First Ice Cream Cone!

Luke has successfully ate Drumstick ice cream cones all by himself, but we haven't ever been brave enough to let him try an actual cone yet until now.  Just the mess factor made us get his ice cream in a bowl when we went out together.  But, we had a bib along in the car this time, and thought he was ready!  He did great!

Shy Biker

This first picture of Luke riding his bike at our new house turned out a tad fuzzy, so I tried to get another one...

Drawing!

Luke has shown a huge interest in drawing lately!  He hasn't really been all that into it before, but he'll often ask to draw and will occupy himself with it for quite awhile.  This was especially true when I was busy doing lots of unpacking - it was a great activity for him in the meantime!  I decided to let him use what will be my scrapbooking table as his drawing table when I'm not using it.  So, he enjoys drawing and coloring there while I work or use my computer.  :)  Now *I* just need to find the time to use that table for scrapbooking!  It's all organized now, just waiting for me to be productive.  :)

Rich!

We received Luke's birthday card from Nathan's grandma at some point during the craziness of our Oregon trip and move, and forgot to have him open it until a couple weeks later.  She has been giving the grandkids and now great-grandkids a dollar coin in their birthday cards for as long as I've been aware (I'm assuming since Nathan and his siblings were pretty little).  The past two years, I've just confiscated Luke's coin to use for whatever because he was really too little to know what it was.  This year, he was excited to see it and knew that it was money!  Nathan and I thought it would be a good idea to give Luke a bank to keep any monies in that he gets, but any extra spending at this point seems too much because of all the new house expenses.  So, we made Luke a bank from an empty peanut butter jar, and he proudly enjoys having his "penny" in there.  One of these days, he'll probably begin to realize that he can actually buy something with that coin, but for now, he's saving it.  :)

New Bathrobe

Thrilled to pieces to wear his bathrobe for the first time!  This was a birthday present from my parents.  :)  He loves to wear it after his baths and even some other evenings - even when it's scorching outside!  He may be crazy to want to wear a fleece robe when it's over 100 degrees outside, but he's sure cute!

New Tools

Luke LOVES his new tool set that my Uncle Doug & Aunt Kathy got him for his birthday.  It's especially appropriate with all the little (and big!) fix-it jobs that Nathan and various paid workers were doing around the house those first few weeks.  He was constantly gathering up his tools whenever he saw someone else use real tools so that he could work, too - in addition to the times when he just pretended to work all by himself.  :)

Playing

Putting together puzzles that he got for his birthday.  I had to majorly help him with them, but I'm sure he'll get better at doing them eventually.  :)

Enjoying one of the sticks from the hillside behind our house.  He is always excited to help out with whatever project we're working on!

Happy Three Year Old

Upon returning from Oregon, we had our hands full!  We arrived home late Saturday night and moved into our new house Sunday afternoon (skipping church to finish packing the essentials before the moving helpers got there).  Yes, we're crazy, but we were antsy to get into our new house and start living there.  :)

Then, that Monday, Luke had his 3-year-old doctor's check-up!  This took place during the hour of my glucose screening test - the lab and his pediatrician's office were right down the hall from each other.  Again, kind of crazy scheduling!  I thought it was cute that they gave Luke an actual paper "robe" to wear this time!  Definitely a big boy now!  And he finally got to be weighed and measured standing up (instead of laying down on the scale) like the little man that he is.  Unfortunately, I just scoured the house looking for where I might have written down his stats, but I can't find them!!!  I actually think they are probably not written down at all - the nurse usually gives me a little paper with his measurements on it, but I didn't get one this time.  So, I'm guessing I never wrote them down myself in the midst of all the craziness.  :P  Maybe I'll try calling the pediatrician's office to get the numbers so I can have them for my records.  :)  Anyway, I do remember that he was 50th percentile in height and 25th percentile in weight - about the same as last time.  They didn't measure his head this time and I forgot to ask them about that - I was pretty curious to see if his head was still off the charts or not.  :P  Oh well - at any rate, he's a healthy boy!

Later that Monday, I got such joy out of watching Luke play outside in our new backyard while I did the dishes (our dishwasher was already broken when we moved in, so I had to really keep on top of things until we could get it fixed!).  This is the first home of married life where I've had a window over the kitchen sink, so it was fun have such a cute subject to watch while I worked.  :)  He mainly just played with this hose and tried to draw on the cement with the little drops of water he could coax out of it (it wasn't turned on).

