Oh yeah! Look at me!

I was pleased as punch with myself today! Well, the whole fam decided to take an afternoon nap since I had kept them up until 4am this morning. When dad got up to check on me, this is what he found...... Oh yeah, I am the coolest....look what I can do! When dad got mom, she was scared to death! I still think it was my best trick yet.
I guess I will still get to practice my new trick even though shortly after this picture was taken, my daddy lowered my matress :)

More Gifts!

I have to do the taste test on EVERYthing to make sure they pass my standards!
Fun times! I can't wait to get my mouth on those!
I had to continue the Murphy tradition and put one of the bows on my head!
Look at all my loot! Thanks Mamaw, Papaw and Aunt Christy!

I love opening gifts!

Thanks for my long john's Aunt Karen and Uncle Donald....Mom has to wash them before I wear them, but I will be sure to show them off very soon!
Ohhhh....paper....how much fun! ...Oh, you mean there is something else under the paper for me to play with?! This just gets better and better!
Yeah!....More paper!!!!! Thanks for the super cool drums and lion slippers. You rock, Aunt Alyssa, Uncle Eddie, Madison and Jared!

Enough with the crawling...

Ok, I have totally mastered this crawling thing, so what is next?.....Oh, if I get next to something, I can pull up and sit on my knees. Very cool. I wonder what the next step is? My mommy and daddy won't tell me so I will have to find out on my own.....

You can do it Morganne!!!

You can do it Morganne! Just pull your arms in a little more and hold up your belly and you can crawl just like me. Then we can get into all kinds of stuff!

Already Asserting my Independence...

I am already asserting some independence. I have, as you know, started crawling, and I already have three vegetables on my plate (green peas, green beans and sweet potatoes). Well, just this week, I have started trying to hold the bottle on my own and I have gotten pretty good at it. My mommy says that I am growing up too fast, but she is getting used to the idea- she has no choice!

I know my name!

I know my name now . I will look at the person when I hear my name. I love playing with Mom's wooden spoon and plastic bowl...maybe I will be a future drummer???

You talkin' to Me?

"Lukie, what are you doing???......"
"You talkin' to me?"
"Sorry, mommy, I thought is was Christmas already!"

Future Dog Lover???

I was enthralled with the puppy dogs down in TN. My aunt Chrisy has a lab mix named Gracie and lab named Lilly. Gracie and I were instant friends! I loved her and she was so sweet to me.
Gracie loved me to pat her on her head.
I also loved Papaw's puppy dog, Rusty! I wanted to get in the cage with him!

Mommy can I PLEASE have a dog???

Tennessee Friends

My new friends Ashley and Hayley, and their parents Nikki, and Greg. My daddy and their parents go way back. I loved talking to the girls at lunch at Sticky Fingers!
Me and my buddy Michael. He is almost exactly one year older than me!
The Paynes and Vannostrans...I went to visit Michael up in Cleveland while my mommy and daddy got to visit with his parents, Traci and Richie. We got to see the end of the TN game that went into 4 overtimes. WHOOOHOOO!!! TN won and is going to the SEC championship....my daddy sure was happy!

Crawling in my Sleep???

This is how my mommy and daddy find me most mornings! I don't know how I do it, but I love to get into this position to sleep. Even though I am on my tummy, my doctor says not to worry. She said that if I can roll from side to side then if I put myself on my tummy then it is ok to leave me that way. I must be sleeping well...check out the drool stain next to my mouth :) Maybe I am so excited about crawling that I am doing it in my sleep?!?!

My First Thanksgiving

Thankgiving lunch at Aunt Aylssa's and Uncle Eddie's.
My cousin, Jared, and my daddy acting crazy! Yum, the turkey looks great. I can't wait to have some next year. I will have to stick to my rice cereal, oatmeal and peas for now.
I love my cousins, Madison and Jared!
Family party pic on Thanksgiving Day!
A Payne familly tradition: game night after turkey day. We play all kinds of games, but it all comes down to who will win Scrabble! This year my daddy won the final game with a bingo of the word "Crimson!"

On the GO!!!

Much to my mommy and daddy's mixed emotions, I am ON THE GO! I know they are happy that I have reached this milestone, but I think they were hoping that I would stay immobile for a little while longer. Oh well! My favorite thing to crawl to is the remote and my diaper bag. Ready or not, here I come!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

I love Christmas already! I am mesmerized by the tree lights and ornaments. I loved hearing all of the stories behind every ornament on our tree. My mommy and daddy collect an ornament every place they have been, so there are some from AL to TN to Brazil to France to Ireland, etc. The newest ornament was from our trip to Philly. I loved watching mommy put up the tree light.
There is Daddy putting the finishing touch on the tree!

