Lucas at 8 Months

My littlest mister turned 8 months old on Jan 24th.  We've been having so much fun lately.  He loves to play and will play with whatever is near him even if it isn't a toy.  My sorority Big Sister, Ashley, got Kalen a ball pit for Christmas and Lucas loves it.  He crawls in there all the time to play. His second favorite activity is chasing after his big bro and watching whatever he is doing.  Sometimes he gets a little too close and becomes a casualty of hurricane Kalen. Case and Point: he is currently sporting a semi- black eye. 

With his Semi-black eye but still a happy little mister

Lucas has become a little speed demon.  He crawls so fast.  He will be sitting next to me one second then on the other side of the house the next.  He is working on his arm muscles by pulling himself up onto anything he gets close too.  The little mister has only let go once and stood without holding onto anything for a few seconds before plopping onto his bottom.  Lucas has also started moving from holding onto the couch to holding onto the table and going back and forth between the two. I'm sure cruising will be in the near future, he has tried a few times but, he only takes a few steps at a time. 
Lucas Laughing is by far my favorite thing he does.  He has a deep laugh just like his brother and he sounds like he is going to pass out if you keep making him laugh.  He spends a majority of his day laughing.  Laughing at Reggie, Mommy, Daddy, his Brother, or our Pup Reggie.  Its also so easy to  make him laugh.
Lucas is becoming very vocal as well.  He loves yelling and talking to his toys.  Every morning he is having a full blown convo with his little night light turtle Gus.  Its just so adorable. He also started saying da da da da.  Both the boys just love their dad.  I mean he is a pretty great guy, so its understandable.
Sleep, whats that?  Lucas hates it. He has no sleep pattern whats so ever.  He was sleeping from around 8-5 for a week or two, which was AH-MAZING.  But he decided against that sleeping schedule and switched over to waking up whenever he feels like it.  Which makes for one sleepy mommy in the morning.  Which translates into lots of COFFEE!!! He seriously needs to get his sleeping pattern down for the sake of his mommy. 
Hopefully now that the little mister is eating a lot more food he will start sleeping a little better.  He is more a fan of chunks of food rather than the pureed stuff.  So I've been making him some veggies and fruits and just not puring them.  He just loves trying to feed himself.  He recently got a taste of Italian when he got to eat some eggplant parm, he seemed to really love it.  He is also pretty good at drinking out of a sippy cup.  He just gets water with a splash of apple juice in it and he loves it.

Eating Eggplant Parm

Drinking out of a sippy like a big boy


Next weekend Lucas is finally getting baptized.  The Pastor I grew up with and that married my hubs and me is going to be in Jacksonville, so we are going up there.  I am so happy that he is able to do this for Lucas. I am excited for Lucas to be surrounded by the people that love him on his special day. 


Moving from the table to the couch

Bath time with the Big Bro

Playing in the Ball pit

Trying to push the walker

'UCK'

'UCK'- Kalen's favorite new word

I think it’s inevitable for a child at some point to say a curse word before the age of 5.  If you’re a fan of Modern Family then you probably saw the recent episode where Lily says the ‘F’ word.  Well in this household we can completely relate.  The hubs and I don’t curse that often, but sometimes words slip out.   Kids are little sponges and will at some point hear you or someone else let a word slip out.

Well Kalen picked up the ‘F’ word.  We aren’t exactly sure from whom or where he picked it up.  The first time I heard him say it, I thought to myself he didn’t just say that and went on with my day.  A few days later the hubs mentioned the fact that he heard him say the ‘F’ word.  He doesn’t say the entire word, he actually leaves off the F and he says uuuccck. He says it so softly and dejected.   We absolutely have no idea what to do.  We have tried not to react to it hoping he would just stop.  Well it has become more prevalent and we are now trying to say uh oh when he says it hoping he will replace his new favorite word.  The funny part in all this is that he actually uses the word correctly.  He says his favorite word when he drops something or if he is pushing a toy and smacks it into something.  So at least he is using it as most adults do, right?  I am not condoning him using the word at all and am thankful that he hasn’t started saying the word in full. I really just don’t know how to get him to quit saying it. 

I am welcome to all suggestions

Discovery and Excitement

I love to sit back and watch the boys do ordinary things that we as adults do all day with no thought. We just go through the motions and move on. But everything is new to kids and takes concentration.

