18 months!

The speed at which Lucas is developing and learning is so fast these days, that it now seems silly to write a monthly post about what he can do. It's no longer, "he can roll over to the left but not the right yet and he's swatting at his gym toys". Now, Lucas is making up games to play with us, can drink from a cup without supervision, can climb on any and everything fairly safely, and can buckle his own carseat chest harness. He can name and recognize 3 letters from his alphabet magnets (O, A and E are the only ones he's asked us to name so he can learn them so far), his speech is getting closer to understandable, and I can't even begin to name all the words he knows. Laith and I think he's pretty amazing and we're really enjoying watching him grow.
Lucas's current favorites are:
1. Rocks (we find small collections of them everywhere... in his juice cup, in a chair, in the hamper)
2, Dinosaurs (just caught him putting one in the toaster oven the other day- oh my!)
3, Animals (particularly pigs, cats, and monkeys)
4. Anything that growls- which, according to Lucas, includes coffee, rocks, and burritos. :)
5. Playing outside with, you guessed it, rocks. And also any push or ride-on toys.
6. Singing games like "the grand old duke of york" and "eensey weensey spider".

And finally, for those who care about such things, :) he's 32 inches tall and 20.8 pounds.

Feeding Annie

All of a sudden, our baby turned into a boy. Here he is with his daily "chore" of feeding Annie!

Meemom's Visit!

What a wonderful time we all had with Meemom in town! She came bearing gifts of dinosaurs and trucks and completely won Lucas over. He even let her read his pre-nap stories (usually a domain held exclusively by mama!) We went to the playground, planted flowers (thanks SOOO much, Mom! It's so nice to walk up to our front door now!), played in the backyard, and got a visit from my Uncle Bill who coincidentally was in Waco for a horse show. It was great to catch up with him and we all met Laith for lunch at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, Zocalo. Though we tried to keep things low-key and relaxed since my mom has MS and asthma, that's almost impossible with a toddler in the house. Fortunately, the weather was perfect for her asthma and the TX allergens aren't the same as her Arizona triggers so my mom had an amazing amount of energy during the visit. We REALLY appreciated all the help with cleaning, organizing, planting and Lucas-diverting! It was so much fun to include her in our daily-doings and show her a day in the life of Lucas. We miss you already, Meemom and can't wait to see you in July!

Neighbors

I'm so happy Lucas and Sufyan are such good friends and that they're right across the street from us! Every new mama needs another mama in the same boat to help her through the tough times and have adult-conversation with! Sometimes I feel like I'm living a very Mayberry existence- borrowing butter and lemon juice while in the middle of cooking dinner, dropping by for 10 min while one mom showers, walking to the coffee shop together, etc, etc. Thanks for being such a great friend Ravyn! :)