An Unexpected Visit

  My sister DeAnna and her husband Brad were in Portland last weekend looking for a place to live since they will be moving there in a couple weeks.  They flew back home Monday morning, except DeAnna volunteered to get bumped and was rerouted home through Seattle with a long layover.  DeAnna hadn't met Logan yet, so it was perfect.  This time when Logan and Luke were hanging out I remembered to get a picture before they got all grumpy.

DeAnna holding sweet baby Logan.

A close up of Logan, so you can better admire his arm chubs.

Logan never did look at the camera for me.  Several times it looked like Luke and Logan were trying to hold hands.  It was sweet.

Luke at Four Months

  Last week Luke turned four months old and what a difference a month makes.  Luke went from doing pretty much all of his sleeping in the swing to suddenly being okay with sleeping in the pack and play.  It is quite the welcome change.  We sure went through a lot of D batteries in the process, and I learned to change the batteries in the dark by feel.  Now with no effort on our part Luke doesn't need his swing to sleep at all.  I don't know how we got to be so lucky with babies just sleeping like they should.  Luke sleeps at least eight hours a night, and has been sleeping ten hours some nights too.  I am really excited the swing is out of our bedroom because now the pack and play isn't jammed up against the side of my bed anymore (I was getting into bed from the foot. Not the end of the world, but it makes going to the bathroom a lot easier now).
  Luke isn't rolling over yet, but he's pretty close.  He hates tummy time.  In the mornings we walk Avery to school and he likes to fall asleep in the stroller.  I don't think I have a good picture of this yet, but he sticks his tongue out all the time.  He loves to coo and make various other baby noises.  When you kiss him on his cheeks repeatedly you can get him to laugh out loud.  He's still a shrimpy guy.  He's only 12 pounds 9 ounces and 23 inches long.  Not very big, but oh so snugly.

Serious times with Harper.

Hanging out in his new to him bed.

The girls having a dance party with Luke while I am trying to make my bed.

Luke actually stretched to his full length for this one.  He's finally overtaking that monkey.

February Leftovers

  Here are some various February pictures that didn't make it to the blog.  Enjoy these pictures that illustrate our month.

We celebrated Valentine's Day with a heart shaped ice cream cake from Dairy Queen.

Emery likes to eat her foot sometimes.

Harper playing with her toys.  Apparently the super heroes were over visiting the princess castle.

Avery playing with Max Steel in Ariel's undersea home.

Harper and Emery were pretending to be pirates with their straw swords.

All the girls sitting together of their own accord.  Too bad Harper wasn't in the mood for a picture.

Harper made us dress up with underwear on our heads, so we could pretend to be a princess and a prince.  I was the prince and I slew a dragon with a Minnie Mouse spatula saving Princess Harper in the process. Then we went to a ball, and attended Ariel's wedding to Robin because she couldn't marry Batman because Batgirl was marrying him.

This is Luke laughing.

Cousin Fun

  Karl, Aimee, and Tyler came over for dinner on Sunday, and somehow all the kids ended up in our bed watching cartoons.  The girls are always getting themselves comfortable in our bed, so it wasn't much of a stretch for Tyler to join in.  Once Aimee and I saw the rest of the kids in the bed we just had to put Luke in there too.  We didn't want him to feel left out.

Harper, Emery, Avery, and Tyler.  I love how you can barely see Emery peeking out from the covers.  The bandaid on Harper's head is for some imaginary wound.  She ended up wearing it for two days.

I just love how many closed eyes there are in this shot.

Here's Luke with everyone.  As you can see it was hard for everyone to take their eyes off Mickey Mouse for a picture.  Even Luke was watching.

A close up of Luke without his hands in front of his face.

Play Mat Fun

   I remembered to get out the play mat the other day, and Luke loves it.  It's been a well loved baby toy with some toys missing.  Luke's favorite thing is to look in the little mirror and talk to the baby he sees in there.  Naturally no one can leave him alone while he's on it.  Everyone tries to get in on the fun.  All of the girls have tried to pile on it with him.  I catch Avery playing with it while Luke isn't on it too.  I have to remind them all the time that it is a baby toy, not that really helps much.  I'm just glad that Luke is getting old enough to entertain himself now. 

Admiring the handsome baby in the mirror.

Emery trying to steal the show as always.

Too much love!

Everyone needs to be on it together.

Luke at Three Months

  Three months has snuck up on us, and now I have a thirteen pound baby. I'm just barely putting away the last of the newborn pajamas that fit just fine lengthwise still, but are too short in the sleeves is all.  Luke is still pretty short.  Lately he has been smiling and laughing a good deal.  If you start laughing at him there's a pretty good chance that he's going to join in as well.  Luke has also been reliably sleeping six to eight hours a night, but spends a lot of time fighting sleep making nap time during the day a little painful.  Guess we've got a late self soother on our hands.  He is very sweet though and everyone just loves him.

Emery is actually making sure that the blanket is tucked more securely around Luke.  She was very concerned and spent a while fiddling with the blanket until it was just right.

Emery is very pleased I took her picture.

Luke wasn't as sure as Emery was that the monkey needed to be directly on top of him.

Luke and the monkey.  They're still pretty much the same size.

Another Project

  Earlier this month we bought a house.  We will still be living in Bellevue, but south of 90 now. It has a lot of potential, but needs some help.  Since it was built in 1995 very few updates were done to the house.  Also we have some less fun things to take care of like replacing the windows and the backside of the house has LP siding that must be replaced.  There are plenty of fun projects though.  The kitchen and master bath need to be remodeled, and the floor needs to be refinished.  The built ins are a beautiful dusty pink wood color that are going to be painted over.  All of the original lighting fixtures are still up.  It's a lot of gold as you will see.  We are hoping in the next couple of weeks that we will have a general contractor in place, and we can get started making this house beautiful again.  By the time Avery is done with school we should be ready to move in.

Here's the family room.

The kitchen

A formal living room.

The entry way with a gorgeous golden chandelier.  Don't be jealous now.

More gold in the master bathroom!

For the first time in our married lives we will have a real yard.

Our view.  I think you can see Lake Sammamish peeking out between the trees.