Trick or Treat for UNICEF!

Myla and Luke will be trick-or-treating for UNICEF this year! Neither kid needs tons of candy and many of you won't see them on Halloween, so this project is a great alternative that helps out kids around the world. Our goal this year is $67.79, which will buy 10,000 water-purifying tablets that make water safe for kids to drink. We aren't asking for much, just hoping for lots of small donations--so please log in to give even just a dollar or two. Just $1.16 can buy a packet of high-energy biscuits to feed kids in emergency situations!

To donate, click on this link. We really appreciate your help, as do kids around the world!

Falling Out of Bed

Thought I would do a short post to report that Myla fell out of her bed last night for the first time. It's quite startling to be woken up at 5:30 am by a really loud thud followed by your daughter crying. Kasey immediately said, "Myla fell out of bed" which I thought was pretty amazing because I was in quite a haze and couldn't tell what I heard or if I was dreaming.

I went in to find Myla crying on the floor. In typical fashion, she recovered pretty quickly and went back to sleep after I read her a of couple books. No doubt she was scared to death and I'm sure it didn't feel very good to hit the hardwood floors. Here's hoping it's a one-time event and not something that we have to try to prevent!

Of course there are no pictures, though I was really hoping that we had a monitor that was recording her while she slept so that I could see what happened.

Luke Love

As Luke is nearing two months old and I'm getting ready to go back to work part-time, I thought it was a good time to write about a few of the little things I've come to love about him. Beware, there's mushy stuff ahead!

1. Luke almost always sneezes in pairs. Usually this means two at a time, but once he did six in a row. It was adorable.

2. The boy has a need for speed. He loves to ride in the car--until we stop at a red light or stop sign, when he immediately starts wailing. As soon as we're on the move again, he's perfectly happy. It makes driving a little bit stressful--I have been known to honk aggressively at cars in front of me if they don't turn right on red as quickly as I'd like!

3. Luke has the best smile. My favorite thing about it is that I can actually see a lot of my smile in it. He even has this flickering dimple thing that appears whenever he gives a half-smile, like I do.

4. Luke is a chunky monkey. He's already over 15 lbs. by our scale, and really fills out his 3-6 months clothes. I like this because it makes him seem like such a boy. And because all the eating he's doing is allowing me to do things like take advantage of Steak and Shake's milkshake happy hour (2:00-4:00, half price shakes, every day!).

5. He loves to hold my finger. I know all babies will grasp your finger, but Luke seems to seek it out and it really calms him when he's upset. It's been this way since birth. One of my favorite early memories was sitting in the wheelchair as the nurse wheeled the two of us out of the hospital to meet Matthew with the car. Luke grabbed my finger as if to say "Here we go Mommy, you and me against the world!" It was so sweet.

Fishes Visit

As Kelly documented in a much more timely and thorough manner, the Fish family came to visit us and meet Luke in September. Check out her blog for more pictures, but here are a few that I took. As you can see, Myla loves those Fishes! We are so thankful to these guys for making such a long trip--we know it isn't easy and it meant so much to us.

Here's a really funny one of Lofton. When he was here he had just started solid foods, but was already very eager to move past purees to pastries! GIMME DONUT!!!!

Rough Weekend

It's taken me a few days to recover from the debacle that was last weekend - my sports teams playing abysmally, a sick daughter and a not-so-little baby boy that needs a lot of attention right now all made for one to forget/remember.

Our household has gotten pretty excited about the Reds' season this year so even though we were not real confident about the match up with the Phillies, we had hope that they would make a decent showing. Not so much.

The weekend got started on Friday when the Reds looked like they were going to bounce back nicely after getting no-hit in the series opener. Then they forgot how to use their gloves, the pitchers started hitting more batters than strike zones, and the weekend took a very bad turn. I was more upset after that loss in game 2 than the no-hitter. After sulking for a few hours and then going to bed, I was awoken to Myla crying at 2:00 am. I walked down the hall in a hazy state and was welcomed by the sight of Myla sitting up in her bed with vomit all over the sheets, comforter, pillow, and her pajamas. Fantastic! For the next two hours I sat up with her while she continued puking and Kasey took care of Luke during his normal wake-ups. Myla was still feeling rough on Saturday morning and was up and down all day in terms of her mood and how she was feeling.

