Teddy Bear Picnic

Luke, Rebekah and I went to a parks and rec playgroup tonight - the theme was Teddy Bear Picnic. We took one of our teddy bears and headed downtown. The first activity was reading "Going on a Bear Hunt" with Addie.

After we read the story, we went on an actual bear hunt. All the lights were turned off, and we went all around the room, mimicking the story. We went through tall grass, swam through a river, went through mud, through a cave, and then found a bear at the end in his own cave.

Here's Beka getting in on the fun.

Then there were some stations set up. Luke was very happy coloring and didn't want to do any of the other activities, so I took a picture of Asher and Lexie taking their bears to the doctor.

Unfortunately that's all the pictures I got. My camera has died, so I'll have to get a new one. One of the other girls took some more pictures for me, so I'll have to get those from her. The kids had a snack of "Teddy Bear Campfires." They took pretzel sticks to make a campfire, put Easy Cheese on top for the fire, and then put teddy grahams around the fire for the teddy bears on their picnic. Very cute. Then they read another story and we headed home. Very fun evening!

Beka's Random Post

And now here's Beka's random picture post. We definitely are not taking quite as many pictures of Beka as we did of Luke, but we're probably getting better ones! However, she has been smiling the prettiest smiles lately, but not for the camera! I got one pretty good one today, picture to come later in the post.

First, here's another picture of Beka asleep on her playmat. She likes to do that. I still can't recall ANY time that Luke fell asleep on the mat. She's much more easygoing (or we just never gave Luke a chance to fall asleep there since we had nothing else going on around here and could just pick him up when he got fussy. She usually has to wait a bit longer before we go get her, and sometimes she just goes to sleep. Great coping mechanism!) You'll notice she's getting pretty long! At her 2 month appointment (at 10 weeks) she was 14lb 5oz (95th percentile) and 23.5 inches long (90th percentile).


Here's a few pictures of Beka (and cousin Ida) in the cute outfits that (Great) Grandma Ruth made them. It was not easy getting them to sit there for a picture. I have a feeling in a few months we'll be able to get some great pictures once they can both sit up by themselves! First one is Beka by herself, still having some slumpy head issues, but she's getting better!

And here's the cousins together....

But not for long, Ida started to fall over, and it looks like Beka is saying "What's wrong with you?" But it looks like Ida's having fun while falling!

We gave Luke one of my old baby dolls before Beka was born so he could learn to be gentle with the baby and get the idea of having a baby around. It usually worked, though sometimes he would swing it around by the leg...I justified this by saying that he was fully aware that it was not a real baby! Anyway, he found it again the other day and was pretty excited. He took it and went running down the hall, then came back without it and managed to convey to me that he wanted me to follow him. I went with him and he'd put the doll on the changing table and told me she needed to be changed! So I found an old tiny diaper and put it on the doll. He thought that was pretty cool. Then he took the doll and gave it to Beka. I thought the picture of her with the doll was pretty cute. She looks kind of like the doll!


And another playmat picture, I just liked this one. She's really been playing with the mat the last few days, and seems to enjoy it!


And finally a smiling picture! The headband didn't last too long today (which was fine with me) but it was cute while it was on her! We had a very busy day, started off with a trip over to the hospital (not for any emergencies - I forget that not everyone visits the hospital all the time, and I'm sure most people don't have a son who says "YEAH!!!!" whenever he sees the hospital!), then to the library for Mother Goose Rhyme Time, then naps, then to the playground, then to Parks & Rec Playgroup. But Beka was great all day!

Luke's Random Post

I haven't done any posts in almost a month (sorry!) so I'm going to try and catch up tonight. Luke will get a post, Beka will get a post, and then one from the playgroup we went to this evening. So here we go with an "All About Luke" post!

Here's a shot of Luke in the tub the other night, curly mohawk courtesy of Daddy:


Every so often around here we have a page in a book tear. Most of the time it is an accident, Luke has gotten much better at being careful with his books. But accidents happen, and the books need to be fixed. We tape them up and go on our way. Well apparently we missed one the other day, and Luke found some tape and attempted to fix it himself. He started off really well, the beginning of the tape was right along the tear in the book. That's when it all went downhill:

Yes, that is the whole rest of the roll of tape all crumpled up in a big ball. Poor little guy didn't know what to do when he was done fixing the little tear! He tried hard though. That will teach me to have tape where he can find it. It all came off the book just fine though, and now he knows not to play with the tape! Very funny picture!

