Luke is 2! (Party #3)

And now for Luke's last birthday party to celebrate being 2 years old!  The day after Kari left, Courtney's parents and Luke's cousins, Gina and Dane, came for a visit.  Lots of pictures from this one, so I'll let them tell the story:

Courtney made an awesome fire truck cake...

...and Luke sure enjoyed eating it!

Our big present for Luke was a tricycle.  If the snow ever decides to go away, we'll be able to get out more often with it!

So far, though, his favorite present has been the one from his Grammy and Pappy: a "Little People" barn with a bunch of animals.  He plays with it ALL the time!

Luke is 2! (Party #2)

The fun continued with a second "party" with his Aunt Kari.  Kari came down the Friday night after Luke's birthday and stayed until the next night.  As soon as she walked in the door, Luke was calling her to come play with him!  Kari brought cupcakes and presents for Party #2.  We all had a good time.

Surprise, surprise, Luke liked his cupcake...

Aunt Kari got him a Cleveland Browns shirt, a Sesame Street coloring book, and stickers.  Luke wasted no time peeling off all the stickers and putting them on his new coloring book...

Luke is 2! (Party #1)

On January 27th, Luke turned 2 years old!  In some ways, it seems as if we've had Luke forever, and in other ways, it's hard to believe he's already 2!  You'll note that the title of this post included a reference to "Party #1."  Though the 27th was Luke's birthday, the celebrations really turned into more of a "birthday week."  In addition to what we did on his actual birthday, his Aunt Kari visited the next Friday and Saturday and his Grammy and Pappy and cousins, Dane and Gina, came on Sunday and stayed until Monday night.  So all in all, the lucky kid ended up with 3 parties!  He sure enjoyed himself.  More on those "parties" later. 

Anyway, as for the big day itself... it began with me taking Luke out to breakfast at Waffle House for some quality father-son time.  I'm thinking of turning that into a tradition, i.e., taking the kids out for breakfast on their birthday.  Anyway, the birthday boy had no trouble eating his waffle and a side order of sausage.  He loves his food! 

Later in the morning, we had a bunch of Luke's friends over for cupcakes, snacks, and playtime.  A good time was had by all. 

Here's Luke blowing out the candle on his cupcake...

For some reason, a few of the boys thought it'd be fun to play in Luke's crib...

Then, in the evening before bedtime, Luke talked to his Aunt Kari and to his Grandma and Grandpa on the phone.  He also got to open his Sesame Street card and present (a Duke shirt!) from Grandma and Grandpa while they were on the phone.  He got a fun card from his Great-Grandma, too. 

We decided to wait until Courtney's parents came to town to give him our presents.  Stay tuned to see what he got!  Also, for Christmas, Courtney and I decided to give ourselves a video camera.  We just got it a couple days before Luke's birthday, so we got all of this on video!

Leo & Mommy

We've started to get back into a routine around here as I started school this past Monday, so there isn't anything too exciting to report.  On the other hand, the kids can always provide good blog post material.  Here's some recent pictures of Courtney and Leo:

Duke game!

I received quite a nice surprise Tuesday afternoon when an email appeared in my inbox saying that a very limited number of tickets were available for Wednesday's Duke game against Boston College at Cameron Indoor Stadium.  They were courtside bleacher seats and were only $50.  Now, normally that kind of thing would be outside of the budget, but Courtney didn't even hesitate in saying that I had to go!  Unfortunately, with little Leo we couldn't all go together, but I did end up making the trip on Wednesday.  It was awesome!  It had been almost 3 years since I've gone to a Duke game in Cameron.  There really is nothing quite like it.  And of course, Duke won the game!  Here are a couple pictures from my vantage point:

Caught Up

Phew!  I feel like I'm pretty much caught up on updating the blog with all that has been going on over the holiday break, so this will probably spell the end of the daily new posts.  Not to fear, regular updating will continue, but with school starting up again next Monday, my prolific blogging was bound to slow down soon anyway. 

Here's an obligatory picture of the little guy:

Twilight

Courtney has officially become obsessed with the Twilight series.  She borrowed the first book from a friend a couple weeks ago.  The same night she finished that book, she went to Barnes & Noble with a gift card in hand from Christmas and bought the next two books.  She's currently reading the third.  Anyway, this has turned into a blog post because occasionally she has decided to kill two birds with one stone by reading Twilight to Leo (keeping Leo entertained while still getting her fix).  The proof is in the pictures...