Part I

We have actually had some 'blog worthy' events in the past week or so in the DeBoer household and here I am, just now getting around to posting on the blog. It may take a few separate posts to cover all the excitement so stay tuned. :)

Blog worthy event #1: First Father's Day!
We don't really celebrate holidays such as father's day, mother's day, our birthdays, our anniversary, etc. We're pretty lame in that department in all honesty. Overall, we had a nice Father's Day....bittersweet. It was fun to celebrate the fact that Matt is now a wonderful father to our precious little Luke. However, father's day is also a difficult day, remembering Matt's dad and wishing he was still here to experience all these new life changes with us.
Luke and I woke Matt up with breakfast in bed - nothing special, just a cinnamon roll, fruit and coffee. Luke and I painted a picture frame for Matt earlier in the week and put Luke's footprints on either side of the frame, making for a cute and inexpensive father's day present. We went to church in the morning, headed to Panera for lunch, then home to relax, watch golf, and take naps.

Matt and Luke enjoying breakfast in bed.
Special Father's Day Kisses... nice and slobbery!

Blog worthy event #2: Back to work.

Sadly my maternity leave is over and I reluctantly went back to work on Monday. This was the day I had been dreading since giving birth back in April. And while it was NOT fun to go back, it wasn't as bad as I had originally anticipated. I have never been more glad to be married to a teacher. Usually the summers are difficult for me. I gripe about how Matt has the summers off and I have to work year round. I complain that I have to get up and head into work while Matt sleeps in, watches sports center, and golfs his days away (that may be a bit of an exaggeration but you get the picture). However, now that Luke is here, I am SO glad that Matt has the summers off and can be home with him. I know that this made it that much easier for me to go back to work. It was comforting to me to know that Luke is at home with his dad, his crib, his toy, etc. and I didn't have to drop him off at a daycare center with someone he was unfamiliar with in a new atmosphere. Matt did wonderfully with Luke all by himself. It took some adjusting and there were a few moments of frustration, which was to be expected, but he did great...and didn't even mind me calling and texting every hour, on the hour, for Luke updates. :)

Here are a few random pics from the week...

Tummy Time is paying off!

A look back..This picture was taken in the hospital when Luke was one or two days old - wearing a Redlands Community Hospital shirt....

Fast forward two months... Luke wearing the same shirt -a much snugger fit.

"yo dad.. another bottle"

Blog worthy event #3: Grandma and Pops Thomson return!

My parents arrived on Wednesday in order to be here for Luke's Baptism on Sunday. It was so much fun to show them how much Luke has grown and changed since they were here last. We try to 'Skype' with them as often as possible so they get to see him via webcam every so often (which is so much nicer than just seeing photos or even videos) but definitely not the same as seeing him in person, being able to hold him and interact with him. Matt and Pops. went golfing on Thursday and since I was working, that meant that Grannie Jannie got to take care of Luke all day!

Proud Grandparents. I don't think they stopped smiling the entire time they were here. :)

Reading with Grannie Jannie. Notice Proud Grandma is wearing a homemade T-shirt with Luke's picture on it!
Playing with Pops... Pops would make a 'pop' noise with his mouth which would get a giggle/smile out of Luke every time! Notice Proud Pops is also wearing his homemade T-shirt with Luke's picture on it!


Reading with Pops ~ Good Night Moon...a Classic
Ready to go golfing!

Snuggle/Spoil time with Grannie Jannie. We love you Grandma and Pops!
Ok, I still have a few more events to post about. However, I still have to upload the pictures onto our computer so I'm going to call it good for now and plan to update with part II tonight or tomorrow. Stay tuned for :

Event #4: Grandma DeBoer and Aunt Andrea return!

Event #5: Meeting Great Grandpa and Great Grandma DeBoer!

Event #6: Meeting the Schalliols!

Event#7: Baptism!!

Tummy Time

I know it has only been a few days since I posted last and quite honestly nothing new or exciting has happened in that time. I just figured that I would post some of these pictures and at least one video now while I have the time rather than wait until something 'blog worthy' occurs in our fairly boring lives. :) Don't get too used to me updating the blog this often, I assure you this is not going to be a regular occurrence- especially since I am returning to work one week from tomorrow :(

You can see Luke's peach fuzz in this picture - his hair is really starting to grow. At this point it sticks straight up as if he was given a buzz cut.

My boys in blue - relaxing and watching the Yankee's game after church

Luke is NOT a big fan of 'Tummy Time'. He will tolerate being on his stomach for the first few seconds then quickly begins to voice his complaints. See video ....

Luke hasn't quite mastered moving his head from one side to the other while laying on his stomach. He gets half way then ends up frustrated with his face smushed into the floor.

An Aerial View...

Being on his tummy is MUCH better when propped up on the boppy. Check out those neck muscles!


He looks like such a little old man in this picture with forehead wrinkles and everything.


All worn out after some serious exercise - it's hard work holding up a head that size!

2 Months Already!!

Luke is two months old today! Wow. Where has the time gone? It's crazy to think that we have had him in our lives for only two months. Sometimes it feels like he's been here for a lot longer than that, other times it feels like we just brought him home from the hospital. The other night I was thinking about the days before Luke's arrival... back when we could just get up and go anywhere we wanted, at any time - to the store, out to eat, etc. We could put in a movie and watch it beginning to end without being interrupted to feed Luke or try to get him back to sleep. My, my, how things have changed! And for the better, I might add.


