Slide Show

Here is our family photo slide show that was done for us by our sweet (and talented friend) Leslie.

www.goodlightphotography.com/clients/thomas10

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween from our little chicken and pumpkin!

(it was 83 degrees - we all got a little sweaty!)

He's Gone Country

Well, we took Luke to Dodge, Texas where Billy's Aunt Marie has a place with lots of land and animals and a pond for fishing - a dream come true for the boys! It was a hit!

As much as Luke loves balls, the great outdoors are a close second, and the combination of the two is down right overwhelming!

Luke's Glorious Ball Pit

So, if you know Luke at all, you know that he loves any kind of ball he can get his hand on. Basketball, baseball, tennis ball, bouncy ball, ball popper ball (a favorite), soccer ball - any kind at all and he is happy. In fact, these sporting goods have saved us many times from emanent melt downs. For example, the last round of vaccines - the crying was immediately mitigated by the presntation of a tennis ball. Mother's Day Out and Church Nursery nerves are calmed by "Luke, would you like to play with a ball?" And any time that "stranger danger" rears its ugly head, we know now to hand the new person a ball, and all is right again with the world.


Yesterday, my mom took her two hour tour to the grocery store and Walmart and came home with the mother of all gifts - an inflatable ball pit.

Luke's dream come true, an enclosed container with endless, colorful balls at his fingertips. To say that he loved it, would be the understatement of the year.

At one point he tried to hug it.

Andrew, to say the least, was underwhelmed.

Luke's First Day of School

Well, let's call a spade a spade here - it's not really "school" it's Mother's Day Out! But it feels like school! We pack his little backpack and lunch

and drop him off in his "classroom" (the "Busy Bee Class")

Where he plays with his friends and "teachers", while mommy goes home to clean and get some one on one time with Andrew. The first week or two he cried pretty hard when I dropped him off, but every week it gets better and now he seems to like going!

What's So Funny?

In this video, Luke is having the time of his life watching mommy throw the soccer ball onto the roof.

A Less Somber Post

After that sad post from this morning, a little laughter is in store. As you can see, our little screamer is slowly but surely growing out of his grumpy disposition. And no matter what he is doing, if his big brother comes near him, he is all smiles. On Monday, Luke poked Andrew in the eye (excellent parenting), and after shrieking for about 10 seconds, he was laughing his head off at big brother. Here is a video of our little guy in action - he has changed so much in such a short time.

Luke continues on his quest to throw balls as much as possible. We took him to Chuck E. Cheese the other day, with his cousin Jake, and of all the games he could play, he sought out a game that had colored balls and then for the rest of the time, wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything else, but the sweet red ball that he carried around until we left. He has almost graduated to basketballs and soccer balls, but he still loves his hand-helds best. He has a hard time getting a hold of the basketball, making the prospect of holding two at once (one of his favorite things to do) in the distant future at best.

Here are a few recent pics for those of you who are not around!

Our Precious Gifts

It is a curious thing how children change you. People tell you that - they smile sweetly and say, "you'll never be the same." And until you have kids, your inner monologue says back "yes, I know, they change you, they are amazing, we will never be the same, yada yada yada." Well, cliche as it may be, it is absolutely true. From the moment your little one is thrust upon your belly, sticky and screaming, you are in love. Then you bring your sweet miracle home, and your happiness grows exponentially. And while this bundle of joy is making you sleep deprived, neurotic, slightly larger, more patient and more self-less than you ever thought you could be, it makes you humble. If you think you are in awe now, of the sweet miracle of life, just you wait. Wait until you are rocking your soft, warm, little one and he is playing with your hair and looks up at you and kisses you for no reason. Or you come in from being gone and he runs to you blissfully happy to be seen by you, and uninterested in all of your faults and short-comings. It is a daily reminder of the kind of unconditional love that we are all blessed with.


We learned yesterday that an acquaintance of Billy's lost their sweet 3 year old little girl. She drowned in a pool, and after two long days, her parents were faced with the unthinkable - they were forced to let her go. The thought of seeing either one of our boys in an ICU, ventilated, taped up and clinging to life, almost physically sickens me. And the gut wrenching pain that the family must have felt making that hideous decision is unimaginable. It is a stark reminder of truly how precious children our, and how transient life can be.

So, to all you parents out there, give your little ones (and big ones) an extra hug and kiss today or tell them how special they are to you, and this time when I get down on my knees to thank God for my two precious gifts, it will take me a little longer to get up.

A Video to Brighten This Rainy Day

Apparently, opening and closing blinds is hilarious.

Overdue Update on the Thomas Boys

Andrew

So it has been a while since the last post - for all of you (or should I say both of you) followers out there - so sorry! Things have been crazy. So, Andrew is less fussy - he is still a little bit of a screamer, but has MUCH more calm, awake times. After trying Enfamil AR, Similac RS, Similac Sensitive, Similac Advanced, Enfamil Gentlease, Enfamil Nutramigen, Neocate, and about every type of bottle you can imagine, we have decided that reflux or not, we just have a colicky babe. No gripe water, baby z's, hot water bottle, or voo doo will fix the fussiness, he will just have to grow out of it! And much to our delight - he is nearly there! Hooray! He smiles and coos (which is a lot of fun) and loves his bath. But above all, he sleeps.








The smiling and cooing are a close second to the sleeping.

He does love his bath! (he has filled out a lot since this photo was taken)

as evidenced by the photo below.