Here's a shot of Luke going to bed - we didn't have any of him in his big boy bed, so we figured we'd get one!


The other day, Luke put on his shoes (notice they are on the wrong feet), put on his (too small) hat, picked up a plastic sack, found some spare keys, threw the bag over his shoulder and said "Bye Mommy!" Not sure where he was headed, but he was ready to go! He even went to the door and tried to put the keys in the lock. He looked very cute attempting all of this, so I figured I'd get it on film:


Yesterday morning for breakfast Luke has a bowl of Cheerios, complete with milk. It was his first actual bowl of cereal, and he did great, with minimal milk spillage.


And finally, for all of you that like the pictures of Luke "in" things, here's one of him in one of his sister's diaper boxes, dancing along to Super Why on PBS. The picture doesn't quite get the spirit of his dancing, but trust me, it was very cute. He loves to dance!

Happy Birthday Luke!

Luke turned 2 on April 25th - hard to believe it's been two years already! He was running around all day saying "Two Years Old! Two Years Old!" but sometimes it came out "Too Old" - which is exactly how I felt!

We celebrated down in Peck at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Grandma made a very yummy 3 layer German Chocolate Cake, and of course Luke was very excited about the balloons on the cake.

Luke's favorite show all of a sudden is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so he was also very excited about the Mickey napkins on the table.

The menu for the evening was a hot dog octopus on a bed of sea shell pasta, sprinkled with goldfish, along with a sloppy joe race car. All very creatively done by Grandma.

Luke learning how to blow his party horn.

Action shot of blowing out the candles. We practiced the day before with another candle, so he knew just what to do!

One of the present highlights was the three wheeled scooter from (Great) Aunt Betsy, Uncle Rick and 2nd Cousin CR. Luke figured it out pretty quickly, though he's still working on turning. Unfortunately since we've been home, it's been rainy/wet almost every day, so we haven't really had a chance to use it outside here yet.

Look at him go!

He was also very excited about the KU Jayhawk hat! Go KU!

A color-changing basketball from Great-Grandma and Grandpa. Sports balls are always a hit!

Luke doing a pretty good impression of being able to ride a bike (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa) - don't be fooled, he knocked the bike over soon after this picture was taken! But we'll work on it this summer!

Luke got lots of other great presents as well, and it was a fun birthday spent with family. Another "highlight" - well not really - was that there was severe weather all around us during his party, and we were actually under a tornado warning for part of it. Fortunately we didn't have to go to the basement or anything, and there wasn't any major damage in the area. But apparently Luke inherited his mom's luck of always having severe weather on her birthday - I spent many birthdays in the basement growing up!

The day after his birthday, Council Hill Christian Church (where Vance grew up and his parents still attend) celebrated their 130th anniversary. It was a fun day and many current and former parishioners attended the celebration. Above is Luke before we headed over to the church.

Luke seems to be enjoying being two - his vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds, and he talks more and more each day. We can almost carry on actual conversations with him, and he is speaking more in sentences as well. We're always surprised at what words he decides to repeat from overhearing our conversations. He still has some work to do on questions and answers however. This is how it went the other night after he was supposed to be in bed:

Luke (at his door): "Mommy!"
Erin (in the living room): "What?"
Luke: "What?"

We went back and forth with that for a minute or so, and then this happened:

Luke (still at his door): "Mommy!"
Erin (still in the living room): "What buddy?"
Luke: "What Buddy?"

I gave up at that point, and I just heard him back in his room going "What buddy? What buddy? What buddy?" After a little while he decided to go to sleep, so apparently whatever he wanted wasn't that important!

(we have similar issues trying to teach him how to knock on a door. He knocks, we say "who is it?" and then he also says "who is it?" Occasionally he will say "Luke" (or more correctly "Woot", which is usually how he says his name!)