Chugga Chugga Choo Choo! Luke is Two!!!

(before I begin - props to Aunt Kristi for a precious birthday hat and shirt, and to Holly for the cutest invites ever! - www.shophollydays.com)
Our sweet Luke had his 2nd birthday the day after we moved into our new house - kind of hectic! We went out to celebrate at our fav Mexican restaurant, where he was serenaded w/ a birthday song and got to eat some cake (thanks Grammy!).
(Even Luke doesn't understand why they always smear whipped cream all over the birthday boy/girl's face)
If you ask him how old he is, he says, "Two!" and show you either his entire hand, or he'll hold up one finger on each hand.
He had been so excited about his choo choo birthday party that we had just one week after moving into our home. It was very hard getting everything together - moving furniture/boxes, painting 8 rooms, finding party supplies, etc. But, thankfully, with the help of a lot of people, especially Nanny, we got the party together just as people were walking in the door!


Luke loves choo choos, so that was this year's theme - All of the food was on top of "choo choo cars" and the desserts were all on a railroad track (cupcakes & marshmallow pop choo choos & cake pop "trees"). The actual cake, which really was for display since Luke can't eat eggs, came from publix.

We had a great time with lots of great friends and family over. The kids enjoyed eating some cake, opening, presents, and then pulling the strings on the pinata to race after all of the candy.
The birthday boy loves him some cake!


The pinata was a GI Joe pinata I found on clearance for $1 a Party City. But with a little decoupage and scrapbook paper, Luke had his own personalized pinata. :)

Train whistle party favors for all our friends
We generally forget taking a family picture at b'day parties, so we were thrilled to remember to take a picture with our family
and with all of the grandparents too!

It was such a fun way to celebrate Luke turning 2 years old. It's hard to believe that he's getting so grown up, but he's still as sweet as can be. The day of his party I asked him if had fun and he said "yes...cake...eat it...happy birthday to Luke...two!!!"
Now whenever it's someone's birthday, he still thinks it's his and he sings to himself.

We have tons more pictures from the party, but seeing as how it has taken me nearly 3 weeks to post this, I think we'll stick with a few pictures here and the rest will just make it in the baby book Another reason to come visit :)

Stationery card

Picture Window Blue Birth Announcement

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Moving On...

So we have now officially sold and left our first home. Kind of sad, but exciting at the same time. When we had the house built, Stephen and I were very newly married – only a few months into marriage. It was just us – no kids, no dog, both working – Stephen at E&Y and me at Oak Grove. Since then...we bought our dog, Sage. Stephen started working at Southern Company. We had our first son, Elijah. I stopped working. We had our second son, Luke. And here we are today.

There are lots of memories that were made in the house –

• telling Stephen I was pregnant w/ Elijah, in the garage (where he laughed for 5 min before coming inside to find me)
• walking into the house when Elijah was still in the NICU, seeing a poster that sweet Emily Key made with pictures of our new baby boy, and just crying realizing he should be with us
• bringing both our boys home from the hospital after they were born
• dancing around the bedroom to Nickel Creek with Elijah in our arms
• swinging with the boys on our back porch
• Stephen chasing the boys around the kitchen/den while I cooked dinner (always hitting my bottom every time they passed, saying “badonkey donk!”)
• the many sleepless nights we spent walking from our room to theirs when the boys were babies
• the front porch were the boys and I would anxiously wait for Stephen to come home and then, as soon as they saw his car come up the hill, they’d jump, scream, and get so excited to see their Daddy!
• Jogging around the neighborhood to the playground and pool
• Searching for caterpillars around the tennis courts for hours with Elijah, only to learn that they were not caterpillars that we were finding - they were centipedes...
  

The list could go on and on and on. There were lots of memories that we made there. But it’s the family who made the memories, not the house. We’ll make lots of new memories in our new home in a month! It’s a little scary leaving a great neighborhood and a location that we’re really happy with, and moving to a new place that you assume and hope is a great neighborhood and that it will be a great fit for your family, but you never know. It’s something we prayed about for a while and it’s the house that I felt, the first time we walked in it, that God was showing me all around the house little things that whispered “this is it!” So we just have to trust that God’s moving us to the right house/neighborhood for our family.

In the meantime, before our July 1^st (we hope!) closing date, we are living in Stephen’s mom’s “little house.” When they built their house out in McCalla, they built a guest house, which they call the “little house.” It has a woodwork shop for Larry and a complete guest house. They’ve rearranged things, let us use one of their garage bays for storing furniture, let us move ½ our house in the storage above the little house, and have just been so warm and welcoming. We’re storing the remainder of the furniture in Stephen’s old boss, Craig’s trailer and my dad’s trailer. We have TONS of projects we’re going to be working on while we’re waiting to move to Sandy Cove – fixing our large couch where Sage chewed it up, sanding/painting a dresser, headboard, desk, and bookshelves, painting/recovering seats for kitchen chairs, and a few more projects here and there. So less than a month to go!!!

