Luke's photography

As I was looking through our pictures it became very obvious the pictures that Luke had taken. He's an amazing photographer I think. But you be the judge.










I ask you...who else could get people to make faces such as these? Amazing stuff.

"Banas" are a nice gift

A few weeks ago there were five houses behind ours that were completed and families moved in...almost all of them have boys, little boys. Luke happened to see them all playing outside while he was taking a bath and was just in awe of them. I felt so bad that he had to go to bed while they were all out playing in the dirt having fun. But he didn't really say too much about it; he just watched intently. Every night at bedtime I rock with Luke and talk about our day, which usually turns into listing everything that we did that day. I was going through the usual list, when he interrupted me and said "maybe tomorrow we can take some 'banas' (bananas) over to those boys and say hi?" Of course I said sure, that's a great idea, while I'm wondering how in the world he came up with this idea. I hadn't said anything about taking anything over to our new neighbors and was a wee bit shocked that he did. Kids are better than we are eh? But I loved it that he wanted to take bananas, because hey, who wouldn't want some nice fresh bananas that we just bought at the store?

On another note, if you're familiar with my hair issues, getting a good cut that is...I would like to report that I finally got one. Hal-le-freaking-lujah! I was so happy to actually like my cut. The night after I got it cut I had a dream that I was heading to something very important and special, and decided that I needed to "fix" my hair. And if you know anything about me, you also know that I tend to take the scissors to my hair right after I get my usual crap hair cuts. So in my dream I got the clippers out, yup clippers, and went straight up the sides of my head, leaving the top long of course (didn't want to be too drastic), but just shaved the sides. My hairdresser was all of a sudden in my dream, although it wasn't the real lady, it was a man, which I imagine to have looked something like "Cinna" might look in the Hunger Games (if you've read it). He was looking at me like "you just ruined such a good thing, and now look at you!" My new hair cut was hideous and I'm just in shock at myself for being so stupid to ruin what was a good cut...finally! I was so mad at myself. And I was of course running late for me very special event and didn't have time to change/fix my hair before I had to leave. And then I woke up. Nightmare eh? I think part of my trauma with hair cuts since I've moved here is just getting used to the Sanpete way. If you ever plan on moving here talk to me first before you get your hair cut here.

Luke is having a baby...but it's a girl!

He just informed me of this tonight. Apparently even he can tell how big my stomach is getting. He had just gotten out of the bath and was laying on the bed and pushed his stomach way out so it was nice and round and said "My belly is huge, just like mom's...I'm having a baby too, but mine is a girl." Kids are too funny some times.

Time is flying

Not sure where March went, but I figured I should post something before it ends. But I've also decided that blogging is hard when your life is pretty mundane and shall we say, uneventful? About the only really exciting thing that happened in March was my fantastic husband's birthday...and that was more low-key than normal because he went to the MWC Tournament in Vegas the weekend of his birthday with my brother. So Luke and I celebrated without him. Well, not really, we waited for him to get back before we ate the cake and blew out the candles. :) It was hard to keep Luke away from the cake though. He loves chocolate cake, and blowing out the "handles" as he calls them. We got a few pictures with Danny and Luke on Sunday with cake and candles. Happy birthday Dan, we sure love you!



Luke is so funny about birthdays now. Ever since his birthday in January he thinks that any birthday that is coming up is his birthday and he gets so excited for cake and "handles." Maybe all kids are like that, I've just never experienced it before so it's still pretty funny to me. He wants to hear all the details about the birthday party and continues to ask "what else mom" until I've exhausted all party options.

Tribute to Dallini

Dallin (my nephew) is going into the MTC on Wednesday, to the India Bangalore Mission. He came down with his friend last week to attend the Manti Temple and we had a fun little photoshoot with Luke and Dallin before they left. In the first pics they are doing donkey kicks. Luke saw Dallin do this while playing table tennis at his house last week and just cracked up laughing, so that's why they are both going to town. I was quite impressed with Luke's back strength. The others are them just hanging out doing tricks together.







Dallin will be greatly missed, no one can replace him in the family. Not that anyone else is replaceable, but he just has a way with the younger kids (not to mention the ladies). They absolutely love and adore him. He's always been so fun and kind and actually seems to like hanging out with the family (all of us) and that makes us feel real special. :)

We love you Dal and know you will be an excellent missionary!

Fasting conversation

After church today I was sitting next to Luke at the table while he ate his sandwich and Cheetos before his nap. I was trying to hurry him along, and that never goes well, so I was trying to force feed him basically.

