Happy Father's Day...{better late than not at all}!!!

We had a great time celebrating Father's Day last Sunday...
We woke up early (Luke's idea) and made Daddy a yummy breakfast. Then we gave Daddy his presents.


Mommy made Daddy a T-shirt with his favorite quote on it from his favorite movie, The Big Lebowski, and also bought Daddy a much-needed new pair of shorts.


Luke and Mommy picked out some good pictures of our family, edited them on picnik.com (luuuuuv it), and framed them for Daddy's new office. Mommy wrote out a card for Luke to give to Daddy, and Luke did his best to color it. Daddy really liked all his presents...phew!

After that we played for a while and then went to church together. We had a good time and Luke had tons of fun playing with the big kids in the nursery. Mommy was super thoughtful and made SURE to be ready ON TIME so that we'd make it to all of the worship time before the sermon started. That made Daddy soooo happy. After church, we went home and had lunch together. Luke took a long nap and Daddy took a short one. Mommy cleaned the bathrooms and the floors, and then Luke decided to wake up and play. Daddy had to do some work in the yard, because the monsoon on Friday night made it too wet for Daddy to work on Saturday. Luke and Mommy played in the swimming pool while Daddy fixed the lawnmower. Then when Daddy started mowing, Luke and Mommy watched him mow while swinging on the hammock. Luke really liked this part. After that, it was Luke's dinner time, then bath time, then bed time. All in all, it was a fun day of relaxing and hanging out together as a family. The only thing we didn't get to was putting up a special post on our blog for Daddy, so I promised Luke we'd get it done this week. Luke wanted to share some of the many, many reasons why he loves his Daddy, so here goes!

Luke loves Daddy because...


Daddy loves to play with him.


Daddy loves to read to him.


And Daddy will even play Blue's Clues games with him on the computer.


Daddy helps him out of sticky-stucky situations.


Daddy kindly shares his 2 passions with him,
#1 being Chick-Fil-A...


...and #2 being Georgia Tech.


Daddy's not afraid...


...to dress alike.


Daddy goes with Luke when Luke is too scared to go alone.


Daddy is always teaching Luke just how to do things the right way.


Daddy is so funny and always good for a laugh.


Daddy is strong...


...and fierce...


...and yet he makes Luke feel safe and secure.


Daddy's not afraid to give Luke kisses...


...or even wear him on his chest.


Daddy always has killer style...


...and was kind enough to pass down his awesome good looks to Luke.

But most of all, Luke loves Daddy...


...because Daddy first loved him!


We'd also like to acknowledge two other daddies that we absolutely love and adore around these parts.

One is Phil's daddy, and Luke's "Papa T.", Stanley Tatum.

And the other is my daddy, Rick Miller, and Luke's "Pops".



Thank you to both of you for being wonderful fathers and awesome grandfathers. We are so blessed not only to be loved by you, but also to see and experience your love for our son. We could not ask for better fathers and role models to both of us, as well as Luke, and we love you both so, so much!!

Swimming Success!

Finally we got the Stinker to dip more than just his toes in the pool! Our wonderful neighbors, the Schrocks, gave us Reid's old kiddie pool which happens to be pretty big and in great shape. It's been sooooooo ridiculously hot and humid around here, so I've been trying hard to convince the Luke Man that swimming = fun. Finally on Sunday, he bought it! We'd let the water sit in the heat for a while, so it was sure to be warm enough. I dressed Luke in a not-cute suit and his Crocs, since the last time I tried to get him to swim he had much preferred to play in the mud and mulch in the backyard. I sat down on the side of the pool and stuck my feet in. Luke decided he wanted to stick his feet in, too. Then it wasn't long before he sat down, and it was smooth sailing from there!

Happy swimmer!


Look, Mom. I'm swimming!


Luke got a beach bucket with a shovel and watering can from our friends, the Christiansons, for his birthday, and they were big fun in the pool.


He loved pouring the water out of the watering can...

...and into his mouth. Gross me out.

After a while, Luke decided he wanted to get out and swing. I hadn't bought any swimming diapers yet, since Luke wasn't into swimming at all. Once out of the pool, his diaper was like a medicine ball hanging from his waist, so I just took it off. It was hilarious because his suit was too big without a diaper and just sagged around his little hips, showing off his big ol' belly in the front and a little something else in the back...


Our little redneck.


Stinker Bug playing in the water.
(The belly actually looks slim in this picture!)


Wanting to get into the pool all by himself, but a little intimidated by the task. You can do it Big Man!


Here he goes...very, very slowly.


Yay! You're doing it!

...And for some reason I didn't take a picture of him all the way in, having accomplished such a feat, but he did do it! All in all, it was a very successful event. We now have a swimmer on our hands. Now we get to hear him say "pooooo" every time he looks out the living room window/door at his favorite new pool!

Big Talker...

Luke has been talking so much for the last month or so. Every day he has a new word or two. I have been making a list of his words, and it just keeps getting longer. It is virtually impossible to get him to sit still long enough to video him saying all of his words, but I did get him to say some of them in this video. I could just kick myself for not asking him to say more, but at the time I couldn't think of many to ask him to say. Still, I do LOVE this video and have watched it 1,000 times. I keep trying to get him to do it again, and I can't even get close. Oh well. At least I have this one!

