get er dun

Just trying to document the happenings of the last few months before Christmas vacation.

***Warning: Long post, may cause drowsiness, do not read while driving***

HALLOWEEN




The Flinstones and a monster. Pebbles and Wilma. Cute lion Alex Bate. Monster trick or treating with Mulan and Home Depot handyman. (Aiden & Graham)


Headless Horseman. how cool is that? and creepy. Luke loved it.

FALL HIKING & BIKING





One of my favorite days I want to remember -
playing in an old corn maze. stalks became swords and we all took turns dueling, we played hide and seek and even saw some bunnies.

THANKSGIVING

with the Bate, Lewis and Austin families


Wise Owl, Graham and Avary

ZOO ON ICE - Luke's first skate (December 3, 2010)



ST. JUDE HALF MARATHON

before & after. :-)


best running partner.

Christmastime


DECEMBER 20th!!

Happy Birthday to Luke. His party was last week but his birthday was today. He got to go to the Fire Museum with his friend Avary.



and before I finish this monster post, here is a little shout out to my favorite kids. A little time capsule.

LUKE - 3 years old (today!)

Untitled from katiehale on Vimeo.

I think he says "La remote control a So" - what do you think?

LUCY - 11 months (tomorrow)

Untitled from katiehale on Vimeo.

(dates of clips - 11/13, 11/20, 11/25, 12/4, 12/1)

phew! ok, MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody! see you next year!

Party on

I have so many things to post about but I just loved yesterday and want to hurry and post about that. I will have to leave catching up for another day.

The night before Luke's birthday party

making the dump truck cake (inspired by Hailey)

Waiting for Luke to wake up


Luke's reaction to his cake (translation for ga-cited is excited)

Untitled from katiehale on Vimeo.

Luke helped me make the dirt and then thought he should test it just to make sure



THE PARTY
Since Luke is a "bouncing off the walls" type of kid - we thought this would be heaven for him. And we were right. He was so happy. And Joey even took a couple hours off to come and join us
The Birthday Boy


The Partiers

Graham, Addie, Laker, Avary, Max & Aiden


Jana, Jackson, Jerianne, Sheri, Dawson, Lezlie, Addie & Lucy

It was almost impossible to get Luke to leave Pump It Up. But the promise of eating birthday cake was the ticket. When we got home, I was busy getting lunch for our guests and noticed a little sneaky Luke at table. I stopped to watch him. He would look around and then lean over and take a nibble of the graham cracker. I told him not to eat the cake just yet and he looked at me and it was like he had no control. He would just move forward and oops - he was eating the cake again.



Meanwhile everyone else was having a pizza picnic


The big moment came and everyone sang to Luke. He got so excited when he was blowing out his candles that he spit all over the cake!


Waiting for their cake and ice cream

Back: Amanda, Melanie, Jana (and Macie), Sarah (with Calvin and Max) and Joes
Front: Avary, Aiden, Laker, Starley and McKinley

Here are some happy birthday songs and a CRAZY present scene. Ok, so Luke is a pretty focused kid and if he sees something he wants, he has a hard time switching gears. So, he opens a present that he's excited about and nothing else matters. He ONLY wants to play with THAT present. So, his friends were trying so hard to get him to open presents and he just didn't want to. He did this last year too. So, what ended up happening is he let the other kids open the presents for him. It was a little overwhelming for him. But he sure is LOVING all them now. He spent the rest of the day focused on playing with toys. He gave each present a good amount of time and then moved to the next. He went to bed around 10:30.

Untitled from katiehale on Vimeo.