The Frigid South

Man, it has been cold these last few days!! Momma DOES not like the cold....I am dreaming about somewhere tropical to spend my summers when I hit the lottery!! Plus, I have a two year old that hates wearing a jacket AND a hat so mornings have been fun around the Smith household! Um, not. Luke has definitely been a rascal this last week. He has decided his favorite thing to say is NO! And most times, it's long and drawn out like "NOOOOOO"!! He has had to have several meetings with "Mr. Bad Spoon". Luckily, Mr. Bad Spoon can usually talk him into being a nice boy. He also had decided that he needs to live on a diet of suckers, candy, and cookies. So, I had to do a little "purging" of the sugar in the house. He is just like Tom! Tom loves hard candy and so does Luke. I, on the other hand, HATE candy but can tear up a Hershey bar and most things chocolate. Luke has told me several times, "I don't yike (like) chocolate! I want canny (candy)". Weird kid!  He did something so sweet yesterday, though. I told him to look at Daddy's boo-boo (Tom has a bump on his neck that he was messing with) and Luke told him "I kiss it Daddy! I kiss your boo-boo....". Then he said, "I kiss other side...." and gave him a kiss on the other side of his face. And then he said "BIG hug" and gave him a big ol' hug! Talk about melting your heart!!!Now I see why people say that 2 can be so bad and so good at the same time. I wish he could stay this age forever. He is just growing so much and talking in full, complete sentences plus he can be fiercely independent! Where did my baby go? It seems as if I blinked and now I have a little boy instead of a baby boy. I'm kinda sad about it. I'm also a failure being that I have not gotten ANY holiday pictures made! BOO! :( I don't know what I am going to do about Christmas cards. Hopefully we will finish our tree in the next few days and I can take some shots of him by our tree. He loves to look at it and say, "Peeeetty (pretty) yights (lights)!!". I love it! Now if I can just get him to stop throwing his toys in it and almost knocking it down....

Thanksgiving 2010

What a great day I had with my little Luke and the rest of my family!! I must say, Luke looked absolutely adorable in his smocked  turkey Jon-Jon! I promised Tom that this would be the last of the Jon-Jon's....Luke is a big boy now so no more cute lil' babyish outfits. Boo. I wish I could just freeze time right now and keep him at this exact age. He is so much fun right now!!!! His personality (crazy-man) is coming out full-force and he is just FULL of life!! I don't know what was in the food we ate today, but let me tell you, when he woke up from his nap he was on FIRE!! Hell on wheels, that little boy!! Running around, playing, screaming, yelling, messing with the dogs....he was nuts! In a good way....just out of control and had me and Tom laughing our heads off! He was so chatty today. Some of the cute things he has been saying are "Careful, Go-Go" (he says this to our dog SoJo for absolutely no reason...he has just heard me say 'careful, Luke' so many times! HA!), and " 'Pell Luke (spell Luke), 'pell Mommy, 'pell Dadday....and so on and so on.... He has us spell out pretty much everyone we know on his little writing pad thingy. Oh, one of the SWEETEST things he is saying now is "Aya doin' mommy?" (Whatch'a doing mommy) when he comes up to me if I am busy doing something. Melts my heart. Seriously. And tonight he wanted to call 'Aunt Chele so we did and he actually TALKED to her!!! He is usually just so shy on the phone and won't say anything. Did I mention that Luke is obsessed with his aunt? Well, he is. Like, majorly loves her and his "unc chris". He gets in the car and says over and over and over and over (you get the picture, right?) "I want Aunt Chele/Unc Chris" like 42,000 times. It's enough to make me want to jump out of the moving car. Well, not really, but heavens it wears on me after a while! And when the kid wants you to get up, he wants you to get up! Of course, he says it like, "Geet up Mommy/Daddy/Gandma/Nonna/Samson.....". It's really cute till he starts pushing you off your seat if you won't get up!! HA!
It was a great Thanksgiving this year even though we were saddened by the news that my nephew Michael has leukemia. Very scary. He spent Thanksgiving in a hospital room at UAB but he was surrounded by all his family and friends from church. Plus, my nieces' work sent them a full turkey dinner to the hospital! I wanted to bring them some food but my sis' said they were taken care of....We will go see him tomorrow and love on him!  He started his treatment today and I have no doubt that he will beat this and use it as part of his testimony.  Just out of the blue, people.....anything can happen to the ones we love in an instant. Be sure to love on your family even when it's hard and they irritate you (trust me, I know...have you met some of my family?? ha ha!). I look at Tom and Luke and they are my world. Oh, don't get me wrong....there are about 1700 things about Tom that I would change if I could, but I say that knowing there is about 1900 things about me he would change if he could. But, we love each other, are committed to each other, and we are very committed to raising a good son -- not a perfect son because that is only found in Jesus, but a son that is honorable, confident, respectful, loving, helpful, unafraid, and humble. For Luke and God's great blessing on his little life, I am THANKFUL!!!

