Seasons change

Monday was one of the first cold days of the year, and as such, it marked the first time we had to really dress up Lucas to go outside. It started with a Labrador flag knit hat that Marilu's mom bought him...


...and it was followed up by Lucas' winter jacket! He should stay toasty warm in that, especially considering the coat arms are longer than his own arms.


Some health news from today...Lucas had his latest checkup at the doctors, and he's healthy as can be. He's now 24 1/2 inches long and 15 lbs, 14 oz, which apparently puts him at the 50th percentile for both height and weight. There's my C student! :)

In honor of Halloween eve, we put Lucas into a new sleeping bag thingamajig for his nighttime sleeps. I don't know how to describe it any better than that so let me just show you a couple of pictures of it.

Halloween Party 2007

As I mentioned Friday, yesterday's Halloween party was a bit different than the last 3 we've hosted. Rather than be a typical, late night house party, we decided to make it more family friendly since everyone seems to have kids nowadays. As a result, the party wrapped up before our previous ones would have even started it. Despite the drastic difference between the two, it was still a pretty fun time and we had a good turnout. I would have preferred more adults being dressed up, but I don't think our invite made that very clear. All the kids were in costume though, and the cuteness factor was definitely in overdrive.

It's still too early to say what we're going to do next year for our Halloween party. In a perfect world, we would find a way to hold both types of parties since this one will be even more fun for the kids when they are a little older. However, I also love the "adult" parties since they definitely have had their moments (you can never have too much drunken debauchery...or beer pong).

So without any further adieu, on to some pictures. I took over 60 yesterday so be sure to check out the photo album for more.

I get a kick out of carving pumkins, and after 4 years of doing it, I'm becoming a regular pro at it. I carved 3 pumpkins for this year's party, with the following being my favorite.


Some of the decorating around the house...




Marilu the witch and Lucas the cutest football ever.


Even if few other guys wanted to dress up, I'm always up for a costume. Originally, for the adult party, I was going to dress as Michael Vick and Marilu was going to dress up as a beaten-up dog. We figured that probably wasn't all that appropriate for a kid's party, thus I became the goofy jester. Man, was I ever jingly yesterday, much to most of the kids' delight. (and to clarify, I'm not giving the camera the finger here...I was trying to point)


Pre-party, Lucas was trying out mommy's costume.


Sheridan, with the newest baby to join the group, Genevieve. Look closely and see if you can figure out her costume. (A hint: she's wearing a robe and a shower cap.) The answer follows the picture.


She's a baby shower!

This next one has got to be the best expression of the day. Brandon is not amsused.


Someone had the great idea of getting all the kids in one picture. Obviously, there was no way I was going to get one where they were all looking at the camera, but of the two shots I took, this was the better one.


Since this IS a Lucas blog, let's get a closer shot of the little football man. Five bucks says that in 15 years he's going to have a crush on Francesca, the girl to the right of him who also happens to be the oldest girl in Marilu's circle of friends. Oh, the power she will wield over that mostly boy gang.


The only family shot we remembered to take.


Our neighbors, Todd and Val, with their little one, Tyler. He's a couple of months behind Lucas so if we both stay in the neighborhood, he and Lucas ought to get to know each other well.


Lucas, Brody, and Thierry (in the cow outfit) hanging out by the playmat, presumably talking about the game last night or something.


Alessia (spelling?) having a crazy hair day with her mom, Luciana.


I had two pictures of Wes at the party. One is a really good shot of him and Lucas. The other is him flipping off the camera. As you can imagine, it wasn't hard to choose which one I wanted to use here.


This is probably the clearest shot of Lucas in his football costume. He's apparently trying to eat his way out of it. Once again, a HUGE thanks to Auntie Tanya for making his costume. It was fantastic!


And I think that is about it. Like I said way back at the top of the post, there are plenty of other pictures from the party, so to see them just click here to view the photo album. Hope you enjoyed the view!

Free Preview!

The party's now over, but before I can post an entry, I need to watch the recorded football game between USF and UConn. It came on at 3:30, just about the time the party started, and I'll be damned if I wait one more minute before I watch it. However, since my name is synonymous with generosity, I give you a preview of the 61 photos I've taken today.

Lucas in his Tanya-made costume earlier today...

