The Lastest on Luke

Luke will be six months next week, hard to believe. This has been my favorite season of his babyhood by far... he engages in "conversations" and interacts so much more. This past month he's been rolling from tummy to back/back to tummy. This past week has been monumental as he started sitting up and he cut his first tooth. We started in on solids about three weeks ago. I wanted to make sure to wait until he really desired to eat them. We tried starting on rice cereal back in October and he didn't want anything to do with it. By mid-November he took a fancy to it when it was reintroduced. We got a food mill as a baby shower present and it's been worth it's weight in gold as we use our steamer to cook veggies and I can mash them in the mill (we also do the same with bananas). So far he's eaten sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, chicken, turkey, apples, pears, apricots, plums, and bananas. He is a sweet tooth (comes by it honest... he is his momma's boy!) and prefers fruits but takes to just about anything. We've been fortunate in that regard. I am not going to cater to picky eating and am glad we have not had any battles (thus far anyways).

Holidays have taken on a new light with a little guy. Nick & I are blessed to live close enough to both sides of the family we can see them all within a matter of days. We space Thanksgiving out as a three day event so to make our rounds. Luke loved being passed around to all the relatives during Thanksgiving. He loves people... the more the merrier. This past week his Grandma Julie took him to see Santa Clause at the Oak Park Mall. Nick & I have still been debating how to handle Santa Clause. My family didn't necessarily do the whole Santa custom (we weren't told he wasn't real per say... we just didn't have a big emphasis on making cookies, didn't get a special present from Santa, etc.). Nick did the full nine yards with Santa and really enjoyed it, though he was crushed when he found out he wasn't real. So, we're still trying to find our happy medium. With Luke at this age we still have a few Christmases to figure out what we'll do. His encounter with Santa at the mall was wonderful this week... he has a Santa outfit of his own that he wore so they looked like twins. The mall Santa really was amazing... an elderly gentleman with a real white beard, blue eyes that twinkled, and he had a great demeanor with children. We got three great pictures of Little Man with the Big Man (all with Luke smiling ear to ear... just precious). I will try to post them soon!