Sitting at dinner tonight I put Lucas in the high chair and feed him his dinner and then put some crunchies on the table for him to munch on. He stares down the crunchy he wants and then proceeds to pick it up with his pointer finger and thumb. Then the crunchy makes the venture to his mouth. It use to be more of a process to grab a crunchy. It would get "lost" in his hand and he would have no clue where it went. Other times he would completely miss his mouth and the crunchy made the trek to no mans land, the high chair seat. I swear I could feed another child with the food that finds its way there everyday.

Its just so amazing to watch the kids learn how to do new things.

We have a new slide in our house that the boys got for Christmas and Kalen is enjoying it. He takes such pride when he gets to the top and then slides down. He even comes up with new ways to go up and down the slide. It's so funny to watch him, I'm pretty sure he thinks he is the only child to think of these new ways to go down a slide. There isn't a toy that hasn't been down the slide either and with each new toy that goes down he yells "weeee" because the toys are just as excited as him to be sliding.

Holidays bring new meaning with kids. Everything is just so spectacular to them. Getting dressed up on Halloween to get candy. Thanksgiving doesn't seem to have that much excitement yet. Everything about Christmas is so amazing. The lights on the Christmas tree, when we first turned it on a big "WOW" came out of his mouth. Santa became exciting to him, Kalen didn't understand that he brought presents, but he def thought it was cool seeing him in movies and in public. My favorite holiday is the Fourth of July, I just love fireworks and celebrating our freedom. But instead of watching the fireworks I watched Kalen. His eyes got so big and so many "ohhhs & ahhs." Every time we see fireworks I glance back and forth from Kalen to the sky.

Lucas recently discovered Mickey Mouse and let's out a huge squeal when he comes marching across the tv. I can still remember when Kalen use to do that. Lucas is also beginning to discover toys and he thinks they are pretty cool. He watches his big bro play with his toys and tries to imitate him. Kalen is obsessed with Cars, the movie and anything with 4 wheels. He can entertain himself all day long and even takes various ones to sleep. I don't see how that is comfy but, it makes him happy. I wish I could be entertained by pushing cars around all day, life would be so much easier.

Movement is a huge source of excitement as any parent knows. It starts off with rolling and moves all the way to walking. Lucas is pulling himself to standing while holding on to stuff. He pulls himself up while holding on to whatever is in front of him. He has started to slowly cruise around. He usually gets about a step or two in before he sits down or just stands there. When he stands up while holding your hands he becomes a little jumper and is so excited and just giggles away. He will also take some steps and you can see he wants to just let go and chase after his bro but his legs just aren't ready for that. We have gotten one stand where he let go of the couch and stood all by himself for a few secs. When Lucas spots a toy across the room he smiles and lets out a little giggle and off he crawls, he is beyond proud of himself when he gets to it.

Kalen went straight from learning to walk to running. He does not walk anywhere. He wants to get places as fast he can. He has also loves to jump up and land on his behind and thinks it's so funny. He also loves to dance. Music comes on and he begins to dance around. We have an alligator that plays music and he does his version of a rain dance around it. It's pretty funny to watch.

I just love that kids wear all their emotions on their sleeves. If they are unhappy you know it and when they are happy and excited you know it too. When the kids try new favors of food, it's the best when something isn't the best tasting and they make the face of pure disgust. We recently gave Lucas sour apples and his little pucker was the cutest.

This post kind of took a life of its own as I was writing and could easily write for days about all the things these kids do. They def keep me on my toes!

Operation no Binky!!

This is a new experience for me since Kalen wanted nothing to do with his Binky. So we never had to worry about weaning him off of it. We tried not to give it to Lucas as well. But, he thought otherwise.
Lucas would want to sit with the bottle in his mouth even if it was empty. He just liked having the binky. So we caved in and gave it to him. A few months ago we thought he was going to wean himself from it. He would pull the binky out and would turn it to chew on. So we gave him Sophie the Giraffe to solve the chewing of the binky and hoped he would forget about his beloved friend Binky. That seemed to be working until he would find them and shove them in his mouth. Backwards we went.
Monday morning we started operation no Binky!! We are currently in phase 1 and it has been going great. He only gets the binky when he is going to sleep, so nap time and bedtime. Phase 2 will be removing it from nap time and then Phase 3 will be bedtime.
I hope once he can fall asleep without the Bink he will sleep better at night. If he wakes up in the middle of the night he can't seem to fall back asleep. Every once in a while he manages to do so. But I usually have to run in there and pop the Bink in his mouth and he usually goes back to sleep. Other times he needs a bottle.
Here's hoping for a smooth transition to a binky free life for Lucas!!

