Do not want!

Since our family focus on Christmas is centered on the birth of Christ we don't really tend to encourage the whole Santa thing. We kind of leave it up to the kid themselves if they want to do that whole thing. But I thought I would at least get Lucas's picture with Santa since I went to a breakfast thing with his buddy Landon where santa was and I remember doing it myself as a kid. His buddy Landon is on the right, Lucas on the left. So here it goes.

As you can tell it didn't go well....

Christmas 2009

So here it came and went and excitement all around! All in all it was a great Christmas. My younger brother Andrew got home from the Phoenix, AZ a little early this year due to the way transfers worked out so it was really nice to have him home this year. My brother Steve and his wife Jill got leave and were able to be here and my Grandpa was able to make it due to no restricting weather conditions. Christmas Eve we started out with our own first little Christmas at home with Lucas opening his presents from Mommy and Daddy. Then, we went to my parents house for our fondue party. It was all magnificent as always with my Mothers amazing cooking and great family fun.

Christmas morning was good with our strawberry waffles with whip cream and ham on the side. Everyone had a blast goofing off and opening presents. Jeff and I always talk each year about not spending too much money and sticking to only getting a gift for the person who's name we drew, but it's way too hard for us to do that so we end up getting gifts for everyone anyways but luckily we are good at finding awesome deals so we kept the cost down. Christmas was great and would have ended with us spending dinner and the evening with Jeff's side of the family but we ended up spending the evening gulping down dinner and rushing to take Lucas to the urgent care at his pediatricians office. Lucas had been sick starting Christmas Eve night and progressively got worse Christmas day. His breathing got worse and bad enough we took him in and they had to put him on Oxygen. They gave him a shot of steroids and antibiotics. He's still on the the oral antibiotics which always do a number to his system but he's doing much better. Besides being sick he enjoyed his first "real Christmas." He was only a month old last year so it doesn't really count.....all in all it was enjoyable.

Checking out the stash

Starting the frenzy...

Checking out the caterpillar

Once he got this toy out he didn't care about opening the rest so that was pretty much it!

First Birthday!

Yesterday we had Lucas's first birthday party at my parents house. I was kind of worried that it wasn't going to turn out well, because half of the guests canceled and everyone was sick. But it went very well and we ended up with a good turn out after all. The majority of our family made it and a few friends came. Lucas enjoyed having all the people here to see him and he didn't even have a birthday melt-down which I was expecting. Although he did crash with new birthday toy in hand on the way home. Thank you to everyone who came to make Lucas's party a fun experience!

Greeting cousins

Playing with cousins

Singing happy birthday here he wasn't quite sure about a large circle of people standing around and singing to him. At one point he looked like he might start crying.

He started out by dipping his fingers in the frosting

After a minute he hadn't figured out what to do so I cut the cake in half so he could see there was cake under the frosting. So he picked up one half of the cake and stuck it in his mouth, (or at least tried to.)

Lookin' to see why everyone was standing around watching him eat.

He decided that his hands weren't doing the job so he stuck his face in it and got a nose full of frosting.

Finishing up as people dug into the cupcakes and food.

After the cake playing with his new toys.

Happy birthday smile! What a fun day! People, cake, presents just awesome!

First Halloween!

So the first halloween came and went without disaster or breakdown. I took Lucas to the trunk or treat at church and then headed over to a shopping center, went home for a nap, then met up with friends for some neighborhood trick-or-treating. He loved seeing all the kids dressed up although a little unsure of some of them.....It was a very long and exciting day which I hope he enjoyed as much as a 1 year old can. He definitely made the cutest monkey there ever was!

Lakeview Farms

A while back I had talked about new traditions being established in my family as my children grow up. I recently took Lucas with some friends to Lakeview Farms pumpkin patch. Going to the pumpkin patch is one of those traditions that I wanted to begin with my kids. At Lakeview Farms, they have not only a pumpkin patch but a few farm animals to look at, a corn maze, caramel corn an lunch items for sale, and either a train ride or boat ride to and from the pumpkin patch. We had a blast and Lucas had fun sitting on the pumpkins and getting muddy. It got a little cold but it was neat to watch him have fun with the other kids and explore everything.

Posing with our friends

Riding the train to the pumpkin patch

Riding the train

Look what I found mom!

Sitting on a pumpkin

Riding the boat back...

How tall I am at Lakeview Farms 2009

Goofin' around!

Getting ready to leave after a fun day!

Cousins

Recently we had the opportunity to go to a birthday party for Lucas's cousins who were turning 5 and 1. I took some pictures of the boys together that turned out pretty cute. Considering they are only 6 weeks a part it was fun to watch them crawl around together. The funniest thing is, some of the pictures placed in the right order look like a fight ensued.

It begins as Lucas creeps up on the unsuspecting victim...

He goes for the attack...

His cousin fights back...

and again...

Unsure of what just happened...the fight ends and they crawl away to nurse their wounds. Lucas 1 point, his cousin 2 points.

Ta-Da!

Well it's finally here. Lucas is walking and the terror has officially begun. Although he was quite mobile before and got into everything, he is more disobedient now. So along with the walking all hell has broken lose.

Now I know some experts will say that your kids don't understand no at such a young age blah, blah, blah. I agree that their memory span is short and they have to be told over and over. But, It's funny to me how I can watch the little stinker calculating in his mind.

"Mom just told me no.....oooh but I really want to touch that.......is she still looking? Maybe I can touch that before she sees me, (peeks out the corner of his eye) mmm....I think I can....here we go"

Goofy smile!

Can't you just see it in his eyes? He's just waiting to find a warranty to void...

What a stinker! Although he can say mama and dada, his official first word will most likely be no since I say it a hundred times a day. You can remove him from the object, I've also removed the object from him, and he crawls right to it even if he didn't see where I put it. Oh well learning curve right? It's fun to watch how devious a 10 mth old can be. He already tells me how he feels at the top of his lungs even though it's in baby english. This is nothing, what I'm scared for is when this kid is 2. I am going to have an interesting (to say the least) time!

So some recent things we have done, we went to the State fair and Lucas went to his first petting zoo, we went on a family reunion trip to Ensign Ranch in Washington which was so much fun! On top of all that Lucas got really sick with Roseola. For those who don't know, Roseola is a 4-day very high fever sickness and then followed by a 3-day rash and it's most contagious to kids under 2. He was so miserable the poor thing. I'm really hoping as sick as he has been as a baby, he'll have so many anti-bodies built up by now, that he won't have to worry about being sick as an adult.

Now for some fun pictures:

First trip to the State Fair

Not quite sure about this goat...

I took this same picture with my pregnant belly through this watermelon last year. Had the before so I needed the after.

Petting a deer

Can you see my Roseola pok-a-dots (rash)?

All dressed up for church!

Ensign Ranch family trip, sitting on Grandma's enflatable doggy