Four Months!

Lucas is four months old today! It's weird, because it feels like it's been both longer and shorter than that. I'm not sure how else to explain that feeling. In honor of this day, I present to you a few pictures of the big guy from a few hours ago.

He's head over heels about this milestone as you can see...


Yes, it's true, Lucas. You ARE 4 months old. Don't look so shocked.


Feel free to cheer about your big day.


Whoops, looks like someone overdid it with the partying...


Before I wrap this up, I wanted to show off Marilu's brand new kitchen cabinets. As you may know, Marilu loves cooking so a few months ago, we ordered some new cabinets to expand the size of our (or more aptly, HER) kitchen. They arrived a few weeks back, but because I'm mentally challenged when it comes to tools, we waited until last week for her friend's dad to install them for us. We now have about 6-7 feet of new cabinets, which you can see in the picture below.


Along with a new pair of diamond earrings (more on that in the next post), it hasn't been a bad week for my beautiful wife. Later!

A few for the road

On the final day of our Massachusetts vacation, we took a few pictures with Grammy, Grampy, and Uncle Jared before we headed back up to Ottawa. Lucas wasn't at his most photogenic that morning. He must get it from his mom who didn't smile in any of the pictures.

Football Sunday

Because I've moved around the States so often, I've had a number of favorite NFL teams. I usually root for whichever town I'm living in so my most recent team was the Atlanta Falcons. I've also pulled for the New England Patriots since I lived in Massachusetts for many of my formative years, and that's where most of my mom's family lives. Now that I'm in Canada, I can pretty much be a free agent when choosing a team to root for since there are no NFL teams up here, but I've stuck by Atlanta and New England for the last few years, and I expect I'll continue to go with them for the foreseeable future, although Atlanta's play has been making it difficult this year.

Anyway, the point I'm leading up to is that Lucas is poised to become the newest member of Patriot nation. Between my mom and Marilu, he now has at least a couple of outfits for New England. Last weekend, I dressed him up as a good luck charm for New England's game against Cleveland--not that they needed it. Check out baby Brady (for those of you that are NFL-impaired, Tom Brady is the QB for the New England Patriots). We'd dress him up in a Mike Vick jersey to represent the Falcons, but I don't want child services taking him away from us. :)

Kicking back...


Cheering the team on...


Let's face it, sometimes your feet are more interesting than the game...


He's worn this bib many times, but I wanted to make sure I took a clear shot of it since I find it amusing...


A view from the back...


Apparently, winning isn't everything to Lucas as he's about to burst into tears here. Don't worry, Uncle Jared, he still loves you.


Speaking of football, for those of you keeping score, the University of South Florida is now the #2 team in the NATION!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!! Go Bulls!!!

Welcome to Massachusetts, Lucas!

Last Saturday, my mom threw a party for Lucas to introduce him to all his family and friends in Massachusetts. There was a great turn-out and we got to see plenty of people we haven't seen in years. I'm including some of the highlights below, but if you want to see all of the pics from the party, check out the photo album here.

First off, a shot of the room my mom reserved for the party. It was at a place called The Lodge in my mom's hometown of Webster. We definitely had a good time, and I wouldn't mind going back there for dinner next time I'm in town.


For the life of me, I couldn't get a picture of Lucas and his great Uncle Randy where both of them were looking at me, so I settled on this one of them both looking like they were having fun.


Unlike Marilu, I have very few cousins. In fact, compared to her 30-40 first cousins (or whatever it is), I have but 2. Below, Lucas poses first with Greg and then John. Trust me, it's a lot easier to keep track of family relations this way. :)



This was one of the neatest pictures of the day. It's of the youngest member of the family with the oldest. Lucas is about 3 1/2 months old, and my great Aunt Julie will be 103 this coming January. They both look great here.


My mom surprised Marilu with a birthday cake for her upcoming birthday on Oct 24. It's gonna be the big 3-0, so we figured we'd include a celebration of that with Lucas's party (if 30 could be considered something worth celebrating..haha).