(For the baby book and the G-parents)
Here is a list of the words that Luke is saying as of now:

• Bye-bye
• All done
• Mama
• Dada
• Ball
• Nigh-night
• Bottle
• Car (this used to be a double word for him for some reason and sounded like "ga ga", but now it's just one and sounds like "car"!)
• Truck
• Bubbles
  
• Cookie
• Yellow (he seems to recognize this color, too!)
• Purple
• Off
• Down
• Up
• Eddie (his blanket)
• Pop (for "Pops")
• Papa (for "Papa T.")
• Glasses
• Apple
• Outside
• Wow
• Whoa
• Yogurt
  
• Oops
• Uh-oh
• Slide
• Hot
• Open
• Juice (this is more of a sound than a word, but it's what he says when he wants juice.)
• Blueberries (this is only a 2 syllable word for him instead of 3, but it works!)

He signs:

• More
• Please
• All done
• Eat

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of his words and tomorrow he'll probably start saying some more. It's so much fun for him to be able to communicate with us, even just a little bit. We go nuts with every new word and constantly ask him to say his words to us. And when he's not saying words we can make out, he's always talking in jibber-jabber that is only understandable to him. Still, we think it's adorable!

Gettin' Crafty...

Just after Luke was born, my mother-in-law, Peggy, bought me a super-fancy sewing/embroidery machine. I was excited about it, but with a 6 week-old baby and a lovely bout of postpartum depression to deal with, I couldn't even think about tackling learning how to use it, let alone finding the time to actually make something. Peggy was awesome and said that if I put it up in the attic and didn't even open the box for a year or two, she wouldn't have a single problem with that. She just knew that it was something that I'd like, and since it was really on sale at the time, she wanted to go ahead and buy it for me then.
Well now that I have been of sound mind and body for months, I decided it was high time I pulled it out of the closet and got to work. All I have figured out how to do so far is thread the needle, wind the bobbin, and sew a straight line, but I am loving it. I can't wait till I have several hours in a row to try to figure out how the embroidery part of it works. Right now it blows my mind that the machine can even do such a thing, but I am determined to figure it out...one of these days. It may be 2050 by then, but darn it, I'm gonna do it.
I also discovered the fine art of freezer paper stenciling and have been enjoying that little technique, too. Here's what I have made so far out of some boring shirts Luke had hanging in his closet and a few odds and ends that I picked up at Joann's.

This one is my favorite so far. Luke loves cars, so he HAD to have a car shirt! I used a reverse applique for the body of the car and made regular appliques out of felt for the tires.

Hey, Luke, where's your car??

Good job, Big Man.

I think he likes it!

Unfortunately as I was cutting off the extra fabric underneath, I cut a teeny little hole in the t-shirt. This is so typical of me. I always cut too close to the fabric when cutting tags off and such, so I shouldn't have been surprised by my idiotic move....Thankfully, it was very small so I just made a little patch and hand sewed the word "vroom" on it to cover my faux pas.


All fixed.
It looks awfully yellow in this picture, but it's lime green in real life.

I also took one of the ties from Luke's birthday banner and made him a Big Man tie shirt. It was an old madras tie that had belonged to our friend, Joel, back in the day, and it was too cute to get rid of.....so I just cut it up and sewed it on a plain t-shirt that Luke had never worn. Now I love it!




Our Big Man all dressed up and playing in the house painters' tarp (we were getting our house painted at the time).


Perfect attire for golfing.


As a nod to Luke's complete and utter obsession with fans, I also made him a fan shirt. I was inspired by Cheri of I am Momma Hear Me Roar (I heart her!) and used her freezer paper stencil tutorial. I Googled an image of a fan that I liked and made it into a stencil. Then I painted it onto a plain grey shirt and voila! While this shirt seems totally random to everyone else, Phil and I get the biggest kick out of it since we are all too familiar with Luke's fan love.


Up close and personal.



Our little fan.


Even though he's not smiling, this is a better pic of the fan and an awesome one of the belly!!

It's a great shirt for watching the painters.


Lastly, I made this robot shirt for our Big Man. Again, I got the idea from Cheri. She made a version of this shirt for her big guy, Rex, who is obsessed with robots. I thought it was too cute, so I just flat out copied her!



A close up.
(Next on the list of fancy gadgets to aquire: a DSLR camera so I can take decent pictures)

When I put Luke in the shirt and asked him to smile, this is what he did:



Then I asked again, and got this:



So I gave up and just started being silly, and finally:


Mr. Roboto smiles!

When I put him in his robot shirt for pictures, I also put some hand-me-down, lace-up tennis shoes on the Stinker Man for the fist time. When I got them on, along with socks (which he LOVES to wear), I found it hysterical that he no longer seemed to have ankles. It made him look even chubbier! He loved his new shoes, though, and walked laps around the house looking down at his feet the whole time.



His super wide, cubed feet could barely be contained in these size 7's!!


OH NO! Where did my ankles go??


Big-foot-beer-belly-robot-man mowing the driveway.


Anyway....
THANK YOU, MAMA T., FOR MY SEWING MACHINE. I LUUUUV IT!
I'd be happy to make you a car or tie shirt any time!!