Thanks Santa! (aka Grandma L)

Luke just loves his new rocking horse, Ted. We learned quickly not to let him bounce too soon after eating. He loves to get Ted moving!

Beeline

Ahhh Luke. Of course the one place you want to go is the kitchen. It is where you can get into the most trouble and it is where you are consistently locked out of. So it is no surprise that when the door is unintentionally left open, you make a beeline for it.

Playing with Kacie

Grandma Linda had an old video of Luke and Kacie playing last August in San Francisco. Kacie ran circles around Luke, of course. It was the "golden time" for Luke - when he could sit, play with toys and be entertained, but not crawl and get into trouble. I think it lasted about two weeks. Those were the days . . .

Clearly, all Luke wanted to do was chew on tissue paper. No noisy toys for this boy!

Reminiscing . . .

 

As we are approaching the end of year, I've been flipping back through old pictures of Luke. It's hard to remember this stage of him, compared to where he is now. Granted, I was working on no sleep, so that does play a part. But there is little Luke, with his dark hair and patented "ooh!" look. And now he's running around like a crazy man and turning one next month. How time flies!

A Cuttin' We Will Go!

While my worst fears of Luke attacking a Christmas tree like a cat flowed around in my mind, I simply could not justify an artificial tree or missing out on the experience (read: photo op) of cutting down a Christmas tree. For better
or worse, we were just going to go for it and hope for the best.

It was certainly cold out in the middle of PDN (Po-Dunk-Nowheresville) but we stuck a silly hat on Luke's head, gave him some mittens that were too small and made him mad and were off to find the perfect, somewhat reasonably priced tree.

We let the little stinker run around and there were some mighty face-plants.
True to form, Luke didn't cry or fuss, just tried again. I love how determined
(read: stubborn) he is and just keeps trying.

We found our beautiful little tree and decided to adopt him and take him home. While the decorations weren't put on for a few weeks, our tree was giving our family tree skirt. I love this tree skirt and have to laugh remembering that I personalized a tree skirt with "The Bickels" before I was even married to Todd. At least I was engaged! Now we really are the Bickels since we've added Luke to this crazy mix!

We took our Christmas card photo with our tree (Finally! A reason for a photo card!) but have decided against publishing it, for those 3 folks who read this blog to have a surprise.

Giving Thanks

It was wonderful to spend time with the Bickel/Wire/Castillo clan for Thanksgiving this year. Luke, as always, love to "work the room," making sure all eyes were on him. He loves to laugh and nothing gives him more happiness to see others laughing. Now that Luke is walking around and clapping, everyone around him is always laughing. It was wonderful to see Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma having so much fun with him.

Generations together.

Thanksgiving time is also Great Grandpa's birthday. Luke loves wrapping paper and tissue paper, so he was thrilled to have a birthday party too!

Great-Grandma's Thanksgiving dinner for Luke - he loved it! He loved the turkey and the stuffing. And of course, Uncle Joe's sweet potatoes. The brown sugar made them especially delicious!

Daddy gave a few bites of Cool Whip as a desert - such a spoiled boy!

Going out! Part I.

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Rosbrugh, we were able to attend a friend's wedding. As much as we love Luke and love spending time as a family, we do enjoy getting out and enjoying our time alone. When Luke was first born, it seemed our hands were always full, always busy. It was rare that we weren't busy in one way or another. Anytime our hands and arms were empty, we would happily look at each other, say "We should hug!" and obviously hug. It kept us strong and reminded us that even though things were hectic, we still loved each other very much. And I always think of that when we're out alone - We should hug! And we do.