Happy New Year

On new years day Luka and I drove to Cannon Beach to stay in our friends new beach house for a night. It was such a great way to start off the New Year! The drive through the coastal mountain range is beautiful... full of amazing lookouts, huge pines and forests (although some of it has been clearcut for logging). Luka unfortunately fell asleep during both the drive there and back, and so he missed all the snow... US-26 W through the range only gets to about 1,700 ft elevation... but there several peaks around it. Our friends home has a view of the pacific... Cannon Beach is a really cute beach town... mostly inhabited by Portland weekenders. It was about 38 degrees on both days, but beatifully sunny- so if dressed right, the walks on the beach are great. Not a whole lot of shells or treasures... mostly just gigantic sea plants, and on the rocks large star fish and sea anenome.

There were 2 other boys there: Julian 6, and Adam 9. Luka had fun wrestling and jumping on pillows with them. The grown-ups enjoyed a puzzle, food, books, magazines, and basically just lounging! Pictures will be up in a couple of days.

December 31, 2010

Wow, it's been a long time since I've visited this blog. Sadly. Life has been extremely busy, with graduate school and Eric now co-owning a bar. Luka has grown tremendously since I've stopped writing... and I'm sorry that I have not been capturing and documenting all his quirky comments and actions. He's funny! I'd like to get back in the swing of writing about us... so I hope I still have somewhat of an audience.

Luka loves to wake up in the morning and say "Hiiiii, Hi Mama". That's pretty much how I wake up... him on my pillow, nose to nose, saying "Hi Mama"... I'll stir for awhile and when I finally open my eyes and say something, he asks "time to wake up?! Okay!". He loves starting a new day.

He also likes to ask, "Are you happy?". It's the funniest thing. He usually asks it when he's happy.

He also sings all the time. He sings the "Fireman Sam" song, "Hurry Hurry Drive the Fire Truck", "Slippery Fish", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". He learns these at school.

Luka has a major obsession with cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, etc. That's the ONLY thing he plays with. He makes driving noises, and talks as if there are several characters. I've been buying him the Pixar Cars, Lightning McQueen, Mack, Mater Grater, and the like... he loves those cars (and of course they're pricier than the regular hot wheel or matchbook ones).

He loves his school in Eugene. His friends are Oliver, Amelia, Jack, Marley, Keenan, etc... Over the summer he went to a different school... he misses those kids. But Eugene has been working out for us. He's pretty good about living in two cities.

I promise to keep up, and post pictures and videos. I'm sure I've already forgotten many hilarious episodes... like today, Luka spilling his entire hot chocolate at B&N, and us leaving instead of telling someone, because it was one of those days... or like a couple days ago when we were in the Jacksonville MOSH planetarium with Nana and Poppy, and the lady was explaining the show... and Luka pipes up a number of times (loudly) saying "Oh, Okay!" and "Alright!"... people turned and looked at him with big smiles.

Or how he likes to cup my face with his hands when I'm not 100% listening to him, and he says "Listen to my words, Mom" (something he picked up from school. Or just now as he is begging for an "Ice cream Jo-Jo, Mama" because I had earlier promised one to him. (And of course smarty pants doesn't forget anything!) He's funny!

The latest news

coming soon...

Mama is sad.

Today is a lot harder than yesterday. I really miss Luka! Once I am busy in school I'm sure it will get easier- but I can't help but be so anxious and sad right now! He cried pretty hard when I dropped him off this morning. And tomorrow night is my first night in Eugene... first night away from the boy. It's hard to go from 24/7 contact to me spending a couple nights a week away from him... I think most likely he will be moving to Eugene after Christmas. And if Eric gets laid off this winter then it would give him an excuse to move to Eugene as well... So the 3 of us will have to tough the next 10 weeks out- and look forward to my days off.

Luka's first day at the First Gear Academy

A view of the Willamette River behind is daycare

Dad was more nervous than Mom

Luka taking a seat for breakfast

The play area

Mmmm waffles and berries.

Just some of Luka's Favorite Words

Ball Balloon Baum Tree Baby Bye Hi Apple Strawberry Banana Hot Heiss Cold Water Wasser Airplane Car Truck Bike Bus Bug Sit Up Down Cheese Juice Chips Cereal Pooh-pooh Pee-pee Diaper Brush Mama Dada Ouch Uh-oh Bee Blume Walk Clock Dog All-Gone

Looking Back

It's kind of fun to look back at the old posts... Things that seemed to have happened soooo long ago, actually happened only within the last year. Like what I wrote in a post from last October "hopefully as Luka gets older he will sleep through the night". Well it's August 09 and Luka is 17 months, and he still does not sleep through the night. I don't really believe that any baby does. I think some parents are just heavier sleepers. I feel like Eric and I have learned a lot- and we are working hard as ever with little to no breaks. Anticipation and dread both awake us in the morning... but overall things have been good for us, and our little Luka is pushing us towards becoming great.