Luke's 2nd birthday and 1st haircut!

On Monday our sweet little Luke turned a whopping 2 years old (in the words of Nathan "Man, he has been 1 forever! Finally, he's 2!"). Growing up, we always woke up to decorations and often one of our presents already at the table. I cheated and just left the decorations up from Valentines day, but we did give Luke one of his presents to start the day. We followed that up with our traditional birthday breakfast of homemade waffles and strawberries. Nathan had waffles with just strawberries, Carter ate only coolwhip, and Luke ate heartily until he realized his brothers had already come and gone and he was missing out on potential fun (the early end to most his meals, sadly).

Presents, what are presents?

Don't worry Luke, your brothers are at hand with step by step instructions.

Boy, how do I get this posed picture all the time? Notice whose hands are on the present...not the birthday boy's!

Whee, bowling fun. Luke definitely had a hard time sharing with his eager brothers. I can see why my parents had the rule that you didn't have to share the first day you had something new.

Matt got the day off work, well mostly - he had to do a midday budget presentation that I went to (and learned all kinds of things about what my husband really does all day. Man, he is getting to be a smart cookie!). After that, we came home and bravely ventured off to the sledding slopes at two in the afternoon. Sledding is far from news on this blog lately, but here are some cute family pics, that just happen to be in the snow!

Nathan's king of the mountain pose.

Daddy talked Luke into the sled. After the run, Lukie said, "Scary!" Guess he joins the weenie club with Carter and Mommy!

We found these glasses sitting on a bench and I had to try them on Luke. I thought he looked just adorable! Don't look too closely, the girly flowers will kill the cool factor of his new look...

You know those pictures of your kid that you see and think, "THAT is my kid." It just captures the essence of your kid as you know them. This is that kid of picture for my goofy fun loving Carter.

They climbed into the tube together and just giggled for a few minutes head to head. Brother love!

If you have wondered why so many sledding trips lately, two main reasons: 1. Sledding is the main outdoor family activity to do right now and we love family outdoor fun. and 2. The look on his face says it all...guess who LOVES sledding?

After sledding, we hit McDonalds for the rare treat of not just a dollar menu item, but birthday happy meals for all. We got home and I hadn't gotten around, in our busy day, to putting Luke's cake together. So, Matt tried to distract the boys as I slapped together a construction truck cake in literally 15 minutes. Of course, its so quickly dismanteled as each boy claimed different candied parts, you wonder why I ever spend more time than that?!

We didn't get around to the special event of the evening that night, but did it two days later: Luke's first full haircut. We have trimmed the baby mullet in the back several times, evened out bangs, but never really given the guy a haircut. We let Carter's hair grow long at this age (see Carter's long hair below) and loved it, so we did so again. We had really grown attached to Luke's shaggy beach boy look, but realized it was probably time to make the cut and change from baby to boy.

Here is Luke the day before his haircut styling his cute long hair with a classic, "How can you say no to ME?" adorable Lukie look. *Note: if you want to get a real smile from your 2 year old, how about letting him do something he knows he's not supposed to (climb up onto Nathan's top bunk) and see if you can't get some of those smiles!

We couldn't resist one night trying out the capabilities of Luke's long hair. Note, he is NOT complaining and actually was begging us to put it back in after we took it out. Sorry buddy, this one's going in the blackmail folder!

Matt held Luke upside down and you can see just how long his hair really got in two years. Just by finger measurement, his hair from root to tip is almost as long as his face is.
The unsuspecting victim...
Not so sure about this. (Though to my credit his haircut was done in 5 minutes flat so the pain was short...that's about all the time you get to cut a 2 year old's hair!)

All done! Now officially a boy and not a baby. I was really sad and still miss the long hair and not so sure about the change, but what do you think?

Either way, we couldn't love our Luke more than we do. Seems like every day we have a "Man, I love that kid!" moment. He just loves life, loves people, and loves to make you laugh. He is such a joy, though definitely still a curious into-everything energetic 2 year old! Happy birthday our sweet Lukie!

January Wrap-Up

Well, despite my negativity about January in my last post, looking back on pictures we still had some great family fun. Nathan started Mighty Mights Basketball, a co-ed city basketball league for K-2 grade, which Matt was asked to help coach. Sadly, this is probably the first time Nathan has ever tried to dribble or shoot a ball, unlike some of his 5/6 year old friends who are suprisingly good at ball handling and shooting. But, Nathan is a hard worker and has fun learning the game. It's hillarious to watch these little kiddos play games, some kids just hold onto the ball for dear life and run down the court (forget dribbling!). I love that Matt loves coaching Nathan's teams and the time Matt and Nathan get to do this together.

I laughed at this last weeks game when Nathan decided that since it was so important to always have your hands up when you are on the defense, that he started having his hands up when he was on offense. Maybe in the hopes of getting passed the ball? But sometimes he would actually get in the way off a pass with those obedient little hands up!
Luke has a hard time resisting all the balls and occasionally gets the chance to chase after and play with them too.

Despite a very busy month, we were able to sneak away for our second sledding trip of the season on a Monday holiday. I won't bore you with as many pictures as last time, but here are a few of the highlights.

Best buds Nathan and Carter. Actually, the best news is that that doesn't just apply to a quick picture - they really have become the best of friends. We have stopped watching TV in the mornings and they have just started to play for up to an hour straight without any arguments having such great adventures. Yes - this is why the craziness of having kids close in age is worth it!!

The kids were so impatient to get the snowman done, I couldn't talk them into letting me make it bigger than this. Oh well, he's a cute little guy nonetheless.

Matt's parents sent us this great tube sled. Though there wasn't enough snow to use it much on the hill, it was a great place for the kids to hang out or to get rides from daddy in. Carter loved riding in it with Luke, but Luke wasn't so impressed.

On the way home from sledding all the kids passed out. I took this picture because you can very easily see how much Nathan and Luke look like each other!

Nathan's picture he drew in class when they were studying ocean animals was chosen by his teacher to go on display in an art show at the mall. Nathan was pretty unimpressed with it all, but I was excited for him. Not that he is set to follow in his mom's footsteps as an artist, but it's fun to think about your kid possibly taking after you in some way. I did laugh that Nathan is a very realistic artist- he always wants to do things EXACTLY like the example and prefers to draw or color things he can see a picture of. I was sadly the same way, even as an art major at BYU - I was only good at drawing things I saw, never very good at just drawing "off the top of my head".

Heres a close up - it has a orca, jellyfish, squid, crab, starfish, and long orange thing is a shark egg (they are often called "mermaid pouches" they look like long pouches - Nathan has read about them in books and seen one in FL)

Finally, it's hard to miss my belly these days. I have gotten used to the comments about how I carry my baby so "out" over the years, but I laughed at myself tonight as we were at a friends house and I kept knocking things down or running into people, forgetting the "out"ness of my belly! Seven weeks and counting!