We are the champions!

The lucky baby comes through again! Even though he was only present for the first touchdown, Lucas was there as I watched USF (my alma mater, ranked #18 in the nation) beat West Virginia, the #5 team. Biggest win in school history. Lots of other things that are awesome about it as well, but if you didn't go there, you just wouldn't understand. I now retire to drink much Guinness. More pictures tomorrow, all.

Toodles!

Cutest Baby EVER

You may think the title of this post is a tad exaggerated, one might even say hyperbolic, but I don't care. Take a look at these professional portraits taken when Lucas was about a month old, and you try and say otherwise. Not even possible! So without further adieu, all 12 of the photos of the #1 baby ever, as voted by you, the viewer.


We had this one turned into an 8x10, and we're putting it up on the wall somewhere on our first floor.


I got a 5x7 of this one, and it's going on my desk at work. Daddy's little athlete.


This may very well be the cutest of the bunch, in my opinion. We have about 12 wallet-size photos of this one.




And in this corner...the Beast from the Belly!


Tarzan Boy! We got a 5x7 of this one to put up in his room since it has a jungle theme.


He's just made for Wall Street here. Or a frat. Either way.


This should go over well with the Ottawa Senators fans. Even though I plan to make him a football fan first and foremost, I'm sure he'll see (and play) an odd hockey game here or there. I think they do that in Canada. :)


Joe Cool.



This is the only "bad" photo of the bunch, but I find it amusing since you can tell he's not very happy posing. Okay, so much for his career in modeling.

New videos

If you haven't noticed, videos 2 and 3 have been added to yesterday's post.

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Lucas?

It was brought to my attention last night that I completely forgot to post the videos I mentioned in my last post. Haven't you all learned yet that I've got a memory like a goldfish?

So without further adieu, Marilu's "conversation" with Lucas, in 3 parts.



Part 2



and Part 3



We finally got the professional portrait pictures in the mail yesterday so I'll post them tomorrow.

Football Saturday!

I'm glad I waited to post pictures, because I got some really good pictures of Lucas during the late afternoon and early evening. I think you ought to get a kick out of these. In addition, check today's photo album since there's a lot of other good ones in there as well.

So as I mentioned earlier, Lucas got to see his first USF football game today. For those of you unaware, I went to the University of South Florida for my bachelor's degree from 1993-98. I'm a HUGE fan of our football team, and I intend to get Lucas hooked young. He's off to a good start as a good luck charm since USF rolled all over North Carolina 37-10. Let's home his luck holds this Friday when USF plays West Virginia, the 5th ranked team in the nation.



(Coincidentally enough, Marilu and I just watched the movie We Are Marshall, which is the true story about the rebuilding of Marshall University's football program after most of the team is killed in a plane crash back in 1970. I can't recommend it enough, and let me just say, it's a MAJOR tearjerker.)

Here's a picture of Lucas as Marilu prepares him for our walk earlier.


Now some mugging for the camera by his royal highness...



It's a little fuzzy, but I like this close-up picture I took in the garage after the walk.


Finally, Lucas makes a fashion statement.


Right before that last picture, Marilu had Lucas "talking," though it mostly consisted of him yelling at her. Tomorrow I'll put up a couple of videos from that "conversation."

Interlude

Got some pictures of Lucas watching his first USF football game, which I'll post a little bit later. Right now, Marilu is out so I have to keep the little guy occupied. Look for them tonight!

Blasts from the past

We didn't take any new pictures of Lucas today so I have no baby shots to show you tonight. However, I did spend a bunch of time organizing our older photos so if you have any desire to see pre-Lucas pictures (yes, they exist, amazingly enough), head on over to the photo albums. I've started with all of our pictures from 2002 and 2003, and I intend to add the rest as I find the time. These pictures are pretty much every photo we took during those years, except for the professional ones of our wedding in 2003. Those ones are scattered all over the place on our hard drives so it'll take an entire night just to consolidate them.

In the meantime, enjoy what we've put up. There are some pretty wacky ones mixed in with the normal stuff, but I'll leave it to you to find them. Though as a hint, check out the last one from the Christmas in Biloxi folder.

Note: The photo albums are listed in chronological order (for the most part), so you'll have to scroll to the bottom to see the 2002-03 albums.

