Lukas' First Haircut

So my son is blessed with tons of beautiful hair that many a mom is quite jealous of. ;) Unfortunately, it got a little shaggy this past month and so over an inch had to go. Lukas was quite a trooper and very content to chew on his teething ring while daddy held him, mommy cut, and mommy's friend Shayna took pictures and video to remember the momentous event. I wanted to save a little piece of his hair for his scrapbook (I know cheesy) but Matt made fun of me so I didn't. Later on that week I was talking to my sis-in-law and she asked if I did save some. I told her what happened and that I didn't and she said she still has both of her kids and even her own that her mom saved from when she was a baby! How cool is that?! I immediately regretted not saving some for Lukey. Oh well. I'm sure we'll all survive. *Sniff sniff...
By the way. Before the cut Lukas had dark brown hair. After the cut, blond. I'm sure it will just keep getting lighter and lighter like mine did. He's such a cutie!

The Before pic

I love how scared he looks ;)

And...After! He's adorable, huh?!

Birthday Fun

Another thing Matt got me for my birthday was 2 cases of shotgun shells, hand gun shells, and 2 HUGE cases of clay pigeons. Why? you may ask. Well, my dear sweet husband remembered how much I really enjoyed going shotgun shooting a few years back. He knew my birthday was coming up and so he asked his friend who owned a shotgun and hand gun if we could go out with him and his wife if we provided the ammo. Thankfully he said sure and so we had a blast! I LOVE how thoughtful my hubby is! Unfortunately, I kept bragging to Matty beforehand that I am a really good shot and rarely miss the clay pigeons (which I swear I was the last time I went) and so not to feel bad when I beat him. Well, look who got majorly humbled at her own birthday shooting party! Yea, I stunk it up on the shotgun and Matt did amazing well! I guess I did redeem myself when I did really well on the hand gun. Woohoo me! ;) Here are a few pics of us.

Adobe Photoshop

So Matt got me Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for my birthday in December and I FINALLY used it for the first time today. What do you think??? I really have NO clue how to use the program so I went online to a tutorial and this was the first thing I found so I miraculously did it. You likey?

Christmas = lots of family and of course lots of fun

So Christmas vaca has come and gone and although I miss the holidays already I am super stoked for the new year! We began our Christmas break with my parents and 2 younger bros flying in on the 20th. They all stayed with us in our not so big 2 bedroom apartment. To make room we had to bring Lukas' crib into our room and then rented a queen size bed for my parents to sleep on. My lil' bros had to tough it out on the couch or on the floor in the front room, unless they slept over at my older bros' apartments. The last night my family was in town we were able to fit 9 1/2 people in this not even 800 sq. ft. apartment (the 1/2 person was Lukas :) )!!! Me, Matt, and Lukas were in Matt and my room; My mom and dad were in Lukas' room; and then Gil, Josh, my older bro Brad and his 2 kids, Brooklyn and Porter, all slept in the front room! It was so much fun to cram together! My older bro Brad and his two kids slept over (even though they live in Orem) because his wife Amy just had their third child on Monday, a new little girl whom they named Samantha. She is super cute and has tons of thick, black, curly hair. SO CUTE! Of course this proud aunt will post pictures of her cute niece soon!! ;)

So Matt's older Sis Sierra and her husband and 3 little boys drove up from Arizona on the 22nd and stayed with Matt's grandma Rita here in Provo. Then Matt's parents and his little sis and bro flew in on Christmas Eve and then aunts, uncles, and cousins came the day after Christmas. Matt had a blast going snowboarding with his family a couple times while they were here. Matt's little sister also got a WII for Christmas and when Matt's mom began boxing on it for the first time of course Matt whispers urgently to me to go get the camera. Here's a really cute video of my mother in law Gwynn boxing... sorry Gwynn Matt actually made me put this up ;).



Christmas was so much fun with both our families here! Matt's family was here a little over a week and my family was here for 2 1/2 weeks. SO FUN! I wish it didn't have to end. We didn't take many pics over the break but here is one that is kind of funny. The most interesting gift this Christmas was one that I gave to Matt because he wanted it so badly. The American Society of Civil Engineers 2008 bridge calendar! haha. Yes, that's right, a calendar that has different pics of bridges from all over the world. Who wouldn't want that?! I love my civil engineer!!

