Happy 1st Birthday, Luke!

17-ish April, 2008

(the weekend we came home from the hospital)

(my jaundiced boy)

17 April 2009

How are you one already?! Here you are, rightfully turning one. Good boy. ;)

Luke, allow me to brag on you a bit. We are so proud of you, son. I can tell by the way your Dad asked Mamama if you seemed much changed since Christmas. Since you are still stationary, I chuckled to myself, but also was touched by the pride in your daddy's voice as he asked. Of course, you have changed since Christmas! You are our big boy and you even tell us with your hands sometimes! You can clap, feed yourself, and do the splits in any direction. You giggle at your sister more often and look even more adoringly at me, if possible. Your smile fills and lights up your entire face and your chuckle is from the bottom of your belly and bubbles out at the most unexpected times. You have the biggest Mama crush known to infants and I am finally feeling honored instead of baffled (or smothered ;)). You love being outside, which means you will be my little companion for life, or at least until you are too cool for your mom (which is definitely hard to imagine right now).


As for your sweet little looks, you are pure McCord...

-and your dad calls you a McCordian- rightly so. You are a precious combination of your grandfather, grandmother, uncle, and mother, and we are tickled to see ourselves in your face and even your mannerisms. Your mouth is my dad's, your eyes are my mom's, but set like my brother's. Your hands are deliciously chubby and I have never seen more movement anywhere. You gesture and wring your hands like my brother, too. I think you two could sit and do nothing together for hours. And your feet...

...don't even get me started. I think the Lord gave you those feet to forever endear you to me. I LOVE those feet. They are plump and tender. They are the softest little things I have ever felt (except for under your chin) and you treat them like hands- they spin in circles when you are excited or tickled and delight me to no end.

I believe that you are an introvert. I know that you are fiercely loyal and very loving. I can see that you are contemplative and very observant. You like to see how things work and touch various textures, much like your father and mother respectively. You definitely like to watch what's going on before getting involved- so I am guessing that you are cautious. You have a great sense of humor and seem to intuitively know when something's funny. I am antsy to see who you become, too.

I pray that you put your trust alone in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins. I pray that He calls you to Himself soon and that He will keep you as pure and innocent as possible until that day and thereafter. However, as Jesus advised, I pray that you also be shrewd and not easily fooled or manipulated. I pray that you will love righteousness and despise wickedness. I pray that you will be a lover of people and one to quickly show mercy. From what I think I know of you, I pray that you will be a gentle, but firm leader and a compassionate, loving husband. I pray that you will be faithful to the Lord and to your family the way Christ has been faithful to us. I also pray that you will be confident in our love and joy in and for you, regardless of what you do. Being a younger sibling, it will be natural to compare yourself and honestly for us to compare you to Rebekah. However, you could not be more different and from the day I knew I was pregnant with you, I have prayed for that very thing- that you would have your own identity and not be consumed by a shadow. You are you and that is the very best thing you could be.

Luke, I love you more than I could ever express. I am not always so good at this Mommy thing and tend to make things harder than they have to be. Forgive me when I mess up- it will happen a lot. Just know that you are my boy, my little man, and you have brought me great joy.

p.s. HUGE thanks and props to RO (aka Rachel Owens), who not only took these pics for FREE, but also pursued doing it, as if we were doing her a favor....Rachel, seriously, these are wonderful and I am so thankful.

Easter and Mamama

This is the best I could get. Luke cracks me up- such a McCord! I can see my dad, my brother, and my uncle James in this picture. (A big shout-out to my cousin Heather and my aunt Korrin for all the wonderful hand-me-downs from Kendall and Karsin! We love them)

All eggs in Scotland are...brown. There are no dyeing kits anyway, so a la Sterner style, we colored them instead....and I made a lot of egg salad. Anyway, Josh helped color and I came to find that each member of our family had been represented, including grandparents. Scroll down for Papa. (by the way, I was not thrilled with my egg salad and threw it away after one lunch. Sadly, a few hours later, Rebekah asked, "Mommy, where's that yummy salad that you made into eggs?" Very sad.)

