Rudy - Udy - Duy

As most of you know we have a miniature schnauzer named Rudy. When Luke first started talking one of his first words was Udy, which is what he has called Rudy for over a year now. But all of the sudden a few weeks ago, Rudy's name suddenly went from Udy to Duy (pronounced Dewey). It is so cute!! They funniest part is that Rudy responds to that name. Luke will call Duy and then pat beside him and make a kissing noise to try to get Rudy to sit next to him. I will have to get that on video.

Happy Birthday Daddy!!! We love you!!!

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Happy Halloween

Sorry this is late I couldn't find the cord to put the pictures on the computer. Luke had a good Halloween he didn't get to go Trick or Treating since Scott and I both had games, but he still had fun. Here he is first thing Friday morning. All the kids wore their costumes to his sitter's so we dressed him up. As you can tell he was not happy - he did not want to wear the hat. But the costume had the cutest shoe covers.

Here he is enjoying Shrek during the volleyball game.

Finally at 10pm he didn't mind wearing the hat.

It also came with a golf bag and one of the clubs actually came out of the bag.

New things Luke is doing

The first thing is this weekend all of the pacifiers "broke". He has been sad at bed time, but is beginning to go to sleep better. He was thoroughly disappointed at Miss Debbie's to find that the one there had also broken. So we are pacifier FREE!!!

He is going through the stage of saying no even when he means yes. It gets a little confusing for me because I will ask him if he wants his juice and he will say no and shake his head, so I put it up and then he gets mad because he didn't get it. The worst part of this is combined with the screaming phase we have discovered. When he gets mad or frustrated he will scream at the top of his lungs. He refuses to ask for help when he is frustrated because he want to do things himself as well. It is just a vicious cycle.

Sunday night he took a bubble bath for the first time. He was a little scared of the bubbles at first, but grew to love them. Gramma tried to teach him how to blow the bubbles off his hand, but he didn't have enough force to get them to move. He did decide after a few tastings that the bubbles didn't taste nearly as good as they looked.

He is saying more words if you ask him to say them, but he doesn't necessarily use them on his own. I seems at though over night he is changing more and more. I will get some pictures of Luke in his Halloween costume and get them up for you to enjoy.

The drumming continued

Sorry, some how the video didn't make it on the last post so here it is for your enjoyment. I showed the video to Luke and he insisted on watching it for about 15 minutes until I insisted we stop watching it. And by his insisting I mean crying the second it was stopped and by my insisting I mean pretending it didn't work anymore.

The Drum

Luke has been in love with drums. There is one at the baby sitter's and one at church, he plays with both of them constantly. Our good friend Jessica bought him one for his birthday and of course he loves it!! He also got some dinosaurs, wooden blocks, a wooden puzzle and a basketball goal he has been playing with a lot since Saturday. Here are some pictures and a video from the birthday party.

He also got a Big Wheel that he loves playing with too. His legs are almost long enough to make the pedals go all the way around. He mainly just scoots it with his feet for now.

Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Luke

I want to thank everyone for coming to celebrate Luke's 2nd birthday. We enjoyed getting to spend time with all of you. For those of you who were unable to attend we hope to get to visit with you soon. Luke has been playing with all of his new toys nonstop.

We were honored to have 3 of Luke's Great-Grandparents attend his party. I know he had so much fun playing with all of you and entertaining you.

I will add more pictures and videos of Luke playing with all of his new toys as soon as I get them added to my computer. Thank you all for making it a wonderful day!!!

Fun in the training room

Being the son of 2 athletic trainers it is inevitable that Luke will spend a lot of time in our training rooms. I was able to capture a video of him playing with tape while I was taping some athletes.

He also has a knack for water bottles. I had some bottles in my office with the lids off. He took one look at the bottles and lids and proceeded to put each lid on the bottle. He then tried to drink out of the bottle, but there was no water. He was so cute, but I didn't get any video. I will try to stage it this Friday and see if I can get him to do it again.

First Trip to the Zoo

Luke went on his first trip to the Zoo a few weeks ago when we visited Gramma. They sure didn't have this sign while I was growing up.

Here he is feeding the Giraffe. I had to help him hand it to the giraffe because he just dropped on the ground. Notice the lovely black tongue reaching for the cracker. Luke loved it!! Did you notice the "monkey on his back"? It is actually his leash, but I have decided to call it a tail. It sounds much better don't you think? It didn't get used much on this trip because all he wanted to do was push his stroller, but it has been used since then and works very well.

Luckily at this zoo there are no signs that say "Do not feed the bears", so I fed the bears - not Luke. There are 2 this is the one on the right. I would try to drop the crackers on the edge of the concrete closest to me and he would reach his paw through the fence and rake it to the fence and then get it with his tongue like in the picture above.