Luke

The Baby Fence

Luke is every bit of 13 months old. He is both fearless and insatiable when it comes to walking and despite the fact that he has had a lot of practice, we have still had our fair share of bruised heads and near misses. (note the healing purple bump over his right eye)

The tile in our house, that we LOVED so much when we moved in, has reeked havoc on our little one's forehead, and with another wild man close in tow behind, it is only a matter of time before a tooth falls victim to the cold unforgiving tile. So after a few, estimates to turn our house into a carpet wonderland (for a few grand), we spent 100$ and solved our problem! No more unsupervised play on the ceramic obstacle course. Thank you Baby Fence.

Where's the Chicken

This video is funny for a lot of reasons. First of all, while Luke happily finds the chicken, he just can't seem to get the piggy down. Secondly, and this has become really entertaining for our family lately - whenever Luke picks up an object to look at it, he almost throws it over his shoulder looking at it, and in fact actually does sometimes. This is no longer limited to the fisher price farmer people (thank you Tanja and Derek), but is used on a variety of objects, ball popper balls, guppies in the tub and puffs at the table.It's almost like he is showing it to someone behind him. Another thing that is funny about this video - is how forcefully he puts the people back in the bucket.

Sadly, since we have had Thomas boy number two, Luke misses out on getting his pic taken, so the videos will have to do for now. This one is a close up of the little guy without pants (just his onsie) - since daddy always takes off his "tight and uncomfortable church pants" after church.

Luke's Latest Tricks

Throwing

Luke has learned that his ball popper balls are good for more than popping out of that machine. As some of you have seen in some of the previous posts, first they were good for picking up two at a time - which was fun, until our little Newton discovered that watching them drop from his hands was even better than just holding them. And now the fun has evolved to throwing. Sadly, his new catch and release program, makes keeping up with the balls much more of a headache though. We started off this phase with 8 balls, and we are down to 4. Every once and a while, Luke still sits down for a few songs, but the fact of the matter is, the ball popper has lost a bit of it's luster. But fear not, ball popper - we managed to crank out another kid who gets closer to enjoying you every day!

Walking

We are still a little wobbly, but well on our way to walking a blue streak around the Thomas house. We are so thrilled that our little guy is walking. Mommy is even more thrilled when Luke is walking and there is an extra set of hands around to catch him since about 80% of the day Mommy's hands are tied up with another wobbly family member - one who's head is wobbly, not his feet (yet ) ... (thank goodness!)

Drinking From a Moving Object

This video and title is pretty self explanatory. (Thanks, Uncle Bob, for the fab water activity table)

Watering The Flowers (or His Face)

DISCLAIMER: We did not start out, in the front yard, with a onsie and some socks and shoes, we gradually lost the pants over the course of the evening as they got progressively more soaked from the watering hose!) At first, he wasn't to sure about the water, but by the time 7:45 rolled around we had to peel him away from it. Water bug! (Like his mom!)

A Warning to Parents About Jumperoos

may cause extreme drowsiness

An Update on the Thomas Boys

Things are great at the Thomas house. Busy and a little crazy, but great! We thought we would upload a few pictures and videos to fill you in on what is going on!


Andrew
He is still a pretty fussy babe,



but when he is quiet, life is good!

We love to go outside after dinner and watch Luke and Daddy ride in the bike trailer and the wagon! Andrew watches from his little bouncy seat.




Andrew is getting bigger every day - and outgrowing outfits left and right! Thanks to everyone who has sent us cute clothes, he is managing to stay in style, in and out of growth spurts!

At least once a day, if not more I end up wearing Andrew ... just not enough hands to go around!

Luke

Luke is busy busy busy. It seems like every day he tries or learns something new! He loves his ball machine and he especially loves to carry the balls around and drop them! In order to be as efficient as possible, he has fine tuned his abilities to hold more than one ball at a time.

Recently, we took Luke to the park and put him in the swing! He loved it! He is also learning "Mama" & "Da-Da", and got a little practice in!

Most of you have seen Luke's shocking face (we call it Shock and Awe face). I posted a pics below - but also a video so you can see it in action!

Happy Birthday Luke!

Our little guy, Luke, turned one on April 9th! We had a party for him the next day! We had such a good time and were so thankful for all those who helped us prepare for the party. Thanks to all who came and shared with us, and thanks also to those who wanted to be there but had to settle for sending birthday wishes out way!



We had leftover cupcakes for days ... but nobody in our house minded too much.



We had a great turn-out! Thank you Aunt Bev for the helium tank, and thank you Daddy (and Bobbi) for blowing up and tying all of those balloons! They were a huge hit with the little ones.




Thank you cousin Linda for our cute "Birthday Boy" T-shirt!




And thank you again, cousin Linda, for Andrew's cute onsie to go with!

We were so proud of our little guy (who has had intermittent bouts of stranger danger) - not a single melt down with a house full of strangers (who later sang to him)!

It took a little encouraging for Luke to dig in to his cake!

After the guests left, and we had a rest, we opened presents! Thank you! Thank you! We can now completely do away with adult furniture and decorate our house top-to-bottom with primary colored Fisher Price toys!

First Haircut!

We took Luke to get his first haircut! We went to the appointment well equipped. We had puffs (cheese puffs and cinnamon puffs), toys, books, a frosted easter egg cookie, and a portable DVD player with baby genius nursery rhymes. Much to our surprise Luke handled it really well! Mom didn't handle it quite as well! He looks like a grown up now! BOOO!