Ode to Luke

My sweet Luke had his 3rd birthday on May 12th. He is such a big boy! He can go to the potty by himself, get himself dressed, play his own computer games, quote whole chapters of the Bible, and make everyone in the family laugh. He loves to sing and does so at will and at random times. When he's quoting his verses he has to stop and give commentary on the big words that he did not originally know but has learned from us (just to make sure everyone else knows the meaning too). He is 100% ALL BOY - running, jumping, climbing, wrestling, killing pretend bad guys, and great at being silly. His laugh is the cutest thing and is totally contagious. And though he has his trying-Mommy's-patience-moments, he is an absolute joy to all of us. In school he's been learning all the sounds that the letters make, recognizing patterns and numbers of objects, as well as lots of other things. Luke is a quick thinker and seems to be really creative. If we're making up words to a song, he can come up with his own lyrics just as fast as we can. And, of course, I cannot fail to mention his recent fascination with puzzles. He loves them! He often has extreme amounts of energy, so he jumps and runs a lot. :o) But he can also be very sweet and gentle when he tries. Though he loves to run and jump, he also loves to just snuggle up next to us and listen to books being read. Our Luke is such a special boy, and we're so grateful that God gave him to us 3 years ago!



For his birthday we had french toast for breakfast (by his choice). After breakfast we went to what we refer to as "The Fun Place". On the top floor of a nearby mall there is a huge playland for kids. It also has bumper cars and a few kiddie rides (like the ones outside of Wal-mart that you would put a quarter in). It really is a fun place, and we had a great time there for Luke's big day. Grandma had brought some fun Handy Manny birthday decorations that we had all over the house to make everything special for him. He loved the Handy Manny cake that I made. We had hot dogs for lunch and pizza for supper because that's what Luke wanted. He got to open up fun presents all throughout the day as well. I think he really enjoyed his special day.

I'm Back!

I know it's been forever since I posted an entry on here. So sorry! This entry will hopefully catch everyone up-to-date and get me back on track with posting regularly...

Well, first of all, we survived our 10 days without Daddy at home. It's always such a bummer when he's not here, and we're so grateful to have him home with us now! But thankfully we had my parents to keep us company and offer lots of help! We had a GREAT visit with them, and they seemed to have a fabulous time here as well. I must say that I was very impressed at how well they did traveling so far, spending time in a different culture, and eating lots of different foods. Granted I only took them to the yummy places to eat, but they still handled all the differences so well. What would have been an extremely difficult week for me with my husband gone turned out to be a really fun time spent with them. It was also just great to see them be able to spend quality time with the boys. The boys, of course, loved the attention and all the surprises that Grandma kept pulling out of her bag (think Mary Poppins). :o) Thanks so much, Grandma and Grandpa, for coming all this way to help us out and spend time in our world. We love you!

In other news... After two weeks of nursing pain I, along with my sis-in-law and her midwife and lactation consultant friends, finally determined that I had thrush. Oh my. Today has now been 4 weeks since the whole thing started. I've been treating it in a multitude of different ways, not the least of which was changing my entire diet and cutting out sugar and almost all carbs while only eating protein and veggies. Unfortunately the diet change caused some other digestive issues on top of everything else. :o( I would have a good day and think that it was clearing up, then the next day would be another painful day. I finally started an antibiotic and I've now I've had 3 days of minimal pain so far. It's not fully over yet, but I'm really hoping and praying that I'm finally on my way out of this. I have not been ready to stop nursing Micah, and I really didn't want to end our nursing relationship on a bad note. I have loved nursing all my children despite the painful issues I've had to deal with. I'm just so thankful that I still can nurse! And I'm thankful that God has given me the endurance to get through the difficult days.

There are lots of other things to blog about, particularly my sweet Luke's 3rd birthday! But I'll have to save that for another post. For now, I'll leave you with a picture of my cuties with their grandparents.