Evolution of Cake

Since Mia and Papa can't be here for Luke's birthday next week, we had a little 1st birthday party for Luke at the beach. This was Luke's first taste of cake. It was quite an experience for him.

He went from 'not so sure'

to 'I don't think I like it'

to ' This is great, give me more'

More pictures of the birthday celebration will follow later.

2 weeks ago...

I am so behind on my blogging. I have so many ideas for blog posts and just can't seem to make time to even keep up with my weekly post. Over a week late, here are the pictures from 2 weeks ago. I'm still working on uploading and organizing the oodles of pictures from our trip to Litchfield Beach.

So....the pictures from 2 weeks ago really only include pictures from Sunday thru Friday as we left for the beach trip early Saturday morning so I just cut the week short. All of the beach pictures will come in the next few days.

The week before last, we spent Sunday through Wednesday at a Resort in Austin while Daddy was there for work. Though a decent place, not all I was hoping for in a resort. The boys had fun and were in pretty decent spirits despite some rough nights with Luke up half the night coughing.

On Monday, the boys and I took a short trip to Wimberley to visit my grandparents. It was a short visit, but a nice one.

The boys shared a room and did so beautifully. It gave us a lot of confidence for how they would do sharing a room at the beach. The boys aren't the best passengers on car trips, but we survived.

Thursday and Friday were spent unpacking from the Austin trip and repacking for the beach trip. I did laundry, not because we didn't have enough clean clothes to pack, but I wanted to have all of my options available to me before packing.

Friday included yet another trip to the doctor for both boys and their coughs. As it turned out, Jacob's ear infection wasn't healed and his other ear had become infected. Our doctor was out, so we saw another in the practice. She prescribed Jacob something new. Luke also had the beginnings of an ear infection so Luke was given one as well. If we weren't going to fly out the next day, we might have held off on Luke's antibiotic, but we didn't want to take any chances.

In other news from 2 weeks ago, tooth #8 cut for Luke on Friday and while on the trip, he also decided to initiate walking on his own desire. He still prefers crawling, but he'll randomly stand up and walk somewhere (at the time, up to 10 steps, though it is more now).

Go here for the rest of the week's pictures.

Baby Shiner

What do you get when you take a big brother

who throws a flashlight
at the little brother?

A nice little shiner and cut

The day after...

Quick Recap

Once again, a few days late in posting last week's update and pictures, but this time I had a real excuse in that we were in Austin from Sunday until yesterday afternoon. I'm working on uploading and weeding through those pictures to post soon.


I can hardly remember what last week entailed. I do remember that we visited the doctor for Jacob, who once again has an ear infection and is wheezing, so back onto antibiotics he went. Hopefully he'll continue to heal and be back to normal for our next trip. He also had his first cleaning dentist visit (he went once before, last May when he chipped his tooth, but that was just to check on the tooth). I don't have any pictures from that, but he did fabulous and wasn't scared at all.

Luke started walking on his own desire a bit more last week and was up to 8 steps. This process seems to be moving much slower with Luke than it did with Jacob, so I'm getting to enjoy and savor this precious learning a bit more this time around.

Luke started coughing late last week as well, and so far this week it has not improved. Another trip to the pedi may be in store soon, this time for him. And tooth numer 7, lower right, broke through late Saturday.
Early in the week we visited the zoo with one of my best friends from college and her brood. I was so amazed at how she kept it all together with 5 little ones in tow. I hope we can do it again soon.
Here are the rest of the pictures from last week.

My Climber

As I mentioned before, Luke has learned how to climb into Jacob's bed. Here are some pictures to show him in action.

The Same Week

After uploading the pictures from last week ("Week 49"), and seeing the pictures of Luke climbing into the tupperware cabinet,
I remembered taking very similar pictures of Jacob at about this same age. So, I went back to "Week 49" for Jacob, and lo and behold, I found this picture:

One week later in "Week 50" I found this picture:

I thought I had a picture where he was actually inside and looking out, like in Luke's, but I can't find it right now. I'll have to browse a little more closely later.

New skills

Except for one "PJ Day" when mommy was sick, last week was another one of getting out and about. Once summer hit, I figured we would be spending a lot more time around the house, but so far that hasn't been the case.

The boys are playing together a bit more, but we still have a long way to go. Jacob gets frustrated easily when Luke doesn't do what Jacob wants him to. Once playing with mommy or by himself gets old, he is ready to have friends over to play or get out of the house for something new.

