A Dump Truck and His Boy

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Our Christmas week was spent between California and Cleveland. We had our normal Mitchell family Christmas program, filled with singing songs, reading scriptures, and of course, reading about little tousle-head and his shiny star, a tradition that goes back nearly half a century. Prior to the program we had a wonderful family dinner where literally everyone was there - 12 adults and 4 kids! This was the first time ever that every member of Marinda's family had a significant other - it was nice to have a full set!

Christmas day was tons of fun. We all got great presents and enjoyed being with the whole family. Some gift highlights were that Marinda got the 5-box set of the Percy Jackson series...in hardcover! Marinda got Amit a Kindle, which he has been using non-stop since Christmas. Luke got tons of presents, including a dump truck! He immediately took two hot wheels cars he got and put them under the dump box. No, not in the back part, underneath it. Like he was hiding them. Nobody gets Luke's hot wheels!

The rest of the week being in California was a blast. We got to spend time with our niece and nephews, who are so hilarious and adorable. John (the oldest one) very clearly explained to all of us the difference between him, a daddy and a grandpa and what he's going to do once he reaches each stage. You see, daddy's can do things throw things in the garbage, use real knives go wherever they want. But grandpas seem to exclusively play with trains, ride sailboats and fix things. Mary showed off her singing skills to everyone. She's learned a bunch of songs and can sing them to you with the right words and the right tune. And she's only 2 1/2 years old! Lorenzo is having fun walking and climbing everything at the tender young age of 10 months. When he's not zooming around the house he tends to be super-smily, especially when his Uncle Amit is trying to eat his tummy :)

The stockings and just some of the houses.

We also had a great time taking Luke to the Redwoods and visiting Luke's Aunt Caitlin!  She was the perfect Aunt and got Luke a Star Wars T-shirt (Luke?  Get it?!?) and a sound truck book!  She also may or may not have gotten some chocolate for Marinda...  great job Auntie!

Luke and mommy playing in the 'castle' at the Redwoods Park

"Look daddy, a cave!"
"Nope, that is just the base of a tree - ONE tree"

Luke with Aunt Caitlin

Uncle Ben pleading for mercy while wrestling with Luke

Luke loved looking at all the Christmas decorations. Every morning he would point out the Christmas tree, and every time we walked by a musical train thingy he would sign "please" and ask us to turn it on. A song would play, and the train would go around and around and he just loved it. He liked dancing to the music and saying 'choo choo' to the train.

Luke in his Christmas pajamas watching the train go around and listening to the music.

Luke's grand duet with Aunt Janalee

It's a cycle - Grandpa likes holding Luku, Luku likes eating his finger,
 and Luke's finger likes touching EVERYTHING

Neither Luke nor Yumi seem to be happy in this picture... lol

Luke checking out the houses

One of the houses has a car inside it!

'Twas the Night Before Christmas - and we're having a Jonny Quest marathon!

Luke's stocking and his new dump truck!

Luke sees his stocking present for the first time

Someone is excited!

And where do the little cars go?

"Cool! I always wanted something I could put in something else!"

"Oh, even cooler! They both have wheels!"

"Is that wrapping paper? I love wrapping paper!"

"A puzzle!"

Luke looking at his hot wheels cars sitting inside the dump truck

Luke snuggling with his truck - All his girl friends are probably pretty jealous!

Mary with her new coat and a ribbon on her head!

Family picture!

A couple days after Christmas we left for Cleveland. After a long and tiring travel day we got to enjoy being with Amit's parents and brother. Not surprisingly, Amit's parents had a bunch of present for Luke to open up there too. They got him a lot of stuff, but the things Luke really loved were the brown chair for him to sit in, a Christmas train that plays a song, and most of all a tricycle! The trike sadly had to stay in Cleveland but Luke had a blast riding it around the house.

That's it for this week. Next "week" you'll get to hear all about Luke's adventures in Cleveland and his experience with the snow!

The presents waiting for Luke in Cleveland

Luke loved his tricycle!

And he loved being lifted in his tricycle even more!

Luke's Christmas train, which plays music that he dances to. He loves this toy!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is in three days and we are all settled in CA for a traditional Mitchell Family Christmas. We left on Wednesday and Luke did phenomenal on the flight. "He fell asleep on the tarmac and stayed asleep until our descent," said an anonymous source. "Oh, and that mom of his was super-awesome and really cute, too."  Amit and Marinda were also amazing on the packing front, they were ready 15 minutes before our ride came to pick us up!  I mean, who does that? But the real excitement was at the airport before we got on the plane. As soon as Luke got out of the stroller he ran straight for the window to look at the trucks and planes moving around. He would've stayed there the entire time had Amit not wanted to show him the runway (though we suspect Amit really wanted to see the planes take off for himself). He was clearly mesmerized in a way that he hasn't really been with anything else so far.