Busy busy busy

So this past week has really been super busy for me. Rent was due on Wednesday and so on Thursday I had to enter all the checks into the computer, drop it off at the office by noon, feed Lukas, go to class, feed Lukas, and then go to another class. It felt like I was running full speed all day! It was nice to have kind of a slow day on Friday . Although, it didn't last long because on Saturday I had to put on a breakfast for all my tenants (37 single girls, 4 single guys, and 8 families). It was snowing really hard outside and since my boss wasn't able to find a canopy thing for us to use I had to quickly clean up my house so we could try to have it in here. Luckily, it wasn't too crowded in here seeing as only 4 single girls and 4 families showed up. But then I had tons of food left over so Matt suggested I take it to the single girls complex since I had to do cleaning checks right after the breakfast anyways.
So right after the breakfast was done at 11am, I ran over to the single girls complex to do cleaning checks. I carried a bin full of bagels and muffins to each apartment and each girl was so thrilled and thankful so that was kind of nice. Thankfully, cleaning checks only took me 1 hour instead of 2 which was a good thing since Lukas was due for a feeding when I got done. After that I dropped Matt off at school to do some homework and then went Christmas shopping with my good friend Shayna. When we began our shopping trip it hadn't been snowing for a couple of hours. When we finished our shopping trip however, it had been snowing for only 1/2 an hour and yet there was already 4 inches of snow on the ground. When we were driving home the guy in front of us was driving a small pick-up truck. Every time he would press on the gas to go the bed of his truck would slide to the right almost hitting the car to the side of him. It was pretty insane. It snowed hard for the rest of the night leaving almost eight inches of snow by the time it stopped.
After our shopping excursion I was able to rest for maybe 2 hours before I had to head off to our ward Christmas party. My brother Brad needed a babysitter for his two kids that night and couldn't find anyone because everyone was going to their ward Christmas party. So I volunteered to take my 4 1/2 year old nephew and 2 year old niece to the Christmas party with us. It was fun having to take care of 3 kids! We had a blast at the chocolate fountain that was there! I think the highlight of the night though was actually losing the kids 3 times! haha it was funny when I got out of the elevator and turned back to see my niece and nephew still in the elevator while the doors were closing!!! AHHH!!! Could you imagine my terror to see them take off alone in the elevator while I was standing outside?!?! Luckily, they only went down one floor and then back and everything was fine and dandy! ;) We finished off the night by playing video games in the bowling alley at BYU.
The next morning (Sunday) is normally nice and relaxing but not this week. I had to prepare my talk for the Primary Program we were putting on in our Ward the same day. Ha leave it to me to prepare last minute! But that's not all... half way through preparing my talk I realized that I had to give the Sharing Time lesson in primary the same day as well!!! Well, as you can tell I barely got everything done by the time church started. After church you would think I could catch my breath, but no, I had invited my brother's and their families over for dinner at 5pm and with church getting out at 4pm I didn't have much time to prepare. By the time they all had left it was almost 9pm and I was exhausted from the past few days!
Most of the time my life isn't too busy so I guess it was kind of nice to have it jam packed with so much stuff. But since Lukas has been having a hard time sleeping the past week it was just kind of tough. He is so good during the day but this past week he was waking up every few hours screaming. Needless to say I didn't sleep very much. My hat goes off to all mothers everywhere who have my past week's schedule every week!!! I don't know how you do it but you are AMAZING! Here is a video that makes me smile and gives me the much needed strength to continue with hectic weeks such as these. I hope it does the same for you!

Lukas' 4 1/2 month Check-up

So Lukas had his 4 month check up (2 weeks late of course) on Friday November 30th. He once again had to get 4 shots which I was so nervous about since Matt would not be there with us. Matt was so good at distracting Lukas last time by feeding him sugar water while I had to hold him down while the nurse gave him the shots. This time without Matt I could only hold him down and so he couldn't have the distraction of sugar water so I was nervous that he would scream bloody murder for a long time. I was so relieved when he only cried for seriously like 5 seconds and then was totally fine! Whew! Well, here are his new stats:

15 lbs 11 oz
27.5 inches long

Amazingly, he is only in the 54th percentile for weight. His head circumference and length on the other hand are in the 97th percentile! Yea he's a pretty big boy but not really chunky, just thick! He's such a good baby boy that we really are very lucky parents! Here's a few pics from the day he had this appointment.

Thanksgiving in CA

Well, sorry we've been out of touch for a while. We've been swamped with school, managing apartments, being sick, and taking care of cute ol' Luke. We had the wonderful opportunity to go to CA for Thanksgiving, even though I was just there 3 weeks prior. We had so much fun visiting with Jeremy and Janelle and baby Zoe as well as both sets of grandparents, uncles, and aunts! Unfortunately, Sierra and Eric and boys were not able to make it but we hope to see them during the Christmas season in Utah! For Thanksgiving we had a wonderful dinner at the Evans' home and they were wonderful enough to let me invite my parents and younger bro's. Unfortunately, my dad was sick and wasn't able to make it but we were able to have fun anyways. Here are some cute pics of the past month!


My younger bros teaching Lukas how to be tough!

Lukas with his Great-Grandma Politis. Lukas is named after her husband, his great gradfather, who passed away 1 week before I (Nicole) was born.

Lukas found his feet this past month.

Luke has a new trick...if he can't find his pacifier then why not just suck on his own lips. Unfortunately, this new trick produces lots of drool...