Luke is definitely going to be a handful to keep up with for the next few years. He is a climber and doesn't shy away from much. The lastest feats, he learned how to climb up on Jacob's bed. The second I turn my back on him, he is taking off down the hall to his room to climb up. We've had to start keeping just about every door closed when I'm not right there following him around. He's a smart little cookie too. He has figured out how to use drawers and chairs as "steps" to a higher location.

I also saw him get from sitting to standing without pulling up this week. He doesn't do it often, but he does know how, so when he finally does walk he'll be set. For Jacob, I remember that skill coming a few weeks after he learned to walk so he wasn't a full-time walker for a few weeks because of it. He is up to 6 steps in a row now, but they aren't very steady. In other skills, he has mastered the straw. Which is good in some ways, I suppose, but so far has just proven to be a hassle. He now wants to drink from my drinks even more!

After 10 days of nighttime wetting and 3 daytime accidents, a couple of weeks ago, Jacob has now been accident free for a week and a half and has stayed dry most nights too. He has now developed a fear of the loud flushing noises of the public restrooms, which has spurred his fear of going anywhere but home, so I'm trying to ease that fear a bit by having him go to the potty at other places whenever I can. I think it is working.

He now knows all the letter sounds! I am so impressed. He is such a smart little guy. We just need to work on the vowels a bit more since they have both long and short sounds (he knows the short vowel sounds only.) The best part, he is very excited with this skill and will happily practice it often asking me to write out little words and he says each letter's sound. He hasn't figured out how to put the sounds together to make one word, but that will come in time. The funniest thing to me, he reads the letters from right to left. I noticed he did that when reading out letters before, but since he didn't always read out every letter, I didn't pay that much attention to it. I've told him to read from the other direction and he just thinks I'm silly. That's ok.

And...the biggest feat for Jacob this week. The pappy is gone! (almost a week now) It was a rough few days, but we made it. We've tried to make it his decision with some strong "encouragement" from Mommy and Daddy and it has taken some time. He still struggles to fall asleep without it, but I think that will get better in time.

Here are the rest of the week's pictures.

Two steps forward, one step back

Though both boys are growing up, Luke has reached the age where he learns something new just about everyday. This week he finally took a couple of "purposeful" steps and seems to enjoy practicing his new skill, though we haven't seen much progress. He's only gotten up to 3 steps in a row so far. We'll see how long it takes him to actually walk.

Still only one "sign" (that's he's known for about a month now) and that is the one for 'More' which he uses frequently since he seems to eat and eat and eat. I'm probably to blame for the lack of other signs since I don't use them with him consistently. With brother's help, he has also learned the motions to "If you're happy and you know it." He watches intently as we sing it waiting for the cues to clap, stomp, or raise his arms for 'hooray.'

Luke and his sleeping problems continue and unfortunately, I don't see an end to it anytime soon. He is just so darn stubborn. We were in a decent "groove" for a few weeks where he cried only briefly when being put down to sleep and overnight just woke around 4am to eat and went right back to sleep. Lately, he cries much longer and wakes more frequently. If only I appreciated the only getting up once a night time period...

Jacob has had a bit of a potty training relapse in the past few days, having accidents at the church and gym nurseries and wetting at night, none of which he's done before. It doesn't seem to bother him either, which is the scary part. Though I know it is not uncommon for kids to have a relapse in potty training at some point, I don't like it and hope it is short lived. I can only guess that it is the change in normal routine that has him off a bit???

Jacob hurt his leg on Sunday (not sure how) and has been limping ever since. Motrin seems to help the pain, but doesn't keep him from limping. Several people mentioned their children doing this basically to get attention. Though Jacob loves getting attention, I don't think this is one of his tactics. We'll keep an eye on it. Ahh, the joys of having a boy.

In good news, Jacob is doing great in learning the sounds the letters make. He has known his letters for over a year now, but we just started working on the sounds they make in the last 10 days or so and he's already learned about 12 of them. We'll have the whole alphabet in no time.

We kept busy our first full week of summer and look forward to many fun weeks to come.

Though we have gone swimming at the neighborhood pool many times, I can't seem to remember my camera when we go. Hopefully this week I'll remember.

Here are the rest of the week's pictures.

Tooth #6

The teething woes are one step closer to being over for Luke (at least for this go around.) Overnight or this morning, the corner of tooth #6 (his upper right) finally cut through. 2 more on the bottom are very close to breaking through as well. Looks like he'll have 8 teeth by his first birthday.