We've got a two-year-old in the house!

You know how you hear parents say things like...I just can't believe he's already two...how time flies!!? Well, I have to be honest and say that I really can't even remember what life was like without Luke. It feels like we've had him around forever! It baffles me that just a little over two years ago our family was Lukeless!

We had a fun little birthday party for him while my parents were here. Well, it was little if you count 14 kids as little! Luke decided to be shy for the first time in his life. He even crawled up in my friend Amanda's lap about halfway through the party and wouldn't get down.

We covered the tables with white craft paper & gave them markers, crayons, stickers & modeling clay. This is Luke & his buddy Noah.




Luke LOVES Elmo!! (or mo-mo, as he calls him) This was a bunch of cupcakes stuck together...isn't it cute? Messy, but cute.


He even blew out his candles in Amanda's lap.


This is Kallie's friend Connor. First, he colored all over his face with a red marker. Then he smashed the red cupcake all over his face & up his nose. Can you say Luke-in-two-years?!


He got out of Amanda's lap to open presents...


This picture makes me laugh. Luke looks like he's asking so politely.












He wouldn't eat a cupcake when everone else ate one. But after the party was over he wanted one. And he enjoyed it!


My parents gave him a rocking horse...


Luke is so full of life. You never forget that he's around. Here are some things about him at this age that I want to remember.

-He has just started watching tv. His favorite thing to watch is Elmo.
-He LOVES the Sesame Street songs, especially the one that goes, "Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud, sing out strong..." He makes me sing it to him at night while I'm rocking him. If I start to sing something else he puts his finger on my mouth and says, "NO! Sing song!"
-He plays with Kallie all day long. They love to pretend together. It's not unusual for him to have a baby in one arm, a purse on the other arm, and say, "Bye-bye Mommy!" and head for the front door.
-Oh, and he can open doors now. We often find him in the backyard by himself.
-Daddy is not thrilled with his newfound fascination for baby dolls. He loves them. He almost always is carrying around one of Kallie's babies or her giant Dora doll.
-He loves Dora too. He calls her "Woo-wah". It is quite the battle to get him to leave the giant Dora doll in the car when we're going somewhere.
-He loves to greet us with "Hi Daddy! Hi Momma!" and sometimes screams for me in the morning from his bed, "Mommy, ah-you??" (Mommy, where are you?)
-If he doesn't like or gets bored with his food, he plays with it. He smashes, crunches, smooshes, throws, and smears (usually in his hair).
-He is a climber. I find him on top of all of our furniture.
-He is VERY tough. Bloody knees...who cares!
-He has a strong will. Often his will is stronger than mine. Not good.
-He LOVES to be rocked at night. He says "rock you" to me as I'm getting him ready for bed.
-He loves to play outside.
-He tells us that he loves us spontaneously. "Mommy, i-yooooooo".
-He has a little boy haircut (as opposed to a big boy, layered haircut) and I love it.
-He sleeps soooooo good.
-He really is pure joy!

The story of the little girl with the broken arm...

Okay, I know it's driving some of you nuts that all of my posts are out of order! I'm sorry to report that I still have several more that I owe you, and they will not be in order either. But once I'm caught up, I plan to stay caught up!


Alright, so here's how Kallie broke her arm. She was in the living room and I was in the kitchen. Shane had just bought us a new Hoover Windtunnel vacuum cleaner. It was sitting out in the middle of the living room. Kallie was purposely balancing herself on the hose of the vacuum cleaner, and when it rolled she fell face forward onto the hardwood floor. It was such a loud fall that I went running from the kitchen, somehow knowing that she had to have hurt something. I scooped her up and quickly noticed that her little arm was curved. It was very obviously broken. Being the non-panicker that I am (ha!) I quickly gathered up all of the stuff we would need for the hospital & made arrangements for the boys to go to the Cuppett's. I think I was crying as much as Kallie. Shane warned me that it appeared to be a pretty bad break and that they would have to set it. Kallie was obviously crying alot at this point too.


So we went straight to Cook Children's Hospital (we've learned from past experience that when you try to go somewhere else, they just end up sending you to Cook's anyway...if it's a bad injury, that is) and the waiting room was packed. I signed her in and wrote something on the sign-in sheet like, "appears to be compound fracture, severe, CURVED" and they called us back within 5 minutes. The nurse in triage warned us that they would either have to put her to sleep to set it or they would have to do a conscious sedation. I was not feeling very brave at this point. Kallie, on the other hand, had stopped crying and was already talking about what color cast she was going to get.


They took us back to x-ray. The doctor finally came out and said that her radius was broken right in half, but luckily the other bone (what's it called?) was just fine. BIG sigh of relief. He also said that the break had a 15 degree angle to it, and they don't set anything under 20 degrees because they usually straighten out on their own. BIGGER sigh of relief! So she got a temporary cast that night and a hot pink cast that went all the way up her arm the next day.


She wore the pink cast for 3 weeks, and then she was able to get that one switched out for a short purple cast for the last 3 weeks. Now at least she is able to bend her elbow. She gets this one off on June 9th, just in time for summer!