Funny story about the next picture. When we held Lucas up to Maggie here, his face broke out into a big smile, the little flirt. Of course, as girls are wont to do, she played hard to get and just scowled back at him. Poor Lucas. But there are plenty of other 6 month olds out there, little buddy. :)


Family friends Nancy and Bobby with Lucas and their own grandson.


Kevin sitting with Jared, who is pretending to drink my Guinness aka the best drink in the history of mankind.


Great picture of Marilu and Lucas, all smiles, followed by one of the three of us.



Ok, we didn't pick the ideal lighting conditions for this last photo from the party, but at least there's a bunch of us in it. Quantity over quality, the American way! :)


Afterwards, we took a few more pictures when we got back to my mom and Kevin's place. My caption for this next picture is, "You're not alone, Lucas. I don't want to root for the Steelers either."


And we finish out last Saturday with one more group shot:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you

Marilu made the discovery yesterday that Lucas may be ticklish. You've seen videos of the little guy giggling before, but check out these ones where he out and out laughs. Warms the heart, it does...

Massachusetts Holiday

Without any further adieu, let's begin tracking Lucas's Massachusetts adventure...

As we almost always do during our trips to Syracuse, we stopped in Watertown for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel. The picture below, taken at that Cracker Barrel, is Lucas's very first picture in the good ol' US of A.


Lucas and the first of his three uncles, my brother Jared. He should be meeting his second uncle, Marilu's brother Jonathan, this coming weekend when he comes to visit.


If you thought one lobster was bad...


...just wait 'til you piss off his whole family! :)


For what it's worth, my parents took a picture of me in a similar pose (ie, surrounded by lobsters) when I was not far from Lucas's age. So consider the last picture an homage of sorts.

We spent Thursday night at the cottage on Webster Lake. For those of you from Webster, we spent Thursday night at the cottage on Lake Chargoggagoggmanchaugagoggchaubunagungamaug. No, I'm not making that name up. I took several pictures of Lucas in his new Bumbo, mostly to test out various camera modes, but some of them came out pretty well. For those of you unfamiliar with Bumbos, they are these really cool baby seats that enable a baby to sit upright long before they normally would. Now Lucas can actually spend dinner at the table with us instead of lying on the ground staring at the ceiling. It must be fairly comfortable too as he seems happy most of the time while sitting in it.



Another one with Uncle Jared. Check out the bib. :)


Friday night, Lucas got to visit one of my favorite restaurants in the world: Wright's Farm Restaurant. It's all-you-can-eat, which is never bad, but on top of that, it's the best rotisserie chicken I've ever had. I've been eating there since I was a kid, and I've yet to eat a chicken that is even half as good as Wright's. If you're ever in Rhode Island, check it out. Here's a couple of pictures of Lucas hanging out on the table at Wright's. Gotta love the Bumbo! (I have a feeling that's not the last time I'll say that)



Later on that night, we put Lucas to bed, and when we checked in on him a little later, he'd decided to make himself a little more comfortable. This picture still makes me laugh.


Saturday was Lucas's party, and I took a LOT of pictures then. As a result, I'll wait and post those in a new entry tomorrow. Later!

We survived the trip!

Hi all! We just got back in a couple of hours ago, after a LONG day of driving. Between the drive down to Massachusetts and the drive back up to Ottawa, I've come to realize babies add a good 25% to your travel time. What is normally a 7 hr drive tops ended up taking about 9 hrs or so both ways. Lucas was pretty good, but it still takes a lot of extra time, what with stopping for feeding and changing and other baby-associated activities.

Since I don't have the time to post a bunch of pictures tonight, let me just show you a video that might bring a smile to your face. I took it yesterday during the New England Patriots football game. I'll start posting photos from the trip tomorrow.

On the road again

Tomorrow, we're off to Massachusetts to introduce Lucas to my mom's side of the family. It's a 3-day weekend here in Canada (Thanksgiving in October...madness!) so I decided to take 3 days off and make an extra long weekend of it for the occasion. My mom has apparently gone all out, throwing Lucas a big party and everything. If only he would remember any of it. Oh well, that's what thousands upon thousands of pictures will be for once he gets old enough to appreciate them. So...well after his teen years, no doubt.