Where the tiger bites Luke....

So, funny story of today. I was folding clothes on the floor this morning and I had National Geographic's Wild Kingdom on the TV. Luke was playing but then a leopard caught his eye. He stopped and watch the leopard climb up a tree and he yelled, "TIGER!!!". I said, "no baby, that is a leopard....kinda like a tiger...but, not". He growled at it (giggling) and then the leopard (who was a momma looking for her cub) growled this low rumbling sound. Luke threw his hands up to his chest and yelled "OHHHH.... tiger bite!!!"!! He ran to me holding his chest like he had been bitten!! I laughed soooo hard! It made my morning. He's such a character. His new thing now is when we are playing "ball" he will stand there holding the ball and ask, "ready??". Apparently I had been saying this to him all along while we play ball. "Luke, are you ready?? Here comes the ball!" and he totally picked up on it! Precious! One last thing before I forget. He loves to say "I fix it" whenever he sees something that might be broken (especially electronics). We sold an entertainment center to my MIL and there was an old radio in the bottom drawer of it. Luke takes it out, plugs it in (danger, danger Grace Adler! for all my Will & Grace fans out there) and announces "I FIX IT!!" Now, the only question is how to keep him away from plugs...we have the covers on them but the dang kid is so smart & strong he can pull them out. Say a prayer for us!

On a mommy note, I had a BLAST with Kelly, James, and Jason last night! Wine, sitting on the back deck and talking WAY too inappropriate for people our ages....I didn't get home till almost 1! And I loved every moment of it! I must try to work in more "me" time like that. It's good for the sanity. But, it's even better to wake up in the morning to a 2 year old with nothing on but a diaper sitting on the couch with his little legs crossed over each other reading a book! And when he looks up at me and says "MOMMY!" with the sweetest smile on his face, I am sure that all is right with the universe and I thank my lucky stars that God chose me to be his mommy!!!

Also, I want to share this quote from a blog that I am addicted to. Flythroughourwindow.com
I read Darby's posts all the time and she always seems as if she has that perfect balance of motherhood and spending time with family/friends. I feel like I know her and would love to meet her one day. She is a twin, she is beautiful, has beautiful kids, and great home and a hot husband. A really hot husband. She is the kind of woman you want to hate because everything looks on the surface absolutely perfect but she never ever puts up a fake front. She will straight up show you a picture of her kitchen when her kids have destroyed it!! Plus, she seems so dang sweet, you have to love her!

Weather days rock!! :)

Today I did not have to work today (can I get a woot, woot) and my plan was to not set an alarm and to sleep very, very late. Yeah, right. It seems that I now have a human alarm clock. Luke was up bright and early yelling "mommmmyyyyy" which is really cute. Except at 7 AM. On a day that I don't have to work. I let him yell my name for a few minutes in the hopes that he might just drift back off to sleep. But, alas, I turned and looked at him on the video monitor and there he was. Just jumping up and down in his bed holding no less than 20
pap-paps (ok, it was really only 4 pacis...) and yelling for me to come get him. So I did. And I fixed him an oatmeal bar with nutella on it and he was in carb heaven for a while! He loves loves loves nutella!! Best stuff ever! I will never tell him it is just hazelnut spread because he thinks he is just getting chocolate.....ha! We stayed in our PJ's for a while and then hit the store where I bought a bunch of crap I didn't need just because it was cheap. Then Aunt 'Chele and Uncle Chris came over, we ordered pizza (carb heaven again) and Luke acted like a wild man!! He was so excited to see them he was running around like he was on baby crack! His new 'thing' is to jump and and down or run around and then just BUST it on the floor. The kid loves to fall. On purpose. Weird, right? Later, we actually took a nap together which is really strange because my kid hates to sleep with me. You know how parents get all frustrated because their kid only wants to sleep with them in their bed? Well, I get frustrated because Luke has never even wanted to take a nap with me or his dad (except for those 4 months when he came home from the hospital and he slept on my chest while I slept on the recliner. real comfortable, right? but I was a paranoid new mommy....). He usually only wants his bed!! I think he likes his space! So today was really special with him all snuggled up with me in bed. I loved it. Then, a quick visit to "gand-ma's" ended our night. I felt like a stay-at-home mommy today and decided that I could get used to that idea. My bank account, however, could not. Oh well, I've got the summer, right???

