Kitchen Helper 3

Luke licking the bowl after my yearly batch of peppermint bark. 

He now knows a new word: chocolate!

I Heart Amazon

What other wonderful faceless mega-corporation would send such an enormous box? 

*And thank you Wheelers for what was inside this enormous box. Luke loves it!*

O Toddler Tannenbaum

Luke really enjoyed decorating our tree this year. He had very strong opinions about where the ornaments should go and hoarded most of them, keeping them away from his dad. 

Unfortunately, we had to pull the plug when he started throwing them. The result:

A toddler-proof tree--must be four feet tall to decorate. 

18 Months

This month Baba (my mom) came to visit, thank goodness, because Luke has decided to officially start seriously and deliberately testing boundaries. Complete with little smirks of defiance and sideways glances to make sure he has an audience.

For example: after being told not to bang a metal spoon on the wall and having it taken away when he continued, he rummaged around in the silverware drawer, pulled out an enormous metal cooking spoon, and with a grin and a pointed look resumed his banging. 

And thank goodness for nursery. One of our last weeks in Relief Society he managed to escape three times, hot on the heels of mothers going out to change diapers.

Had to throw this one in there cause it was just so cute--uncle Dallin came to visit for a few days, too!

He has also made some decisions about the way things should be done around here, and must now have his water bottle, all of his blankets (there are three), and all of the stuffed animals he sleeps with (five of those) while he is sung to during bedtime routine. He has begun pitching fits while having his diaper changed and throwing tantrums in public places--I was surprised at how quickly I got over being embarassed about those.

Don't get me wrong, though, it's not all bad. He is still a very loving boy, who will give hugs and kisses randomly and is always happy to throw balls or run around outside. I have finally gotten him to like slides (swings are still iffy) and he still yells "dada!" when Ken walks in the door. He has also seriously chunked up over the past few weeks, assumedly in preparation for a growth spurt. 

But if anyone has any sage advice, I'm all ears. Hopefully this is as bad as it gets. Right?

Right?

A Boy and His Socks

Remember how Luke never likes to play with his own toys? Here is what he does like to play with:

17-Month Outtakes

I just found these on my camera. It's hard to be 17 months old.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Our first visit to the Johnson Space Center! 

We got to touch a moon rock...

 (so did Baba)...

 Ken and I did a flight simulator since Baba was here to watch Luke...

and Ken got to introduce Luke to Star Trek in the form of the Enterprise lander, used in the original series.

Not pictured: the rocket from the cancelled Apollo 18 mission and mission control, where Luke entertained the entire tour group by yelling at the top of his lungs in the front row, drowning out the tour guide. 

No trip would be complete without frozen yogurt served by a robot!

Luke's third encounter with a goat.

Back at the Houston zoo (while Baba was in town) Luke stumbled across a sleeping goat! Finding this very strange, he bent down and peered at its closed eyes before sitting down next to it in the dirt. After examining the poor thing for a minute, he reached out and stuck his finger right up its nose.

The goats must be used to quite a lot, because it just slowly stretched and looked around, bleary-eyed. Luke quickly lost interest. 

And just for fun, here's Luke and Baba in the tunnel of the prairie dog pen.

17 Months

This month has seen the biggest increase in vocabulary so far, with fun new words like "Baba" for grandma, "Pa-Dee" for Opa D, "Coco" for Colton, "Ku" for Luke, and "poo-poo!" (for poo-poo) Luke is just constantly moving and making noise and messes, observing and imitating and being adorable. 

Luke no longer enjoys normal kids' toys (maybe he just needs new ones) but instead prefers to play with anything electronic; he can tell if the phone or remote you give him doesn't work and will not be happy about it. He still loves socks and shoes and will go get his shoes if asked; he also likes to hide little surprises for daddy in his dress shoes while he is at work. He is also starting to listen very closely to what we say (unfortunately?) and will race towards the door any time he hears the word "outside". 

Luke is beginning to pretend and to show signs of deliberate deviousness and humor. A few days ago I couldn't find him for almost a full minute (a long time when your apartment is pretty small), until I spotted him hiding silently behind our big chair. Strangers still love him and he still does pretty well around strangers, for the most part, so far doing very well with babysitters. He certainly keeps us on our toes. 

Come On Texas!

After almost a year and a half we finally decided to do something Houston-y and visit the San Jacinto monument and the Battleship Texas. 

Both were surprisingly free of visitors, so Luke and his friend Josh had free reign of the place and made good use of it.

As seen above, Luke learned how to properly set up caution cones, swab the poop deck...

aim the deckside guns...

and roll down a hill (which he thought was hilarious).

The face of a mother worrying about decades-old germs and lice...

B-4...You sunk my battleship!

Toilet Paper's Many Uses

A reading fort!

Also: how many days does it take for us to put things away after a Costco run? 

Too many.

Luke's Throne

Like Mother, Like Son

Yes, I used to eat cold, cooked potatoes from the fridge, too.

Trick or Treat!

Luke's first experience with trick or treating was fairly successful. He got a practice run at the ward trunk or treat on Wednesday before the real deal at a nearby neighborhood on Friday night. 

He still doesn't quite understand that the main goal of the event is to aquire candy; instead he took every opportunity to try to fill other kids' buckets with candy from his own. 

But he was easily the cutest little chef of both evenings and scored enough candy to keep his dad happy for a while. (the candy corn is dwindling)

Costume Flashback

Still fits! Although the hat was a bit small and kept squishing his face forward. 

He hated having the monacle drawn on, but got a real kick out of it when he finally saw himself in the mirror. Then he hated having it taken off again.