Happy Halloween!

The pictures don't really do Luke's costume justice. We had the hardest time getting a picture. He didn't want to stand, and he REALLY wanted to take his hat and shoes off. You can't really see, but his hat has a long black braid in the back. Kyle hasn't had a chance to fix the red eye yet so ignore that, and also ignore my face. I'm not really on drugs. I promise.

We went Trick-or-Treating to the other 4 houses in our neighborhood. Only Rick and Davida Taylor across the street were home. Luke got some candy corns. I'm sure Kyle and I will have to eat them for him. The sacrifices we make for our child are incredible.

Dear Ol' Nebraska

Luke and I had big fun in Nebraska once we got there. Our flight out of OKC was delayed so we didn't get to Michael and Audra's until 10:45pm. Mom and dad drove to Omaha to get us on Friday and we went back to their place and Michael and Audra came about a half hour later.

Saturday we didn't do a whole lot. Luke did help Grandpa with chores. He had big fun. They were gone for a long time. They rode the tractor and saw the horses and cows. Luke and Grandpa are best buds. They also spent quite a while swinging later that day.

Here is Solomon playing outside on Saturday. He liked to swing around that orange pole. He is one cute little boy. He is talking SO MUCH. It's incredible. He's pretty far ahead on the verbal skills. He's also very obsessed with "moneys".

Sunday we went to church and then ate afterwards and came home. Luke finally got used to Solomon and really began coming out of his shell. Friday and Saturday if Solomon wanted to take a toy from Luke, he would just let him and then wait for him to put it down and then he'd go and get it back. But on Sunday...Luke was gripping onto his toys. He also layed down on top of Solomon and patted his head and hugged and kissed him. Solomon just lay on his back and let Luke poke and prod at him. Luke about poked his eyeballs out and then Solomon decided he'd had enough and got up. Sunday night (I think) they played peek-a-boo with each other. They each hid around a corner and then would come out and peek at the other and yell. It was so sweet to watch them play together. We will miss them when they move even farther away in a few months.

Luke wearing Solomon's sunglasses. Luke seems to think he's from the west-side. We're really from the east side. We will work on correcting this error.

The boys also loved to stand on my moms step and look out the window together. Here they are on Sunday. Solomon is 5 months older than Luke.

Monday mom took me back to M&A's and my friend Jill Poyzer came over for supper. I haven't seen her in almost a year, so it was nice to catch up. Tuesday M&A both had to go to work so I watched Luke and Solomon. We danced and played bubbles and played on Solomon's slide. Solomon hit Luke on the head with a book, pushed him down the slide, Luke fell down the stairs...yeah...I'd say I'm not quite ready for two!!

Luke really did pretty well. His naps weren't the greatest and he had trouble going down for some of them and had trouble going down 2 nights, but overall did great.

I did have another adventure trying to get home. Our flight from Omaha was delayed for about 15 minutes, so we were late arriving in Chicago. I was supposed to arrive at 4 with my next flight boarding at 4:50 and departing at 5. Well we arrived at 4:15. No big deal. I wasn't stressing. Then we sat in the plane waiting for a gate. And sat some more. And some more. I finally got off the plane at 4:45ish, praying my next gate was close. Not so much. After running like a crazy woman through the Chicago airport (seriously I ran at least 3/4 mi.), I made it to my gate at 4:59 according to my watch. The door is closed. I started to cry. There was a pilot sitting close by eating his supper so I asked him if the plane to OKC had already left. They hadn't pulled away from the gate yet so we went to see what he could do. He finally came back and said they'd already taken down the ramp but that it wouldn't be a problem and someone would be out shortly to get me. I cry some more...out of relief. I thanked that wonderful man for helping me and then I gave him a huge hug. I think he thinks I'm a little disturbed, but I DON'T CARE!!! It wasn't a big deal to him to help me out, but it was a HUGE deal to me. Turns out I was so late getting on the plane that I didn't even make it onto the manifest, so United thought I'd missed my flight and called Kyle and told him I wouldn't be arriving until the next morning. I would have had to have spent the night in the airport if I would've missed my flight. But it all worked out. I am one thankful girl.

