First Ever Video!!!!!!!!!!

Celebrations!!!! I finally got a video to upload!!!!

This is our little boy walking-and he is just wearing a diaper and shoes courtesy of Cody, he thought it would be funny. He was right!

Introducing our little toddler! Pt 2

Now I can fill you in on everything else that has happened since the holiday season.

• Maxwell Joseph Lukas turned 1 on Jan 8 2010 *tear* Where did the year go?
  

  
  Jan 8 2009, 7:30AM

7lbs 5oz 21 inches

Jan. 8 2010

23lbs 32inches

• He now has 13 teeth and counting. He continues to bite anything that gets close to his mouth, including mommy while nursing. This has resulted in almost complete banishment from the boob. We are currently in the process of weaning him entirely-a long process since I am somewhat lazy in that area-it always seems like a quick and easy fix-just let him nurse....until he chomps down!


• He started walking the week of his birthday. He wasn't so interested in it until the next week when Baker came to visit. B turned 4 eight days after Max's birthday, so we did a joint birthday the next week. It was a ton of fun and hopefully a tradition that we will get to carry on for a few years-or until joint birthdays are no longer "cool"! So when Baker got here and started running around Max discovered that he couldn't keep up on all fours-thus the motivation to become vertical! Within a day our little boy really started going and hasn't slowed down since.

Happy to just be moving!

Now nothing under 40inches is safe

• He doesn't say much. To date the only real word he has said is "dadda" and as far as I can tell, he applies that to everything. He does know who "dadda" is and if I tell him to go bring Dadda a car he will do just that. However, he will also point to the bowl of noodles he is eating a say "dadda" or pat a DVD case and call it "dadda". So, while our language skills leave something to be desired, he is learning. If I ask him if he is ready to read a book he will point to his bookcase and grunt in that direction. Yes, grunting is his favorite and most frustrating mode of verbal communication. Lets just leave it at-it is a work in progress.
  
• He is now eating real food-THANK YOU GOD!!! He refuses to eat oatmeal, apple sauce or anything else that might be confused as baby food. He also has ZERO interest in "toddler food" like the ready made meals by Gerber. I never really intended to feed him those on a regular basis but out of curiosity I bought a couple and let him try them. His final answer-YUCK! He wouldn't let me get more than one bite past his lips and I can see why. Those little things are nasty and bland. The container said it was one serving and that one serving contained 450g of sodium-is it just me or does that seem excessive? Not to mention-for that much sodium it should taste spectacular but it doesn't. (I will go home and double check-but I am pretty sure it said 450g not 450mg-hmmmm-now I am second guessing) Anyway-I am not a nutritionist and if someone knows how much is a "healthy" amount feel free to enlighten me-I am always up to learn something. So you know what he wont eat, here are a few of his faves: pizza, cheeseburgers (he will NOT eat it without cheese), chili, spaghetti, tacos, cooked sweetened carrots, any bread. We haven't let him have any dairy-except cheese in/on things, no honey and no eggs. It may be a little silly but since those are a few of the most common allergy aggravaters we have opted to skip them until he is 18 months. There are plenty of other things in the world to eat. Oh-he LOVES guacamole-a child after my own heart!
  
• He currently love to dance to any music he hears and just yesterday he started singing along-very sweet!

• I will use another post to fill you in on our adventures in sleep training! Fun Fun!

Here are a few more pics to wrap this entry up-enjoy!

This is the weekend that Max started walking-he wouldn't let Baker get out of his sight!

Thank you Baker for being so patient!

Happy Birthday to both of the birthday boys!

Max's first introduction to snow-isn't he just the cutest little bear ever!

He is learning that books are not for eating-this is the first one that has captured his interest. All hope is not lost!

Introducing our little toddler!

OK-so I have missed a lot-more like a TON in the past month. In my defense-Max is now walking and sprouting teeth faster than I can keep up. Before I get to all of his milestones I need to tie up Christmas....

I said in the last post that I would explain what our "chairs" were. My whole life we have had them-it is just what mom does instead of wrapping all of our gifts. Each child gets a chair with their initial on it and on Christmas morning it is covered with all our little gifts like new socks, chocolate, a new flashlight, a few books and other smaller items that were from mom, dad and "Santa". The items on our chairs were what we got to enjoy before Mass-the gifts and breakfast were after.
So there you have it-we had a great Christmas!

Its the most wonderful time of the year!

I truly believe that Christmas is the single best and most wonderful, perfect time of the year. When I was a child, nothing even came close to comparing to the excitement of waking up on Christmas morning and sneaking out of bed to go see the tree, your stocking and best of all, your chair! (I will explain more fully in a moment.) My three sisters and I always shared a bedroom growing up and we always made each other promise that whoever woke up first would wake all the others up. Mom and dad never minded, as long as we didn't wake them up before 6am! It didn't matter if it was 4am-we would dig out our flashlights and go plug in the Christmas tree lights and have whispered fits over our little treasures. It was perfect-every single year! These are the things I want to make sure Max gets to be a part of. I want him to experience that same kind of excitement and joy. I love many things in life, but one thing that ALWAYS makes me happy is the sight of a Christmas tree after dark, all lit up without any other lights on in the house. It reminds me of how much joy I have in my life and how much I have had for as long as I can remember. Hopefully I will be able to give him similar memories-and it may be a little early, but I tried to start with this year. And so, let us commence our picture narrative of the first Lukas family Christmas!

(Once again, I can't turn the stupid picture around!) We are planning to make the tree decorating a family ordeal-Max was obviously too small to help with that so he was our light bulb checker! I always hated that job anyway.

He soon moved on to bigger and better things-like hotwheels and the piano!

See-a family ordeal!

All our pretty ornaments. I don't believe in a "themed" tree. I just wasn't what I grew up with. I think they are absolutely beautiful and perfect for other homes, but the only theme I want on my tree is one of memories. The ornaments may be hideous in years to come, like a dog hand-painted by a 3 year old or a picture frame glued together in art class, but that is all part of the fun to me!

He made the most adorable Santa you have ever seen. But, when we took him to see Santa at our bank........not so cute! He screamed and shook he was soo scared! So, we took the token picture of baby's first meeting with Santa and moved on.

Have you ever seen a cuter mini Santa?! We put his outfit on him for Mom and dad's annual Christmas Tree Decorating party-he was the life of the party as usual.

He accompianied me while I played Christmas Carols-we make quite the duo~

Ready for bedtime-all clean and yummy.

Lizzy couldn't make it to the tree decorating at Mom and dad's so our cousin Devon is playing Liz!

Max and Daddy on Christmas Eve

More Christmas Eve-I LOVE his dimple!

Ta Da! It is Christmas morning! All dressed up and no where to go-we had our first white Christmas in years and this meant that the road was solid ice, so no Christmas Mass for the first time in my memory! Not a good start, but things thawed and we were able to continue on with the rest of the traditional Christmas day stuff.


Perfect!
Me and my beautiful son!

Slightly Behind

Wow! I didn't realize just how badly I was slacking until I noticed it was 2010 and I have no posts about Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year! Not to mention the fact that today is Max's first birthday! That will have to be a different story. So....

We had Thanksgiving and it was good! Need I say more? Lots of yummy food (that I didn't cook!) and lots of family. (not yummy!) So here are some pictures to illustrate further.
This was after our first round of pigging out on yummy delicious food!

Ding ding! Round Two!

The only thing Max would eat all day were the rolls-not that I blame him-they are soooo goood!
Now let us move on to Christmas....