Lambs are fluffy and white, just like the SNOW we got today on March 31.  Really, March?  Enough is enough.  

I was talking to Luke this afternoon as I put his sweatshirt on him to head home from daycare.  We were just chatting, and I asked him "Did you have a good day today?"  He immediately nodded his head "Yes."  It's so cute that he is starting to really communicate!
He also likes to take off all of his friends' socks at school, and his own.  

Preston told me tonight that he wants to be a pilot when he grows up.  He recently installed a racetrack at the P&X railroad, and tonight he told me that there is now an airport next to the racetrack.  He wants to fly yellow airplanes out of the P&X airport.  

From Luke:

A Duck says "Quack" and so do I!  I can do my first official animal sound, and I'm following in my big brothers footsteps.  I love ducks! "Quack" is one of my first official words, but I think that for baby book purposes we are going to go with "Daddy" as my first word.  I am definitely Daddy's boy.  We hang out together a lot while Mom takes Preston to gymanstics, and Daddy and I love to chill together.  I love Mommy, too, of course, but Daddy is way more fun.
It's been a big week for "firsts" for me. In addition to learning to Quack, I also got to spend my first afternoon in the big boy room at daycare. I loved it!  There is a lot more room to explore, things to climb on, new bins of toys to dump... a whole new world.  I'll be in the big boy room full time closer to May.  I'm still working on walking.  I can get around on my feet, going from room to room, but I'm not quite steady yet.  
I also started nodding "yes" today, and I totally love to give hi-fives now.  They are hilarious!  
Miss Erin had a funny story from daycare.  Mom and Dad have been slacking on my lunches lately.  They were running out of delicious things to pack, so when I had black beans as a snack for the third day in a row I got really mad about it.  I dumped them everywhere and wouldn't eat a single one.  Don't get me wrong, I do love black beans... but not EVERYDAY.  Come on!  To add insult to injury, Aliyah was eating her delicious lunch right next to me.  She had mac and cheese.  Her Mom must actually love her.  (Side note from Mommy: After Erin told me this story about Luke wanting Aliyah's mac and cheese I went home that night and made a huge batch of home made mac and cheese for dinner with plenty left over for both lunches the next day.  Nothing like a guilt trip to get me back into being a good parent).

Mmmmm....This soupy is SO delicious:

Check out Preston's incredible dance moves - Who wants to have a dance party with this id?

It is still cold.  Freezing.  And we are tired of it.  The snow has, at least, finally melted, and our bulbs are starting to sprout, but the temperatures are still hovering around freezing.  We want to play outside!!

We have a lot to catch up on, as usual.  Mom does this thing called "homework" in the evening sometimes, and that really cuts into blogging time.  She's in a Masters program earning one little credit at a time.  She takes a class once a month that takes up a full Friday and a full Saturday.  Class time isn't so bad, it's the prep work ahead of time that creeps into our lives.  In any case, we have had two full weekends of activities with work and school during the week between.  

From Luke:
Two weekends ago we had my first Birthday Party!  Mom and Dad thought they wanted to do something small to celebrate, but the party quickly escalated into a guest list rivaling that of Preston's 1st birthday - 40 people and counting.  Preston and I were so excited to have our cousins, Liora and Talia, at our house.  We got to have a sleepover!!   Talia loved having a baby around who was younger than her!  She loved to give me hugs and kisses, and also push me around if I had a toy she was interested in.  She also wanted to be with me ALL the time.  If a grown-up was holding me that same grown-up had to hold her, too!  She was super silly.  
My favorite part of the party was when I got to smash my birthday cake!  Mom let me have 2 spoons, and I loved jamming them into the cake.  I even ate a few bites!  Here are some pictures (we stole some of Grandpa's for blog-archival purposes).

I also got my first real haircut on my first birthday!  No more baby-mullet for me!

