First swim of the season.

The last 2 days have hit over 80 degrees, so we decided it was time to bring out the swimming pool. Today, Luke took his first swim of the season in our "backyard pool." As you can see, he talked Dad into taking a dip with him. Looks like a big game of H20-teeball was in the works, too!

Salsa-licious!

Grandma and Grandpa Nelson returned to Arizona for one final visit before it gets blazing hot this summer! Speaking of hot, we tested our taste buds at the Salsa Festival on Saturday. For salsa lovers, this is a dream come true ... more than 75 different varieties of homemade salsa recipes. Some restaurants enter, but a greater majority is your average Arizonan who enjoys a good chip and dip. Luke loves chips and salsa, but we had to steer him clear of the hot stuff. What goes better with salsa, than a big bag of Tostitos ... pictured here!

Luke's ready for American Idol!

Luke is ready to audition for American Idol! He's been working on his singing and can now officially belt out his first song. It goes something like this.

To the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

Row, row, row, row, row, row BOAT (boat is always shouted with great gusto and there's a lot of extra rowing before you get to that part!)
(Long pause) Stream.
Merry, merry, merry, merry.
(Long pause) Dream.

As you can see, he has his own rendition of this time-honored classic, so we're not sure what Simon would have to say about that!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Luke the Leprechaun would like to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Leahy family! Hope your day was full of green, good luck, and good times! Mom and Dad went out to a St. Pat's party with some friends, while Luke enjoyed a date night with babysitter Abby. For some reason, he thought her name was "Happy" and kept doing the sign language for "happy" every time he said her name. Funny little leprechaun.

Ruby Slipper Design's First Show!

Today Jami participated in a first for Ruby Slipper Designs -- a vendor fair. It was hosted by the Scottsdale Parenting Group and held outdoors in the parking lot of a church. It was a great morning ... and a great opportunity to pass out a lot of business cards for new potential clients!! Another fun challenge was creating a display table for the event pictured here.

Go Phoenix Suns!

Scott scored some free tickets from a vendor to tonight's Suns vs. Clippers game, so we enjoyed a family night out to the b-ball game. We had great seats in the lower level, and Luke was on his best behavior. Scott was scouting out "celebrities" and spotted in the suite behind us one of the local news anchors. Luke was pretty intrigued by the monkey (AKA the Suns Gorilla mascot). It was a great game, too ... the Suns are doing well this season. Here are the wild fans (and someone more interested in sneaking a sip of Dad's coke).

Rain ... after a long drought!

On Saturday, we finally had rain after 140-some-odd days. The last time it rained was Oct. 18! It started raining in the early morning hours on Saturday and rained continuously all day and into the night. Since it's usually sunshine and blue skies here, Luke is accustomed to playing outside, and it really threw a wrench in his schedule to have to make alternate plans! He tried riding his bike while Dad held the umbrella over his head to protect him from the sprinkles, but that didn't last too long. So we planned a tour of inside play areas ... McDonald's and the mall and the Leahy basement ... to keep him occupied during the rainfest. He was all too happy to wake up on Sunday and see that the sun was beaming brightly! His first adventure was to explore the backyard ... good thing the thirsty ground soaked up the water so we didn't have any mud to contend with. Our dormant winter grass should be springing back to life in the next week with all that rain.

Prison break!

Another milestone has been reached -- Luke managed to crawl out of his crib today! He's made a few attempts to date but has never officially hit the ground running ... until today. He was supposed to be taking a nap, which on occasion he also decides to boycott with the simple reply of "Not sleepy." But today he decided to make his big break. We've caught him a few times riding the crib railing like a horse, but he was always a little confused on the next step. Obviously, he figured it out today (and with much silence, too) because we never heard as much as a thump or thud or any loud sound other than him standing in the hallway crying (probably because he was shocked at his feat!) He wasn't hurt but a little dazed (most likely from the adrenaline rush of scaling the outer banks of his crib.) We had to give him the "why it's not a good idea to crawl our of your crib" speech. Scott and I were both chuckling to ourselves ... we knew this time was coming. Better head to IKEA and get the big boy bed.

A visit from Paul, Juli, and Sawyer

Paul, Juli, and Sawyer recently came down to AZ to visit for several days. Here are some of the highlights of their visit:
- A backyard BBQ complete with smoked salmon and chicken (courtesy of Chef Scott) and some competitive badminton amongst the family.
- A trip to the Scottsdale train park so Luke could show cousin Sawyer his stomping grounds.
- Lots of time outdoors! Since it's been in the teens back in KS, we really enjoyed some time outside in the 70 degree weather ... whether playing out in the yard or going to the park.
- Watching Sawyer boogie to his Blue's Clues dance! He's got some great dance moves!
- We also celebrated Paul's birthday with a special sweet treat -- a pazookie. Basically it's a fresh-out-of-the-oven chocolate chip cookie in a pan with vanilla ice cream slowly melting on top. Luke, the expert candle blower, helped Paul with one of his candles!

Luke and Curious George

Luke enjoyed a special Valentine's treat today ... his first trip to the movie theater! "Curious George" was the feature film, and Luke loved it! He sat still through the entire movie. The only issue was when he spilled his drink down the front of him ... oh, well, it dried by the end of the movie. Here's a picture of Luke and his buddy George.

Travels here, there, and everywhere.