The boys have been enjoying being roommates here. The first few nights were no problems at all - Luke just woke up an hour or so early with Elijah. =) But 2 nights ago, I went into their room about an hour after they were in bed, only to find Luke asleep in Elijah's bed! Then the next night, we told them that Luke was too little to sleep in Elijah's bed, so what did we see in the monitor 20 min after we laid them down? Elijah was in Luke's crib with him! The same thing tonight...I had to separate them. Brings back memories with me and Kristi. =) Good memories are still being made, even though we're not officially "home."

HILARIOUS - Elijah's last soccer game

Elijah just finished up his last soccer game tonight and it was quite a memorable game. Let me first say that he had progressed a lot throughout the season...

Game #1: Elijah stood and watched the other kids
Game #2: Elijah picked flowers and kept running them off the field to Mommy.
Game #3: Elijah went after the other kids, physically. Pushed, grabbed, tackled,...we had to remind him that he's supposed to go after the ball, not the other kids
Game #4: Elijah had to sit out 1/2 of the game b/c of bad behavior at home, but did pretty good running on the field.
Game #5: Elijah ran after the ball!!! Well, he ran after the other kids, watching the kids, then looking at the sidelines with a huge smile while he ran. And he actually kicked the ball! It was right near the sidelines, and I was so excited and screaming for him. Then he got so excited that he ran right off the field, in the middle of kicking the ball, to give me a big hug. SO adorable
Game #6: And that brings us to tonight...

Elijah didn't pick flowers. He didn't push the other kids. He didn't stand there.

What did he do?
He ran around the field, screaming like a WILD animal, with crazy hands and faces...

We were all laughing so hard! I can only imagine how bouncy the video camera footage is...Water break?!

But he did get the kick the ball several times and he ran pretty well
(mostly while yelling and making crazy faces!)

Afterward, Elijah and all of his teammates received medals. He was SO proud. He tried to convince us his medal was soft so that he could sleep with it. =)



FYI - Luke loved watching his big brother play soccer. I woke him up from his nap today and grabbed Elijah's cleats before he climbed (note, I did say "climbed") out of his crib. When he saw the cleats he started saying "Soccer game! Soccer game!....Run! Run!!!" He had a great time watching Elijah, moseying around the sidelines, munching on apples during the games. Just a few more years...

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!!We had a really nice Easter weekend up in Huntsville. Easter morning, wasn't quite as planned - Gram Gram (Lisa's grandmother) temporarily lost a little vision in her eye and had to go to the hospital. She's staying overnight just to make sure everything's okay, so please say a prayer for her! This morning, Elijah woke up absolutely bursting with excitement over the Easter Bunny coming. He was giggling with delight as he waiting to run downstairs to find his basket. After checking out their baskets and visiting Papa Jeff and Jerrie, we went to church and met the Easter Bunny at Valley Hill.
Then we did our traditional Easter riddles and Easter egg hunt with Uncle David, Aunt Kristi, Taylor and Riley. Just incase you don't know what I'm talking about, the Easter Bunny always brings the boys riddles to solve and sends them on a scavenger hunt all around the house, leading them to another riddle attached to presents, and they ultimately end up finding their basket. This year for their riddles, Elijah read words (go find your "pet," go find where Nanny keeps a juice "box", etc) and Luke named pictures of places (car, swing). Elijah and Luke held hands as they walked from one present place to another... They had so much fun searching for Easter Eggs too!!! They did great learning about the Easter story this year. Elijah can tell you all about why we celebrate Easter, explain all the resurrection eggs, tell you about places like Golgatha and the garden of Gesthemane, Joseph of Arimethea...getting a lot of the big words down. And it seems like he's truly understanding the basis of Easter and not just repeating facts he's learned.
Luke can tell you what is inside all of the resurrection eggs and if you say "what happened three days later?" He kind of sings "three days later" like from the song "the end of the beginning". He's not the clearest of talkers, but we can understand him most of the time. He talked the entire way up to Huntsville while Elijah slept. We couldn't believe he was talking so much, but then we kind of just realized that he had time to talk since Elijah was asleep and he was surely making the most of it. He is repeating everything! He was all about the "E Money" (aka Easter Bunny) this weekend. The way he says "car" and any other -ar word crack us up with his yankee accent. He still loves pointing out "boo buses," telling us something is "right there," asking to "touch it," saying "hey guys" out of the blue...He's quite the character and is showing us that more and more everyday!

A Day Out With Thomas the Train

Today we went to visit Thomas the Train

at the Heart of Dixie State Railroad Museum.

We went with our good friends,
Jonathan, Holly, and their little girl, Karidyn.

We took tons of pictures...
We took a train ride on the rail car right behind Thomas himself. The train ride lasted about 20 minutes or so. We rode on an open part of the train.

The kids got to pet some animals at the petting zoo. Luke was petting a baby chick & squeezed it just a little too hard! Unlike Luke, Elijah was very gentle with the animals. =)
When Luke pet the baby goat, he said, "ears," "eyes" (as I had to stop him from pointing the goat in the eye!), "mouth," "honk!"...
Elijah loved feeding the goats and petting all of the animal...

Luke saw him and tried feeding the animals the mulch off the ground! We got Luke some pet food so he could try too.

The kids enjoyed singing, dancing, and playing instruments along with some live music.
We took some pictures on some old trains... a few hours later we saw a sign warning people not to climb on the trains...oops!

What a fun family day full of great memories!