From Preston:
I was SO excited to have Liora at my house for a sleep-over.  We got to play all day long, eat dinner together, race to get our jammies on, and eat breakfast together!  Mommy and Daddy got to sleep my room on the big bed on the lower bunk.  It was silly to wake up to see them down there.  I hope Liora and Talia can sleep over again, soon!  
After the day after Lukey's birthday party (and after Talia and Liora and Uncle Ted and Aunt Rachel went home) Grandma and Grandpa picked me up to go look for trains before heading down to meet at a restaurant for Poppop's 88th Birthday!  Mom and Dad and Luke met us at the restaurant along with Mema and Poppop, Aunt Merideth, Uncle Chuck and Aunt Kim.  We had a late lunch before heading back to Mema and Poppop's new apartment for cake!  Then it was time to go home and regroup for the week.  Mom and Dad were exhausted.

From Mommy:

So then this past weekend I had class.  Go ahead, ask me what happens leading up to when a company makes it initial public offering.  I know ALL about it now.  I'm really enjoying my classes, but man is it going to take me forever to get a Masters Degree.  Since the credits are free - so far - I'm just doing what seems reasonable for now.  My poor little Cherry Lane business is really suffering right now, so I need to try to focus a little more time back on that.  It's so crazy how much my life has changed in the last year!  Anyway, after class all day Friday and Saturday, I finally had a day to rest on Sunday.  It felt good to have no additional responsibilities outside of playing with the boys and folding the volcano of clean laundry that had appeared out of nowhere (I have a pretty awesome husband who just does these things!).  I even let John take a break for the afternoon to pick up his latest Craiglist find.  He said it was a blissfully quiet trip.  He's my hero for watching the boys while I was at class.  

A silly story to end this post:
Tonight we asked Preston if it would be ok to get a new house.  He said "sure."  And when we asked him what our new house would be like he put together fun wishlist:
- 3 garages
- A swimming pool
- Refrigerator
- Toys
- Yellow [exterior]
- and a yard to plant trees
 
And some more pictures - just for fun:

From Luke:

Tomorrow is my FIRST BIRTHDAY!  How did that happen so fast?  I suppose our lives are action packed, and the last year has been a really big year for this family.  I was born, Mom got a new job, Preston turned 4... a bunch of other stuff happened, too.  
Mom and I stayed home today, because I'm sick.  I've had a cold that started a few days ago, and Mom wanted to make sure that I am better for my party this weekend, so we took it easy today.  I am feeling better; I took a really good nap.  Mom took the opportunity to bake some cakes for my birthday (yes, plural cakes - one to smash and one to share).  It's a good thing she decided to bake during the day, because it took ALL day.  
Even though Preston and I are a lot alike, the bigger I easier it is to see how much we are different.  By now Preston was walking everywhere, and I only take steps for Daddy.  We also like different foods and different sippy cups.  Preston had a few words, and I just love to scream.  At one year old we both love similar things: cats, cars, books, cheerios, etc.  The best part of being the second child is that Mom and Dad are far less strict with me.  They let me have oreos and Lucky Charms, and I get away with all sorts of things because they blame Preston whenever I scream.  It's the sweet life.  
Like I mentioned I still crawl all over the place, only taking steps when encouraged.  So tonight Mom too my clothes off and let me crawl around nakedeedee while she got my bath ready.  When I heard the water in the bath tub I crawled into the bathroom.  But when I get to the tile floor in the bathroom I don't like how cold it feels on my knees, so I switch to a bear crawl!  Mom thinks it's really silly, but I just call it problem solving!  
Event though I don't walk much independently, I'm figuring out ways to get around; I suppose you could say that I'm lazy.  I push chairs around the kitchen and hold onto grownups as they walk around the house. 
Today Mom was doing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher.  Normally I like to help by taking everything back out of the dishwasher, but today I decided to help by closing the dishwasher.  I lifted the lid all the way up.  She was done with dishes whether she thought she was or not.  Can you imagine what it will be like in a few months when both Preston and I rule this house?  