Life with a two year old

Well, it has been nearly two years since I have written on a blog. I did so good with my old blog; journaling my pregnancy, Luke's early arrival, and the such. But, alas, life got in the way and the blog just kind of disappeared. Luke became a toddler, and as many of you know, alone time with a toddler in the house is scarce. But I am going to make a concerted effort to keep up this blog. This blog will mainly be used to journal life with my precious son Luke. He is 2 and I want to write down milestones (and funny things) throughout his toddler years. He has been saying and doing the FUNNIEST things and if I don't write them down, I will forget!! I have already forgotten so much!! :( I was diligent about writing in his baby book up to 14 or so months, and for that I am glad. But so much happens with him on a day to day basis that I just have felt the need to write it all down! For instance, as I am writing this, Luke is sitting in the office with me saying "I want 'round"....He wants me to spin him round and round on the office chair! So, in between typing sentences, I am spinning him around. I have to spin him hard, too, so he can spin several times around so I can get a thought out!! Like I said, life with a two year old.....
These moments with him are the best times of my life! I am really "loving life with luke" but that is not to say that life can't be difficult with this little man. All those things other moms tell you about the terrible two's are true. Every word. (what scares me the most is that they also tell me that the three's are even worse...!!!!) He is willful, playful, defiant, sweet, loving, angry, precious and caring all at the same time! Here are just a few of the highlights of this wonderful age with my sweet boy:

~ Luke turned two on September 26. He goes to daycare at Calvary while I work as a kindergarten teacher.

~He loves his school and his teacher! He calls his friends by their names (at least Luke's version of their names...).  There is the love of his life, Carsyn (Luke calls her Cah-son) - seriously, he is obsessed with her, Mason (L's version is Mah-shon),  Charlie (Car-lie), Michael (Mi-cul), Austin (Au-tin), Ashton (A-ton), and Camryn (Cam-in).

~He is talking, talking, talking! Some of the cutest things he says are: I yuh you (I love you), colyac mik (chocolate milk), I pix it (I fix it), canny (candy), nigh-nigh time, I wanna suuuuck (he draws out that last word! he is trying to say 'sucker' and it just comes out 'suck'....we gotta work on that...it just sounds bad! :) )

~He is at a point where we can actually talk back and forth in a conversation. I love it.

~He knows how to work my Iphone better than me. His favorite games are starfall and tozzle on the "pone".

~He is big!! Tall, big shoulders, big hands....he is wearing 3T in everything and is in an 8W or EW shoe depending on the brand. Not too shabby for a 3 pound preemie!

~He loves his extended family: his nonna, aunt 'chele, unck chris, gand-ma, goo-goo, may-may, mad-mad, unck 'teve, sham-sun (samson our dog), and go-go (so-jo our other dog).

~His favorite songs to sing are: The ABC's song (over, and over, and over, and over), the itsy bitsy spider, If You're Happy and You Know It, Jesus Loves Me, his blessing song and Ring around the Rosie.

~He loves CANDY!! Not chocolate, but hard candy like dum-dums, skittles, etc. He also hates to brush his teeth which makes for a bad combination.

~He is so smart! Seriously, he is very mechanically inclined (like his daddy) and he just amazes me with what he knows every day!!

~He loves books!! Especially the Llama, Llama books.

~He takes a breathing treatment each night before bed with is special dragon mask.

~**hanging head** He still takes a paci at night....I know, we need to break the habit. He has always called it a pap-pap and he must have at least 5 in the bed with him at all times.

I must end now. Mainly because my head is hurting trying to remember all this cute/fun/sweet stuff!! HA! No, really....I have to get the main character (and I do mean CHARACTER) of this blog into bed!! It's nigh-nigh time!!