Since it fits here better because of the scheduling craziness, I'll include that Tuesday in this post also.  I had an ultrasound scheduled that day.  :)  No rest for the weary this week!  Our little boy has extra fluid in his kidneys, so they did 3 extra ultrasounds to keep an eye on things.  His levels went up a bit at the one after this one, but went down some at the third one, so the doctors are happy that it's not continuing to get worse.  Apparently, it's quite normal for this problem to resolve itself naturally once the baby is born and is no longer in a liquid environment.  They'll do an ultrasound on him in the hospital once he's out to check how his kidneys are doing then.  So, be praying that our little guy would be healthy and that this wouldn't be an issue once he's born.

Again, more pictures of our happy BIG boy enjoying our new backyard.  The second one is of him again playing with that hose, trying to water the weeds from the drops left in the line.  :)

Latest Sewing Accomplishments

Before moving on to more pictures, I'll share my latest sewing creations before I forget about them.  :)

After moving into our new house and unpacking all my sewing/craft stuff, I got VERY antsy to get crafty again!  I'd been in sort of a slump ever since the 1st trimester blahs stole my motivation away.  So when my friend, Beth, shared a Pillowcase Challenge for cancer patients on her blog, it sounded like just the sort of project for me!  Moving reminded me just how much stash fabric I have and need to use, and pillowcases aren't that complicated to make - perfect "starter" project for my new craft room (okay, so it's really the office that I share with Nathan, but hey - it's more space than I had before!)!  I made four pillowcases - one for a woman, one for a man, one for a little girl and one for a little boy - covering all my bases.  If you're interested in joining her challenge, just check out her blog post for more details - there's still plenty of time to participate!

Then, I was approached to hem a bridesmaid dress for a girl in my Sunday School class.  My first alteration job in awhile!  As I was cutting off quite a few inches of dark navy satin from the dress, my somewhat rusty creative wheels started turning.  That fabric would make a cute doll dress to sell on Etsy!  So, in addition to the other fabric that I had already been planning to make a couple dresses out of soon, I decided to cut out some dress pieces from the leftover bridesmaid dress fabric!  :)  I also did a couple more hemming/mending jobs in the next couple weeks after this hemming job - good things come in 3's I guess.  :)

In the midst of that, I sold my Bride cross stitch on Etsy!!!  This is probably the biggest project I've sold on there, so that was VERY exciting!  I also got a response back from the lady who bought it, saying how much she liked it, so that is always reassuring.  :)

I had made a dress out of this fabric just before Christmas, but sold it to a friend from church before I could post it on Etsy.  I loved it, and wanted to make another one just like it to sell online.  So, here it is!  Oh, and my grandma loved the fabric of this dress so much, she commissioned me to make a doll dress for her that didn't have any embellishments on it - she plans to use it as backdrop of sorts for hand-knitted shawls to sell on Etsy.  When she has some listings up, I'll try to remember to share them with you!

I also made a version with the little puffed sleeves that a lot of my doll dresses have - it seems like there are lots of people in both camps about which style of dress (sleeveless or sleeved) they prefer.  So, I'll probably just keep making both!  :)  I cut out some apple fabric to make two similar dresses out of also, but I haven't stitched those up yet.

When I was hunting through my fabric stash, I came across this lovely burgundy suede fabric that was left over from a civil war era dress that I made myself for fun in high school.  Seemed pretty "fall"-ish, so I went ahead and cut out dress pieces from that also - the size of the scraps left over somewhat guiding my choice of dress details.  When I finished the dress and tried it on the doll, the skirt didn't fall very flatteringly at all, so I whipped up a little petticoat, which ended up making the dress look very much like a ball gown - very fun!

I still have to make the navy satin doll dress from the bridesmaid dress hem, and the two dresses out of apple fabric (all three are cut out and calling to me from across the room).  I am also working on a Snoopy & Woodstock cross-stitch sampler for the new baby.  It was very simple and is almost done, minus the personalization that will have to wait until after he makes his arrival.  I'll be sure to keep posting things as I progress through them!

Summer in Oregon - Day Seven

Our last day in Oregon...  This silly, I-don't-want-my-picture-taken pose of Luke in Nathan's hat sums up our sadness of having to go home soon.  We had a great time and got to squeeze in lots of fun activities that are not possible to do during the Christmas season - we miss all of you!!!

