These pictures were taken the last time we were out visiting my parents. They added a swing to their playground just for Luke (and any future babies too, but for right now The Duke doesn’t have to share with anyone).

It is probably a good thing he’s not expected to share that swing just yet, because the little man absolutely loves it.

Adam loved playing outside with Luke too. I think that playground will be getting a lot of use this summer.

Earlier I caught Adam standing on the bed holding a balloon and saying “up, up, and away” over and over again. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was trying to go “up, up, and away to Florida”.

Be on the lookout Grandma Cathy and Grandpa Kurt – just in case he gets it to work. He told me he wants to go swimming.

Who knew a trip to Lowes could be so much fun? 

We ran errands yesterday morning and met Dave out for lunch. Poor Luke was so exhausted when we got home he passed right out.

Adam wasn’t too far behind him. Lately in addition to Pillow, More Pillow, and Mickey he’s also required the dinosaur blanket my friend Lisa made him to accompany him wherever he goes. He always tells me that Alicia made his blanket for him (he gets “Miss Lisa” confused with “Alicia”, and since Alicia is Diego’s sister on one of his favorite cartoons, it’s like his own little brush with a celebrity – bet you didn’t know you were that cool Lisa, did you?).

It is really adorable though and I never would have imagined, that just over a year ago when Adam started to steal my favorite pillows off of my bed he’d still be carrying them around today. He named them Pillow and More Pillow (such a creative child) and refers to their cases as their shirts (which I think is adorable, thanks for starting that Dad).

The other day before his nap he ran downstairs to get Pillow, dropped him off in his room and then went back for Mickey. When he returned with the mouse he told me that I could come with him and get his dinosaur blanket and he would get More Pillow and it would be fun, like teamwork.

So I did, and it was.

Did you notice I broke my New Year’s Resolution of updating this site two times a  week? For the first time all year I wasn’t able to post at least twice last week. Things have been insanely busy around here lately and are just now starting to slow down a little.

We still have a lot going on, as you can see by Adam’s schedule. My sister and future brother-in-law are coming out to visit this weekend and he’s very excited to see them. I was hoping that by creating a calendar of events it would help him to understand he has to wait a few more days.

I’m not sure if it worked yet. He still keeps insisting that he needs to see Aunt Stacy and Uncle Robbie “right now!”

While I was drawing the different items he corrected me twice. The first time was because I didn’t draw his fireman boots correctly. He actually went and got his shoes so that I could fix my mistake. The second error was having just Stacy and Rob in the lower right corner. According to Adam, I needed to include Tibby (their cat) as well – even though Sgt. Tibbs will not be joining them.

Try not to be too jealous of my amazing art skillz. I am an incredibly gifted artist, I know (self-taught!).

I would like to apologize to anyone that tried to access our website over the weekend. After two days of research and troubleshooting, I was able to fix the problem and it should be working now.

Just kidding about me fixing it, unless complaining to Dave about the site being down and saying that I really should send an email to customer service counts as “research and troubleshooting”. I have no idea what the problem was, but it seems to have fixed itself.

Also, I think that is my new favorite Luke picture. He and Adam were playing and both boys were laughing hysterically. I love that sound.  Luke kept standing up, Adam would knock him over, and they would both laugh like crazy. If Adam didn’t knock him down Luke would make himself fall and laugh just as hard.

If you look real close in that picture you can see where two of Luke’s top teeth are almost through. He has four of them coming in right now – all on the top of his mouth (poor kid).

We took the boys to the Alligator Farm while we were in Florida (I know, this was like a month ago, I’m behind, it’s okay).

We took a lot of pictures. Dave, Kurt, and I all had cameras out and ready.

Despite our camera preparedness, that is the best picture we have of the two boys together.

We got enough cute solo shots to make up for it though.

Luke was happy to have his own chauffeur, thanks Grandma!

Sadly, I think Adam was more excited about the playground than the alligators.

We had a tough time prying him away.

We had a great spot for the alligator feeding demonstration.

The Duke was more interested in the Luke feeding demonstration.

I may have tried to get a picture of Luke inside that gator’s mouth. Luke was not pleased.

Adam liked pointing out the different birds we saw on their corresponding signs.

He also liked feeding the birds with Grandpa.

Luke really got in to crawling all over that alligator right before we left.

Thankfully, he is pretty good about letting us take pictures – minus that time I asked Dave to stick him in the alligator’s mouth. He also prefers we let him keep that damn pacifier (man, I really don’t like that thing).

Can I just tell you that his doctor told us at his last checkup that we should switch to a different style pacifier. He doesn’t want us to take it away from him (yet), just to get him to use a different style (one geared toward older babies with teeth).

Yeah, good luck with that doc. We’ve being trying since we brought him home from the hospital. That stupid thing is the only type of pacifier approved by Luke. I even got a couple different ones made by the same company and he acts like we are giving him rotten peas (which I can only imagine would be much worse than regular peas – I really, really don’t like peas) and spits them out immediately.

The pediatrician insists that when forced to choose between no pacifier at all or a different style that Luke will go for a new pacifier. He underestimates just how stubborn (and loud) my children can be.

So for now, Luke is keeping that stupid plug.

The bunny was good to our boys.

Adam thought it was “so silly” that their baskets were in the bathtub.

I did try to get a nice picture of the two of them with their loot – but it was pretty much impossible.

Too much to look at, play with, and eat.

I think Adam’s favorite gift from the rabbit was his new kazoo.

Luke liked anything that made noise when he shook it.

All three boys seemed to enjoy the Old MacDonald hand puppets.

I have it on good authority that the Easter Bunny was unable to finish the last three puppets in time. So I guess Mommy will have to get going on those.

Adam was also a big fan of his new Batman pajamas. He loves that Luke has the same pair, “Mommy! Luke looks just like me!”

Luke was not thrilled that I kept trying to stuff him in his basket.

Sorry Luke.

Dave likes this picture best.

I like this one.

Neither of us can believe he’s already 10 months old.

Today while I was dressing The Duke, I explained to Adam that Luke was going to wear a baseball outfit because it was Opening Day for Major League Baseball (he had no idea what I was talking about, but he will someday).

He did seem to understand the need for baseball relating clothing though and ran upstairs before I had finished getting Luke ready.

He left wearing just a diaper and came back like this.

He is wearing: a too small engineer’s hat, pieces from two different pairs of sports themed pajamas (the shirt is on backwards) and his trusty fireman boots (on the wrong feet of course).

I think I am going to start letting him dress himself all the time – just so I can have more pictures like this.