Speaking of pictures, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that I won't be updating, at least with pictures, until we get back on Monday. The good news is that the main complainer that I haven't put up pictures is my mom, and since I'll be there already, everybody wins. I'll leave Marilu to deal with her mom, who currently resides at position 2 on that list. :)

Marilu took a few pictures of Lucas earlier today, catching him in some different looks. He's definitely starting to have expressions all his own and is looking less and less like generic baby every day. Not that the cutest baby in the world (take THAT, Tracey!) ever looked generic, but you get the idea.

I don't know how many of you remember random commercials from the 80s, but this one makes me think Lucas is saying, "Excuse me, kind sir, might I trouble you for some Gray Poupon?"


Lucas, this is the baby version of the face you'll make when you're trying to drunkenly dance with some girl about 22 years from now. If you look closely, you'll see Lucas is balding big time on the right side of his head. I'm told this is normal since babies sleep on their hair so much it falls out. I wonder if this means most bald guys are just lazy and like to sleep a lot?


A close-up of contemplative Lucas along with the ubiquitous bubble at his lips. I knew coming into this that babies drooled. However, I never realized they loved blowing bubbles so much!


Finally, it's cute and happy Lucas. I don't think I'll ever be able to get enough of pictures like this. Then again, that's probably what makes me such a proud and happy dad. (and cute as well, of course...though I prefer it termed as "smoldering" or "ruggedly handsome")


See y'all again on Monday!

Woe is him

Lucas didn't have the greatest of afternoons today since his mother decided to lock the keys in the car. Thankfully, they were at her friend's place so it wasn't luck they were stuck in a mall parking lot or anything, but I gather when Lucas wants to sleep, he wants to sleep at home, darn it! It took a while for me to get them since I was in a training session and didn't have my phone on me. Not that I ever use my cell phone anyway, but that's neither here nor there. In the end, it all turned out fine and Lucas is now sleeping blissfully away, probably having forgotten the troubles of the day past already.

Since it's been several days since his last "photo shoot," I present you a selection of the best from about last Thursday until today.

Oddly enough, he doesn't like lying in the laundry basket. Who'da thunk?


"If it exists, it must belong in my mouth."


That's just hunger right there...


Whenever his fingernails get long, Lucas has a tendency to scratch himself. Note his cheek in this picture. It doesn't seem to bother him, so as they say, it must be building character.


"If I try real hard, maybe I can get the whole thing in my mouth." By the way, the little lion he's holding looks like it's the frontrunner for his first favorite toy. He's probably not sure what it even is yet, but the "hands" and "feet" are made to be chewed on, and anything that can be chewed is fine by Lucas. I've named it Louie the Lion, but naming rights are still up for auction.


Ha, I just saw this next one for the first time since Marilu must have taken it while I was at work. I'm not exactly sure what he's got on his head, but it's amusing to me.


Here Lucas is, working hard at Marilu's computer downstairs.


Same series as the last one, but this is just plain adorable.


Finally, from today, some more from the boxer/rapper series. He looks somewhat surprised here.


Last, but certainly not least, a full shot of the outfit. It was too cute not to take pictures. Unfortunately, we couldn't get one of him staying still while the jacket was closed. It says "Huggable" across the front.


Wow, just looked at the photo name, and the above is the 1500th photo I've taken on that camera. We bought that just before Lucas was born. Granted, not all of them are of him, but the majority are. That is one well-photographed kid!

Mess with a bull, you get the horns!

To all of you who are getting after me about no pictures, Lucas says, "Back off!"


Hehe, I couldn't have planned that one better if I'd tried.

Whoops

Hmm, that will teach me to post picture promises while on a football victory high. Between that and the mass amounts of Guinness I drank in celebration, I totally forgot to post anything new. Well, we took several pictures of the rugrat this weekend so I'll be sure to get them up tonight. I'd do it now, but I'm at work and don't have my camera, so uh, yeah, it'd be impossible.

Off to train...