Holiday Baking!

So we had a baking evening. Luke enjoyed running back and forth between us and eventually setting up shop by standing on a chair next to where I was working. It had been far to long since I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch. They are delicious. Yum. Plus, it's lotsa fun with a stand mixer. Andrew worked on fudge while I made the cookies and both turned out rather yummy.


Here is the man himself stirring like crazy!


And here his little helper thinks he needs a bit more vanilla.

Luke, making sure he has the right fit with his apron, just like Mumma.


"Hey guys, check it out! This thing has a pocket!"

Here's Luke, giving me advice on what I'm doing wrong.

He kept busy measuring things for a while and let me finish putting the dough together.



Then he helped to stir in the chocolate chips! How very precious he was, if a little too helpful at times!

Quick taste to check for salmonella before mom or dad could stop him. Yum.

Overall, I'd say it was a success! And I just enjoyed a few cookies and they're still good! I love freshly baked cookies. Although I did just set off the smoke detector while making them. Apparently the wife saver I made earlier bubbled over. Oops!

Christmas Bubbles

Bubble Wrap

One of the things we found to keep us busy on a cold winter's day? Bubble wrap. Great fun. I don't think you can hear the video too well, but he was having a really good time. You always miss the good parts when you get out a camera, but hey, I tried! He's such a funny little kid. I remember being so excited when Mom would let us pop the bubble wrap when I was little. She usually saved it, so we didn't always get to.

Sleds and Snowmen

Here are just a few more pictures of our winter antics. Enjoy. I'm hoping to have a good video of Luke crawling on top of the snow maybe tomorrow or something. We'll see how it turned out.



We were working on a snow man...



Luke and I going down. These are from yesterday (or the day before? I'm so confused) so it wasn't icy yet.




My two silly boys. I can't seem to make both of them look at the camera at the same time to save my life! Gotta love 'em!

Window Watcher

He absolutely LOVES to look out the window and watch Andrew do... well, whatever it is he's doing when he goes outside. I love it! We mostly watch Daddy walk down to the mail box, talk with Mr. Brown, or shovel snow of late.



And, here's another of him dressing up to go outside, just for kicks. He is too funny and I just get a kick out of watching him explore his world... most of the time. :) (excuse the pile of winter wear in the background)



You may or may not also notice that the kid has a Thomas pajama top on in nearly all the pictures. He has two and basically lives in one or the other. They're totally not just for sleeping, at least not in this house! I don't think he'd ever wear anything else if he had it his way. And the excitement and joy I see on his face certainly makes it worth it to dress him in the same two tops for days on end!

Cuddle Time

Daddy and Luke getting in some snuggles after playing out in the cold. I think that's enough said.

Lukey and Daddy on the Sled

Here is a quick clip of Andrew and Luke going down our little hill. We had a blast today playing in the snow. And, the bribery of a snack and special drink got the kid to come in without crying. Of course, he then threw a fit cause I wouldn't let him eat all the graham crackers he wanted... I guess you can't win them all.

But, we were each taking turns going down with him and counting. He loved yelling "Twoooo! Free!" but never "One." Oh well. I didn't get much of that in this grainy clip, but he does yell "two!" as they get started. He just had such a good time.

Outer Where?

All day yesterday Luke kept trying to convince us that he was ready to go back outside to play. He kept grabbing whatever winter wear he could reach and trying to put it on. Usually it was Andrew's stuff. He's a bit ridiculous, but it was really cute. And as I type this he is standing at the top of the stairs yelling "Hole Shoo! (hold you)" at Andrew who just went back down to work. He loves his daddy.





Also today we watched Daddy shovel snow and talk to our neighbor, Mr. Brown. When Andrew came in, he went running asking to go see Mr. Brown. "Brown, see!" He is so precious. And when I told him so this morning, he parroted it right back at me. His vocabulary has grown by leaps and bounds in the last month. He keeps grabbing his little phone (calculator) and saying "Howie? OOOOOooooohhhh! Bye-bye!" (Hello? Oh! Bye bye) It totally cracks me up that his hello is "howie." I love to listen to him talk. He's not afraid to jabber or try to say whatever you ask. He's been running around putting "uh ne ne" on the end of everything... Who know what that means? He started out saying "Chri muh ne ne" for "Christmas" and it has blossomed.

What a joy our boy is!

Sledding Fun!

These pictures are in no particular order. We took Luke out this morning for his first sled ride. The snow was too deep to really do much of anything except pull Luke on the top of the snow. When I tried to get on with him, we sank too deep to move or be pulled! It is crazy out there. Luke had an absolute blast playing in the "tow."

Daddy pulls Luke down our hill. He learned quickly to do balance checks and it was too fun to watch him.



