A Year of Luke

Oh little Luke---the days are long, but the years are short.  

And...my favorite outtake.  Most of our photo sessions ended more or less this way.

 We celebrated this little guy's special day in the usual fashion---lots of last minute scrambling, cleaning, cooking, and a fairly pathetic (and fruitless) attempt at decorating.  But, little Luke is well worth celebrating.

He dug right in to his cake, but was much cleaner than Grace was.  At this age, Grace had a lovely habit of  running her fingers through her hair while eating which made for some messy cake eating.  Luckily, Luke has not followed in her footsteps.  He was, of course, very willing to share with anyone who walked near him.  Such a generous soul... :)

His cake-eating fan club.

Not my best work. 

The only shot of the party decor.  Thank you, Grace.  

And here is the present that Spencer got himself (ahem, I mean Luke) for Luke's birthday.  Do you see that gigantic, helium-filled angry bird?  Yeah, it's remote controlled.  It flies all over our house.  I thought Luke would be terrified of it but he love, love, loves it.  The best thing is that the remote is so simple that Luke can pretty much fly it by himself.  And boy does he ever want to.  All. day. long.

That kid loves a good flying gadget.  He is his father's son.

We have affectionately began to refer to "angry bird" as our pet.   He follows us around all day, thanks to the air currents in our house.  One night, Spencer and I went upstairs to go to bed and within minutes, our angry bird had followed us up the stairs, made its way into our bedroom, and backed into our closet. If that's not pet material, I don't know what is.

 If you can get past the lurking and the overall creepiness of his size and  face,
he'd make a great addition to any family. :)

As does Luke.  Who is not lurkish or creepy.  We have been so happy to have him with us this past year.  He's a grumpy, excitable, little handful, but we love, love, love him.  He adores broccoli, bread, bananas, gigantic remote controlled angry bird balloons, playing with his sister, "sniffing," cuddling, balls, and waking up far too early.  He has irresistible chubby cheeks, the sweetest smile I've ever seen, and a silly side that comes out when he's tired.  He's everything we hoped he'd be.