Hey Everyone! I (Andrea) decided to move our blog over to wordpress.com so that I can post from my phone using their app. I think I can be quite a bit more consistent that way. Here's hoping! The new blog is at lukeandandreablog.wordpress.com. I know, slightly clunkier than our current title, but it's what they had, ok? Ha ha! Also, I decided it would probably be good to make it private so random people can't see pictures of our family. I believe I just need to add your email to a list of approved readers in order for you to follow it, so if you want to keep up with us, just send me an email at andreawperkins08@gmail.com and I'll add you! Let me know if you have any problems with it. See you on the other blog!
--the Luke and Andrea team
Friday, November 27, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Halloween 2015
I haven't got much to say about halloween this year, but we've got some good pictures to show so here you are! Firstly let's talk about the pumpkin carving.
I think it was three years ago that my Mom introduced me to Halloween Wars on the food network. If you haven't seen it, it's a show where there are 5 teams made up of 1 pro-pumpkin carver, 1 pro cake maker, and 1 pro candy maker. They compete against each other to make cool Halloween themed food displays. The pumpkin carvings are AWESOME! I have tried to do the 3-D carving thing in past years, but I never had great tools for it. My Mom picked up on my interest and last year bought me a bunch of carving tools for my birthday. So I was excited to try them out this year, and below are the results:
I'm missing a photo of pumpkin #1.
This is pumpkin #2. I was thrilled when I finished this guy! I felt like I was finally getting somewhere! He has a pretty good nose and kind of an expression.
Pumpkin #3 was the real breakthrough though. The eyes and smooth plump skin really sell it!
With pumpkin #4 I wanted to do something with an expression, and I thought a kissing pumpkin would be really hard because the lips needed to come out further than the nose. I was very proud of this one! Yeah. I did kiss him. So did Andrea, and it was SOOO funny because she kissed the lips and said "EEEW! It's all cold. I don't know what I was expecting, but . . ." hah hah hah!!! Guess he's not as good of a kisser as he looks like ;)
For pumpkin #5 I wanted to go for more of a Halloween face. I loved doing all of the smile wrinkles.
Then there was pumpkin #6. I was really trying to focus on something that was anatomically correct that had realistic eyelids and contours and teeth. I'm most proud of this guy!
I LOVE pumpkin carving more than ever and I hope that I'll get to carve a giant one next year. If you know anyone who grows them, I'll do it for free!
Andrea was the one who really stole the show this year though:
She dedicated SO much time to be in the Adams Family Musical at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse. I was so proud of her for getting back into musical theater. She loves it, and when you see her on stage it's obvious that she belongs up there! She was in the chorus as a dead Adams Family ancestor. The boys and I went to see the play on Halloween night and we all loved it.
Just a side note: I was so happy with the boys' costumes. It's always a challenge to get it right with kids because they are changing their minds right up to halloween! So I got their final requests the weekend before halloween. Peter wanted to be a Dalmatian and Max wanted to be a purple cat. So I went to DI and sifted through all of the clothing racks and was lucky to find matching hoodies and pants for both of them. Then that night my mom helped me to sew on some of the features, and they worked out really well! They were comfortable yet sturdy costumes and when the boys put them on they immediately got down on all fours and started making animal noises. Everyone thought peter was a cow initially, which is fair, but the ears people, the ears. What cow has floppy ears like that?
Below is a photo of the family at my sister's annual halloween party. It's always the highlight of halloween for me! I love the games. We always have a pie eating contest and a donut on a string contest, and we carve pumpkins. It's a ton of fun!
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Preschool, Summer, Raspberries, Cats, etc.
It's been a while, so here's a smattering of what we've been up to:
Peter had a preschool graduation program where he performed several songs with his classmates. It's so funny to me that performing isn't a big deal for him. I remember kicking, screaming, and fighting tooth and nail to stay away from the stage, but Peter seems to enjoy it! I'm proud of him.
They all made suns to perform "You Are My Sunshine."
We love ice cream cones lately. It's so fun when we all get one and eat them on the patio together.
On the night of our real anniversary, we bought pizza and breadsticks and ate them on the patio. It was fun.
I should rotate the following image, but who has time? These are the puppets I made for the Wright Family Reunion that Andrea and I were in charge of.
"What About Bob" is the Wright family movie, if there is one. If you've seen it, you'll remember how Dr. Marvin and his family get out their puppets when they need to discuss sensitive issues, so Andrea and I thought it would be so funny to make a puppet for each person in the family! I couldn't quite capture likenesses with my papier-mâché, but with a few accessories and hair styles you can kind of make out which is which.
After we passed them out we split into teams and had puppet shows. Hah hah!
He continues to have a very independent personality and will often drag chairs around or get the step stool so he can get up and see what's going on. Here he was helping Andrea with dinner.
Every once in a while, or every time you go to Costco, you just need a hot dog!
Silas came to stay with us for a few days while his parents went to Iceland. We took him to Grandma CeCe's to throw rocks in the creek.
Silas came with kittens; Bernard and Walter.
They are beautiful kitties.
The kids loved having them.
And the kittens were surprisingly tolerant of the sometimes less than gentle treatment from the kids.