Rocking!

I am on the verge of crawling. I am getting so good at getting up on all fours and rocking. I can even bring one knee up, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of moving my hands and knees at the same time. Watch me in action.......

Church Friends!

Mom, Dad and I joined the cutest church at the beginning of the summer, Grace Baptist, up in Chappaqua, NY. There are so many nice people there and I have so many friends! Over the summer there were four babies born, including myself. I am the oldest followed by Isabella, Julie and Johnathan. Sundays are so much fun!

Look how much I've grown

This is a picture of me in my rocking chair when I was just a few weeks old.
Here I am on my 6 month birthday....look how much I've grown!

A mother's muse (more like rambling, but oh well!)

Luke turned 6 months old yesterday and it has been such a fun adventure! Jeremy and I have watched him grow and change and have loved every minute of it. He is eating rice and oatmeal now, sitting up on his own (most of the time), getting up on his hands a knees and rocking, and truly one of the happiest babies in the world. Now let me elaborate on the last comment on the list. I bet a lot of mother's would say this about their little one's, but we have had other people, ever perfect strangers comment on his personality, so that has some validity, doesn't it? He is the most smiley baby in the world and SO laid back (he must have gotten that part from Jeremy :) Whatever we have him do he is like "great, what next? ---you want to cut my nails, great; you want to go to the store, great; it's time for a bath, great"---OK, you the picture. Well, there has been a little part of parenting that Jeremy knew we needed to remedy for our own sanity, not Luke's. Now before any of you gasp in horror, let me just say that in our defense this is something that I said I would NEVER DO if I have children. But, as the old saying goes, Never, Say Never! Since Luke was about 2-3weeks old, he has been sleeping in the bed with us. It is not as scary as it sounds and I know that as brand spanking new parents all we knew was that it was the only way we could get him to sleep and not to mention that it was so much easier for me to nurse him if he was just right there next to me in bed, especially during those first few months when he ate every two hours. Well, we have known that for about three months now that it was time to break the habit, but there has never seemed to have been the right time. We are travel happy and we were gone for a month over the summer and Luke has already had two plane rides and had many visitors and side trips here and there. We did try to let him "cry it out" one night (about three weeks ago) and after one hour of back and forth my nerves were shot and I was almost in tears. So we went back to co-sleeping with hopes of trying it again someday.... well.....I am happy to report that after a few days of getting him to nap during the day in his crib, we decided to try him in the crib after his last feeding last night.......and............he has been asleep for over eight hours and counting!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And he went to sleep with NO crying. Don't get me wrong, I am still tired today, because I was up a few times checking on him, but all is well. I know that tonight may be a struggle to get him to sleep, but at least for this moment it feels like a HUGE accomplishment. So, for those of you who read all the way to the end, thank you for listening to me ramble.

Connor and Luke

My friend Connor and his mom and dad came to visit today. Mark and Michelle were mommy and daddy's previous next door neighbors! My buddy, Connor, is three months old and he is acutually bigger than I am! I am in the 5th percentile and he is in the 75th percentile! That is ok...maybe I will catch up one of these days : )

Laughing Luke

Fun Times!

Halloween 2007

My first Halloween!

Sitting on the stoop handing out candy, looking at all of the cute costumes, and waiting for the Hill's to get here.

Morganne and her mom and dad finally made it to our house so that we could go trick or treating....of course, all of the candy we got went straight to our daddys!

Lukie the Pumpkin and Morganne the Christmas Tree (Christmas is her mother's favorite holiday.)

After all of the excitement, I fell asleep in Mommy's arms!

Me and Daddy by the Ol' Rip Van Winkle statue on main street.

Pumpkin Patch

I loved the pumpkin patch. My mommy and Mimi making me pose.

Can you believe they are taking more pictures of us Morganne?

Shhh....there's a lion in the pumpkin patch!

Out House Orchard

This past Sunday, mommy, daddy, mimi, and the Hill's went to the Out House apple orchard in Croton Falls, NY. Mommy and Mimi had never seen apples actually growing on the tree. I was more interested in seeing my best girlfriend, Morganne. There was apple picking, a pumpkin patch, turkey legs and bbq, and the BEST homemade doughnuts ever (at least that is what my mom and dad told me.) Maybe I will get a taste next year!