End of the walk

We took a walk with Lucas earlier, and in order to let him sleep a little, we closed the top of the stroller. When we got home, I waited outside for Marilu to open the garage door (since we keep the stroller in there), and while I was waiting, I opened up the stroller. This was the sad, little sight that greeted us.


Man, did he look pathetic. However, a closer shot showed he was just in a reflective moment. As much as babies reflect, I suppose.

A new toof!

It appears Lucas may be getting his first tooth! If you click on his 'happy' picture from the last post and look at his lower gum, you can see a little bit of white that we're fairly sure is the beginnings of a tooth. It would definitely explain his crankiness as of late, and he's experiencing a few other symptoms as well, such as red cheeks. I think it's cool news though I imagine Marilu the breastfeeder may be shuddering at the idea of chompers. :)

On to the pics! We're jumping back to last Thursday for the first one. Sheri and Tracey (please forgive any misspellings of your names) came to visit Marilu, and that meant fellow rugrats-in-crime Logan and Thierry were on the scene as well. Logan, on the left, is several months older than the other two--Marilu just told me he's 7 months old--and Thierry is about a month older than Lucas. From my understanding, this is one of the few photos in which Logan wasn't trying to eat one of the other babies.


Sometimes, a little man just wants to relax with his stuffed animal.


Here's your closeup, Lucas!


Here he looks stumped.


I'm wasting no time getting him into one of my favorite activities...watching football! Well, until he can get out there and actually play.


And finally, a flipside to Lucas's last video. This time he's not exactly feeling like rainbows and sunshine.

Another milestone

Whoa! Almost forgot. Lucas is 3 months old today! Happy whatever-that-is, little guy!

(thanks to my mom for the reminder)

In honor of the day, here's a photo and video from this afternoon. I think you'll enjoy.

Closing out the Newfie trip

It's taken a while to get back here, but I finally got a chance to get with Marilu and choose the pictures to use for the remaining days of the trip to Newfoundland. Marilu and Lucas spent this part of the trip in her dad's hometown, Conche, way up in the north area of Newfoundland. She wanted me to mention that all she ate while she was there was seafood. Good for her since she loves seafood, but it would be a nightmare for me since the only thing I eat from the sea is shrimp, preferably with plenty of cocktail sauce. Which way will you go, Lucas?

Lucas playing with his Poppy. Congrats to Marilu on catching one of the elusive smiles from her dad. :)


Lucas with Charlene and Shelby (the younger one), neighbors of her grandmother in Conche.


Lucas with cousin Candace.


Lucas and Marilu's godmother Hazel.


Here's one of the best photos the little guy has taken with his grandmother.


Lucas with family friends Marg and Jerome.


I do believe this is the only picture of Lucas and the McGrath family. I may be mistaken. Now we just need to get Jonathan and Steven in there.


Finally, a picture of Conche, just so those of you who have no idea where Newfoundland is get an idea of where these pictures were taken...

Back from the Great White North (Bay)

For what it's worth, no I didn't decide to stay in North Bay, which (by the way) isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Heck, if I liked the outdoors at all, I could even see returning someday. Too bad I don't hunt or fish, and I vastly prefer my $2000 king-sized bed to a tent.

Anyway...I'll have more pictures (and 1 or 2 videos) of Lucas up tomorrow. I keep forgetting the camera upstairs, and yes, I AM that lazy that I don't feel like going up there to get it. So keep an eye for a more visual update sometime tomorrow afternoon in between plays of the NFL games.

Ta-ta.

Au revoir!

As I've mentioned in the last couple of entries, I'm off to North Bay, Ontario.


Gateway of the North. Lovely. I thought Canada, in general, was the gateway to the north. I just keep getting closer and closer to polar bear country, I tell ya.

Anyway, I'll be heading out shortly, and I plan to be back by Friday afternoon. If Marilu takes any pictures between now and then, I'll have something new for you. Otherwise, I'll just have to poke and prod Lucas until he does something amusing and catch it all on the magic of video.

See ya in a few!

Catching up

Since I'm going to be in North Bay, Ontario (aka WHERE?) until Friday afternoon, I've decided to put up a bunch of pics of the little man from the day after he got back from Newfoundland up to the present (or at least up to yesterday, when I last took a picture of him). Enjoy!

