Happy Birthday Baby :)

We are reveling in Luke's birthday week. It started with his Big Papa, Grammy, Aunt Kristen, and cousins Billy and Baby O(wen) coming to visit this weekend. Sunday was birthday party day with MeeMaw and Team Carlisle (4 friends all in one family!).

At Storyland

Luke was super excited about his cake with "booberries" and kept sneaking blueberries pre-cake time. The best part of the party was sitting out on the cold porch with Luke (who knew it would be cold in NOLA on March 12th) and enjoying our cake together. I made a Copycat Whole Foods Chantilly Cake and convinced 3 Whole 30 eaters to cheat and try the end result!

And now, today, our youngest child is 2. Deep breaths. Down hormones!

Jack and Cora decorated a birthday chair for Luke and each picked out an old toy to gift Luke.

Luke celebrated with a doctor's appointment and a birthday party at school.  We arranged for his love interest, Cate, to attend, along with Cora. Because we are all zinging off the chantilly cake leftovers, I made healthy banana muffins instead of cake but I don't think the little friends minded.

Birthdays are exhausting!

And how else does one celebrate a 2 year old's birthday? He loves pizza and the park, so that was our evening plan. We were reminded, yet again, how not relaxing it is to go to a restaurant with all of our kids. The park was a much better fit.

Our 2 year old thinks nothing is too hard for him now!

2 year old updates:
- The hitting is still happening!  The last two park outings have resulted in hitting other kids. But Sunday at Urban South, Luke came up to me and said "people sharing" and then walked over and started giving toys to another child. And he is doing better with being willing to say that he's sorry if he hits. One step forward, one step back!

- He's amusing us with a new I Love You routine. At some point, Luke started saying "I love you apple!" which may have been his version of Cora/Jack's "I love you infinity." One night Jacob kept saying back to him "No, I love you apple" to which Luke replied "I love you orange!"  This totally sums up Luke - he's a witty guy who knows how to be funny.  Now our "I love yous" sound like:

Luke: "I love you apple"
Jacob: "I love you banana"
Luke: "I love you orange"
Jacob: "I love you pineapple"
Luke....."I LOVE YOU APPLE" (he runs out of fruits and since he has no other word to offer, his best effort at winning the exchange is to raise his voice)

Luke rubs deodorant all over his "botty" every day. Oh Luke.

LUKE - you entertain us and amaze us and have softened our lives these last two years!

You make all of us smile and I hope you loved your birthday :)

Luke's 23 for 23

1. I've written monthly paper or online diaries for Jack, Cora, and Luke up to the point they turned 2.  Which is next month for this little guy...

Valentine Descriptors

2. We love a lot of what Luke says.  Some of our favorites: "What DEWing Da-DEE?"
3. "I see it" and "Raight Dere!" (his most southern sounding phrase)
4. "I love you," "I love you more" and "I love you most" are how we amp up the I love you exchange.
5. Luke likes the sound of the word NO coming out of his mouth.  This is demonstrated by how he stretches this word into multi-syllables: NNNo!  NeeOH!
6. Luke reminded us this month that he's nearing his second birthday as he's become a hitter. For a while, I was the only lucky one getting slapped, but then it extended to the rest of the family and now to innocent bystanders.
7. Luke is so much fun to read with. One of his favorites now is God's Dream by Desmond Tutu.  What a beautiful book.  I love how into it both he and Cora are.  He obviously understands how people feel sad. He just hasn't connected that to hitting yet...

8. One of his first non-board book favorites is Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. I love growing into a book. There is so much going on in these stories but right now we are just noticing what's on the page. Luke likes to look for "tall, tall cranes."

9. The "tall, tall crane" interest came from driving a lot on Tchoupitoulas. He also likes the "big bidge" and also likes the "little bidge" on Jeff Davis.
10. Sometimes from the back seat, he randomly shouts out "Not Dat Way!"  ??
11. When you ask him where Daddy is, he usually say "burdy" or "Daddy burdy time.  Lukey burdy time?"
12. Books, books, and more books. We have "reading parties" which just is an extended books time where I both read to the kids and we read our own books to ourselves (talk about an aha moment!) Luke was invited to his first reading party this month though he's a bit of a distraction as he pretty much just wants you to read to him. He will accept Cora or Jack reading to him.

13. He's grown 4 inches in 4 months! We thought he was our more average height child but that may be changing.
14. His appetite is strong! This may have something to do with the growth spurt. He can out-eat Cora for sure.
15. He likes wearing his "sandal shoes" now that it's practically summer here.He inherited two matching pairs of size 6.5 brown sandals - one from Jack and one from cousin Billy.
16. He's increasingly opinionated. He's more of his own person each day.
17. Since it's taken me two weeks to write this blog, I'm getting more and more evidence about our hitting problem.  I got publicly slapped several times at a birthday party and then Luke hit two other kids at the park this morning. I think we are being consistent - we work toward making him show gentle hands toward the offended person and have him say that he's sorry. If it's egregious or if he's not willing to make amends we plop him in a time out spot with his back facing the rest of the room/group. He's usually willing to apologize (though there have been a few times where he just yells NO! and hits (usually me) again) but so far we haven't seen any change in behavior...
18. He HATES being reprimanded and usually bursts into tears so we know he doesn't enjoy being chastised but he's obviously very interested in exploring his power which right now is the power of the fist.
19. I ordered Hands are Not For Hitting today.
20. And now for some pictures.  Luke's 2nd Mardi Gras

We live on the best corner! Personal viewing stand at the Valence St. Baptist Church

Again, perfect corner! Luke loved his play spot and even napped!

Still a thumb sucker! He's way more chill than Cora was at this age! She was a crazy MG toddler!

21. Both of these boys are growing!

Cal (and also Theo) at 1; Luke at almost 2

22. I know my snuggly baby days with Luke are limited so I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Krewe d'Etat parade with a sleeping baby in my lap!

23. I asked Luke how old he was going to be on his birthday and he said "Too much!"  No joke! That about sums it up!