My baby is one!

 We celebrated a birthday in this house on September 20th.  Our little Lukey-Man turned one!  If there is one word to describe Luke it is happy.  He is just such a happy little guy.  The most frequent comments I receive about him (besides how beautiful and blue his eyes are), are how happy he is and that he has such a great smile.  His smile really does light up his face, and the whole room for that matter!

 I made a two layer cake in separate layers so Luke could have a whole cake to destroy.  We actually ended up taking the cake away after a few minutes because we didn't want him to get sick with all that sugar.  When the third shiver ran through his body we figured the sugar rush was sufficient and we better not add anymore fuel to the fire. He did thoroughly enjoy his cake though and made a proper mess of himself.

Enjoy these adorable pictures of our sweet little Lukey while I share what he is up to these days:

 He is in the beginning stages of walking.  I think he could walk if he wanted to, but he gets along so quickly crawling he's not quite ready to give it up.

His most used words are na-na (banana), da-da, ma-ma, and ga-ga (cracker)

Those also happen to be among his favorite things.

 Luke has taken after Grant with his early love of books.  Ryan and I remember how when Grant was still crawling, he would sit quietly for several minutes and look through his books.  Luke does the same.  We have a "reading area" set up in Luke's room (an over-sized pillow sitting next to a box of books), and Luke loves to sit himself comfortably on the pillow and grab book after book out of the box and "read" them.

Luke continues to be a great fan of baths.  All I have to say is "bath time" and he gets excited and starts racing to the bathroom.  In fact, when we were at Christine's house last week, Luke was so excited about his bath that he decided to jump right back in during Grant's bath, after he was already cleaned and pajama-ed.  That boy is quick!

He takes his meals seriously and will usually start eating before anyone else and still be eating after we are all finished.  It is sometimes hard for us to keep his plate full enough for his satisfaction.  He has found the best way to make sure we do not delay with the food is to scream at extremely high frequencies and volumes until the food is on his tray.  He has actually employed this method for several months now, so we are prepared with ear plugs and ear protectors at a strategic spot in the kitchen.  

 Luke is becoming increasingly curious and that curiosity is taking him to places he shouldn't be.  There are many places in the house that I figured he could never get to; until I later come into a room and find him in that spot.  

Some of the unlikely places I have found Luke: 

on my bed (when there was no easy way to climb on),

in a window sill, 

in the kitchen drawers, 

on a bench that is way too high for him and not close to anything to climb on, 

on top of the book shelf in the boy's room,

in my shower (he figured how to slide open those doors quite awhile ago),

and in the shoe box.

 We keep this drawer in the kitchen filled with the plastic ware the boys use.  Now, Luke is just tall enough to be able to reach inside and pull out the contents.  It is one of his favorite activities to see how many plates, bowls and cups he can throw across the kitchen floor before he is removed from the kitchen.

 Luke loves to cuddle...anyone.  I think it started with his love of hair.  He is a hair grabber, so if you have long hair and pick him up, he goes straight for it, while squeezing tightly around your neck.  It seems like he's giving you a big hug.  Thankfully, his desire to rip hair out of heads has decreased slightly; but, he still gives great big hugs to basically anyone who picks him up.

 Luke adds so much to our family and we are so grateful he is apart of it.  He is such a sweetheart.  It's hard not to have a smile on your face after spending some time with this little guy.  We love him so much!

Happy Birthday Luke!!