Luke continues to get bigger and learn more everyday. It is so much fun to watch him as he discovers new things, such as his hands and fingers - his new favorite activity is bringing his hands together and trying to get both in his mouth at the same time. (see pictures below) He is also getting much better at taking naps - which thrills me to no end! He still wakes up from time to time, usually after about 3o minutes after going down, but once he gets his pacifier back into his mouth and has his noise/light machine thing-a-magig turned on he settles back into sleep for a bit longer. (by the way, the noise/light thing-a-magig = greatest invention ever! LOVE it!) The other day he took a 3 1/2 hour nap in the morning, woke up to eat, then immediately went back to sleep for another 1 1/2 hours! I think he's going through a growth spurt because he's also eating quite a bit! At the last appointment, his Dr. said that a 12lb. baby will drink about 3.5 oz. on average - Luke chugs down close to 6oz per feeding. Big boy! His two month well baby check up is next week. It will be fun to see how big he's gotten. We're speculating that he's pushing 14 or 15lbs.

Hands together, trying to fit them in his mouth.

Almost, but not quite.

So sleepy.

Yeah for longer naps!

Can't keep his eyes open long enough to burp!

In other news, Matt's last day of school was yesterday! He is SO glad to be done. Now all that's left is to finish the grades, clean up his classroom, and enjoy summer break! Although, this summer will be VERY different for him. Going from summers filled with sleeping in, sports center, and golfing to diaper changing, feedings and nap schedules will be quite the adjustment for him. Matt has confessed that he is a bit nervous about taking care of Luke all by himself when I go back to work. I have no doubt that he will do a fabulous job taking care of Luke all summer and I'm pretty sure he'll be able to still get his fill of sports center and golfing. :)

Luke's face after he was told Daddy would be the one taking care of him this summer!
Kidding. ;)


It's been chilly here lately (thanks to the June Gloom). I had to go buy some long sleeve onesies for Luke - the long sleeve white onesie is 6mos! It's a little on the big side but the 3 mos. size would be too short for him in no time. Hopefully we'll get a little more use out of the 6 mos. size.
Luke's eyes look brown in this picture - I assure you, they are very very blue at the moment, but there is still the possibility that they may change - we'll see.


No outfit is complete without Broncos socks! Thanks Treurs!

Tummy time is much more tolerable with Daddy.

The boys - all sprawled out - trying to strengthen those neck muscles.

P.S. This post took me about 2 1/2 hours to write thanks to Luke waking up and needing his pacifier back (twice), then needing to eat, spitting up, blowing out of one diaper which resulting in that outfit needing to soaked and sprayed with stain remover, being changed into a new outfit only to poop again! Sheesh, no wonder I feel like I get very little done during the day. :)

House Projects

Knowing that we are just a few short weeks away from Luke's Baptism and LOTS of family coming into town, Matt and I have been working around the house to get some projects finished up. Luckily for us, Luke has been starting to take some longer naps so we have been able to get more accomplished in those precious hours.

This is a picture of the hill on the side of our house - covered with some type of weed, I'm not a plant expert, in fact, I'm pretty much plant-retarded, but bottom line - I knew it was ugly and did not belong on the hill, so it had to go. The hill is fairly steep and is the length of our property so the task was a bit daunting at first, to say the least. But we were determined to get it done now before the weather starts getting ultra hot. Pulling up weeds on a steep hill in 100 degree weather did not sound like something either of us wanted to do... 70 degrees, now that's a different story and something we can tolerate much better.

This is the "Before" picture

- only of half the hill since I thought about taking the picture

after we'd already cleared the other half.

It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

Our yard waste barrel - overflowing.

This is after one load was picked up by the truck and jumping

up and down in the barrel to cram as much as possible in it!

sheesh.

Our finished project... at least for now.

The plan is to plant some kind of ground cover

- we're thinking Ice Plant but need to learn about

how to plant it, how much it spreads, maintenance, etc.

The next major project we tackled was painting the rest of Luke's room. For those of you who have been following our blog for awhile you might remember that back when I was pregnant we began to paint the nursery. Not knowing if we were having a girl or a boy we decided to paint a portion of the walls a shade of orange - planning to paint the remainder either blue or pink, depending of if we had a boy or a girl. Well, now that Luke is here and is obviously a boy, we were able to finish the job we started months ago and paint the rest of the room a shade of blue. And yes, orange and blue are the Broncos colors, which I suppose was the inspiration for the whole thing, but I do like the way it turned out.

This is the 'Before' picture - including the furniture before we re-finished it.
And After!

We still have to hang some shelves and I'm planning to make some curtains too. Although now that I'm heading back to work (ugh) in a week I might have to enlist the Grandma Jan's (both of Luke's Grandmas are named Jan) to help out with that when they are in town.... :)

Since I am posting pictures of home improvements, I remembered that I had meant to post some pictures of Matt and my Dad doing some projects back in April, before Luke was born. I, obviously, never got around to it... I was a bit preoccupied with having a baby I guess.

Matt and Dad installed lights on either side of our garage door.

The finished product!

Putting the gate back up.


Installing a ceiling fan.

The finished product.

It is MUCH cooler up in the loft now with that ceiling fan - nice work men!

We still have a list of things that we want to get done around the house but I'd say we're off to a pretty good start.

I just realized that this post doesn't have any pictures of Luke - sorry Grandparents! The next post will have plenty, I promise. :)