Christmas lights

At a park we like to go to, they have a greenhouse and they decorate it with lights. We went this year and it was pretty cool. Next year we need to not go on the last day in the last 2 hours that it was open because it was pretty busy. We had fun and I brought a thermos of hot chocolate that came in handy when we had to wait outside for a few minutes before we went in. Lucas liked touching the plants and the lights.

A visit to see Santa

We took Lucas to see Santa a few days ago fully expecting him to cry and not like Santa. That was not the case. He loves men and Santa didn't scare him. It was so cute. We were so proud of him. We are so happy with how the pictures turned out. Lucas looks adorable. His moose sweater is so perfect too. I hope you enjoy these pictures too!
Merry Christmas

14 months old

This little guy is 14 months old. I just weighed him this morning and on our scale it says that he is 19.6lbs. When we try to get his jammies on at night he loves to jump up and run around in his diaper until we catch him. And he usually steals one of our phones. We still have him in his infant carseat, but we did look at them the other day so he will soon be upgraded to a convertible carseat. Very fancy.

Lucas now has 12 teeth. His molars all popped in, no wonder why he has been such a drooler lately. He walks like a pro and is getting really fast. He learned how to climb down the stairs only after a couple tumbles. He loves opening the cupboards that has the pots and pans in it. He will pull out a pot and lid and play with it for a long time, several times a day. He likes brings us things: pots, toys, stuffed animals, books, anything. We know he is tired when he brings us a book and climbs into our laps. The other day Ryan was laying on the floor and Lucas just laid down and snuggled up to him. He is such a sweet boy. This morning he was playing and then just came back to me and cuddled on me. Those are some of my favorite moments.

We put the Christmas tree up a couple of weeks ago when Lucas was asleep. When he first saw it, he was really surprised. He doesn't bother it too much. We have a nativity that he can play with and we find pieces to that all over the house. Christmas is only 10 days away! We love Jesus Christ and are trying to teach Lucas, starting at a very young age, the reason for Christmas. We hope that everyone has a happy and safe holiday season.

Thankful

We went to my Grandma's for Thanksgiving this year. Have you seen Napoleon Dynamite? The egg farm on it is my grandparent's and so that is where we were. There was tons of family and tons of amazing food. We had 45 people there and 31 pies! It was a long drive but well worth it. Lucas did great in the car and was so happy when he was there. He loved my uncles for some reason, but wouldn't go near my Grandma or aunts. He recently started doing this fake laugh and sometimes would just stand in the middle of a group of people and laugh.

Here is Lucas' Thanksgiving dinner:
And the famous pies:
Lucas taking a bath in the blue tub with his cousin Skyler:
This was many years ago in the same blue tub: Me (about 18 months old), cousin Russell, and sisters Karen, Gina, and Jill. How did we all fit in there?!?

This is one of the times when he was so tired and just let my sister Karen cuddle with him. It was so cute. Climbing up onto the stool, what a clever boy!

"Don't look at me, I am trying to get into something that I shouldn't"

We are very thankful for all of our many blessings. We have been so blessed. We are thankful for family, a warm home, good food, and especially Lucas and his birthparents. We were looking at what we wrote 2 years ago for my grandma's thankful wall. I wrote "One step closer to adopting and hope for the future." We knew that something was going to happen in the next year and we couldn't have guessed how amazing Lucas would be and how grateful we are to be his parents.

Here is a funny story: The other day we were over at Ryan's parent's house. Lucas went into the kitchen and was opening up the cupboard under the sink. Ryan started to tell him No and Lucas then pointed at Ryan and gabbered like he didn't want him to say No. Then when Ryan walked into the kitchen Lucas would run the other way like he didn't want to get in trouble. He did it a few times and it was really funny. It was like he was cursing Ryan for telling him no.

Outtakes

We usually take quite a few pictures of Lucas in his carseat trying to get one for his monthly picture. Lately there have been some very funny ones so we decided to do outtakes of them (you can click on them to make them bigger):
11 months

12 months

13 months

This will probably be the last month of these pictures since he is getting bigger and will soon graduate to a bigger carseat. I need to think of another way to chart his growth.

Lights

Lucas loves turning off the light in his room when he wakes up and he just realized that there is a light switch exactly his height.

Ryan had just changed his diaper and sometimes doesn't like wrestling him to get his pants back on hence the pants-less boy.

Lucas walking like a big boy

Lucas has been walking much more everyday. He falls a lot still, but he gets right back up and tries again. The only problem with him walking now is that he has a few bumps and bruises from some of his falls.

Lucas' birthday video

Ryan put together this video for Lucas' birthday party. It is about 11 minutes long. It is a great video of Lucas growing this last year. We love Lucas so much and are so happy that he is a part of our family.

Lucas walking

He has been getting better and better everyday. It is so fun to watch him. He must be getting new teeth because he has been drooling like crazy.

Halloween

We celebrated Halloween over a few days including a church party, costume photo shoot, and trick or treating.

Lucas has been taking his first steps and it is so fun to watch him learn how to walk. He still prefers crawling, but he is slowing getting the whole walking thing. I will post of video of one of the first days of him walking.

World Series Jammies-we have loved watching some amazing baseball games

Costume photo shoot at my sister's and then my friend has an beautiful maple tree in her yard.

Halloween night:
With his cousins:


Trick or treating at his grandparent's
Cuddling and trying to eat more candy

Beautiful Fall

This fall has been so beautiful. I love fall. October is my favorite month. We have had great weather and the leaves are so amazing.

This was taken on October 20, which was our 5 year anniversary, and this is where we got married. It was a beautiful fall day just like the day that we got married.

I love how he has he hand on the pumpkin. This is at my sister's house.

A beautiful day in the park:

Birthday Party

With some help from my sister, I planned and executed a great 1st birthday party for Lucas. We had a wonderful time.

The invitations (designed and created by my sister):
The walkway leading to the party:

The entryway had these enormous balloons:

The candy station (the drawer had little boxes for the guests to put their candy):

The party room:

The cake! Of course because Lucas loves yellow ducks. I made this. I packed the bucket with styrofoam then pieced two cakes on top. I used cream cheese frosting tinted blue. The duck was made from a duck cake pan that I bought online. Then I decorated it with buttermilk frosting, m&ms for the eyes, and then their are marshmallows as the bubbles (another of Lucas' favorite things).

For snacks and appetizers we had salad with carmelized almonds and homemade poppyseed dressing, homemade pretzel tots with cheese, cream cheese frosting, and pumpkin spiced cream cheese frosting, pigs in a blankets (lil smokies wrapped in crescent rolls) and cocktail meatballs.

Chocolate milk was the beverage of choice in these cute bottles with yellow and white striped straws:

Lucas didn't always know what to do, but when opening some presents he would do his surprised face (not in this picture though)

I sewed the 1 and party hat on this onesie. I thought he looked so cute!

Cake time. He actually did end up blowing his candle out after we lit it after his 2 year old cousin blew it out for him.

We decided to give him the duck head:

The next day we took some pictures with the big balloons:

It was such a fabulous party. I don't think that I am going to do this elaborate of a party every year, but for his first, I wanted to do something extra special.