Luke's 9 Month Portraits

Luke turned 9 months old yesterday. He continues to be a bit taller than average in the 75th percentile for height. He's in the 50th percentile for weight at 20 lbs. 3 oz. He's a bit of a go-getter in his quest for gross motor skills. Much to my dismay he already climbs the stairs and is, I'm afraid, fairly close to walking. On the other hand, though, he's a late bloomer in terms of feeding. He just started holding his own bottle this week, refuses a sippy cup, and spits out anything that has a texture coarser than applesauce. His daycare suggested that it was time for him to start on their regular menu now that he's 9 months old. I told them they were welcome to feed him anything on the menu and wished them luck! He is finally consistently sleeping in his crib, but he's waking up once each night for a bottle. This was the only "reprimand" I got from the pediatrician as he assured me that he didn't need a bottle in the middle of the night. He politely suggested that we just let him cry for a while as "you don't want to end up with another one like Grayson (who didn't sleep through the night until he was 15 months old and still regularly wakes)." So last night we did let him cry for almost a half hour. After that I went in and put a nuk in his mouth and rubbed his back for a minute and he did go back to sleep until almost 6:00. At that point we gave in and gave him a bottle and then I had to wake him at 7:00 to get ready for school. Luke is my snuggler. He likes to cuddle and loves his stuffed elephant. He loves blankets and all things soft - including Mack and Gabe who have been commendably tolerant of Luke's grabbing. He's a sweetheart and I'll have to admit that it melts my heart just a bit when cries if someone he doesn't know holds him. He definitely knows his mommy and daddy.

I wanted this picture taken so that I could try to match a similar one of Grayson around the same age:
Luke Chancellor

Grayson Lee

Luke throws himself forward when he's tired or mad. I'm not sure which it was yeterday during the photo shoot, but this is classic Luke:

Easter in Amherst

We woke up (really the wrong term since we'd been up all night with a coughing Luke anyway) Easter morning and were just getting ready to go in to see what the Easter Bunny had left Grayson when all of a sudden Grayson threw up! Totally out of the blue. Fortunately it wasn't really a bad episode, it just scared him more than anything since he's never thrown up. I think his runny nose must have upset his tummy while he was sleeping. In any case - he quickly recovered and after church we had a big family Easter Egg Hunt at my Mom's house....

Grayson went to great lengths to find some of the eggs.

Then others he just ran to fetch!

Peyton and Grayson are becoming quite the partners in crime.

Family portrait.

Addison and Grayson ready to fight over Nana's lap....while she's eating.

Easter #1

We're having Easter twice this year! Once with Rich and Jolene and then again with my Mom and sister. Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Rich and Jolene's and enjoyed the nice weather. The Easter Bunny had already visited and left Grayson and Luke baskets. He also left eggs for Grayson to hunt....

Grayson is old enough this year to understand what it means to hunt for eggs.
He's not going to win any contests, though, as he stops after each egg and asks for help to open it to see what's inside.He was very proud of his basketful of eggs!

He wanted to keep looking even after they had all been found!

Will this last?

I think my greatest hope in life is that my boys will be friends. So far, so good.

Long lost friends!

One of the Mom's at Grayson's daycare stopped me a couple of weeks ago and said, "You know Ty and Annika, don't you?" We used to see Ty and Annika quite often with the "WV crowd" but the group has been pulled in many directions - Ty and Annika to Vermont. Well, turns out they're back in Richmond and were in Blacksburg for their neice's 2nd birthday - the neice that's in Grayson's daycare room. Small world. Well, we were able to get together and had a great time catching up. They brought the boys tons of books which are always a favorite. Annika even shared that she had met Eric Carle! How cool is that?

Big boy!

He's just too big for his swing now. Boo hoo. Boy did I love that swing. Both boys slept in it for 8 months. Guess it's time to put that on Craigslist, too!

Luke's perch. He sits like this all the time!

Call for Help!

I took Friday off to paint our kitchen. While Steve loved the Starburst orange, despite my efforts, I couldn't grow to love it. So...the kitchen is now a lovely sage green...but we had quite a day getting it there! Around noon I called Steve at work. He answered his phone with, "have you fallen off a ladder yet?" I said, "No, but I do have a little bit of an emergency on my hands." See below...

Note that we have two cats. And you see only one in the picture. That would be because Gabe decided to explore our HVAC ductwork while I had the return vent cover off to paint. Steve had to come home to rescue Gabe who had fallen into the basement and was stuck in the ductwork.