Silly & Sweet

I was in Michael's on New Year's Eve and Luke found this display of reading glasses.  He was having fun trying them on, and since I know he knows how to responsibly put glasses on (due to his obsession with sunglasses), i let him play with them.  He was careful to replace them on their pegs with he was done with a pair.  Here is his with the last pair I let him touch before we moved on.  :)

Enjoying this light-up toy that was in his stocking from Grandma Hughes.

Having his first candy cane!  When we left Oregon to come home, we stopped to readjust all our gear after security before walking all the way down to our gate, and one of the airport workers offered to give Luke a candy cane.  I was going to let him eat it in the airport to tide him over while we were waiting for the plane to board.  However, we barely had enough time to take Luke potty before boarding started, so here we were a week later finally letting him try it!  He really liked it (obviously), but kept dropping it, so he's not quite responsible enough for candy canes.  :)

Rain!

As little as we get rain here, Luke LOVES to be out in it when it first happens for the season.  :)

More Ice Skating

Lots of the family got together to go ice skating, so Luke got a chance to go again (his first time being in Lake Tahoe this summer).  I opted to not skate, since I was so miserable last time.  Maybe someday I'll try again, but it seemed kind of crowded this time, so that pushed my decision over the edge to "no".  I ended up being very thankful to have made that decision, because I could be waiting on the sidelines to cuddle with Luke to help him warm up after a turn around the ice with Daddy.  Also, I had the thought to try tucking in his shirt to keep his tummy warm since Nathan has to basically hold him up by his underarms.  And, even though his shirt wasn't all that long, it worked really well and stayed tucked in the whole time!  Luke REALLY enjoyed it this time - he kept asking to go "again!"  Eventually, he would say he was cold and wanted to stay with me to be warm, but would eventually want to go back out.  Finally, he seemed to have hit his wall and was just too cold to muster up any more joy - he was DONE!  But, thankfully, so was almost everyone else, so it worked out.  :)  Lots more pictures on the gallery of everyone (another perk to not skating!).

Big Kid Now!

The Sunday after Christmas was the first time Luke got to sit at the kid's table during a meal!  He ate Thanksgiving dessert at the kid's table, but not the actual meal.  It was fun to see him sitting there, eating very responsibly, with some of his cousins.  :)

More Gifts

Since our Christmas Day was so full of family things, we actually didn't have time for Luke to open his gifts from us that day.  So, here he is the day after Christmas having one more present-opening time.  It was very fun to watch him open presents this year.  He would usually rip open the paper, then exclaim, "Oh, yeah!" no matter what it was.  :)  I even took a few videos of things he did when he opened each gift - one of which was call grandma (not sure which one) on his new cell phone to tell her about whichever gift he had just opened - very cute!  I'll get to posting those one of these days.  :)  This first picture is of a new truck we got him that has doors that open.  Next is an example of his new sunglasses and the harmonica that he didn't stop playing for a week!

That afternoon, Phyllis and I got the privilege of visiting someone else's Christmas gift - Joanna & Cameron's new baby, Tirzah Noelle!  She was born December 18th, the day we flew to Oregon, so I was unable to see her until now.  Such a cutie!

Luke got SO many new cars and trucks for Christmas from all sources, but since we kept going other places, he seemed to be sad that he hadn't been able to play with them very much.  He parked them all on this end table in the living room and played with them every spare minute he had!

Hughes Christmas

Let the fun begin!  There's always some "weapon" present that the men get for Christmas to shoot at each other during the present opening time.  Of course, the kids want to get in on the action, too!

Luke was very dedicated to lining up all the new cars he got for Christmas.  I took lots of pictures of people with the gifts that we gave them - check out the gallery for more present fun!

More shooting later that morning - this time at Mommy!

Several of the grandkids got bikes for Christmas, so there was much assembly and riding happening on the back patio.  Here's Lauren on her new bike!

Luke enjoyed playing in the leaves and "helping" assemble the bicycles.  :)

I like this picture for some reason - even though he's not smiling.  Just a thoughtful little boy.

"Driving" with the steering wheel while Daddy and Uncle Dan play Mario Kart on the Wii (a group gift that will stay at Grandpa & Grandma's house).  Luke is very much into steering wheels lately, so this was quite fun for him.  :)

Nathan & I and Matt & Tara and Sandra went to see Avatar that night, but first I captured a SMILE after Tara received this wallet from Sandra for Christmas - you think she likes it?