From Preston:
Lukey and I had a fun weekend.  Gigi and Grandpa came to stay with us on Saturday, because Mom and Dad had a busy day of rehearsals, and then they went to see Grandma's costumes in the high school musical.  Gigi and I tried to play in the snow, but it was too deep.  Our boots kept sinking in to it.  
Then on Sunday we went to church so Mom could do the children's message, and I sat quietly all the way through the whole service!  Lukey had to go to the nursery because he was shrieking too much.  He does that a lot.
After church Lorna and John stopped by for a little bit on their way home.  I showed them my bunk bed and my fishies and all the cool stuff that I have.  John has a yellow car, which is awesome, but then I showed him all of MY yellow stuff, just so that he knew who was boss around here.  
On Monday I went on a field trip!  I LOVE field trips.  I get to go on the school bus with all my friends, usually do something cool once we get to where we are going, and then come back again on the bus!  How awesome is that?  This time we went to a show at the high school which was all about Curious George.  Curious George put himself in a box and tried to mail himself!  I don' remember what happened after that, but that part was really funny!  Lukey missed me at school while I was gone, but then I came back.  

From Mommy:
I'm mad at the blog, because that last post was 5 times longer than it is and the internet ate the rest of it.  I don't remember most of what I wrote, which is a bummer.  But I suppose the centiment is that Luke's birthday, I think, will feel like the start of spring for me.  Which is really special.  Even though we still have snow on the ground and may get a little more before it is truly spring, this week of Luke's birthday has been a welcome glimpse of pleasant weather to come.  And the LONG winter doesn't feel quite so long anymore.  I think I wrote about all the horrible weather last week and how the driving was so bad several days in a row.  It's mostly stuff I don't want to remember anyway!!

Tonight, as usual, we were all hanging out in Preston's room for bedtime.  We have really let bedtime get away from us lately, but that's a story for a different time.  John was throwing Lukey into the air, which Luke thinks is hysterical.  Preston wanted to be thrown into the air, even though he's too big.  And I was sitting in a corner just watching the horseplay unfold.  All I could think the whole time is "this is what Daddies are really for."  It's so fun to now have 2 boys that can rough house with their dad.  Luke is still kind of little to be rough with, but he wants to be right in the action!  Nothing is slowing him down.  Of course I wanted the kids to go to bed, so that I can have some grown up time, but I just couldn't bring myself to break up the fun.  

From Mommy:

We have had a lot going on here, but at the same time it feels like it has been much of the same.  We are so cooped up!!  When we do have fun things planned they are often spoiled by bad weather, or in the case of this week, the whole week is ruined by bad weather.  To do some catch up, earlier in February took the boys to a family show at Zoellner Arts Center (my new hangout!) call Frogz.  It was a very cool dance show where actors used movement to mimic things in nature, pop culture, etc.  The opening skit was 3 people dressed in realistic frog costumes and they did really cool movements that really looked like frogs.  They also had a few sections done in blacklight (the costumes were glow in the dark), like a fish aquarium and some awesome lizards.  Preston lasted through the entire first half and part of the second.  He really enjoyed it!  Luke on the other hand liked to watch, but would scream unless he had a baby cookie in his mouth.  I fed him a steady stream of cookies for most of the first half, but eventually had to abandon the effort.  I took him out into the lobby to climb the big staircase for the remainer of the first half.
Luke got his 6th tooth the day after that concert on Feb. 23!  
The big news in my life is that I started taking classes towards my MBA.  Once a month I take a 2 day class on a Friday and Saturday.  I'll have 3 classes done by the end of the semester.  I'm really enjoying it so far.  My first one was all about Venture Capital and how to start a business.  Interesting stuff.

From Luke:
I am almost 1!  Can you believe it?  I know the big question on your minds is if I am walking yet.  I'm not officially, but I took a record breaking 6 steps today!!