Being here has been great. The biggest change (especially for Luke) is having 3 nieces and nephews around to play with. Luke has had a great time playing with his cousins John, Mary and Lorenzo. Other highlights for Luke have been the all the new toys. It's almost impossible to get him to sit still to read a book here (except for bedtime) because he's so excited to play with everything. His favorite things in the house are the train and the Christmas tree. Every time he gets out of our bedroom he runs over to the Christmas tree and points at it, saying "eee!" The train set is normally out of his reach, but he still points at it and says "choo choo!" The large train set seems to have inspired a new phase for which everything is a train - even the kid-friendly nativity that Grandpa and Grandma bought for each family.  Marinda and Amit are having a fun time bonding with the family too, with Amit serenading Grandma with his many piano arrangements and Marinda being her bright and shining self inspiring joy and merriment where ever she is.

Luke loving watching gradpa's train.
CHOOOCHOOO!!!!

Cowboy Luke bouncing on his horsey

The three older cousins...and a diabolical looking Amit.

Luke and grandma chillin' by the Christmas tree.

Luke 'playing' in the fake snow at the park.

Before - Luke loving the toddler bouncy house.

After - collapse!

High five on the swings!

Other boy's thoughts: "Woah, are you seeing this? This kid is craaaazy good."

Luke peeking out of the tunnel.

Luke is also showing off his language skills, sometimes in less than fortunate ways. On the night we made chicken for curry for dinner, Marinda mentioned the word 'hair' for some reason or another. Luke is getting pretty good at pointing at body parts, including his hair. So when he heard the word he naturally assumed it was in reference to him (because he's the center of the universe, right?) and put his curry-covered hands on his head. Sigh. He also is getting a lot better at signing words like 'more' and 'please'. He does these pretty consistently now thanks to being in daycare and us trying to push it over the past few months. He is also really good at saying yes and no and nodding or shaking his head when he does or doesn't want something. One day Amit asked him for some of his food and even said and signed 'please', but Luke shook his head and said 'no!' with a giant smile.

On Sunday Luke was in nursery all by himself for a full 2 hours for the first time ever!  *freedom!FREEDOM!!*  His nursery leaders said he did great! He also got some great takeaways, like some pictures that he colored and a foam nativity scene. And yes, he did actually color with the crayons and not try to eat them!

Sunday night we went caroling around the neighborhood. Our little sixtet sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" to a few neighbors and dropped off treats. This is the first year we've done it but we hope it'll end up being a new tradition.

We Used to be Really Good at Getting Our Blog Posts Out - And Then We Took an Arrow to the Knee...

Marinda made lots of cookies to hand out to people for Christmas.  Like, 200 cookies... If you didn't get cookies...ummmm, this is a little awkward...you should probably just go now....we're sorry...

Anyways, now that they're all gone, Marinda spent days and days and hours and hours making cookies. She made shortbread and chocolate 'crack' cookies (so named because they have cracks on top, just ask Julene...).

We have just discovered Luke's secret new hiding spot. We've been searching long and hard to find this but at last we caught him in the act of hiding! He just loves sitting under the sink of all places. It's a nice seat, I guess, and there's cans and pipes to play with. Sometimes he closes the door on himself and then opens it up and says 'Hiiiiiii!' 

Luke has gotten a lot better at playing the piano. It seems like not a day goes by when he doesn't climb up on the piano bench, open up the piano and whine until one of us presses the power button. Then he usually bangs on the keys for a bit until he rediscovers the 'play' button, which plays whatever song is recorded. Currently it is 'Pachelbel's Canon', and he gets so happy whenever he hears it.

Luke also had his 18 month check-up this week. He's doing great and charmed our doctor to death with his cute little smiles and giggles. He's shot up a bit in height and weight and is now 2 ft. 9 in. (80th percentile) and 25 lbs. (50th percentile) for each, respectively. He did really well (possibly because he didn't need any shots) and he even got a new book - Snowy Day by Jack Keats. 

On Wednesday Marinda and Luke had a Christmas party with the playgroup.  It was very fun with Luke playing with the other toddlers and babies while Marinda made a cute salt dough handprint wall hanging of Luke's little hand.  At the end, Luke, ever the lady's man, found the piano in the corner of the room and started to serenade all of us.  The little girls were obviously very moved and ended up flocking the piano themselves.

Marinda really, really, wants us to write about our new game we've been playing, so here goes. Over Thanksgiving Amit bought Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to play for a little bit. Little did we know we'd be signing ourselves up for hours and hours of fun in the land of Tamriel. We've been playing together, with Amit actually playing and Marinda watching and sometimes working on projects. Our character is a Nord, and we basically just go around conquering dungeons, killing Draugers and slaying dragons. And sometimes we follow the main plot, too. We've had lots of fun playing it together, even if it has cost us a little bit of sleep in the process :)

Luke in his hideout

Luke with our downstairs neighbor Canon playing the piano.
Luke loved having a friend over in the morning!