Lucas' turns 7 months old!

Christmas Eve also marked Lucas turning 7 months old.  He sure has been a busy bee this month!! He has been crawling everywhere since before Thanksgiving.  He is pretty much an expert crawler and gets where he needs to go quickly.  This past month he also pulls himself up on everything he can.  He started off just pulling himself up on the table and holding on for dear life so he wouldn't fall.  Now he is pulling himself up and only holding on with one arm or he plays with whatever is on the table.  He has also been pulling himself up on the walker toys and trys to take a few steps with those.  He usually only get a step or two in before he sits back down. 
The little mister also has his two bottom teeth in!! I didn't think they were ever going to make their way through.  His teeth still seem to be bothering him so I'm sure he has his top teeth moving in.  If he is anything like his brother he will just start poping teeth out.  Kalen always got 2-4 teeth at a time and their wasn't much time between sets of teeth! He has been eating like a champ.  He loves his pears and green beans.  Sweet Potatoes were his favorite but he hasn't really wanted anything to do with them lately.  He is eating the little crunchies and seems to enjoy feeding himself although he doesn't get a whole lot in his mouth.  He is doing better with his sippy cup and tries to drink out of Kalen's all the time. 
Lucas really seems to enjoy playing with toys and they can keep him pretty entertained for awhile.  If his brother is around he wants to be doing whatever Kalen is doing. 

Lucas Loved looking at the lights on the tree

Nom Nom my finger is so yummy

Reading The Night Before Christmas

My little Laugh bot

Christmas!!

Holidays are so much fun with two wee ones around! This year was Lucas' first Christmas and he seemed to enjoy himself! We had lots of fun Christmas Eve with the kids and doing the traditional stuff to get ready for Santa's arrival. Christmas eve also marked Lucas turning 7 months old. We baked cookies, hung out all day in our Pjays, watched Christmas movies and just enjoyed being home as a family.  Before bed we all got our Christmas Jammies on and went outside to drop food for the Reindeer.  Kalen seemed to really have fun throwing the food all around and Lucas even got in on the fun.  We left our "Magic key" out for Santa.  We do not have a Chimney for Saint Nick to plop down and leave presents so we leave a key out for him.  It's a special key that only works for him.  We placed cookies and milk under our smaller tree, and Kalen decided he needed to make sure the cookies were not poisonous.  Right before bed we read A Night Before Christmas and about the birth of Jesus.  Then everyone got tucked in so Santa could come.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. Kalen just strolled out to the living room and stopped to play with a magazine before realizing there were all kinds of presents under the tree.  He seemed most excited about his Stocking in which Santa filled full of cars! He was in complete shock that every time he placed his hand in the stocking he pulled out another car.  He actually opened all of his presents by himself this year and even helped Lucas get his opened.  A little bit later my Mom, Erik, and Nole came over to celebrate with the kids.  Kalen loved the train table they got him.  Luckily Erik had already put the buildings and table together we just needed to lay down the track.  We ended Christmas day by having a nice Christmas Meal of Ham and fried Turkey! Yummy

On the Wednesday before Christmas the Hubs Parents came down to give Kalen and Lucas their gifts and to have dinner.  Kalen got a cozy coupe and absolutely loves it. Lucas got some of his own cars to play with, although Kalen thinks they are his.  After Christmas my Dad, Becky, Austin, my sister Ericka and her husband Tyler all came down and we enjoyed a day of eating and spending some time together and opening gifts!! Kalen and Lucas got a massive slide! Which I am sure will send us to the ER sometime in the new year.  Kalen is getting super creative in the ways he goes up and down the slide.  It is also a launching point for most of his toys.

 We had a great Christmas and hope everyone else did as well. 

Lucas Adding his ornament

Kalen waiting not so patiently for his Coupe, from his Mimi and Bobo, to get put together

Making Christmas Cookies

Leaving the Cookies and Milk out for Santa, Kalen tested the star for Poison

Throwing our Reindeer Food in the Yard

Our Magic Key

Lucas reading The Night Before Christmas

Christmas Morning going through his stocking

Lucas crawling to his Penguin

Reggie with his Christmas present



Lucas Playing with his remote control car



Playing Cars

Opening his Slide from Grandpa Buddy and Becky