The week in review

As mentioned a couple of posts ago, Wednesday was Marilu's 30th birthday. Here's a picture of our family at Lone Star, where we went for dinner. In case you're wondering about what Lucas is looking at, two women at the table behind us were doing their best to get him to look at the camera the waiter was holding. Not perfect, but it's better than him looking at his feet. :)


From the day before (Tuesday), here's one of Lucas's first boo-boos. He's had a scratch here and there, usually self-inflicted, but this was the first time he needed a band-aid. The culprit? His very own mom, who accidentally took off some skin when cutting his nails. According to Marilu, he cried a bit at first, but like the trooper he is, he got over it.


Another one of mom and son from Mom's birthday dinner...before Lucas opened up a can of scream.


Finally, a couple of cute ones of Lucas sitting on the couch with the feeding pillow from Thursday.



As you may know, we've been throwing Halloween parties for the last 3 years. Our 2007 version was scheduled for tomorrow, but due to a lackluster response, we canned it and turned it into a more family-friendly, afternoon open house party. As a result, tomorrow afternoon should be a veritable photo op gold mine as there will be plenty of little kids running around in cute costumes. Marilu provided the idea for Lucas's costume this year, and Tanya provided the mad sewing skills to make it. I won't give the surprise of what it is away right now, but trust me, it should be cute as the wonder boy himself. I'll try to post pictures after the party tomorrow night, but failing that, I'll upload them on Sunday.

Awwwwww

As much as Lucas can be a little bugger sometimes, it's photos like the one below that make it all worth it...

Big milestone for Marilu

Today was Marilu's 30th birthday. I'll wait for the cheering (or sobs) to die down...

Lucas decided to reward her by acting like a holy terror throughout most of the day. He slept badly last night, he hardly slept during the day, and then when we went out for dinner tonight (at Marilu's favorite, Lone Star), we hadn't even received our meal when he starts screaming his little fool head off. Such are the travails of a 4-month-old, I suppose. He quieted down after she walked around with him outside and he fell asleep for a bit in his car seat. However, he started screaming again at the end so I took him out to the car while Marilu got to eat the already ordered dessert by herself.

For the first few months, it looked like we had a pretty good baby as far as the sleeping and crying goes, but he's more than made up for it in the past month or so, particularly the last 2 weeks. While he's still a joy when he's happy and he's freakin' adorable, the little guy can really be exasperating. We're hoping this is just a phase, because it's quickly getting to the point where it doesn't look like we can go anywhere with him without having to worry about a massive scream session.

We took pictures tonight, but they are still upstairs on the camera so I'll post them tomorrow. In their place, I'm posting a couple from earlier in the week when Lucas had his cold. It didn't really seem to bother him all that much, but these pictures make him look more miserable than he actually was.


This one reminds me of Rocky Balboa. "Yo Adrian!"


Finally, every time I look at this picture, I think "EAT MOR CHIKIN." For any Canadians who don't get that reference, it's from an American restaurant commercial.


Speaking of the devil! As I write this, I can hear Lucas starting to cry on the baby monitor. We put him to bed around 7 and it's just now approaching 10. I truly envy the parents who have kids who sleep even half the night.

Baby pumpkin

Earlier tonight, we headed over to a nearby farm to pick up pumpkins for Halloween. We also found it to be a perfect photo op to get some Halloween-themed pictures of Lucas. It turned out very well as we got 2 nice pumpkins and several great shots of Lucas. In fact, I would go so far as to say I was able to get my best picture of Lucas yet, including the 1000+ photos I have of him so far. You can judge for yourself below.

Auntie Tanya bought Lucas a really cute Halloween outfit a little while back and tonight seemed like the ideal time to break it out. Lucas looks none too pleased with the modeling session.


Here's the picture I mentioned above. I'm honestly thinking about submitting it somewhere. I have no idea where, but it just seems like such a perfect picture for Halloween and happy kids.


This one isn't quite as good as the last one, but I still think it's in the top 20 of pics I've taken.


Here's one from the top of the pile. Man, was he ever a good kid tonight. I guess he was earning brownie points in advance for the hour plus that he spent screaming after being put to bed tonight. :)


And finally, a video from the pumpkin patch for your viewing pleasure. I've decided to go back to YouTube videos for now since they are a little larger than the Blogger video. You may notice a couple of little coughs in the video. He's just about over his cold, but those are a reminder that it's not completely gone.