VERY excited that my MOM CAME TO VISIT!!! In fact, I awakened sweet little one (R) to accompany me to the airport because she (and my mom) would have been devastated to miss the arrival. Although R played shy, she quickly became quite exuberant about Mamama's visit. I am sooooo happy to share my home and life with my mom and we are having a blast already.

I was also super-pleased with the fantastic clothes Mamama brought my kids!!! You'll be seeing them in my posts. Friday is Luke's birthday, so we'll celebrate then, but Mamama will not be here in July for Rebekah's 3rd birthday, so we celebrated yesterday. Rebes was thrilled with the following princess dress- great job, Mom! She also got some wonderful books and crafts for her growing enthusiasm to make things and just basically be messy. :)

Why crawl when you can reach all things by leaning over? That's right, you have not missed my "he's crawling" post because it doesn't exist. Sigh. My boy is the limberest thing alive and can contort himself to get things. This is not his best stretch, but it's what I photographed. This also begs the question, why do all kids pick up tiny pieces of dirt and proceed to eat them but not peas on their tray?

Poor Luke has been under the weather (laringitis), so Mamama has become accustomed to much more crying that Luke usually does. :( However, I am confident that he will go back to his "I'm pretty happy as long as my mom is within 2 feet of me" normal self soon. I think his top tooth coming in (soon!) will help, too. (Incidentally, I randomly dropped the morning bottle today and he survived, though he practically dived for the nightime one, poor lad.).

Couldn't resist showing you my "I'm happy I don't have laringitis yet"pics.

My new do. I love it here. I experimented with flipping out the back and don't like it as much. I will try to go back to this next time I wash and dry it, which is a 2 times a week affair for me, so once I've done it, I'm stuck with it for half a week. ;) Don't judge me, I'm just that cool.

3rd tooth

Just wanted to report that Luke cut his 3rd tooth (all 3 are on the bottom) and has several more on the way (one almost thru on the top and 2 more I can kind of see). :) He also actually held his own cup today. No, he did not get any milk, that would require lifting and sipping- way too much energy for that. Baby steps, people...

Daffodils

There may not be leaves on the trees or temps over 50, but we sure do have some lovely daffodils! They're blooming all over the city and it's gorgeous!!

Here are some shots of my bekah and Luke having fun in the flowers.

Carrie- you wanted to see a Bekah-sized sleep sac- here it is!

And for fun- sporting her new shades...as long as nobody's using this here walker, I'll make it my car, she thinks to herself...there's something wrong with a child being able to climb in and out of the walker...? Luke wants nothing to do with it, by the way, and acts like he's being tortured when in it. :)

Amsterdam week, part 2

It's funny- last week already seems so far away! Most of Wednesday was spent at Kate's, with trips home for naps. :) We got to the point that R was truly disoriented when we didn't go to Miss Kate's for a meal. :)

At Kate's-

Thursday was actually spent at home mostly- we were supposed to go to Melissa's to visit with her and Jamie, but Luke was sound asleep and Rebekah needed some home time, so we canceled and hung around here. We did stroll thru campus b/c it was lovely, but it was slow-paced and nice. I also got a call from a girl from church who needed help with her 11-month-old boy. She needed us to watch him for a couple hours - no big deal except that I had really been looking forward to seeing Josh and reestablishing our own family time- Sam ended up being there when we got home from the airport (before Josh had gotten to see the kids), but to my surprise, Rebekah did fine with him when she woke up. Luke, on the other hand seemed baffled that Daddy brought another baby (and a crawling one at that!) home with him and took some time warming up to both. :) However, he ended up being just fine. Sam, on the other hand, bless his heart, was crazy tired and ended up crying quite a bit. Poor little guy.

