Luke had a birthday

Wow!!!! Has it been over 2 months since we have posted an entry in this blog. It sure doesn't seem like it's been that long. We were going to post an entry in March after we got back from our Utah trip where Luke experienced snow, but time got away from us.

It is now mid-April. We hope everyone got their taxes done. But for us, April 15 is no longer tax day. It is Luke's birthday. He is now 1 year old. Shelley went with her friend Tiffany Done to the zoo to get some birthday photos. We have posted a few:

From Luke

From Luke

From Luke

The zoo pictures were taken a couple of days before Luke's birthday. Since yesterday was Luke's birthday, we bought him a small cake and let him plow into it. He had a hard time with the whole thing, so we cut a big piece for him and he went to town. We have a few picture and a video to show:

From Luke

From Luke

From Luke

We have better pictures, but we put them in Luke's "First Year" video, so we didn't want to show them outside of the video.

Below is the "Luke's First Year" video that Robert created. Has it really been a whole year:

From Luke

Luke's first Renaissance Festival

We took Luke to the Renaissance Festival yesterday. He loved roaming around in his stroller. But, if you can believe it, Robert forgot his camera, so we only have 1 picture to show.

From Luke

This was a picture we had taken at one of the booths. And yes, they supplied the costumes. We don't own any of those type of costumes ourselves.

We're going to have a toddler in no time

Well, Luke will be 9 months old tomorrow. Kind of young to be taking his first steps, but I guess you can't tell him he's too young. Of course he's not running any laps around the house yet, but that's probably not too far behind.

Here is a video of him taking a few steps:

From Luke

Is Christmas over already????

Wow, it seems like December just flew by. We were planning to post a Christmas entry, but we got very busy.

Robert's parents came down from Utah over Christmas. It was very enjoyable to have them here. We're not sure if Luke remembers them from last July, but he warmed up to them really fast.

From Luke

We spent Christmas Eve with Robert's parents and sister, Stephanie's family at Steph's house.

From Luke

Robert's parent stayed with us while they were here. On Christmas morning, we opened out gifts to each other and Robert's parents at our place.

From Luke

We then went over to Steph's again to watch their kids open their presents and have brunch.







On the afternoon and evening of Christmas, we went to Shelley's parents'. We opened the gifts from Shelley's parents and those in Shelley's family that had our name.







To some people's standards, you might say we had a pretty boring New Year's. Robert had New Year's Eve off work, and we treated it like a Saturday. We went shopping and then watched a couple of movies.

New Year's Day was pretty much the same thing, except we got a new shirt for Luke.

From Luke

He's just so big

Wow, Luke is just getting bigger. When Shelley took him to his 6-month appointment, the Dr. said he was the weight of a 12-month old, the length of an 11-month old, and had the development of a 9-month old.

Well, that was a the day before Halloween. He hasn't gone backwards at all. Quite the contrary. We've got a couple of videos to post showing his development.

From Luke

You can see in this video that he can now get up to a standing position on his own with a low platform. This means he can now get into things and push buttons. We're trying to teach him the word "No", but he hasn't totally understood yet. We've been told that as soon as he learns the word, he'll know how to use it on us.

From Luke

Here is Luke taking a bath. He finds the plug and pulls it. He decides he wants to use it as a pacifier. He puts the metal holder in his mouth. Of course lately he wants to put anything metal in his mouth.

From Luke

Now this is the really scary video. This is the same bath as the previous video, but you can really see that he has gotten the assisted standing thing down. But what is really scary is that he knows how to turn up the water flow. It's hard to hear, but as he is turning the knob counter clockwise, the water is flowing faster. It used to be that when daddy would give him a bath, Luke would look at his hand and wonder how he got the water to flow faster. Now he's figured that out. What's the next thing he will figure out? I don't know if we're ready to find out.

And then came Thanksgiving...

November was just as busy if not busier, but then do things ever really slow down?!? Robert helped our ward with the Turkey Pit, that they do every year and Jon came to put in a turkey for his family as well. Shelley & Luke got to see the big fire being lit but then Luke got droopey and they went home. We did some Black Friday shopping with Stephanie but the only one of that went out into the crazy-early-morning madness was Robert.

Luke is busier than ever himself. He loves his toys and when we are away for a few hours he has to check on them when he gets back. He gets into draws and cupboards while Mom follows around picking up things. He loves remote controls and keys!!! He must be related to his DADDY. He also says "DA" a lot now. But then he loves his Daddy and who wouldn't???

From Luke

From Luke

Busy Halloween Season

Well, Halloween is come and gone, and it was a busy one for us. We went with a bunch of Shelley's family to Schnepf's Farms on Saturday, October 24. Shelley's niece, Disie was visiting us, so she came with us also. We went on a hay ride, saw pig races, and went to a petting zoo. Desie went on a Pony ride and Robert took Luke on a carousel.

From Luke

From Luke

On Wednesday, October 28, we went to a fall festival that was organized by our ward. We dressed Luke up in a skunk costume. We had a good time. We invited Robert's sister, Stephanie to come also.

From Fall Festival 2009

From Fall Festival 2009

From Fall Festival 2009

From Fall Festival 2009

Halloween day turned out to be very busy for us. We went with Ellen's family to a walk to support the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). We walked for about three miles. Shelley's mom and sister-in-law, Jenny, also came. We parked at a park-and-ride and took the light rail to the Tempe Town Lake Park.








Halloween night, we went to a trunk-or-treat at Shelley's parents' ward. Shelley's brother, Blaine, is also in that ward, so his family was there also. Ellen's family made it too.

From Luke