9.20.2010

luke meets his great grandma johnson

over the weekend we headed to truro, iowa a small town in south central iowa, population 427 (according to the 2000 US census). truro is located in madison county iowa which is the where the book "bridges of madison county" took place. not only that, but more importantly it is where luke's great grandma johnson lives. we took the 6 hour road trip over a long weekend and had a great visit.

luke and his grandpa and daddy on the tractor outside of the machine shed restaurant in des moines, iowa. luke loved "driving" the big tractor and he also loved the machine shed's delicious sweet potato fries!

luke meeting his great grandma johnson for the very first time.

luke has heard a lot about great grandma johnson's beautiful backyard and garden. he wanted to check it out for himself. the weather was beautiful the day we arrived (the other days it rained), so we're glad he was able to enjoy the yard for at least one day. we also were able to take home some fresh green beans from ggj's garden. yum!

besides the first meeting of ggj and luke it was also a very special weekend as ggj celebrated her 93rd birthday while we were in town with 50 of her closest friends and relatives! happy birthday ggj!

9.11.2010

luke's a salad spinner

luke constantly wants to be in the kitchen with me, so in an effort to keep him entertained versus tugging at my legs while i do dishes, we pulled out this fantastic kitchen gadget . it has quickly become a new favorite toy for luke. he loves this thing!

9.10.2010

downtown lucas quinn

this summer luke and i planned to visit daddy downtown during the week and have lunch with him at a nearby park. well, today we finally had a chance to do it. it was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the nice fall day and lunch on the lawn (followed, of course, by a swing!). considering how hot our summer was, this actually was better for us all!




9.07.2010

meal time is still...

...messy. lately luke has been going for the spoon more frequently and this is what happens when he wields it for part of his meal time. oh yeah. this boy loves his food and he loves to wear it too!

9.06.2010

luke is 11 months old! 9.6.10

we sure do have one happy little boy on our hands. it is so hard to believe that there are only 4 more weeks until luke turns 1. where did this last year go?

eric and i did a little reminiscing about what was going on in our lives one year ago around this time - before we even knew that baby j was indeed a boy and before God blessed us with our precious little luke. we had just taken a few days of "babymoon" at the w hotel downtown and were just about to gear up for a major construction project in our home to get ready for baby j. wow. that seems so long ago, yet it doesn't. i sometimes wish we could just stop time. especially at this fun 11 month stage with luke. we love him so much!

9.03.2010

luke's first beach vacation - charleston, sc

at the end of august we took a vacation to the isle of palms, south carolina just outside of charleston. we went with our good friends, brian, katie and will bridges. you may recall them from earlier posts. luke and will are just four days apart in age. the bridges family currently lives in greenville, sc and we met them through our church small group back in 2007 while they lived here in chicago for a year. we continue to be great friends as we raise our boys miles apart.

bridges/johnson family vacation 2010.

luke and will checking out the beach. and by checking out, i mean eating the sand and scanning the sky for birds.

luke and his momma watching the waves roll in.

luke catching some hang time with daddy.

johnson. party of 3.

will and luke were each other's wingman. one of these days they'll be fighting over who is goose and who is maverick.

proudly wearing our vacation t-shirts. the back of the shirts said (vacations used to seem like...vacations). that certainly rang true as there was no sleeping in or even sleeping through the night on vacation. we were convinced the boys were scheming against us. we staged a "parents take back the control" intervention one night but it didn't quite work out in our favor. i guess there's always next year! thanks brian, katie and will for a wonderful week! looking forward to many more to come.