my little bro...

hello! well, it's been 4 weeks since luke was born and i've decided he's pretty cool and i think we'll keep him. he does cry a little bit but otherwise is pretty low maintenance and an overall good little brother. and i've been working on sharing things (like momma's attention) and have decided i would share my blog with him. so now it's the "ben and luke" blog, although i will likely be doing most of the posting still, since luke doesn't appear to have been born with the talents that i was (poor kid). so far, things are going great with him around and i wanted to show you some more pictures of him recently (he changes fast!). but first there are just a couple of me too... the one above pretty much describes how things are around here now - fun but crazy. :) and the two below are of me trying on the sling that momma usually carries luke around in...

and here's what luke looks like lately... isn't he so sweet? (i think so! i like to give him little kisses and pats on the head, even if he's upset and crying)...

here are some funny faces he makes when he's stretching...

and sometimes he makes really goofy faces like this one!

one time he had a question, so he politely waited to be called on... (he was probably thinking, "um, excuse me miss, but could i trouble you for some milk, please?)...

at this point, he's still not completely sure how he feels about being on the outside with all of us, and he just stares in amazement (or confusion)...

and sometimes he even throws a few gang signs while trying to look cool...

and this is him thinking, "whatever" (aunt elaina style)...

and finally, this is him realizing that momma likes to give waaaaay too many kisses, but being the good boys that we are, you just have to give in and let her...

well, that's us for now. thanks for checking in and we'll try to post more again soon. bye! :)

as promised...

as promised, pictures and a few stories of what we did the week before luke was born...

here's what momma and i made on the felt board most recently...


and here's me helping daddy sweep and rake the leaves in the front yard (note that i stayed on the sidewalk and did not go out into the street). daddy works hard to take care of the house and yard, and as i'm getting a little older, i really like to help him out when i can. i'm using the fireplace broom - just my size!


and momma took me to a farm outside of austin to pick strawberries - yum! this was the same place that had the pumpkin patch last fall, if you remember. they have strawberries and blackberries in the early summer, so we couldn't resist. i loved pulling around the red wagon with our boxes...

and i especially loved playing in the dirt, while momma did the picking...

afterwards, we ate strawberry ice cream made right there at the farm - it was so good! i'm not sure what this face is about... then when we went home, we used some of our berries to make our own ice cream too, and it was delicious!! incidentally, we saw lance armstrong cycling on the side of the road on our drive home. totally cool! (sorry there are no pics of him. mom was tempted, but she was driving and decided against it.)

here i am in the car doing something i made up recently, which is a hand gesture for "crooked"... mom and dad have no idea what this is about or where i came up with this, but it's my own little secret and they think it's funny, so i'll just keeping doing it to be cute when i need to be...

and here's what i look like with a yellow shirt on my head...

that's all for this post - just wanted to get those pictures up here so you didn't miss out on any action before luke was born, although clearly we were ready for him to come since we were doing things like making hand gestures for "crooked" and wearing shirts on our head. we needed a little fresh excitement around here... :) more later...

more of luke...

although this is my blog, i'm trying to be a good big brother and share the spotlight with baby luke. i actually really love him a lot and am very sweet and gentle with him (although i've decided to act out in other ways, but we won't get into that)... here are a few more pictures of him and the two of us. things are pretty busy around here so i don't have time to write much yet, but hopefully i'll be able to post more pictures soon, including some of the things we did in the last week before he was born, and more updates on life as a big brother...

daddy is not actually asleep in this picture - momma just caught him with his eyes closed at that split second, but he wishes he was asleep in this picture (and lots of other times too, like say, in the middle of the night)...

here we are on monday, going to the park! i got to help momma push luke in the stroller. then yesterday we got a new double stroller, so i got to ride in it with him! that was cool. pics later...

sweet baby...

as you can see, he's pretty high maintenance, so i better go help mom and dad take care of him. and this picture is still more bad news for momma regarding daddy's big (and ugly!) chair - luke seems to like it too! sorry mom...