I even kind of miss them.
But I don't miss their litter boxes.
We also watched Wilson (the Wright's dog) for a week this summer when Andrea's brothers and parents went to Alaska. Before the cats and the dogs, Andrea had been trying to get me to warm up to the idea of having a pet. She wanted a dog or something.
Lets just say that now she doesn't want one anymore ;)
Beautiful Presley was born :) Andrea was getting so anxious to have a baby as she held Presley, and we found out the next day that we're expecting!!!
This is just an interesting flyer. Like not sarcastic interesting. Like, interesting visual experiment interesting. I saw it at church and it was on my mind all day.
I was proud of this: I removed the cement strips around the trees and put down some dark mulch. A beautiful, natural look.
On the 4th, Caleb and Lauren invited us to lunch, which was delicious. Afterward Caleb was showing us his garden and he found a nest in one of his trees. I put my phone up above it to take a picture and see if there was anything inside and look at that!!!
Max enjoyed snuggling with Presley. Babies are just magical, man.
This is a funny sequence I took at Joel Cooke's firework show. Andrea's expressions in particular are funny:
For several years I dreamed of this moment; staring at the dashboard of a new family vehicle. And on the 3rd of July, that moment arrived.
My Mom wanted us to recreate the pose Caleb and Lauren did when they got their first new car. Now all I want to do is go on a road trip!
Max is now sharing a room with Peter! It's so fun! They are so happy to be together. Max is the wildest sleeper I've ever seen . . . somehow he ended up UNDERNEATH Peter's bed during the night.
Since nobody reads this blog, I'll reveal this little secret: There's a raspberry patch in the middle of the swamp behind my parents' house!!! Andrew discovered it a few years ago, then my Mom and some of the grandkids made a trail back to it. She invited us to go pick raspberries last night.
I didn't think there would be very many, but there were quite a bit!
A good two or three cups!
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Mother's Day and an Early Anniversary Celebration
On Mother's Day we went to the Perkins house for a fun afternoon. The kids had fun playing in the creek. I loved watching Cache and Max follow each other around.
Another Day that week, we stopped by their house to see Gran when Mom and Dad weren't there, and the kids were so sad that their mailboxes were empty :) My Mom and Dad's friend Jill gave them the mailboxes (one for each grandchild) and every time they come to their house, they check to see if there's a little treat, or coin, or something. Andrea had a good idea and told Max and Peter that this time since their mailboxes were empty, they should leave notes for Grandma CeCe and Poppy.
At work we had a Wiffle Ball Tournament during lunchtime one week. My team was the "Wiffle Woodruffs," and our attire was supposed to be like early 1900's people . . . so we were pretty much 80% there with our church clothes. We ended up getting 3rd place. Not bad.
I eat these sometimes. I had 4 last week. $1. Spicy, not spendy.
Andrea is a FUN primary teacher. She always has good ideas to engage the kids and have fun. I help too, even though I was just taken from that calling after a mere 2 months! It was fun while it lasted. Anyway, Andrea had the idea to practice the coming Sunday's lesson on Monday with our boys, so here they are acting out the story of Nephi.
Below is the following weeks family home evening where we learned about how Nephi had to build a boat. Peter built a boat with toilet paper rolls, yarn, plastic wrap, and a straw. He floated it on this camping cot that was in our shed when we moved in that had been left out in the rain so it had a good puddle on it. Andrea taught this lesson today and it was a big hit, she said.
Last weekend Sumedha's mother was in town visiting from India for Sumedha's graduation. She got a masters degree in Computer Science! How exciting! It was fun to meet them both and to talk about the upcoming wedding, even though they don't know exactly when it will be. There are so many cool traditions that they have and it's just a humongous celebration. It would be so fun to see.
They were very nice to bring a toy to Peter and Max: it's a race track for airplanes!
This last weekend, since next month is going to be pretty busy, Andrea and I decided to celebrate our anniversary early. The Wrights watched the boys and we had a weekend to ourselves. We saw "The Avengers: Age of Ultron," ate at Arby's, test drove a Honda Odyssey and a Toyota Sienna (we'll probably need a van soon, so we're just starting to research), and shopped. Below is a photo at Station Park.
Andrea wanted to get a picture of this stuffing job she did. We had bought a shirt at H&M and they put it in a bag that had girls in skimpy bikinis on it and I felt awkward carrying it around. Is that weird of me? We were planning on eating dinner at the garden as well, so that was making me feel really uncomfortable, carrying that bag around in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. So, we turned the bag inside out, but that didn't do much, so she stuffed it into a little Deseret Book bag.
This is the beautiful view from the Garden. That was our first time eating there and it was so nice! It has such a bright atmosphere and the roof is retractible and it's just wonderful. I had fish n'chips and Andrea had a pesto sandwich. We also had fried pickles. It was good food and it was very reasonable priced.
The last thing we did was we went to "Over the River and Through the Woods" at the Hale Center Theater. We loved it! It wasn't a musical, which was nice. Not that musicals are awful, but they tend to be long and drawn out. This was a very nice play about family and I don't feel like explaining the whole thing here, so just ask me sometime.
The end.
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