Growing up and growing out....

Luke turned 2 1/2 this week. On Tuesday, he hit the 30-month mark. Two and a half! Its a little hard for me to believe! It is going by so quickly and I see him changing and maturing so fast! Ty and I find ourselves often turning to each other in amazement or fascination as he says or does something that seems like it should be beyond his age. But the truth of the matter is that he is doing just what he is supposed to be! About a week ago, he began singing the entire ABC's song, without missing any letters AND with including the last "now I've sung my ABC's....next time won't you sing wiff me?" part. Its adorable! I've been trying to capture it on video, but he turns into a shy boy when the camera is turned on him. Yes, he's my kid, but I think he's smarter than a whip!! His vocabulary is amazing and it is a very rare occasion that I can't understand what he's trying to tell me. He can count to 11 all on his own, knows most of his colors (even if he likes to be silly and tell you something is green when it's actually red or some other color), and he is pretty self sufficient in getting things around the house for me, or helping get dressed. I think I can thank our daily dose of Sesame Street for the ABC's and counting! I don't think that he could have gotten THAT much repetition from me alone! He definitely loves his Sesame Street and Elmo! And Thomas the Train, Curious George and his Baby Einstein videos. I'm still surprised at the latter.....I thought he would have FOR SURE grown out of those Einstein videos by now, but he asks for them daily. He calls his current favorite "My Tow" (read 'my cow') because its one about farm animals and starts off with pictures of cows. Funny kid.

Some other current favorites.....racing for the phone to hand it to me before I get to it when it rings, walking over to whatever is close by, planting a little kiss on it and saying "I love my.....(fill in the blank), listening for the trash man to arrive on Fridays and RACING as fast as he can to the window to watch it dump the trash, helping with anything and everything possible that I am doing around the house, playing "Tickle Lukey" with Daddy when he gets home from work, and playing keep away with us and his Snuggie (or bear or some other toy) with Ty and I. He loves to entice us to play by grabbing his Snug, walking over to us and saying "No!! Dat's MY Snuggie!!!" and then having us grab it away from him and repeat what he just said. He's really into the pretend play now too and anything that has to do with his little play buddies. He LOVES Hudson, Matthew and Megan, his cousins, Aiden and Owen......just about anyone his size that he plays with semi-regularly. There are just so many things.....he is just so much fun!

Though he is rarely naughty or gets into things that he's not supposed to, and he IS so much fun, he still has his share of terrible-two moments. It wouldn't be a normal day without a tantrum, timeout, hitting or being just a little naughty. But that's his job...he's two, after all! In the scheme of things, he really IS a good little boy! The terrible two's really aren't that terrible. I'm afraid we might be in for it with the next kiddo! We've pretty much lucked out with him!

So......are you tired of me braggin' 'bout my kid yet?! :) Let me just brag a little more via some pictures I took the other day to commemorate his 2 1/2 year milestone. You can see how he's growing up! He looks more and more like a little boy each day....

Isn't he a cutie pie??!!!


Being silly....


And as for the 'growing out" part of my title.....I turned 32 weeks yesterday. I am officially 8 months along now! And with that monthly milestone comes my next installment of belly pictures. I posted the progression the other day, and for those of you who scroll down to the bottom of the blog occasionally, you've already seen it. But here it is....


Heidi was asking about my maternity pictures that Sarah kindly took for me, so I think that in the next few days, I'll try to post a few of those. They really turned out nice! But I'm blogging from the laptop this morning, and don't have access to those pics here, so I guess it'll have to wait.

For now, I am off to cook up some French Toast for my boys for breakfast and enjoy our lazy Saturday morning together! Tonight Ty and I will have a date night....our first time out alone in I don't even know how long! I'm excited. Meemaw will come to watch Luke and Ty and I will head out for dinner and a movie. It may be one of the last times we get out like that for a LONG time, especially given our track record for how often we do it! :) Hope you all enjoy your weekend as well!