberry daquari on the beach - complete with pineapple and a fun palm tree stirrer! This is my favorite drink - I ordered it again when we went to a fancy restaurant for dinner on my birthday.

Enjoying the sunset in Hawaii - and a nice man passing by offered to take our picture. Thank you!

We hiked up to the top of Diamond Head crater on my birthday. It was very nice - somewhat rigorous on the way up, but such a nice view at the top! That's Diamond Head Lighthouse from the rim of the crater - my camera is zoomed all the way in. :)

A nice birthday picture of me in front of Hawaii's flowers and a waterfall in front of our hotel. I have a pulmeria flower behind my left year (left indicates you're taken/married, right indicates you're available/single) that I found on the ground - free souvenir!

We went snorkling in Hanauma Bay our last full day there. Such fun! My mask leaked water at first, but once we figured out the right combination (the mask Nathan was using combined with the snorkle I was using), I was able to really enjoy getting out there and literally "swim with the fishes"! Sorry, no pictures of the fish since our camera isn't waterproof. :(

Our final sunset from our hotel room (this was during the Broncos game that we were watching even in Hawaii). :)

I took some pictures of the hotel grounds (and more flowers!) before we left to capture the essense of the buildings there. It seemed as though everything was open to the outside. You would have ceilings and some walls or pillars, but lots of open walls - life just spills back and forth between the "indoors" and the outdoors. It was nice though - you get good cross-breeze that way, so there's less need for air conditioning. Although it was nice to have a somewhat chilled hotel room to retreat to since it's always warm and balmy there. :)

Sunset from our plane on the way home.

Yesterday, Nathan still had the day off work so we could recover from vacation. We enjoyed spending time with LUKE! I also opened a birthday present from my boys. :) We gave Luke his penguin from the hotel. And discovered that he has a 9th tooth (a bottom molar - I guess he skipped his incisors for now) and can crawl now! This picture is just to tide you over until I can get the video footage of him crawling up online. :)