Grandparent Day with Luke.....

Well Luke is now 3 years old and it's time for our weekend date with him. This weekend did not turn out like we had planned but we did enjoy the short amount of time that we did have with him. Steve had a trip planned to Montana the following week, and was pretty concerned about his car making it through the snow. He set out at about 11:30 to go buy snow tires for his car. We generally like to pick the kids up at around 2:00 or so for our date. Well, Steve had some complications with his car and was not home until 5:00.

Even though we were later than we'd like, when we arrived Luke was all ready to go.

After a few pictures with the boys...... we were ready to go!

He was full of energy and in a very goofy mood.....

I can't believe how big he looks in this picture. I still think of him as my "little" Lukie. He's really not so little anymore :(
The grandkids are always so excited as we load them in the car for their date. He was all giggles and smiles.

We had decided to take him to Hollywood Connections and go miniature golfing, bowling, and arcades. On the way we stopped off at Costco to exchange sizes on a sweater that we had bought him. As I went through the line at the register Howie and Luke went to get a Churro. I think we were in the store for a total of 5 minutes....TOPS! He was happy, energetic, goofy and WIDE AWAKE!!!

When we loaded him into the car and drove out of the parking lot I noticed he was being very quiet. I turned around to talk with him and this is what I found.....

He was SOUND ASLEEP!!!!

At first I thought he was just playing around (who can go into this deep sleep so fast) but then I heard him breathing heavily - almost snoring. Seriously he was in the car a total of maybe 2 minutes MAX and he was out cold! I know that Ashlee had mentioned that he didn't have a nap that day but I didn't think he would crash like this. We decided to just let him sleep for a bit and just planned on waking him up when we arrived at the bowling place. Once we got there it was absolutely impossible to wake him up. There was NO BUDGING HIM! I was pretty disappointed but we thought that we would just take him home with us for a sleepover and church in the morning and then just plan something fun another day. BUMMER!

Howie carried him inside and he looks just a little dazed.

This calmness did NOT last long. He burst into tears a few seconds after this shot and it all went downhill from there! He cried for at least 45 minutes straight!

He cried and cried as he ate....

I like the way he has chicken nuggets in one hand and a hamburger in the other hand.

He had HUGE ALLIGATOR tears rolling down his face.
Poor little guy!

I really thought that as soon as he ate something he would relax and then we'd have our happy little Lukie back. NOPE! The crying continued!

The more we talked to him the louder he screamed.
He was having a MAJOR tantrum....

He finally let me hold him but he still cried and cried for his mommy. I am not even sure if he was really awake during all of this crying FIT!

Finally calming down a little...

The moment I mentioned a "TREAT" to him his whole attitude changed

I forgot how much this kid love CANDY!

I should have thought of that an HOUR AGO!!!
Now there is MY HAPPY BOY!
He had both hands full of candy.

He would pull out one at a time and ask me if he could have this one, and this one and this one and I just said YES, YES, YES, YES! Anything to get the crying to STOPPPPP!

Yeah! IT WORKED!!!!

No more crying for the entire night and the next day :)
He may have an upset stomach but IT'S WORTH IT!

After about 5 minutes of munching down on candy we have our goofy boy back with us. He not only had his smile back but he was pretty hyper. I guess that is what happens when you eat that much SUGAR! Oh well...It was WELL WORTH IT!

We had decided to watch a movie with him before he went back to bed. When I came into the room Luke was giggling so hard. It took me a while to figure out what he was saying, but he told me that he just sucked out Papa Howie's brain. "Papa Howie doesn't have a brain anymore. I sucked it all out!" It was funny to watch Luke's reaction when Howie pretended to NOT know Luke's name. He hurried and "blew the brains" back into Howie's head. WHEW! That was a close one Howie :)

They played and wrestled around for quite a while. I wish it was not so late because I would love to be out doing something REALLY fun to celebrate his birthday. Oh well....

Everyone knows that if a movie is playing at Papa's house.....There is ALWAYS popcorn to go along with it. YUMMY!

Luke generally goes to bed by 8:00 everynight so I just figured that he would zonk out during the movie or soon afterwards. Well....I think the little "cat nap" that he had really energized him. He was WIDE awake! We played ball with him and just goofed around a bit.

While we were playing Luke had gone into my room to get the ball and found a surprise in my closet....He found my "STASH" for our trip to Italy.

"Hey man....THIS IS HEAVY!"

When I told him that we could dump it out he was ALL OVER IT!

He kept saying..."JACK-POT"! How does a 3 year old even know what a Jackpot is? We played in the money until about midnight! Who would have thought that a jug of coins could entertain a kid for that long. He had so much fun.

"We're in the MONEY"

He liked picking out the quarters from among the other coins. Good Job Ash and Ty for teaching him the names of his coins. Very impressive! I had second graders who had a hard time knowing the names of the coins. Luke is only three!

He ran his hands through it, buried his toes in it, laid in it, rolled around in it. He even shared it.

Oh yes...We definately washed our hands after this activity!!!! That money is NASTY dirty!

He brought Howie in and told him that he found a Jackpot here!

He was sure excited to show Papa Howie how rich he was....


He kept saying...."I'm rich! I'm rich!"
Here he is making a little stash of his own to take home.

Howie and I were separating the money out and counting stacks of coins. We were having a race to see who had the most.

When I look ed up, Luke was tucked under Howie's pants in the closet, loading up his shirt with coins for me. He wanted his Grandma T to win the race. I swear he had at least 5 pounds of coins tucked in his shirt for me. You can hear him grunting as he tries to lift it up to "dump" it in a pile for me.

Getting more for Grandma "T"

His poor shirt!

Sorry Ashlee if it is now stretched out 3 sizes too big!

He would go from one pile of coins to another and fill up his shirt.

It was almost as much fun putting it back in the jar as it was taking it out. I had no idea how much money we really had. We have been saving our change for years.

Time to put it away and head to bed for the night. It was very late and we had church the following morning so we had better get some shut eye.

After Luke woke up and I got him ready for church I could not find him. I could hear singing but no LUKE! He generally doesn't play in my bedroom so I didn't think to look there. I finally found him crouched down on the far end of the room by my bed snuggling up to this teddy bear. He looked so STINKIN cute!

When he knew I was taking his picture he said...."CHEEEEEESE!" His cheese pose looks a little scary. He looks like he is about to bite off my head or something.

All ready for church in his new Christmas outfit that we bought him. He looks so handsome. I know that Ash and Ty usually don't comb his hair this way but I think he looks ADORABLE!

What a cutie!

I was talking to Steve about how BIG Luke is getting and so when I went to take this picture Luke got up on his TIPPY TOES and said...."See Papa Howie, I am a big boy!"

I love this picture of the two of them together. Steve loves our grandkids so much and they can really feel it. He was such a snuggle bug during church and was so cute. He did not want to go to class so I didn't push it. He just sat on my lap and slept the majority of the time at church. NOT SURE WHY! Could it be that his grandma and papa kept him up all night playing????? MAYBE :)

I am glad we were able to spend a LITTLE time with Luke. He TOTALLY got RIPPED off as far as an activity with us. We are planning on making it up to him soon. Now that the holidays are over and April has healed I am back home and we will be getting together for a "TAKE TWO" celebration with him. This time we will make sure our schedules are clear, he has had a nap and we can give him our undivided attention. I look forward to it because it is really fun to play with our little ones. Great memories. Great FUN!

We love you Little Lukie! Happy 3rd Birthday to you!