Saturday night things in our sports world turned sour again when UK lost on a last-second field goal to #8 Auburn. Again, I didn't expect much, but you get drawn into these games when you are a UK football game and they are so good at losing in the last second. Ugh!

Just when it didn't look like it could get any worse, Sunday came along. Myla was no longer puking, but had a fever and just wanted to be held all morning. She finally seemed to shake whatever bug she had sometime around lunch - just in time for the Bengals to do their part for my weekend and lose in ridiculous fashion to the Bucs.

The cherry on the sundae/Sunday, came that night when the Reds got shutout and looked awful in their first home playoff game in 15 years.

Late Sunday night I told Kasey that this had to be one of the worst weekends of my life. She took offense to that, but I tried to put it in perspective. The reality is that I've been blessed to the point that my really bad weekends are when my sports teams lose and my daughter is sick. I get the fact that in the grand scheme of things it's really not that bad. However, I think many of you out their can certainly sympathize that after 48 hours of cleaning up vomit, holding a whiny daughter, trying to take care of a 7 week-old baby, and watching three of your teams disappoint you, it wasn't exactly an enjoyable weekend.

Now, all that being said, of course any weekend that I get to spend with my lovely wife, goofball daughter, and husky son, is better than most weekends!

Random Luke Pics

Big girl bed

Here's a picture of Myla on her first night in her new, very pink, big girl bed. It's been about a month now, and she's done great with it. She hasn't fallen out once, and also never gets out when she isn't supposed to. Good girl!

Thanks to Nana and Pop who helped paint it this only-suitable-for-a-two-year-old shade of pink!

Other Fun Moments

There were many moments this summer that I tired to capture with my iPhone. Here is a collection of all the memories we saved:

This is the morning after we stayed in a hotel in the Fairfield Inn in Kokomo while on our way to Stephanie's wedding. Myla was feeling much better here than the night before when she vomited all over herself three times while riding in the car. Ugh.

One of the last rides when Myla got to use her Paci. I'm scared to go on a lengthy ride without it.

Goofing around with pants on her head.

Playing in the store - more pants on the head.

Showing off her shades after dinner one night.

Another silly face - are you learning these things at school?

Myla shows me the picture of our new family!

Making a funny/scary face while wearing daddy's shoes.

Circle time with her buddies - Buzz, Elmo, and baby.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, Myla loves sleeping with her Swoop. This particular night she also demanded to wear her hat from Steak 'n Shake to bed, which at this point was simply a mattress in the corner. She didn't get the full affect of her "big-girl bed" until we painted it and put it together a couple months later.

Let's Go Reds!

Here's Luke, smiling and getting in the spirit for the baseball playoffs! The Blaze-Buckles household is throwing all its support behind the Red Legs--as Myla says, if they don't win it's a shame!

(Apologies and condolences to Pop.)

Smiles

Luke started giving us flashes of smiles at around four weeks, and they get more frequent and sincere every day. A couple of days ago I caught a really good smile on the video camera. Enjoy, but please ignore my inane banter--moms will make fools of themselves to try to get those smiles!

That's My Swoop!

One of the more enjoyable things we did this summer was our outings to the South Bend Silver Hawks baseball games. Myla absolutely loves their mascot "Swoop" and even got a little stuffed Swoop doll that she takes everywhere and has to have with her in bed. She got to know all the cheers including "charge," "hey-yo," "everybody clap your hands" (which for those that have been to a wedding with me can attest makes me very proud), and "batter-batter-swing-batter." I'm sure next year will be even more fun. It's hard to beat "Dollar Mondays!"



Myla posing with her Swoop. She had to high-five and hug Swoop at every game we went to.



Myla, her mommy, and her Swoop take in a game.


I love this shot of Myla hanging on the railing watching the game.

Luke's One Month Photos

As we did with Myla (through 2 years), we will be taking pictures of Luke each time he turns another month older. Here are his one month photos--so big already!

I think this last one looks very much like one particular studio picture of me when I was an infant. Unfortunately Mom has that one at home so I can't show you, but I did have this one where I also think there's a pretty good resemblance.