Memorial Day

We had the first pool party of the summer on Memorial Day with all the cousins!  At first, Luke was a little overwhelmed and uncertain - he decided to hide out and watch the action from the playhouse.  :P

Eventually, I decided to just force him to participate to see if that would get him over the initial hurdle of the fear of the unknown.  Sure enough - he was splashing and swishing with the best of them after that!  He even warmed up enough to try the slip 'n slide all by himself!  I got a video of that I'll post on my video blog later (I'm just a tad behind on those...).

That evening, Grandpa delivered a "new" bedframe for Luke to sleep in!  He had been sleeping on just a twin mattress sitting on the floor.  This frame is the bottom of a bunk bed set that used to be Nathan & Matt's when they were growing up!  Luke's cousin Owen had been using it until recently when he switched to a different bed frame.  We had to rearrange the furniture a little bit to make it fit.  Thankfully, Luke has done reasonably well sleeping so high off the ground.  Such a big boy!

Care Package

My mom sent a birthday present for Nathan in the mail - she ordered these pictures of locks and arranged them herself all artistically in the frame.  Good job, Mom!  It'll go good next to Nathan's desk in our new study.  :)  If you didn't know - Nathan is quite proficient in lock-picking.  :P

She also included this silly, squishy ball for Luke to play with.  He thought it was great fun!  Even Cinnamon was curious!  Luke calls it his "sun", and I have to admit it looks an awful lot like a sun.  :)

Happy Birthday, Nathan!

The last family dinner of May, we celebrated Nathan's birthday!  One of his presents was this nice hose and nozzle set for our hopeful new house.  We started escrow on a house almost a week after this celebration, and just today officially passed the contingency stage, so Lord-willing, the rest of escrow will flow smoothly and we'll be in an actual house with a backyard (to need that hose!) within the next month!

Happy birthday, honey!

Yum!  Cake!  Luke's always up for a birthday celebration!

Personal Ice Cream

A little over a week ago, we had been out and about looking at houses, and afterward Nathan suggested we stop in at Rite Aid to have some ice cream (they have really good, inexpensive ice cream there).  So, we had a little family treat - and decided to let Luke have his own dish of ice cream (still not sure we want to try giving him his own ice cream cone - he can handle Drumstick cones, but a real one might be a bit too messy still).  When I picked him up to let him look in the ice cream counter to see which flavor he wanted, he immediately pointed and said, "Chocolate!"  Mmm... guess he takes more after Mommy on that one.  :)  We made him wait to eat any until we were seated and settled on a bench, so here he is proudly walking his ice cream down the sidewalk.

Happy to enjoy this treat!

Goofball

Luke found his old baby-sized sunglasses that strap behind his head.  They're way too small for him now, but we CAN just barely get them fastened in the back when he wants to play with them.  Here, he pushed them up onto his forehead, making his hair stick out on the sides of his head.  Silly!  :P  Then I went and asked him to smile for me and got one silly enough to match his hairdo.  :)

Just Like Grandpa

Just Like Daddy

Sweetness

Love my boy!

Here's proof that Luke has learned how to jump!  I was excited to capture the air under his feet.  :)

Day at the Beach

A few weeks ago, my friend, Anna, mentioned on Facebook that she was headed to the beach that morning, and did anyone want to join her.  It was a Thursday, and my normal Thursday play date was canceled that week, so I thought, "why not?"  This was only Luke's second time at the beach (not counting going to the coastal town of Newport, OR, since we never went down to the actual beach on that visit because of the rain), his first being on his 2nd birthday, almost a year ago.

He really enjoyed playing in the sand!  I finally bought some sand toys this year, and this was the inaugural unveiling of said toys - very exciting indeed!

Luke was very NOT interested in the water this time.  He really liked it last time, but wanted nothing to do with it this time.  Not sure if it was too cold, too scary, or a combination of the two.  Maybe next time, we'll make sure Daddy comes along and he can give Luke some courage!

Cute pictures of my little digger!  (check out many more on the Hughes gallery)

Proof that I was there, too.  It was fairly warm, but windy, so the sweatshirt was keeping me cozy from the wind.  :)

I believe this was the first time Luke's ever eaten an apple whole.  We shared it, and I held onto it the whole time, but it was fun seeing him enjoy the new method.  :)

"I'm a spider!"

This is Luke's interpretation of being a spider.  Not sure where he gets it.  :P  When I made a spider imitation for him, I just linked my thumbs together and make a "spider" with my 2 hands.  This crazy, wide walking?  Mmm...

Mother's Day

Luke is getting to be more involved in the gift-picking process these days.  Nathan told me that he picked out my Mother's Day card all by himself - because it had butterflies on it.  :)  And, when Nathan let him "loose" in Michael's to pick something to get me, Luke chose this cute little rose bush.  He was very proud of himself!  He also picked out some large, yellow rubber ducky stickers for me that Nathan couldn't talk him out of.  :P  Nathan, on the other hand, got me very nice "baby boy" scrapbooking stickers and a large kitchen strainer that I had on my with list.  :)

Finally getting to ride in Uncle Dan's car!  Ever since our Lake Tahoe family trip last summer, Luke has had a love affair with this car, then called the "baby go-go" because it belonged to Baby Madeline.  And, not too long after their last visit, we saw someone parking a car near our building that looked just like this one.  Luke talked about "someday" getting to ride that car.  I said that he wouldn't get to ride that exact car since we didn't know that person.  He thought about that for a bit, then suggested that "someday my ride Uncle Dan's car!"  I told him maybe - that we'd have to ask Uncle Dan the next time they visited.  Ever since then, whenever he'd spot this model of car, he'd always bring that up.  So, when their next visit was coming up, I wasn't too surprised when Luke reminded us of this amazing opportunity.  :P  Thankfully, Uncle Dan is a good sport, and him and Nathan took Luke out for a "joy ride" around the neighborhood - quite the happy little boy!  He's already talking about when he can ride in it again.  :)

A good picture with Great-Grandma!

Running the football!  Go Luke!!!

Me and my boy!  (note the "Mom" necklace I'm wearing - "Luke's" present from me last year)