Oregon Christmas - Day 7

Not too many pictures taken this day - kind of low-key.  We just had a normal day at my parent's house that morning.  During Luke's nap, Nathan and Dad played one last "bug game" (Nexus Ops) together, so Mom, Heidi & I decided to play a quick game of Settlers - I won!  Then, we drove to the airport, where we ate dinner at Wendy's (tradition!) and I got this cute picture of Heidi & Luke.  :)  Thanks for the fun visit, everyone!

Oregon Christmas - Day 6

Our last full day in Oregon (the day before Christmas Eve), we woke up to frost - pretty fun to have a "White Christmas" when you wake up - even if it isn't snow.  :)

Pondering life...

We had family from my mom's side over to visit this day.  One of my cousins couldn't make it, but her new kitten came along instead!  Pretty cute!

Maloney family Christmas picture!

My sister hijacked my camera when Nathan and I went to get Luke ready for bed.  So, I have lots of fun and silly pictures of the cousins (this is a nice one of my cousin, Alicia) - check out our gallery to see the the goofy ones.  :)

We got some nice "sisters" pictures after everyone went home.  It eventually degraded into a bunch of silliness!  Definitely nice to be with my sisters again - I miss you!!!

Oregon Christmas - Day 5

This was our designated SNOW DAY!!!  Luke thought he was old enough to drive to the snow.  :)

On the way to the snow, we stopped at a grocery store so that my dad could stock some chips (my parents are independent distributors for Tim's chips).  It was so cute watching Luke help.  He pulled them out of the box and handed them to my dad - he took his job very seriously and actually seemed quite helpful.  (By the way, Juanita's Tortilla Chips are hands down the BEST chips known to man!  I just had them for the first time on this trip to Oregon, and I couldn't stop eating them!  They don't sell them here in Southern California yet, so I've asked my mom to ship me a few bags every quarter - I'm willing to be a paying customer so that I don't have to wait until our next visit to enjoy these again!)  Luke also had a fun time riding on Dad's cart all the way into the back room!

Then, we went to the snow!  We found a slow-vehicle turnout that had a good coating of snow, and stopped to frolic for a bit.  Luke was very intrigued at walking in this powdery white stuff.  At one point, my dad lured Luke underneath a low-hanging branch that was covered with snow.  Then, he shook the branch so that the snow started "snowing" all over Luke!  Very fun!

Our new family picture.  Unfortunately, the nice close-up one of mostly our faces didn't turn out - my eyes were at half-mast.  I knew it wasn't great at the time, but I didn't want to bother everyone by asking for another one to be taken, and now I'm regretting it.  Oh, well - this one turned out pretty good, too.  :)

Oregon Christmas - Day 4

To us, this picture went with "Day 3", because it was taken at 2:30 in the morning, on our way to bed.  :P  We thought he was so cute and looking like a classic little boy holding his kitty like that.  :)

So excited to try on Grandma's hat and gloves!

Three generations - Luke, my dad, and my grandpa!  Luke warmed up to my grandparents over the course of the visit - this was taken towards the beginning when he was still somewhat gun shy.

Nathan and I with my grandparents.  Despite the fact that I'm pretty sure this picture was taken at the same time as another camera's flash went off, I like all of our faces, so it's a keeper anyway.  :)

Oregon Christmas - Day 3

We went for a walk the next morning, and the playground we were headed for ended up being quite a ways away, so Luke eventually got tired of walking and got to ride in style!

This day was Sunday, so we had our own Christmas service.  My dad played his viola while we sang Christmas carols.  This is a picture of Luke singing along - he sounded so cute!  We read the Christmas story from Luke 2.  Then, after putting Luke to bed for his nap, we shared Christmas memories and prayed together.  Nice family time!

Heading on to Grandma's house!  Luke got packed into the van along with all of our stuff to transition our home base to my parents' house for the rest of our stay in Oregon.  Luke wanted to wear Daddy's gloves, too, so I couldn't resist taking a picture.  :)

The boys' evening activity.  While Mom and I got dinner prepared, the boys put together this train set.  :)