Me: Do you want more of your sandwich? (holding it right in front of his face)
Luke: No thanks, I'm fasting.
Me: Your fasting? That's...great! (laughing to myself)
(about 10 seconds goes by)
Luke: (looking at his drink of milk and Cheetos) I'm not fasting any more. (picks up his cup and takes a drink)

It seems that every fast Sunday we have to explain that we aren't eating because we are fasting and what that means and he continuously offers us food all day long. So I guess it's finally sinking in. :)

The Jedi turns two!

He pretty much had a birthweek celebration. G&G Christensen came down during the week and brought a present to Luke that he thought was fantastic. Then we went up to the cabin on Friday and G&G Summers had presents and birthday cake for him, which he also thought was fantastic. THEN on the way home from the cabin on Saturday we stopped at Carrie's house in Spanish Fork because she made a cake for Luke and Carrie and April both gave him presents that were also... fantastic! Danny and I gave him our presents and made another cake for him on Sunday. He got to blow out candles three times, he loved it! (He had some leftover cake today and wanted candles in it, so I guess four times.) Although he was a little sheepish about being sung to, he would put his head down and rub his eyes the whole time. Too much attention! He gets that from his dad. It's been a great week.

Getting the gear on at the cabin to go out snowmobiling.




Playing with his new Play-doh duffle bag set.





















Opening presents at Carrie's house.

Who took my wee little boy?

Luke looks like he's five years old to me in this picture, maybe it's because you can't see his fine baby like, turkey tail hair.



He's reading the story to me here. I love it.



Luke and I had a little food coloring fight, you can see how well it went.



He was so excited to have dad and him wearing his hats, sitting on the couch, watching t.v., and eating popcorn.



Luke says to me, "mom, ride Lidy (Hildie) like a horse!" Hildie's worst nightmare comes true.

Let it snow!

Doing a little shoveling...with a hoe, because his shovel was buried in the snow and this was all I could find. Nay bother.






























































"Big one mom."

And the potty talk continues...

and I'm really sorry, but it's just funny sometimes. So about an hour ago I farted right next to Luke (shocking, I know) but it was an SBD kind (co-workers are all too familiar with that one I'm afraid). Luke is sitting on the computer chair and within a few seconds of being enveloped by the awful stench he says "momma need change diper!" Okay, I almost fell on the floor laughing. Guess I can't blame those on him anymore! My cover is blown.

Some firsts worth mentioning

1. First real snow that actually stayed on the ground. I love it. I hope we have a white Christmas.
2. First time Luke peed on the toilet. He actually told me he was going to go "potty in baffroom" to which I thought nothing of it. He then returned and told me the door was closed, so I followed him, opened the door, he said he wanted to take his pants off and diaper and the rest is history. He's done it one more time since. We'll see if that continues, I doubt it.
3. First penis conversation with Luke. Oh boy, here we go. (I hesitate to even use that word on the internet, but it is what it is right? I'll refer to it as p from now on.) Luke and I are in the bathtub together and he see's his p and says "Luke's p, mom have p?" To which I replied, "nope, mom is a girl, I don't have a p" and so the conversation went as we talked about different people that Luke knows and if they have a p or not. :) I'm thinking that this is going to turn into public conversation, probably when all the family is around, now that's we've talked about it. He kept saying for the next few minutes "Luke have p, (starts shaking head) mom have p" as if to say mom doesn't have a p. Let the good times roll.

A tractor came for a visit

...and so did Grandpa and Grandma Summers, Alyssa and Ian (Luke's cousins). You would think that Grandparents and cousins would trump a tractor, but not for Luke. He talked about it all morning before they arrived. He kept saying over and over that "Bompa uhuh trator uhuhuh trayer." (Grandpa bringing tractor on trailer.) He doesn't know how to say the "filler" words in sentences but he knows they are supposed to be there so he just hums and hahs in their place. Brilliant eh? He was excited to play with Grandma, Grandpa and cousins and ride in Bompa's truck (also a passion of his).


We "pay paydough," visited our horse friend Boots and they all had a bath in the big tub, although Ian didn't like the jets on, so he didn't last long. It was a super fun day. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for coming to play and for bringing the tractor, Alyssa and Ian down with you.

I love to laugh!

