Luke rhymes with ...

We had a giftcard to Olive Garden, so we took the kids out to dinner last night. The kids were happy coloring, Mary munching on breadsticks and Luke downing his chocolate milk. Like any good waitress, ours refilled our drinks a few times and brought us our food. Unfortunately, I hadn't been paying attention to how many times she refilled Luke's chocolate milk. . . because as soon as we started eating, Luke started puking chocolate milk, everywhere. About four times. Pausing in-between each time for a breath.

I asked for a bunch of extra napkins and to-go boxes for all of our food. Paul undressed Luke and took him out to the car while I took care of the bill and cleaned up the mess as best I could. I apologized to the waitress again and again and sat there laughing while I cleaned up puke for the 800th time in the past 19 months.

{riding home in only a diaper}

When we named Luke we thought of all the potential nicknames other kids might give him. Luke the Puke was all we could come up with. If he never threw up in public/at school, he probably wouldn't ever be called that, right? Unfortunately, we cursed him.

Luke has no stop button on his stomach. Whatever signal people are born with that tells them "you're full, you can stop eating now" is not built into this boy. He's done it since he was an infant, which lead to some strategic nursing plans (short feedings with lots of burp cloths - actually, full size bath towels on hand). He never outgrew it like the doctor said he would; it continued into solid foods and now his toddler years.

It has now progressed from only an eating issue to an all the time issue, if he falls, or gets hurt, or gets upset in anyway, he loses his lunch. We have changed the rug in his room twice. Now he has one that is more like a play mat that can be sprayed off with a hose. He's thrown up in every room of our house, on family, at friends houses, and now at a restaurant, I had to cancel my gym membership after he threw up in the nursery three times in one week.

Mary got her first stomach bug at 3 1/2 years old, right before Luke was born. She had never thrown up before and still hasn't thrown up since then. I remember hearing about other kids who threw up a lot and thinking how lucky we were that Mary had only been sick once in her life. I am now eating my words on a daily basis, and it's disgusting.

His name is Luke.

I set Luke on the counter at Barnes and Noble while I bought a book this week. The cashier looked at Luke and asked him his name. Luke just stared back at him.

So, Mary chimes in with, "His name is Luke but he calls himself 'Uke.' Well, he used to call himself 'Guke' but now it's just 'Uke.' I'm kind of trying to teach him how to say 'LUH-Uke'. . . because his name is Luke."

And I'm sure the cashier was glad she cleared that up.

18 Months

This little guy is 18 months old

and he is a mess.

But, we love him like crazy :).

Story of her life.

I let Mary fall asleep next to me while I was reading last night. 

She tried her hardest to fall asleep, but every few minutes she had something new to say. 

"Mary, just close your eyes and eyes and fall asleep!" I said.

"Mommy, my eyes are closed" she told me. 

I looked over, and her eyes were in fact closed.

"Okay, then close your mouth and go to sleep." I said.

She let out a big exasperated sigh and said, 

"But Mommy, I just can't handle not talking!"

Twins

People like to tell us that we look alike. 

All. the. time.

Doing alright!

I feel like blogging again.

We also have computers again, so it's much easier to do now.

It's been one of those months where we try to look around and count the things that we are most grateful for. Luckily, that's pretty easy to do around here. We have two awesome little people.

The girl.

and the boy.

and we have each other! 

{there was a picture of "us" here. read the comment section and you'll understand why i deleted it.}

 So, we're doing alright!

Computer Crash

In February ... our laptop died. It is still sitting under our couch with all of its innards hanging out.

In April ... our desktop died. It is still sitting on our desk, completely useless. I have all of my trust in the little black external hard drive that SHOULD contain all of our pictures/documents/music/etc. from our useless computer.

We have lived without a computer for 3 MONTHS! (Disregard the fact that we both have smartphones and can browse the internet on our TV).

Paul is in the market for another Mac and is patiently waiting for the next cool thing to come out before making his purchase. Unfortunately, by the time the next cool thing comes out, the next cool thing after that will be already be announced, so then we just might wait for the next cool thing to come out after the next cool thing after that comes out.

I tell myself that once I have a real computer again, I will be a blogger extraordinaire and catch up on digital scrap booking like it's my full time job.

Until then, we are still alive and well and enjoying the labors of everyone else's blogs :).