Luke and I are trying to get back on schedule. We're really working to get adjusted to the time change. He stayed up until 8:30 tonight. It was a rough evening. He was pretty cranky. Hopefully he'll sleep late.

Another Great Deal!

Luke playing outside with the pecan shells and his "bucket".

So, I won't even mention the great deals I got at CVS and Walgreens this week, and skip right to the 20, yes 20! steak hamburgers I got from Omaha Steaks for $1.98.

Luke had hot dog (aka Turkey Dogs) bites today for lunch. Loved them! And since we're not putting that tiny guy on a diet anytime soon, Eat up kid!

1 year well baby check up!

Here is a picture of Luke with the horse his Grandpa Dana got him for his birthday. He loves it. He decided to name it Buddy after Granpa Olson's horse.

We took Luke to the the doctor this morning. He did fine. He threw the HUGEST cry fit when Dr. Stephens picked him up. He cried more about that than he did the two shots he got! He weighs 18lbs 8oz (the bottom 3%) and is 28 1/2 inches long (bottom 10%). Dr. Stephens said he certainly isn't the biggest kid on the block, but he's doing fine. He's just a little man. I think that even though he looks like his daddy, that he must have some Olson in him size-wise!

Luke is very excited to leave for Nebraska on Thursday!!!

Parkhurst Pumpkin Patch

There was a lot to do at the Pumpkin patch. We had a good time. We went right after Luke woke up from his nap. The pumpkin patch was only about a 5 minute drive from our house, so that was nice. We started off at the petting zoo. Luke really liked to see the animals up close and was very excited, kicking, squealing and bobbing around like a crazy man. He was hard to keep a hold of. However, he was also pretty timid of them and not really sure if he wanted to touch them or not, especially the larger animals. Someone there had their pet ferret and he really enjoyed petting that as well as the bunnies. He liked to try to step on the bunnies.
After the petting zoo we went for a hay ride. We got really lucky, we didn't have to stand in line at all. The hay ride was nice. We went in a big circle around the property. It wasn't much to look at but they had hidden pumpkins along the path so they were fun to look for. Luke liked chewing on the piece of straw I gave him so he could be a "real farmer". He did a lot of pointing at the tractor.
Here's Luke sitting among their large pumpkins. They were really neat, a lot of different colors. I really liked how these shots of Luke turned out. Watch out Johnny! Here I come!
Here is Luke with the small pumpkin he picked out. It will be decoration for a while and then I plan on roasting it and pureeing it for Luke. So, he'll be eating that pumpkin in a few weeks! We had a good time. It was fun to see him see different animals up close for the first time. We might need to hit the zoo one more time on a nice day sometime soon.

Today is a sad day.

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, LUKE!!

We started off today with a round of Happy Birthday. Then we had a bath. This was right before he got out...I had already begun to dry his hair. A boy just has to smell good on his bid day. Pardon the red eye. I'm posting this before Kyle has had a chance to fix the red eye in this batch of pictures.
Here is Luke's birthday cupcake. Lowfat. With just a little frosting. I was going to not do any frosting, but then I decided, Hey, the kid's only one once...so I put on enough to just barely cover the top. Yeah, I'm crazy like that.
Here we are eating the cupcake! Yum yum! He didn't go crazy or anything. He hadn't eaten his lunch all that long before this so he wasn't hungry. He mostly like to hold the whole thing in his hand and shake it around.

We had a good crowd for his birthday. Kyle's dad came from Pond Creek and my grandparents came from Ponca City. Johnny and Cindy came with the boys (and it was a good thing, Luke needed help with all those presents!). Grandpa WT and Gigi came and so did Traver.