That is the best action shot I got, my camera is slow on the draw and takes the picture right after the action happens. I will have to take that in to consideration when it is time for a new camera. The bear had just raked the cracker to the edge and is pulling his paw back inside the cage. There is another fence on my side that is about chest high that has signs telling you not to reach in, and I can see why, but there are so many crackers that have fallen where the bears can't get to them. I can see how it would be tempting to reach in and get them. I even considered it for about half a second.

This video is very short of Luke at the Meerkat exhibit. The meerkat had ran by about 5 times before Luke noticed him. But the video made me laugh so I hope it makes you laugh too.

I tried to get Luke pictures with each animal, but it didn't work out. So I took pictures of each of the animals and thought I would "photoshop" Luke in with them. Only to learn I would first have to get the program to do it. So maybe I can get that done sometime. Luke had a great time and I am looking forward to taking him to one of our local zoo's when it gets cooler.

The silence is broken

Work has finally settled down so I can get back to updating you all about Luke and our fun this summer. But first I will start with last night. We had our first Toilet experience. Last night I was finishing getting dinner ready - which hardly happens, usually Scott does the cooking - and Luke went back to our bedroom. I didn't think much about it until Scott realized we couldn't hear any noises of him in our room, so he called his name and then we hear the sound of the lid or seat on the toilet. Scott goes in to our bathroom and Luke is taking toilet paper off the roll and flushing it down the toilet. All I could do was laugh not exactly the way to let him know he was not supposed to be doing that. He has been able to flush the toilet for a while, but this is the first time he actually flushed something down the toilet. Looks like we wil have to try to keep a closer eye on him and the toilet. I don't have a picture of it, but this one will have to do for now.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!!

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E-mail Updates

I noticed lately that I was not getting the e-mails that let everyone know when the blog is updated, but I thought it was just me so I didn't worry. Then a faithful reader - AKA my Mom - told me she was not getting them either so I set out to figure out what happened.

Around May 18th you may or may not have received an e-mail about Blogarithm "migrating" to RSSFWD. And apparently the new e-mail that is being sent out about the update notifications went in to my Spam folder. So please check you spam folder and look to see if you have an e-mail from "RssFwd Daily Digest" rssfwd@rssfwd.com that is titled Updates for 06 Jun, 2008/S1300. I don't know what the numbers at the end are so yours may be different. The e-mail was received on June 6th at 8:47am.

I will still look into this change. If they only send out one e-mail at the end of the week then that will defeat the purpose of having it, so I might look into other providers of this service. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or requests. Thanks. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Edit: If you do find the e-mail that tells you I have updated the blog, at the very bottom is a statement that says :
To manage other subscriptions, click here
If you click on the word here it will take you to the wesite for RssFwd where you can customize your settings. On The Galloway Family blog you can click on edit my subscription and then after a little while you will see your e-mail adress and a drop down box. In the drop down box you can choose when you get your update notification. If I am the only blog you subscribe to you may want to choose the Normal setting if not you will probably want the digest setting, but you do get to choose the approximate time of day which we couldn't with the other service.

Nana's visit

This past weekend Nana came to visit. We all had a great time, especially Luke. He had a ton of fun jabbering to her and playing with her. On Monday she stayed with him while Scott and I went to work and I know they had a blast. Sunday we got the baby pool out to show Nana how much he loved it. I think he was only in the pool a total of 30 minutes and only 15 minutes at the beginning before he started getting in and out. I don't know why he didn't seem as enthralled with it as he did the first time. We will blame it on hunger since it technically was his dinner time. Either way it wasn't hard to get him to come inside this time. But we at least did get some good pictures. I am also trying to decide what type of safety device will be best for him in a real pool and the ocean (we plan on taking him to the coast this summer.). I would love to hear your opinions in the comments.

In this video towards the end you can hear Luke say "my" while clutching his sippy cup. That is how he says mine. I guess he just wants to make sure Daddy knows it is his.

Hand, Foot and Mouth - Again and Spiders

On Tuesday the 28th, I took Luke in for this spot on his hand(first noticed on the 22nd) that I originally thought was either a mesquito bite or a small infection - at least that is what I thought until a bunch of water blisters started popping up around it over that weekend. Wouldn't you know it the day of the appointment his had started looking better, but he had gained the same blisters on the sides and bottoms of his feet along with a red dot rash so I kept the appointment. Well, this child of mine has some how caught the Hand, Foot and Mouth disease again. He had it either last spring or fall. But I can't seem to find any of his "friends" who have it. I think he is going out of his way to find kids that are sick and swap germs with them without me knowing. He will do just about anything for some cuddle time. Just kidding.



The outbreak this time was different than last time so maybe it is a different strain. Last time it first appeared on his outer thighs and looked like ant bites and I assumed they were. But I guess I should take my own advice I give my athletes. "If you didn't see the spider (or in this case ant) bite you then don't assume it is a spider bite." On a side note in my job, we see a handfull to a couple of handfulls of skin infections, that could be the dreaded staph infection, that the athletes let go for a week or two thinking it is just a spider bite.