In the last week, the airport has been our second home. Scott made a quick return trip to England to resolve some work issues on the project there. He spent all week in Swindon, but this time they were brave enough to let him rent a car and test his skills at driving on the other side of the road!! Scott noted that it was a little hard to get used to ... especially those round-abouts. Scott returned home late on Thursday night and swapped suitcases with Jami who caught a flight to LA on Friday to attend a leadership conference with some Theta officers from the ASU chapter.

As a result, Luke now has some funny associations with the airport. When he wakes up in the morning and asks about Dad, the explanation is "He's at work." Well ... when Scott was gone to England, we explained to Luke that he went on the airplane for work. He seemed satisfied with that, but now it's having a reverse effect because when we mention work, he thinks Scott's at the airport. He must have a pretty warped view of the airport.

Rolly Pollies

Scott and Luke have started a class at a nearby kids' gym called Rolly Pollies. The class focuses on coordination, balance, motor skills, etc. Music is incorporated into each session, and the kids have a ball going from station to station. Luke is a champ at swinging from the trapeze (is the circus in his future?) and jumping in the inflatable bouncy. He also loves to do forward rolls and jump on the trampoline. Not sure who has more fun ... Dad or Luke!

The Greek chapters we advise...

Scott, his brother Eric, and I have been pretty involved with advising for our fraternity/sorority chapters at ASU -- Delta Upsilon and Kappa Alpha Theta, respectively. The DUs are making a comeback on the campus and have had marked success over the past year with the guidance of Scott and Eric. Whenever I see the Greek Life Advisor, she always raves about how much Scott and Eric have done to help the chapter turnaround and gain ground at ASU. Theta is one of the top sororities at ASU, and the 13 sororities are highly competitive. As you can imagine, there are some unique challenges with advising at an urban university.

Last night, ASU held its Greek Life Awards (sort of like the Oscars for fraternities and sororities at ASU). Both DU and Theta earned numerous awards. The DU Advisory Board even earned recognition as "Outstanding Advisory Board" among all fraternities at ASU. Theta earned a long list of awards, which helped the chapter achieve the top overall honor of "Chapter of the Year." The women have been striving to reach this for several years, so they were ecstatic about this!

Da Bears.

We went to a Super Bowl party hosted by our friends Rob and Lori. Apparently, these two little guys thought the Bears were playing in the Super Bowl!! Luke and his buddy Robby preferred tackling these bears over the Steelers/Seahawks game!

Kicking off another soccer season

Scott has started another soccer season. He plays on Saturday mornings with a group that originally started out several years ago as a bunch of Motorolans and their friends, but now it's sort of a hodge podge of players. This season Scott stepped up to the role of co-captain (a good friend of ours Kenn Welling is the other co-captain) ... and brother Eric plays on the team, too. We'll let you know if any Olympic hopefuls emerge from the team!

From Loot to Luke.

We've been working with Luke to help him say his name. For a while now, he would call himself "Loot." There was just something about that ending sound that he couldn't get. He knew it was a crisp sound, so "t" sufficed. Well, today he finally figured it out and out came "Lukkkkkkkkkkke," almost like he was clearing his throat! Can't wait for him to put together the big intro phrase, "Hi, I'm Luke!" Soon enough...

Vroom, choo-choo, zoom to 2.

Today we celebrated Luke's 2nd birthday with a party complete with cars, trains, and planes. Luke hosted 9 lil' friends for the birthday bash. Here are some highlights. The kids enjoyed watching the Lionel electric model train (operated by Grandpa Jim the Engineer). My dad received this train as a gift when he was a kid, and now many moons later, it's still chugging along. Each child had their own personalized boxed lunch (with fun names like "Chauffeur Luke" and "Engineer Alec") with some special goodies like stickers and a matchbox car inside. Rather than cake, we made car/train/plane sugar cookies with homemade cookies-and-creme ice cream. We had all the "go-mobiles" out in the garage for kids to pedal and ride: scooter, bike, trike, wagon, etc. Luke really got into the action of blowing out the candles ... three times actually ... twice before we sang "Happy Birthday" even! We waited until after we were done with singing before lighting it again since "Windy Leahy" was ready to go!

1, 2, 3 January birthdays!

January is a special month because several family birthdays are right in a row!

Grandpa Jim: Jan. 14
Jami: Jan. 20
Luke: Jan. 24

So what better way to celebrate than all together! My parents returned to the warm AZ sun this week to celebrate this trio of birthdays. Here's a pic of the birthday bunch.

A picture-perfect moment.

I have been updating the photo albums, and Luke has been my chief assistant by identifying the people and objects in the pictures. We came across a very old photograph in a box from when I was a kid. It was a family picture with my parents and sister. Luke correctly identified everyone in the picture, except for the youngest member of the family. Luke studied the picture and then pointed to the picture of me and said with confidence, "Luke!" (Now some of you may remember as a child I had very short hair and was sort of a tomboy ... so it's easy to understand why he thought this.) We got a good chuckle out of it, and then explained it was Mama with short hair. I'm still not sure Luke was convinced! Too funny! Guess Luke thinks he looks like Mom ... even though most people these days say he's looking more like Dad!

England & the Engineer

Scott just returned from a 10-day trip to England for work. This was his 2nd trip in 6 months to the Motorola plant in Swindon, which is about 1 hour outside of London. Swindon is about 7 hours ahead of AZ time, so we enjoyed our daily morning chat with Scott when it was the afternoon there -- probably when Scott was enjoying tea time! Ha! A highlight of his trip was going to Bath, England, on the weekend to take in the sights and tour around a bit.

Luke was so glad to see Dad that he made him a sign for when we met Scott at the airport. (While we were waiting, Luke had to have a little snack, too!)