Luke with the amazonian babies playing the piano.

Luke just *had* to use chopsticks like mommy and daddy!

This was the closest he got to being able to use chopsticks on his own.

"No more chopsticks!"

Far, Far Away on Seattle's Plains

"Santa, can I prettyprettypretty please have my very own full size dump truck?"

Last night was the ward Christmas party. Marinda is on the Relief Society activities committee so she was deeply involved in decorating, cooking and setup. Amit was part of the Christmas program as one of the shepherds singing "Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains" in a men's quartet.  Marinda's day was super-busy with getting the party ready to go. One of the more interesting parts of setup was getting costumes ready for everyone. A lot of people didn't have costumes at all, but Marinda saved the day by bringing her box of scarves and helping designing people's costumes. The party was a huge success. The room was decorated with tents and a stable on stage with silhouettes of Jerusalem on the wall. People had set up blankets on the gym floor and it was almost like a picnic.  There was even a real Santa Claus!  Though Luke wasn't too happy about meeting him....  The nativity program was fun to watch and Luke laughed like an-overtired-baby-way-up-past-his-bedtime (oh wait, that's what he was!) when he saw Amit come out with the other shepherds. Overall it was one of the best ward Christmas parties ever!

Our little family, "roughing it" on the floor for dinner

We even had a real stable!  With REAL hay!

Look at those authentic looking shepherds!

We had such an amazing turn out!
And honestly it was so much fun sitting on the floor all close to all your friends and neighbors.

Cute Luke story:  On Wednesday Marinda and Luke were at the Church helping to make the Jerusalem silhouettes, but it was during Luke's snack time.  So Marinda got one of the little chairs from the Primary room and a piano bench and set up a little table for Luke.  And he proceeded to sit there by himself eating his crackers for 20 MINUTES!  All the other committee members kept commenting on how good he was, and honestly Marinda was more than a little amazed herself.

Today was the church Christmas music program. Both Marinda and Amit (and Luke sometimes too) sing in the ward choir. Their awesome choir director Cameron picked some great music and they had a blast performing for everyone. They also did a special musical number - a harp/piano duet of Pachelbel's Canon and The First Noel, arranged by Amit. They'd spent a lot of time practicing this week but not nearly enough, so they were both nervous about how it would go. They even got to church over an hour early to make sure it would go okay.  "When I walked up there I literally felt like I had shoved my finger in an electrical socket!" Marinda said when interviewed afterwards.  "I spent the first four lines (which I had down ok) focusing on slowing down my heart rate!" In the end, it didn't go perfectly, but their mistakes weren't too noticeable and (hopefully) didn't take away from the feel of the piece.

On the Luke talking front, there haven't been any new words - but there has been a new sound!  He has taken to reading during his diaper changes (thank goodness!  That boy has wiggles!) and has been favoring his train book.  This is all cute and sweet, but the best part is that he says "CHOO CHOOOO" while reading it!  It has gotten to the point where if we point out a train in another one of his books, he'll hop off our laps and go and find his official "train" book.  Yay for Luke learning his first sound!

Now that we have the larger accomplishments out of the way (honestly, who can compete for the spotlight with Luke around?) we can officially announce that AMIT'S PAPER HAS BEEN ACCEPTED!!!!  Yup, you heard it!  That paper that Amit begun back in April of 2012 has finally made it through several drafts, months of waiting for comments back, two peer reviews and it officially is going to become part of the journal Astrobiology archive!  *much rejoicing*  It is always fun to get amazing updates like this that remind us all of the whole point and reason for why we're even here in Seattle in the first place.

Lastly this week, we would like to cover a story that actually happened at the first of this week (first shall be last, get it?  Anyone?).  Our fair friends Danny and Julene came over last Sunday with their little baby girl Kate to hangout and do a fun photo shoot.  Danny has a nice camera and it was fun to do our annual Luke vs. Christmas lights magic show.  Enjoy the pictures!

"Mommy, what's this? Can I eat it?"

"Seriously? I can't? Then why did you give me so many?"

"Oh, so you think I'll smile for you. We'll see about that"

"Ooooh, shiny!"

This looks photoshopped, but we swear it isn't!

Marinda says, "I like to call this one Christmas Magic"

If these two get married, we will have one heck of a slideshow ready.

"Mom! She's eating my wires!"
(we promise this wasn't photoshopped no matter how fake it looks!)

Luke exploring the wonderful world of daycare

What a big helper! Luke just loves using the broom to sweep up the floor

This photo doesn't even come close to capturing how great our tree looks,