This is just for fun- I finally remembered to take a pic of Rustico- literally across the street from church. You may recall that this is our favorite Italian restaurant and we go about every other Friday to partake of their lunch specials- yummy! All the waiters know us now and love to smile at our kids. Last time, we even met the owner, his wife, and their 2-yr-old little boy ad they even treated us to some ice cream! Luke was a big fan, but did get an ice cream headache. :(

This morning at church, showing off her "craft" and flushed cheeks...she loves her big girl class!!

This is our other favorite restaurant- The Ashvale. It was voted the #1 UK fish place and is wonderful! I LOVE that it is super kid-friendly, too. Lots of toys, TONS of empty areas (on a Sunday afternoon anyway) to explore, and the cute boat you'll see farther down. For 6 or 7 pounds, you can get either a 2 or 3 course meal- Josh gets the 2-course: chowder and fish with peas and fries. I take one for the team and get the 3-course: fried mushrooms, chicken, peas, and fries, and then this wonderful caramel apple pie with cream and ice cream. Wow. Suffice it to say that we did not eat much of a dinner tonight!

Am I really posting this???

Only because Luke has had a very traumatic week am I actually owning up to all this!

So, you already know that Josh was out of town this week (safely back, thank you!). The kids and I had a great time, but poor Luke! I foolishly set him on the very edge of my bed while grabbing a sweatshirt for myself. As I turned my back, I told Rebekah, who was playing with him, not to move so he wouldn't fall. As I told my family, famous last words. She did in fact move (maybe to watch him fall) and he face-planted into the carpet, leaving a yellow bruise on his nose and carpet burn above his lip. We cried together, but truth be told, other than a bad mood, he is no worse for the wear and the bruise disappered that day.

Sadly, the next day, as is his lazy custom, Luke decided to quit helping support his body weight on my hip and just went slack, thus banging his head on the hard metal door on our building. Another good cry and bad mood. :(

(Billy - this is for you)

Today, he decided to just start off in a bad mood- I kid you not, the child just fussed off and on the first half of the day. He has 3 teeth I can see below the gums and I am blaming them. :) Anyway, he had a shorter morning nap (1 hr 15 min), so I had to put him down earlier in the afternoon, thsu making me worry he would nap poorly again. R was a wreck at play group, so I figured she would crash. Well, I was totally backwards. She had an imaginary picnic in her bed and Luke crashed for 3 hours, at which point I awakened him. He seemed in much better spirits and even helped me make dinner. :) So, the real trouble began at dinner. My stomach started doing somersaults and communicating just general discontent. I tried to go to the bathroom to no avail. Took some Tums. We decided to take a walk against my better judgment. I didn't feel like messing with a stroller, so I strapped Luke to my front and off we went. On the way back, the grumbling began again. I felt like I needed to run to our flat. As it was, I was very rude to our neighbors as I brushed by, fumbled with the key, jogged into the bathroom, and barely made it to the bathroom- poor baby still strapped on. Meanwhile, Rebekah is happily eating ice cream with her no-good father :) and asks "Mommy, how's your deuce?" (Thanks, Josh.) I would never have posted this except it gets worse and needs to be shared. (Maybe you disagree). Tomorrow, we're having dinner with friends and don't want to have to rush out for kids' baths. So, tonight was bath night. In the midst of bathing Luke, it begins again. No biggie, right? The toilet is literally 2 feet away, what can happen? REBEKAH can happen. In one swift move, she decides to help bathe Luke, thus knocking him UNDER the water!! Mid-poop (yes), I say, "Oh, crap! Oh, crap!" (ironic) and lunge for my submerged baby who is madder than a hornet, but thankfully okay after he spit up all the water he swallowed. Sadly, my body still needs to do what it needs to do, so little Buddy, wet and naked, is on my lap again for the experience ...sigh...this reminds me of when Rebekah water-boarded him as a brand-new baby because she was trying to give him a drink of water since he was crying. If he makes it to his first birthday in a couple weeks, I'll be astonished.