Casa Villarreal

1. Luke used to climb up onto the recliner and sit with me while I was feeding Emma.
2. Luke was an incredibly picky eater, but always loved meatballs, pancakes, (golden) and Grahams cereal.
3. Luke would say "maybe tomorrow" instead of "no" when we'd ask him a yes/no question. Guess I overused that when I didn't feel like doing something.
4. When Luke would wake up in the morning, he would stay in his bed and say "Daddy... where ARE you?" in a sing-song voice.
5. Luke transitioned to the big-boy bed that Nana & Poppa got him when Emma was only 3 weeks old... and I was so scared that it would be a disaster, but it wasn't!!!
6. For the first few weeks after Emma came home, Luke would go up to her, shake her hand, and say "Nice to meet you, Emma!"
7. Luke loved his Gummy Vitamins, which were themed after Marvel comic book superheroes. He called them his "Hulk Vitamins- 2 per day." This is because Luke would always ask for more, and Phil would say "you can only have 2 per day."
8. Luke was the King of No. He would change everything into a "no."
9. Luke was obsessed with the movie "Howl's moving castle" and loved to build a moving castle out of Mega Blocks.
10. Once, when he was going "Pee Pee in the Potty," Luke said in reference to the toilet, "I don't go in there... rats will bite my penis." I SWEAR, we never said anything like that to him. Ever. After all, we *want* him to get potty trained, not traumatize him forever!!!!
11. Emma smiled at us for the first time the third week of March, when she was 6 weeks old.
12. We spent many mornings walking laps around Riverfront Park in our Zooper double stroller, in a somewhat futile attempt to lose the baby weight. Luke would read books, Emma would sleep, and I would walk walk walk walk.
13. Luke loved to say "okay, sure" instead of "yes," on the very rare occasions that he would say yes to something!
14. Luke's favorite songs were "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox 20, "Not My Time" by Three Doors Down, "American Boy" (still!) by Estelle and Kanye West, and "Pocket full of Sunshine" by Natasha Bettingfield. He would say "I LOVE that song!" when it would come on the radio or Ipod rotation.
15. Luke loved to say "I can't try" when he couldn't do something, "thats pretty good!" when he tried a new food that he liked.
16. Luke looked so cute in his baseball hat and sunglasses.
17. Luke loved to fill buckets with sand from his sandbox, walk it over to the patio, and dump it on the cement and on the patio table. This provided endless fun for LUke and endless sweeping for me.
18. Every single day, when Phil would leave for work, Luke would say, "Where'd Daddy go?" I would say "he went to work to earn money for the family" and then Luke would say "go see him?" Every single day.
19. Luke decided that he loved his pediatrician, Dr. Bean, only when we started going in for Emma's well-baby checks. Before that, he would scream through the whole appointment.
20. Anytime anybody would get a boo boo, Luke would say "Gotta go see Dr. Bean!"
21. Luke finally completely mastered his colors! We taught him his colors by quizzing him on the colors of passing cars and trucks when on the highway.
22. Emma slept in a little white bassinet in our room at night. When she would wake up, I would get her, change her, and feed her. Then I would swaddle her and put her back in the bassinet. If she didn't go right back to sleep, Phil would get up with her. That was our system and we loved it!
23. Luke's favorite pajamas were his Batman and Superman outfits, complete with capes!
24. Every night when we tucked Luke in, we would say "Show me McQueen!" and he would shine his Lightning McQUeen (from the movie "Cars") flashlight on the ceiling. Then, after we shut the door, he would use that flashlight to look at books until he fell asleep. So cute!
25. On nice evenings, Phil would take Luke to the "Nastics Park," this little playground at the end of our street, to play. Luke named it the Nastics Park during the Summer 2008 Olympic Games, when he thought the playground equipment looked like gymnastics apparatus. He would hang on the bars pretending he was a gymnast.
26. When Emma would sleep in the swing, Luke would go up to it and start rocking it. He would try to sing the "Rock a bye Baby" lullaby. I would sorta get irritated because i wanted her to stay asleep, but it was sooooooo adorable.
27. Luke just could not wrap his mind around the fact that American cheese comes wrapped in plastic. He would go into the fridge, take out a slice, and try to eat it plastic and all. And then he would get confused.
28. I became addicted to Facebook.

...more to come...

Those of you on Facebook have already seen some of these, but I thought I'd post them for my family. Emma is 6 weeks old today, and I already can't remember life before her! I think that Luke has adjusted really well- in part due to the fact that she sleeps most of the day, which allows for plenty of quality mommy/son time. He hasn't felt displaced yet, so he hasn't felt the need to act out too much. Aside, that is, from the running off at parks and answering "no" to everything we ever ask him. Par for the two-year-old course, I"m told. Funny story: we were at Sunday family dinner last night, and Luke's cousin, Gabe, was there for the first time in about a month. Gabe is three and is going through a really bossy phase. Like I said, Luke is two and is going through a really defiant, "no" phase. You can imagine how their conversations went! Gabe was always trying to get Luke to do things, and Luke was always saying no! They were frustrating each other to no end! It was hilarious to watch! :)