Mom and Lucas from Aug 29. I should point out that we figured out how to use the redeye correction with our camera so there should be a lot less of that in future photos. Sometimes it looks creepy so I don't use it, but 80% of the time it does a good job.


More mom and baby from the 30th.


"Dad, do you have to take pictures of EVERYTHING?" (To be fair, I did crop off a little bit of this photo at the bottom to save him even more future embarrassment from girls who don't understand shrinkage.)

Finally, one with me and my boy!


Reunited with Brody and Kayden. They were last seen together a while back here.


This shot of Lucas isn't that great, but I love Brody's pose on the left. "To BE or not to BE!"


Up close with Lucas (9/3/07)


On 9/4, Lucas was in a grumpy mood so I put him on his belly on our bed, figuring the change of position my help. As you can see, he was NOT happy with the situation.


Checking things out on his playmat (9/8)


Ok, that about catches us up with all the highlights. For the rest of the pictures from those days, head on over to the photo albums. See y'all again on Friday!

Jumping for joy

The last Newfie pictures are going to have to wait. I don't know anyone in them since I wasn't there, and I need to grab Marilu to find out which ones she wants me to showcase. Keep in mind though, all of the Newfoundland trip pictures are currently in the photo album so that's always an option if you really need to see them.

Way back when, I think Mother's Day, I bought Marilu a picture frame that has 3 slots and says, "Mom + Dad = Me". The idea is that you put in pictures of the baby and the parents. Well, Marilu surprised me this weekend by taking a unique approach to the photos included in the frame. Check it out below.



I took some great videos of Lucas in his jumperoo earlier, but unfortunately all but 1 are too large for YouTube. Throw in the fact that Picasa is acting up when it comes to videos, and I'm unable to show them. I'll either try and figure out how to edit them and break them into smaller videos, or I'm just going to shoot new videos tomorrow. Probably the latter. Whatever the case, the one video that did work is below. (for what it's worth, the other two are WAY better)

Flippin' baby

Marilu finally caught Lucas turning over on video this morning...twice, actually. Unfortunately, the online photo album thing is having some issue with uploading videos so I decided to use YouTube to show it. Let's hope these two videos work...





Ok, I think I fixed the problem I was having so both videos should now work. Let me know if you are having any issues.

Too sexy for his shirt

I lost track of time and now I only have 10 minutes before my alma mater, University of South Florida, plays Auburn in its first big football game of the year. So rather than upload a bunch of Newfie pics from the last days of the trip, I present Mohawk Boy right before a bath from last Friday.


The deluge of vacation photos will continue tomorrow, in between NFL games. Did I mention I was happy football season is back? :)

Back to the present

Since someone (*cough*Nana McGrath*cough*) was complaining on the phone to her daughter that there aren't enough recent pictures of Lucas, what with all the Newfoundland trip ones recently, I'm going to post pictures of Lucas that were taken yesterday. I'll wrap up the Newfie photos this weekend and show highlights since then early next week. After that, we should be completely caught up.

Big news first...Lucas rolled over for the first time today! 4 times in fact! The first three were while I was at work, but Marilu called to alert me. The last was done right after I got home. In response to the query of the unnamed person in the first paragraph, no, we don't have any video of the flip. I think that fell under the category of "Moments you forget about everything else." This weekend, I'll try and catch the act in motion. Oh, for the record, it was a belly to back flip so for the time being, it appears we don't have to worry about setting him on his back, leaving the room, and coming back to find him hauling baby butt away. For the time being.

Ok, the first picture, taken yesterday morning is Lucas's first appearance in what I like to call his Russian sailor's uniform.


Yesterday afternoon, I finally put together a toy/gadget that I've been wanting to see Lucas use since the day we received it from family friends Jim and Barb: the jumperoo. It's still a little big for him, but he's able to hold his head up pretty well now so we tested it out. The first pic isn't exactly art, but at least you can see his whole body. The second (and last, for now) picture is a close-up of his face for those of you who need your "cute face" fix.



Thank you for coming. Now I'm heading back to the Indy-New Orleans NFL game. Ahh, sweet, sweet football. Thy time is back...