Lazy Sunday

It's been a very slow week for pictures. In fact, the last time either of used the camera was on Tuesday. I was hoping to get some good ones today since we planned to dress Lucas up in some Halloween-themed clothes and bring him out to a pumpkin patch. Unfortunately, it appears Lucas has entered into the first cold of his young life so Marilu figured it would be best not to bring him outside, which is a shame since it's unseasonably warm today.

Since we're missing out on the pumpkins for at least a few days (I'm sure we'll go later in the week), I decided to take a couple of pictures of him in his jumperoo along with a short video of him hopping around. Hopefully, this will help those of you who have a Lucas picture addiction. :) Marilu wants me to get one of his runny nose later, which I find kinda yucky, but if I can get it, I'll be sure to enlighten you with his mild sickness.

It was difficult to get this picture in frame since the little guy was bouncing like a maniac in his jumperoo. He may have a cold, but that hasn't brought him down as you'll see in the video following the picture.


I'm using Blogger's built-in video app for the first time (instead of YouTube), so if the video below doesn't come out as good as the previous ones, let me know.

Uncle Bub and Lucas

As promised, pics from last Sunday before Chantal and Jonathan got on the road for the long trek back to Labrador.







If you're reading this Thursday night, send good luck wishes to my USF Bulls. They are playing a huge game at Rutgers tonight and a win by them will make me very, very happy.

Happy 30th, Marilu!

Why I start typing a new entry at midnight when I am getting sleepy is beyond me. I must be a masochist.

Anyway, this weekend a number of different things happened. First of all, we found out way back when that Marilu's cousin Melanie was coming to town. Then, her brother Jonathan and his gf Chantal decided to make the long drive down from Labrador City to see Lucasaurus. Thanks to these two events, it made throwing a surprise party for Marilu's 30 birthday a snap. Considering how bad I am at surprising her--not counting jumping out of nowhere and scaring her when we lived in Atlanta--it was a major victory for me to put together a party of 20 something people in downtown Ottawa and pull it off without her ever realizing a thing. So go me.

Before we get to the party, let's see a few pictures of Jonathan, Chantal, and baby Lucas from Saturday morning. This was all I had the time to take before I retired to the basement to watch my beloved USF Bulls kick the stuffing out of the UCF Knights 64-12. Have I mentioned "GO BULLS!!!" lately? Oh heck, one of Lucas in Bulls gear before we get to the lovebirds.


Not too surprisingly, Lucas once again has a shirt covered in drool.


As usual when taking pictures of babies, it can be difficult to get everyone looking at the camera. So pretend the best parts of these next two photos are in the same picture. First, we have a good shot of the three of them, but Jonathan is looking down at Lucas.


And in the next, Jonathan looks at the camera but Lucas looks away. *sigh* Note that Chantal is right on the money in all of the pictures. The girl is a tad more camera-friendly than the boys.


That's all of the three of them for now, but tomorrow's post will include more of them from the next day before they left. There's definitely some good ones of uncle and nephew.

I can't remember the story here, but at some point in the afternoon, Lucas apparently decided to become jungle boy. Look at that gut!


On to Marilu's party. I'll warn you now: not all of these are about Lucas. I know, shocking!

First off, the St. Pat's teacher table (plus the always wonderful Tracey). Hmm, I just realized Adam has not only turned around, but he's smiling for the camera. Sheri, what the hell happened to your husband?


Some more of the crowd, including a very handsome guy in a white shirt there to the right.


The "McCarthy side of the family" table.


Marissa and our red-eyed demon child. This should have been my first warning that he was going to go bonkers in about 20 minutes. Suffice to say I need to do a better job of factoring in a baby's feeding and sleeping schedule for future surprise parties.


Let me see if I have the nicknames down right: Sis and Bub.


The birthday girl's cake. I've decided not to trade her in for a newer model just yet. :)


And in what might be the least surprising gift ever, I got Marilu the diamond earrings she started requesting for her 30th birthday, like, 4-5 years ago. Oh well, at least it kept me from having to think too hard.


I had to leave shortly afterward with Lucas since, as mentioned previously, he went bananas. However, by the time we got home, he was sound asleep. Babies, go figure. Anyway, here's the last shot of the night with Marilu and her two cousins: Tanya and Melanie. How about that one, guys? Can I get a "yowza!"?


It's now nearing 1 in the morning. I tire. Talk to you all tomorrow.