Christmas 2009

Real quick update with some highlight pictures from this morning. Tonight or tomorrow, I'll try and put up a few of the videos I took. Suffice to say, Lucas had a good time this morning though believe it or not, he appeared to get tired of opening presents after a while. That sets a good precedent for next year: less presents! To be honest, it was a little overboard this year as he probably had at least 30 gifts between us, grandparents, and other family members.

This was one of the very few where he was actually looking at the camera. Unlike days of old, Lucas doesn't much care for the camera anymore. Getting a "cheese!" moment out of him is a rarity as he is more often likely to turn his back or put up his hand and say, "No daddy!" So I guess we need to appreciate this type of photo more and more.


One of his presents was a Batman dress-up set, and he threw a fit, refusing to open up any more gifts until we let him put the mask on. Hence, this picture.


He cooperated with us for this gift since it was probably his most-wanted present, a pair of Spiderman roller skates. Actually, he's wanted hockey skates ever since trying out my roller blades several months ago, but he doesn't really know the difference between those and some plastic roller skates that attach over one's shoe so everyone wins! For the record, that was his lame ass attempt at saying cheese. I guess we should be thankful he didn't scowl or throw something at the camera.


A pretty good full-shot of the Batman costume. On the right side of the photo, you can see the edge of another of his "big" presents, an easel from Uncle Bub (Jonathan) and Aunt Chantal. I'm sure we'll be seeing more photos of him using that in the days to come. No doubt in the process of completely destroying our carpet. :)


Testing out the skates. Note the matching Spiderman elbow and knee pads.


Batman wasn't enough for costumes. We also needed to get him a fireman outfit. He's like our own living doll sometimes.


For the rest of the pics from this morning (mostly opening gifts), check out our Christmas 2009 photo album.

Dancing Fool

My dad sent Lucas a Christmas card that play "Jingle Bell Rock" when you open it, and Lucas used the occasion to dance up a storm, as you will see in the video below. Our favorite part is when he shakes his butt toward the end, and it's all we can do not to laugh out loud (as you may be able to hear).



I also love his gesture at about 13 seconds in, when he's trying to figure out what the heck happened to the music.

Happy kid

Quick picture of Lucas in one of his early Christmas presents: Batman PJs from Uncle Steve.

Mishmash from September

Man, when looking at the dates on these photos I've yet to post, I realize just how far behind I am. On the other hand, we haven't been taking nearly as many photos of Lucas as we used to--for instance, there was a 12 day stretch without a picture in November--so I guess if I were to catch up, there may be nothing to look forward to. Or maybe it would encourage me to take more photos? Eh, who knows?

The great bed experiment is still being played out. He hasn't taken to it that well. I should clarify here: he does sleep in it no problem, it's just getting him to sleep. Since he is able to get out of it on his own, as soon as we put him in bed, he's usually up and pounding on the door, calling for "Mommy!" within 5 minutes. I think Marilu has slept next to him on his twin bed more often this past week than in our much more comfortable king size bed. I suppose I shouldn't point out that this means I get to stretch out as much as I want. Hopefully, this is just a phase and he'll take to it sooner rather than later.

Since the rest of photos I have from September are pretty random, I'll just post each with a quick comment.

Sept 15: The latest photo of Lucas and his cousin Megan. We were over at their place to see Marilu's cousin Michael before his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. On a side note, he makes the best chili I've had in a long time.


Sept 16: Unfortunately, I couldn't get him to look at the camera--the easy "cheese!" days are long gone--but I still found it amusing that Lucas was running around with a "hat" he fashioned from his diapers. A clean one, lest you think we live in squalor.


Sept 19: I'm not sure why pictures of toddlers drinking "beer" amuses me so, but they do. In this case, I put some water in a Dos Equis bottle after I drank it and let Lucas pretend to be a drunken frat boy.


Sept 20: Here is the logical conclusion to that last photo, in video form. This was from the next night while watching a football game. Marilu's Brady jersey is a tad large on the little guy.





Sept 21: Taking a break from watching a video on the iPod Touch to drink from a more kid-appropriate device.


Sept 22: I know we just had a Baby-themed post a few back, but here's another cute one of Lucas and baby relaxing in the living room.


And that wraps up September. To prove my point from earlier in the post, the next photos aren't until Oct 7, so hopefully I'll get to those soon (rather than January). Until next time...

A New Era Begins

Tonight marks the biggest "first" Lucas has had in quite some time. Tonight he will be sleeping in his own bed for the first time. We bought the frame at IKEA this past weekend, but the mattress wasn't available so it took us a few days to finally decide where to get it (Costco being the big winner of that choice). Earlier, I broke down his crib, and then Marilu and I put the bed together. At this very moment, Marilu is reading Lucas his bedtime stories and then the fun shall begin.

I think the most interesting thing will be to see if he wants to sleep with us at 3 or 4 in the morning. He's been in a real clingy phase with Marilu lately, which has led to him being in our bed by the end of the night for the last week or two. The alternative is him wailing like a banshee, and let's face it, at 4 in the morning, I'd let Hitler lie in bed if it would shut him up. I'm sure you'll hear how it went in the next post.

For your viewing pleasure, a couple of pictures as well as a video of Lucas (and Marilu) testing out the new bed.

Waving goodnight...


"Cheese!" in stereo...


Checking out the new bed...

September in December

Due to the mini-vacation to Massachusetts and training for my new job this past week, I haven't posted anything since November 26. As you might imagine, my mom made me aware of this fact earlier today, but I was indeed planning to post something before the end of the weekend (which gives me a little less than 2 hours to submit this...nothing like procrastination, my friends).

As it happens, today was quite likely one of Lucas's Top 5 worsts during his short life. He was just plain awful today. It wasn't so much as one singular event as just one little thing after another all freakin' day. You know it's bad when even Marilu looks like she wants to knock him upside the head (don't worry though, no annoying toddlers were harmed in the making of this post). I think I summed it up well on Facebook earlier when I said that this was one of those days where we jokingly wished we had used birth control a few years back. All in all though, the good days definitely outnumber the bad, and we just have to remember that when knee deep in toddler attitude.

So enough of that, let's take a look at some pictures from way back when. The first 2 are from back on September 12, when we brought Lucas to his friend Genevieve's birthday party. One is a close-up, and one is him playing with other kids since you don't see that often on here. He does have lots of interaction; it's just that most of it is at daycare, and I can't really hang out there with a camera.



The next day, I took a couple of pictures of him jumping on the guest bed, wearing his Halloween costume from last year. I'm not sure if it is good or bad that he still sort of fits in it. I think it just says I bought him something a tad large for Halloween 2008.


The second picture is amusing since it looks like he's just beat from all that jumping.


And let's wrap up this post with a video from said jumping session.