Fire Engines in Cleveland

Funny Luke-isms from this week:

•"How was your day, daddy/mommy?" This is what Luke said to Amit before nap time, and later that day to Marinda during dinner. It's great that he's picking up on these social conventions!
•On the drive after leaving the airport in Cleveland, we saw a firetruck drive past us. After we started driving again, Luke said "We're catching up to the fire truck." When we told him it went the other way, he said "Maybe we'll see the fire truck again." We tried telling him that it was busy saving people's lives, but it turned out he was right! We saw a different fire truck on our drive!
•Luke has been saying "Stay in Cleveland!" and "I like this house!" since we got here. I guess Luke is living here now!

On Wednesday our community center had a "safety fair," in which they fire fighters and police officers came (along with a fire engine!) to talk to kids and parents about safety. But Luke was excited to go in the fire engine! He was having fun inside seating in the seat and just being in a fire truck. But the most memorable event was coming out of the fire engine. The steps are really, really steep and Luke thought he could climb down by himself. Amit was busy holding the door and didn't notice Luke tumble down until it was too late! Luke was fine, but afterwards whenever we'd ask him about the fire engine he'd say "Fell out of the fire truck."

A FIRE ENGINE!!!!!

Going to Save People's Lives!

Coolest Moment of Luke's Life!

On Friday we flew to Cleveland to see Jejema and Jejebapa. The flights went pretty well. Luke spent a lot of the first flight looking at books, and he slept pretty much all of the second flight.  I know, you're all wondering our secret.  The answer?  Um... divine intervention.  We have no clue how it happened.

When we got to Amit's parents' house Luke went absolutely insane. Apparently he remembered that Jejema has great toys and he ran straight to the basement to get the toys. Then after a little bit we told him it was time for dinner. Yes, yes, we know, that was a big mistake. He didn't really eat, so we tried telling him he had to eat a small amount of food. So he proceeded to shove a massive bite in his mouth that he ended up gagging on and throwing up. Then in her rush to clean it up, Marinda knocked her milk all over the floor. It was pretty funny, and Luke went on happily playing after getting cleaned up.  Moral of the story:  Luke always gets what he wants in the end...

Dinner the next night - Luke saw the bowl of yogurt and threw a fit
because he wanted to eat out of the big bowl!
So we all dished up and let him at it...  It was pretty funny!

Since being in Cleveland Luke has had a blast. He loves all the toys here, especially the ambulance with its own siren. He has literally been playing with these toys for hours and hours every day since we got here. He doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to sleep, doesn't want to go out. He just wants to play. And his jejema and jejebapa are perfectly content to play with him a lot. We're so happy Luke is developing a great relationship with them! And by "them" we don't mean his toys.

Luke helping Jejema cook rolls!

FYI, Jacy is about the size of a carrot this week! Does that make her a 'baby carrot'? No, she's the size of a full-sized carrot. She is doing great. She seems to be much stronger than Marinda, or at least she has the puppet strings or something because this little tiny baby can make Marinda do pretty much anything she wants.

Another funny Luke in Cleveland story - Amit's parents bought and set up a toddler bed for him. Luke saw the toddler bed, and saw the guest bed in the bedroom, and immediately decided that the he wanted to sleep in the guest bed. Then he started saying "Left baby panda at home" because we only brought Marshmallow with us, so Amit showed him some of his old stuffed animals, including a DARE Lion, the three-legged, one eyed turtle Marinda doesn't like (sooooo creeeeeeeepy), and a teddy bear. But Luke wanted more, so Amit went to a different closet and found a seal for him, and Luke followed him and grabbed another teddy bear. So now he has 6 stuffed animals that he insists on having in his bed. He seems to be taking that "Fussy Little Princess" book to heart.

I want to sleep on THAT BED!!!!!

We went to church this morning and people remembered us! The ward here is really different from our ward back home. First off, we have to drive by 4 golf course to get there (we counted) and it's mostly farmland. There are even train tracks to drive over! Anyways, the ward itself is much older than our home ward. The chapel is almost silent during announcements and the Sacrament because there's maybe 5 nursery-aged kids (including Luke) and apparently just a couple babies. Today was fun because it was there ward primary program. No offense to our grad student wards with almost no senior primary, but we had no idea that these 10 and 11 year old knew so much about the gospel! And they knew all the words and belted the songs out! Wow!