Luke and I, not long before we called it quits. It was cold out there and Luke doesn't have boots or proper snow pants or gloves (we used a couple of pairs of socks). He was utterly unimpressed when told it was almost time to go in.


My two boys at the end of the line... Yes, that is his baby swing that we used to pull the sled because we didn't have any rope.

You may not be able to tell, but I'm kneeling on one knee here. The snow was right at my knees! It felt so deep! Almost too deep to do anything in.


This picture makes me laugh cause you can't even see all the snow around him. I think we used the flash. He just loved pulling handfuls of snow into the sled. :)

Overall, we had a delightful morning in the snow. It was fun to see Luke be old enough to actually notice what was going on. It'll only get better from here!

I'll leave you with Luke's thoughts on coming in to get warm...


Oh, and I wouldn't maximize this pic. There may or may not be streaks of a disgusting substance across his cheeks... So sad. Poor baby!

What We're Up To?

What a weekend. It is still snowing outside on top of the 19-ish inches we have now. Luke loves it. He calls it "tow." However, it's not all fun and games. You can read about our afternoon adventure yesterday "before it got bad out" over here. It was some scary stuff and I am quite thankful that we are safe, along with the rest of my extended family (including a brother who rode home from town, a 25 minute car ride, on an ATV).



He was quite enthralled with all the white stuff. And quite upset that we wouldn't let him stand there with the door open all night. Silly kid.


Concentrating on his drawing. He is just so much fun.



This is one of my favourites. Luke has started getting on his tummy to draw just this week and I think it is too cute. Here, he and Daddy are illustrating our adventures in the car yesterday.

Still to come... sometime, hopefully, maybe, possibly, some pics of our outdoor fun in all this white mess.

Fall was in the Air!

Here are some fall photos for your enjoyment... I've heard through the grapevine that my public (rather, Luke's public) is waiting. I'll go unpack some more while you enjoy our boy in our old (sniff, tear) back yard.

Then and Now

Just a reminder of what Luke thought last time we packed up our house...

That was then.

This is now.

It doesn't seem like much has changed. Except now he's capable of running and hiding behind my leg. :)

Shoes

This kid has some big shoes to fill...

Worm!

The Sunday our Canadian family left (I have also realized that I don't have good pictures of Luke with Uncle Stephen and Aunt Deb... Oops! I hate it when stuff like that happens) we stayed late at the church building. So Luke got to play outside with all of the other kids. It was our first occasion to show him a caterpillar. He was so cute! (Luke, not the caterpillar!) He chased it around yelling "Wor Wor Wor!" Here are a few shots of this learning experience.


The worm has been spotted.

He let out such a happy giggle when he saw it move!



Getting down on the caterpillars level.


Leaning in for a closer examination. Side note--This picture is currently my background on the laptop. Luke still gets excited and comes running every time he sees it yelling "Wor, wor, wor!" And he has now learned to sign it properly, whereas before it always looked just like the sign for fish.

"Wait! It's getting away!"

It was at this point that he promptly stood up and stepped on the poor caterpillar! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. I managed to realize that he was going to step on it and stop him mid-crunch. I felt so badly though. But Luke just happily continued running and playing and jumping in puddles. This was his first time wearing a new pair of shoes and he found a puddle that came all the way over his ankles and up his shins! I wasn't too thrilled with that one, but I let him splash in others. :)



And, later on, we found Mr. Caterpillar happily crawling along. I think the chances of it being the same one are good. It wasn't truly squashed and it wasn't where we had left it. Luke got excited all over again. He didn't step on it this time.

GrammaMack and the Boys (Can Fam Part Last)

This is the last installment of our Canadian family's visit. They were all able to come and join us for our church meeting Sunday morning, and then they headed to Kentucky. It was really nice to have family there for the meeting and to watch Luke follow Papa around afterward. :)


GrammaMack, Andrew, and Luke outside of our current meeting place.



Luke and GrammaMack. I think he looks like his Uncle Will in this picture.

Good bye kisses. Luke loved waking up to play with GrammaMack (and mommy loved getting a nice shower while daddy was working... that did not involve a toddler playing in the tub at the same time).

When are all ya'll coming back?

Nana and Papa and Luke (Can Fam Part Seven)

Watching Luke interact with his grandparents, great grandparents, great aunt, and great uncle really was enjoyable. He seemed to dive right in and make himself comfy. The weekend was too short, but Andrew and I enjoyed playing host.




These pictures with Nana and Papa were taken Sunday morning before we all left for our church meeting. I love these photos! Even the colour scheme is neat. Definitely keepers! Come visit again soon!

Fish Face (Can Fam Part Six)

Here is our little Lukey happily playing with 'Mack. :)


And making faces at her...


Fish face! :)

He's a ball of fun!