party!

We had Luke's birthday party today! I was worried that it would be too cold to be outside so instead of going to the park like I had originally planned we met at church in one of the little kid Sunday school rooms so that the little kids would have plenty of toys to play with. Not everyone was able to make it but we had a pretty good turn out for the late notice and we had a lot of fun.

I made two cakes, both from a box and they both turned out fine.

Luke just loves kissing babies. This morning in the nursery he laid about five kisses on a 7 month old girl before she decided she had had enough. I think this is the first time he has ever had another baby kiss him back! I know it looks like they are Frenching and this is definitely going to be one picture he will regret later, but in person it was very sweet.

He enjoyed playing with balloons for the first time, I think in the pic below uncle Ben is trying to teach him how to make it squeak with his fingers. He popped one too at one point though I'm not sure how he did it. He looked a little scared but then he saw us all laughing so he decided it must be ok.

Here is the all important song and blowing out of the candles...

Luke ate his first cake, mostly just ate the frosting as you can see below.

....and tried his first pop!

He had already gotten most of his presents but he got a few at the party, a really cute jacket that he will probably wear next fall from Ben and Andrea, a coloring book and crayons from Mark and Amanda, and two Dr Seuss board books (Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You? and the ABC book) and a toy phone from Amy and Glen.

I had mentioned before that he is very verbal, and I can usually guess what he wants, but usually he just grunts. He does use signs, "lights" is his favorite, and he just learned bye-bye a week ago, and occasionally he uses "milk" for nursing. He also babbles a lot and says Ma Ma Ma, Ba, Da, and Ya Ya Ya, and has been saying those things for a long time now, but I'm not convinced that he means anything specific when he says them. This week though he has started saying "Hello", or his version of it, whenever he picks up the phone! For a short time you could hear him saying it on our answering machine. Some how when he was playing with the phone one day he managed to get just the right combination to make his own outgoing message. I think several people heard it and thought that Greg had just let Luke pick up the phone and that eventually he had hung up on them. I think I called the number three times before I realized that it was a recording and I wasn't really talking to my baby! It was really cute but Greg told me today he made a new one so if you missed it, too late, it's gone. )-: So, is "hello" his first word? I'm not sure....