Everywhere we go people ask her how she broke it. We have gotten so many funny looks from the response, "I fell off the vacuum cleaner." Since she's had her cast on she has fallen down the stairs head first, fallen out of several chairs, hurt her broken arm by running into things...I really don't know what to do with her. I don't know how to teach someone not to be clumsy. I'm afraid she gets it honest. In case you don't know what I'm talking about, read this. Anyway, we now have a both-feet-on-the-floor-at-all-times policy for all the women in our house.


This was in triage. Daddy made a splint out of cardboard and wrapped it for her. Did you know that if God didn't call him into ministry he would have been an EMT?



This was right before we went home. Cook's is so good...once Kallie got stickers & popsicles she pretty much forgot about her arm.



The long pink cast...



The short purple cast...

You can see by this picture that she is already breaking the both-feet-on-the-ground-at-all-times policy.

Bring on the summer!!!

We stayed home for Memorial Day & enjoyed some family togetherness! We had been invited to swim with some friends but had to decline because of Kallie's cast, so we decided to improvise & enjoy some backyard sprinkler fun! Daddy grilled ribs & sausage & we had chocolate cake...yum!



These two were big chickens & mostly just sat on the side & watched Seth...


Of course, Daddy had to antagonize them with the water hose...

So I'll dance with Cinderella...

I have to tell you, I had put off posting these pictures simply because we have been so busy, and now that I'm finally looking at them, they've taken on a whole new meaning. Please continue to pray for Steven Curtis & Mary Beth Chapman and their family. My heart has been so heavy for them this week.

Shane took Kallie to the "Cinderella Ball" while I was away on my ladies retreat last month. Kallie was soooooo excited about it! It took us a while to get her to understand that Cinderella herself would not really be there. (This was a charity event to support the Boys & Girls Clubs of Arlington). She wanted to look like Cinderella, so she wore a blue dress & the Cuppett girls put her hair up in a bun like Cinderella's. They enjoyed some father/daughter dancing, but Shane said she was sound asleep on him before the real dancing started.




Shane took her to Claire's in the mall to get some magnetic earrings. He had the boys with him too and said they were all quite the sight walking into Claire's together, double stroller & all. Apparently, when Kallie heard Shane ask the clerk about earrings, she assumed he was going to make her get her ears pierced and started bawling. It took a while to calm her down & convince her that the magnets wouldn't hurt, but once she understood she was so excited!


Shane said that she enjoyed the dancing, but her favorite part of the evening was the salad! This girl is such a rabbit!

Bye-Bye Pacie, Hello Monkey!

You are now entering a pacie-free zone...that's the motto at our house now! We took Luke to Build-A-Bear just a few weeks before his second birthday to send the pacies away forever. We were planning on waiting until his birthday, but the pacie addiction had gotten severely out of hand, and he was actually developing a rash around his mouth. Unfortunately, it happened to be the week before he was to spend two weeks with Nana and Papa. They were not too thrilled about the timing of that!! But it worked out just fine. It has now been a month, and would you believe that he STILL asks for it?? Our other two never seemed to think about it after we took them away. Luke is persistent, that's for sure!

This was his first choice. Daddy quickly vetoed that decision & talked him into a monkey.


Luke & the unstuffed monkey...


Enjoying his last suck...


Watching the lady stuff the monkey...he wasn't too sure about this part.


This was the face he made right before he started screaming. Not because the pacies were gone, but because the stuffing machine scared him.


Watching from Daddy's lap...


Giving "Sassie Monkey" his first bath. (Named such because Luke called his pacie his "sassie".)


All smiles...


He brought the monkey straight to the kitchen table and started taking care of it. How sweet!!


The three monkeys sharing a bedtime story...


The big moment...

Easter in May?

So my Easter pictures are 2 months late, but who's counting? Easter came super early this year. I'm still confused about who gets to decide such things. If I could talk to them in person I would explain to them how difficult it is to find Easter outfits that work nicely with SWEATERS and JACKETS!! What do you want to bet that it's a bunch of men that decide?? (And for those of you who think I'm serious, I know it's got something to do with the phases of the moon, blah-blah-blah).


Okay, so here we are, pretending that it's warm outside for the sake of cute pictures. It was the year of green.

The girl...




The boys...




The baskets...




Hmmmm, should I pick my nose or open my basket?








Getting ready for the big hunt...



We went over to our friends, the Nystrom's, for Easter dinner. After we ate, the big kids hid eggs in the backyard for the little kids. They decided to send them out in age order. Luke went out first, and then 30 seconds later Kallie went out, and so on. We were afraid the kids older than Seth would get all the eggs before the little ones knew what to do. Boy, we were wrong! Kallie was as fast as lightening. Her basket was overflowing before the big kids got out there. In the end she had to give them some of her eggs!




This was Luke's kind of holiday. He didn't even know what to do with himself with such an abundance of candy. He wasn't interested at all in the hunting, just the eating. We tried to get him to fill up his basket, but he stopped to open every egg & eat what was inside.




The dog kept trying to get into his basket.



Here's Kallie counting her loot...




This baby's crazy for chocolate!




I absolutely love these pictures of Kallie. Nana sent matching dresses for Kallie & her baby. Aren't they sweet?






Thank you Jesus for Easter morning!!