Luke is Two!!

Lukie turned two on Dec. 31. We were in Utah at the time so we had a mini celebration. We went out for pizza with my family and opened gifts and had cake. Lukie got one of those big basketball hoop stands from Nana and Grandpa. It's being shipped to us, but I think Taft and Luke will have a blast with it.

We had Lukie's Birthday Celebration Part II when we were back home with Seth. We took him for games at Chuck E Cheese and then to In 'n Out for a healthy dinner of cheeseburgers and fries. We gave Lukie a scooter, which he isn't quite ready for. Taft has gladly taken over the job as "scooter-rider" until Lukie is ready.

Not looking like a baby anymore! 

Ready whack a shark

We love, love, love our little Lukie. He is funny, cuddly, crazy, silly, dramatic, and sweet. His vocabulary is really coming along, although most people need an interpreter. My favorite thing he says right now is "Low-lit" for "blow it" when his food is hot. It's just the cutest the way he says it. He still loves trains (choochoos), loves fire engines, and helicopters and airplanes (both known as "hellos"). He will settle for cars if need be.  He is a decent eater, but is slowly becoming pickier like his big bro. Lukie loves to play with Taft. He is becoming Taft's little shadow and will do exactly what he does and is constantly mimicking what he says.

Lukie no longer uses a binky. He was getting a rash around his mouth and though the binky might be the culprit. Not so, he still has the rash.  Regardless, Luke is now binky-free. I thought I'd slowly cut the binky down, but even after the first little snip Luke no longer wanted it. Sometimes I really wish we still had it. He can still have a pretty impressive meltdown.

He finally likes nursery and doesn't cry when I drop him off at the gym day care. It helps if Taft is with him, but he does really well on his own now too.

Luke loves to sing songs and knows a lot of tunes to different songs we sing. A friend of mine is a speech therapist and said Luke is learning to talk "whole to part" which means he learns phrases before individual words. This might explain why one of the first things he clearly said was, "I don't want to". Most kids perfect single words and then put them together in phrases. Luke puts hard to understand phrases together and will eventually say the individual words more clearly. It's kind of a game figuring out what he's trying to say, but I kind of like it. He clearest word is definitely, "Yeah".

Luke can still be shy around some people and gets very embarrassed when told not to do something or is scolded. He'll hide his face, bury his face with blankets, or will just face plant on to the floor. Overall, he is much less fussy than he has been in the last two years.

We love, love, love Lukie. LOVE.