By the way, I have been doing the hand motions to the itsy bitsy spider and Luke has been attempting to do the spider motion. It is so cute. I will have to get video of it for you to see.

Memorial Day Fun

Monday we decided to fill up the pool that Scott had bought for Luke and let him experience a pool for the first time. It was a ton of fun!! He wasn't sure about it at first, I'm not sure if it was because of the new experience or the cool water. But it didn't take long for him to realy get into it!! There were not many times he did not have a happy face on, until it was time to get out. It was also his first time to wear a swimming suit, he looked so cute. And just for Aunt Rah-Rah it has dinosaurs on it.

Water slide time!!!

That was fun!!

Ring toss / Put the rings on then throw them out of the pool game.
Here is the "throw out of the pool" part.

Slide again!! He is clapping or attempting to. Notice the tongue - it was out most of the time.

This is my favorite picture. The sheer excitement on his face

and the splashing water sum up the day.

Lessons learned:

1. The bottom of a plastic pool is very slippery.

2. Even thought the grass looks even the ground under it may not be, which makes the

bottom even more slippery.

3. The water fresh from the hose is cold even in 90 degree weather.

4. An aired up swimming pool with no water in it can become airborn on a windy day.

5. Getting a 19 month old out of the pool even though he is tired and hungry is not any easy

task.

6. Even with all of that, seeing him have so much fun makes it all worth it.

Here is a video for you to enjoy. You will get to see him slide, then he is putting the rings on the posts, and finally he is throwing them out of the pool. We also might need to rename it a slip and slide instead of a pool. Notice all of the toys outside the pool (to the left but the ring posts). He had 4 rings, 6 balls and 4 squishy balls that all were thrown out.

Our afternoon routine

Lately we have gotten into a routine after we get home. First we let Rudy out of his cage and then Luke runs to the laundry room (where Rudy's food is) and we get Rudy's food and then let him out to feed him. Most of the time Luke follows Rudy out and we go play in the backyard. Below is a series of pictures of what happens when we first go outside.

Here is Luke ready to go outside - by the way - he can say outside now.

Here he is halfway through the backyard going to our neighbor's fence. As his face shows he is on a mission.

Here we have noticed one of the neighbor's dogs at the fence.The neighbor's have 3 dogs. Here is Luke with Sandy. Sandy is very protective of Luke she will growl and bark at Rudy if he gets closer to Luke than she likes. Here she is keeping a close eye on Rudy while Luke is reaching through the fence to pet Sandy.
Here is Luke and Maddie. Maddie tolerates Luke, but most of the time will go the other way when Luke comes around.

Here is a typical encounter with Maddie.

Be prepared for camera movement if you get motion sickness.

The next step after either playing with the neighbor dogs or determining they are not outside is to run to the play set. Here is Luke going down the slide the traditional way.

And his favorite the past two weeks is to slide down the rock-wall.

It doesn't seem like fun to me, but he really enjoys it.

When Luke gets on the play set he usually wants to walk up the slide. When he gets to the top sometimes he keeps going to the flat base and sometimes he just lays on his belly. Here is the result of the latter. Sorry it is so short, he doesn't give me enough time to get the camera on.

Happy Birthday Grampa!!!

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Happy Birthday Gramma!!

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Normal Everyday Things

Here are some pictures and videos of Luke just doing his normal thing around the house. I guessed since most of you do not get to see this on a daily basis it might interest you.

Below is his new favorite way to watch Shrek at home.

Here he his playing with the leg to his table and just being himself.

Here he is loving on his best friend. Please try to ignore the annoying voice in the background.

And who can forget the blocks?!? The best distraction so far, I can usually make him forget about whatever he was whining about if I suggest we go play with the blocks. It is wonderful!

I hope you all are having a wonderful week!!

I will try to get some video of Luke on his new playset outside. His Daddy surprised him with it when we got back from seeing Gramma and Grampa. On one side is a rock-climbing-like side that he can't quite climb up, but he loves to slide/bounce down. It looks like it might hurt to me, but Luke loves it. Here is a picture of it from a website.

Happy Birthday Aunt Rah-Rah!!!

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Grampa's Home!!

Grampa got home for his annual Spring visit Thursday, so Luke and I loaded up and headed to see him Friday morning. Scott had a track meet and was out of town, so he couldn't go. But we had a ton of fun!! Luke is beginning to interact with people a lot more, he really liked Grampa! They played together the whole weekend and when we went somewhere he was always in Grampa's arms.

Here they are looking that the fish in the pond.

On Saturday, we went to the park after naptime and had a blast!!

As you can see, the slides where a big hit. On the cork screw slide we noticed he went down faster without the shoes so we took them off, but it was not a "fast" slide so it was still slow enough for me. I don't think the swing was exciting enough for him. And we need to thank Gramma for the wonderful pictures, some how we managed not to get any of her. But we will be back this weekend and we will get some of her.