February happenings

Sorry I haven’t given any news lately. The main reason is laziness.

So Greg and I have enjoyed weekly date nights with our babysitting swap. The first time we went to a nice restaurant and played mini golf at a black light course. The second time we went for Chinese food and then played games at someone’s house. The third week was our turn to watch the kids. Two are 3 yrs old and they don’t go to sleep. The other ones do. So basically you have to semi entertain the older two the most. It wasn’t too bad. The hours are 6-10 so it’s a good chunk of time. Last week we went to the furniture store and got a new bedroom set. Hooray! I have been looking forward to that for a while. Then we went to P.F. Chang’s for appetizers and delicious chocolate cake. This week we went to the temple and got a session in. It was a rush to get to the 7 pm session on a Friday night. We got in and it wasn’t full but it was still a little stressful. Houston only has sessions once an hour. We also were lucky to sit on the front row.

This week I am going to Arizona. Greg’s mom has a girls reunion every year. A couple of times they have let some of the girl cousins tag along. This year they are doing a special girl cousins part right before. The grandma’s will watch the kids while the girls have our 3 day event. Debbie, Emilee and I will all be there for a week and a half. I am so excited. Greg will be lonely and we will be partying.

Luke likes to drum. He drums on the table or turned over buckets and he really rocks out. He head bangs while doing it. He also likes to play the keyboard. He can climb up on the chairs, all by himself. That is scary and we don’t really like him to do it, but he does. He has fallen off a few times including once face to tile. There was a huge goose egg and I felt bad since I was right there and going to get him down.

He is generally pleasant. He just wants you to be paying attention to everything he does. Like when he’s rocking on the drums or keyboard he wants you to be watching.


Luke had some friends over playing the keyboard. The oldest boy said, "I love being in a rock band."

He doesn’t talk but makes his wants known. He squeaks soft or crazy high pitched. If we are watching a show he isn’t interested in, he tries to grab us by the finger and pull us up. He leads us by the hand to where he wants us to go with him. And he throws his food on the ground, waves his hand or his finger to say “no, no.” He also folds his arm to pray. He likes to watch Elmo and Barney. We love our little baby and know that he’s not really a baby anymore. He enters nursery this week as he turns 18 months old.

Luke licks off jam from bread or in this case, mustard and ketchup from hamburger.

I recently got a haircut. While inside, my car got hit but someone. Luckily, they left a note, but what a pain.


Luke "before"


Luke "after"

The water main being blown out down the street, while we were cutting Luke's hair, resulted in gross mess.(This story has been edited)

That’s the news.

Sarah, Greg and Luke

Holiday Post

I can't believe I haven't posted since Halloween. That's pretty bad. But I was recently out of town for 3 weeks, so I can use that for my December excuse. November doesn't have an excuse. I just didn't post. So anyway I have a ton of pictures from the holidays.






The reason I went to Utah for so long was to attend my mission companion's wedding. Congrats Desi and Ben!



Luke had so much fun playing in the snow (mostly with his grandparents while I kept warm inside. Grandma Debbie helped him build a special snowman.





Luke constantly was trying to get onto the raised fireplace ledge. Success!


Yes, I did make Luke wear his Santa costume to the Gessel family party and around the house.




This is basically what Christmas was to Luke, jumping on presents.


At the bowling alley with the relatives



Chad's dirty laundry bag, poor Luke









One night we went and saw the zoo lights at Hogle Zoo. It was cold.



The Tiger growled very suddenly and loudly right behind us when the picture was being taken, I involuntarily was stepping forward and almost peed my pants.

What we've been up to

Last year Greg worked at The United Way on an exchange program. Do good for 3 months on an Exxon salary. The end of the campaign season is a bar-b-cue. We decided it's something we'd like to go to every year.







I got a Hello kitty purse at a party supply store and Luke found it. First Greg was like, Boys don't play with purses. And then, where's the camera.

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We went to trunk or treat this year, but that's about it. And as you can see we didn't do much. Luke had Roseola that week. It's a scary sounding name for a fever followed by a rash gotten mostly by children under 2.









We took Luke to the Hocus Pocus Pops sponsored by the Houston Symphony. It's at the Woodlands Pavilion (10 minutes away) and free mezzanine and lawn seating. It was a beautiful night. Overture to Maskarade by Nielson, Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Saint-Saens Danse Macabre, John Williams Suite from Harry Potter and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Theme from Ghostbusters by R. Parker and B. Holcombe. It was pretty awesome except the Harry Potter song wasn't the main theme or anything you'd recognize and we stayed with our tired baby to hear it. We had fun.

Petting Zoo

A couple of weeks ago, Luke and I went with our mommy group to a petting zoo. Luke had fun looking at the animals and occasionally getting close.