Off to the Portland Zoo before flying home later.  Wouldn't you know it?  The zoo strollers had steering wheels!  I think Luke was more excited about the stroller than the animals for a little while.  :P

Amazingly enough, there was this little tunnel going from a higher part of the path to a lower part that was just Luke's size.  It was somewhat dark, although you could see the light on the other side.  Nathan went down to "catch" him, and Luke voluntarily went through it!  :)  Some major progress after Enchanted Forest the day before.

Bald eagle.

Enjoying the animals with Grandpa!

Polar bears - there were two of them playing in the water while we watched - very fun!  My mom even managed to capture one of them diving into the water after a ball on video!

Baby elephant.

Cooling off in some misters after a long day at the zoo!  It was actually a very hot week to be in Oregon (except for our partial day at the beach) - so much for spending a week in cooler weather.  :P

Luke was quite on edge by the time we got to the airport because of not having any nap at all during the day (on top of a lack of quality naps most of the week).  But, he went up and down the escalators with Grandpa quite a few times and even sat and played with him on the floor for a bit.  Eventually, we parted ways and had dinner in the airport by ourselves before getting on the plane (since we arrived pretty early for our flight, we didn't want to make the rest of the group wait around with us).  We're thankful for the time we could spend with each of you, and wish there was more time together!

Summer in Oregon - Day Six

Off to Enchanted Forest!  This is a little kids amusement park of sorts with lots of little houses to walk through based on nursery rhymes, as well as a few rides to go on.  It's nestled up in the trees on a hill - lots of up- and down-hill walking, which made for some sore pregnant joints at the end of the day.

Luke was quite nervous about anything dark and cave-like, thanks to having watched various Little Bear episodes on TV that portray caves to be scary.  :(  We forced him to go along with us into several of the adult-sized spaces, but he missed out on some fun kid-sized ones because of his fear.  :(

A bench just his size!

Going down a large slide - he went down several times, but always accompanied by one of us.  I even went on it with him once, but later regretted that decision - more for the joint-wrenching skill needed to settle onto the top of the slide on a blanket with a 3 year old, than for the actual sliding.  Third trimester pregnancy joints are not very forgiving!  :P

Playing some arcade games - one with a steering wheel (of course!) to maneuver a toy boat in the water that we actually paid to let him play, and this pistol shooting one that he just pretended to play - he's a natural!

Luke went on his first roller coaster!  Nathan and Luke rode together in one car, then Heidi and I also went along in our own cars (I don't think I was technically allowed to ride since I was pregnant, but we didn't notice that until after we'd paid for the tickets, and figured if it was tame enough for Luke, it would be safe enough for me!  And none of their workers said anything).  :)

Then, we let Luke go on this train ride, which had a... yup, you guessed it... steering wheel!  Aunt Heidi was game and managed to squeeze in there with him, and around they went.  This picture is a bit fuzzy, but it has the best expression on his face.  Check out the Hughes gallery for a few more pictures that are better quality.

Happy grandparents!

Determined little boy.  :P  We went to Sonic afterwards, as Nathan and I had never been to one.  It was pretty good, even though their milkshake deal was no longer valid.  Boo!

Then, we sacked out at Andrew & Heidi's house the rest of the day/evening (except for a yummy dinner run to Olive Garden!!!).  Heidi graciously painted my toenails for me, and we enjoyed her new little kitten.  :)

Summer in Oregon - Day Five

On Thursday in Oregon, we visited my grandparent's "farm" up in the mountains.  The highlight of this for Luke was probably getting to sit on Great-Grandpa's tractor!  The tractor is very old and LOUD, so we didn't actually turn it on.  He looks so little up there!

He also had fun pretending to drive Great-Grandpa's truck.  :)  Anything with a steering wheel must be Luke-tested!

We went out to look at the sawmill my grandpa's building all by himself...

saw a mama deer and her baby...

played matchbox cars with some of my younger cousins...

opened birthday presents (one of which was a matchbox size tractor just like my grandpa's!)...

opened baby presents and house-warming presents...

visited with my cousin, Kayla, and her then fiance, Joel (now husband!)...

and of course, visited with my grandparents!  My grandma made us a nice lunch and some homemade ice cream for an afternoon treat after Luke's nap.  Nice day with family!