Damian and Isaac had a lot of fun helping Luke with his presents. They liked to choose which one he was to open next and help him open it ect. Cindy kept reminding the boys to let Luke help and one time Damian (age 4) replied, "Well if he's not going to do it, I have to do it for him!" Cute. Luke loves all his presents. I'll post more pictures of that later once the red eye gets fixed, but I thought Luke's public would need a few NOW!
Grandpa Wilbur thought it was too bad that nobody liked Luke enough to bring him any presents =) (This was said in the middle of the living room that looked like it got hit by a tornado. I haven't picked it up yet because I don't know where it's all going to go!)

I did end today on a sad note. I'm sad that Luke's birthday day is over. He's one. I teared up (I did NOT cry...that would be silly) thinking about how my little baby is growing up. He's a whole year old. His first birthday day is over and he'll never have another one. Kyle tried to cheer me up, but I just want to wallow for a while.

We're planning on going to the Pumpkin Patch tomorrow east of Arcadia (less than 5 miles from our house). So I'll have a post soon about that. And then Luke has his well baby appointment on Tuesday. See what you all have to look forward to? I'm glad I'm here to give your lives meaning again.

House Update

Here's the latest pictures of the house. We got them today. Ironically, Kyle went to the lake house today and forgot the camera. The neighborhood developer just happened to take these and email them to us! Happy day!

Kyle went up and met with the builder to discuss exciting things like outlets. And phone jacks. Doesn't that just give you chills of excitement??!?!?!?! Yeah. Me neither. But the house is coming along great, and that IS exciting.

Luke took 1 45 minute nap yesterday. He was a bad baby. He did better today, but not by much. He took a 1 hr 10 min morning nap and a 20! minute afternoon nap, followed by an hour crying session, interrupted by periods of screaming when I would go up, lay him back down and say, go to sleep Luke, naptime isn't over. It didn't work, but I tried. On a happy note, Luke turns one on Saturday. His birthday party is at 1pm. He's very excited for his cupcake.

I also joined a coupon swap website today. We'll see. Bring on those Pampers coupons! I need 'em!

Let the people have Madness

Luke pushing his car 9/22

Dancing 9/26

Laundry 10/4

Riding horsie 10/4

Madness. We need more madness!

Dancing 9/9


Belly Button 9/9

Blink 9/13

Luke and Grandpa Olson 9/19

The Madness Continues

7/10

7/11 Upside Down

7/12 Tickle Torture

Peek-a-boo! 7/17

8/19 Tunnel

Pointing 8/29

More Madness

Playing Toys-6/16

Doesn't like cottage cheese!

6/19

6/25

6/26

October Video Madness

Pulling up in May

Just learning to crawl-May

Pulling up on Stairs-June

Playing toys-June

Haircut

Luke riding on Brandon's remote control Hummer this past Sunday evening.

So. I tried to trim Luke's hair while he was in the bath the other day. Just a little...around the ears, his forhead and his neck. Kyle saw him on Sunday and made me promise to never touch his hair with scissors again. I'm no Chandra!

Updates!!

Luke: Is taking steps! His max is 7. He will mostly walk between Kyle and I, but will occasionally walk between two close objects.

Kyle: Is busy getting our old house ready to sell. No more renting =). We're putting in granite counter tops, recarpeting and repainting. We're also stripping off all the old wallpaper and painting instead. And by "we" here, I, of course, mean Kyle. We also got in Luke's new carseats. Kyle's been messing with them tonight.

Me: I made contact with an interior decorator to help us...well, decorationally challenged Soper's with the new house. I haven't been doing anything new or great shakes. I'm enjoying my Precepts class on Monday nights. I'm taking a meal to some friends tomorrow so I baked a cake to take to them today.

Traver: Traver has been coming only 2 days a week now, Monday and Wednesday and only eats with us on Monday nights. He's too good for us on Wednesday's now...he has to eat $3 hamburgers instead. He's been working hard on VTR and sometimes at the end of the day he's working on his website http://www.foregolftournament.com/ . He and his roomie got a new dog, an Akita, named Tasha.