And Luke is frequently the one that makes that happen for me. Here are a few pics of him that tell it all. Okay, well maybe I'll have to explain a wee bit. Luke has always loved picking up dog poop, back at our old house he would often ask to do this. All he had to say was "pooh-pooh?" and we knew what he meant. So yesterday Danny was outside filling in the trenches in our yard (the 2 month long ordeal...not filling trenches, but getting sprinklers in the yard, but that's for another post) and Luke wanted to be outside with his shovel as well. Where Danny was working was very close to the "pooh-pooh" corner and Luke thought that sounded more fun than digging in the dirt. So I look out the window and see that Danny has grabbed the "pooh-pooh" bucket for him. Luke proceeded to pick up poop for about 20 minutes. No joke. And I have to say, he almost got it all! Not bad for a wee kid. The imagery of it just made me laugh, so I grabbed the camera.

"I got it momma, it's right here!"

Notice the smile on his face. He's in a bit o' heaven.





















So today I was in the kitchen while Luke was yelling at me "blankie on" over and over. I couldn't see him so I thought he was on the couch "ouch" as he calls it. I started over to the couch to get his blanket when I realized he was not on the couch, but indeed on the dogs bed. He'd given them the boot and took over their favorite spot. The dogs are thinking "what else is new!"


And then he asks for the chips. Doesn't get much better than that eh?

Yes, he makes me laugh every day. One of my favorite sayings of his is "momma, atch this" and then he'll do a little trick for me. Sometimes his tricks are just showing his teeth, or blinking his eyes, but sometimes he'll get real crazy and kick his legs or something clever like that. Or lately he'll say, "hat George say?" (yah doesn't say his w's real well, if at all) and I'll proceed to make monkey noises. He's talking about Curious George. His new found fascination...George and "TB" (t.v.).

Luke's fun surgery

So we had the all too fun opportunity of going through surgery with lil' Luke. I pretty much rotted his teeth by letting him fall asleep with milk in his mouth... never mind all the hundreds of other women that have done that and never had an issue. That's just our luck. So at 20 months old he went under general anesthesia and had six crowns and three fillings put in his mouth. I know, awesome!!!! But it gets better. He couldn't eat anything past midnight the night before, which meant 6:00 pm for him when he last ate supper before bedtime. He had some apple juice at seven in the morning the next day and that was it until after surgery. He did better than I expected, he definitely asked for food and water, but handled it pretty well. When he realized that I wasn't giving in, he started asking for different types of food and when that didn't work, he starting asking if he could eat at different locations, like "Cade house." I finally said yes to that knowing we wouldn't get there until after surgery, so that sufficed. He was schedule for 11:00 am, we were in the waiting room at 10:45 am, but waited in there for THREE HOURS, not even kidding. I started going crazy. I started throwing out threats with lots of huffing and puffing. He fell asleep for a bit which helped, but after the second hour of waiting we had to get out of that room and walk, we walked around and around the pre-op and post-op circle. Everyone was talking to Luke, commenting how cute he was and he paid no attention to anyone, I personally don't think he had the energy to, walking was probably hard enough. I missed the picture of a lifetime (because I didn't bring the camera) when we finally found the wagon where the toys were. We circled in that for about 4 laps when we went back to the toys and he wanted to bring the xylophone in the wagon with him, so we put it on his lap and off we went again...circling. He plunked away on the xylophone, on the same note, without looking at it, with not even a care in the world and didn't pay any attention to the smiles and the laughs that he got as we did three more laps before the anesthesiologist finally came and found us. I wish I would've gotten a picture of him in the wagon with the xylophone. Arrrgggghhhhh. But, the moment had finally come. Hall-le-freakin-lujah!!! They gave him a relaxant so he wouldn't freak out as much when they took him away from us. Yes, I had a few teary moments. He cried, and I cried. Two and a half hours later we saw him and we managed to get Carrie's camera from her so we got a few shots of him.

As soon as he came out he seemed like he could hardly keep his eyes open but the nursed asked him if he wanted some apple juice and he perked right up. He drank a glass and a half of apple juice without stopping. But he was so sleepy that he was out again after he finished it.


He didn't stop eating the rest of the night until bedtime. He could only eat soft foods, so he went crazy on the muffins that April had made when we stopped at "Cade house" after. His diaper leaked three nights in a row, I think it was a combo of the IV and the amount he drank afterward. His mouth is totally healed and amazingly enough kids don't really even need pain killers after mouth surgery. I still gave him some though, just in case. Kids are amazing! Not something I would recommend going through though to anyone.