Luke Footage

As I'm writing this, I have just put Luke back into his crib for the eighth time tonight. I guess that makes it official - time to move on to the big boy bed. He first got out three times last Wednesday (at 4 in the morning, I might add), then was content to stay in his crib for the next two nights. But now it seems he rather enjoys this new found ability. Oh well. Just wanted to share a few videos.

And here's Luke and my nephew, Gunner, forming their very own baby band version of "One Two, Buckle My Shoe". Unfortunately, the harmony needs a little work. Please ignore the brief nose picking - he learned it from his brother.

Birthday Celebrations

Calvin has had several birthday celebrations and now is officially four years old. We had a "construction" party for him in mid-March, since his cousins were visiting during spring break and he wanted them to be there. Unfortunately, most of the pictures I took during that party turned out blurry. I'm hoping my mom got some good ones and will send them to me soon (hint, hint). This is kind of sad, but these are really the only ones that weren't too bad.

A picture of the cake. The beauty of a "construction" cake is that it can look like crud and that's totally okay.

Here are the kids digging for "treasure" (in the big sandbox that Dave built just in time for the party). The only problem here was that I gave Dave the job of burying the treasure... Let's just say he buried it a little too well and the kids needed lots of help to find anything.

My sister with the little kids.

This past Saturday Calvin got a special night out. We had a free night's stay at a local hotel and tickets to the Corpus Christi Sharks, an arena football team, that I had won (which made it a cheap, special night out). So Luke got to spend the night with Mimi and Papa while Calvin had alone time with mom and dad. The hotel had a great play area with a ball pit and an indoor pool. We went swimming Saturday afternoon and had so much fun we went again Sunday morning. Calvin got braver as he spent more time in the water - can't wait to put him in swim lessons this summer.

Calvin had fun at the football game too. He made it through two and a half quarters before he was ready to go, which was about one and a half longer than I expected.

Ready to go out. He even got gel in his hair for the first time.

I just love the hair and glasses.

On Sunday (his actual birthday) my parents, aunt, brother and sister-in-law came over for some Papa Murphy's pizza (yum!) and cake. Calvin got to open his presents, which is really all he talked about all day.
Some lovely birthday glasses from my mom.

Here's the fun digger Calvin got from my parents, which is just perfect for our new sandbox. He had fun today digging up the sand and loading it in the dump truck.

Another birthday cake - what a lucky kid!

Decorations Anyone?

I was holding Luke this morning and he pushed on my boob and said "Mommy's belly button". I told him no and showed him where my belly button was. He pushed on my boob again and said "Mommy's belly button." Again, I told him "No, that's mommy's boob. You don't touch boobs." At which point Calvin chimed in, "Yeah, they're for decoration, right?" Huh??? I laughed and asked him who told him that. His reply? "You did." I did?? Well, I really can't remember telling him that, but it definately sounds like something I could have said...

Here are the boys looking at pictures of themselves on my blog. Notice how Luke is totally lounging on the desk.

Brotherly love.

Surprise Spice Cake

I'm pretty sure somebody mentioned something one time about a cake made with tomato soup. Am I imagining that? Well, I found this recipe and tried it out. One box of spice cake mix, one can of tomato soup, 3 eggs, 1/2 c. water. Mix it all together, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Yummy! We had my family over for dinner tonight - everyone loved it and nobody could tell that it had tomato soup in it!

Is it really March already?? Where has the time gone? We have been busy these past few weeks. Two weekends ago I played in a co-ed soccer tournament up in Austin. It was near my sister's house, so I went up to stay with her. The cool thing is, I took just Calvin with me. This was the first time I've left Luke for more than a night, so it was kind of weird. But I have to say, I don't know why I ever thought having one kid was hard... That was the easiest road trip I've ever been on. I didn't end it with a cramp in my shoulder from having one arm constantly behind me, trying to pass things back to a fussy child... Bathroom stops took 5 minutes instead of 20 (not to mention there wasn't a child trying his best to crawl under the door of a disgusting bath room). It was kind of nice to have some time alone with Calvin. Plus, when we got to my sisters, he just went off and played with his cousins. It was almost like having time off... Anyways, so this was my first time playing coed soccer and it was quite an adventure. When I drove up to Austin on Friday afternoon it was 85 degrees out. When I got up to play soccer Saturday morning it was 44 degrees out with winds like you wouldn't believe. We were freezing! Someone would kick the ball up in the air and we would all watched as it went forward, then stopped and went right back towards that person. Seriously. We ended up playing two games Saturday and two on Sunday, with the championship game going into overtime. That's 6 and a half hours of soccer in about 30 hours! Needless to say I was sore the next few days. But we did take second place and won $500, which was pretty neat.

Last weekend my sister-in-law had a baby shower in Austin. So we drove back up, just five days after we got home. But this time we all went and Dave and I decided to take the boys to the San Antonio zoo on the way. It was fun, but both the boys had colds and we didn't get there until 11:30, so they were tired. We didn't see as much as we could have, but we did get to see an elephant having his nails trimmed, which was kind of interesting.

So we spent the weekend at my sisters. Dave built her a vegetable garden (he's so handy), while the girls went to the shower. Unfortunately, Luke spent Saturday night up and crying, so I hardly got any sleep. Finally got him to the doctor on Tuesday and it turns out he has a double ear infection, poor baby. It's the first ear infection either of my kids has ever had, and the doctor said it was pretty bad. He got oral antibiotics as well as drops for his ears. Now let me ask, whose bright idea was it to make drops to go in a kids ears? Do you know how hard this is to do? Even with two people it's a struggle. But he's doing better now, thank goodness.

Just want to leave you with one picture. I'm not really sure what Dave was thinking, but this picture just makes me laugh. And Luke loved being in there. If Dad's could be pregnant?