One Year Appt.

Now we're coming to a close of August, I thought I better write about Luke's terrific "1" year appt. He's pushing 20lbs. at 19lbs 12oz. and continues to grow very well, so well that he's growing out of his lung issues rapidly. His lungs sounded "normal" to his pediatrician. Another great surprise, as we didn't expect that for awhile longer. He'll still need to stay as healthy as he can this winter and we'll be keeping a lower profile, but we don't want to think of that right now when we're having summer fun!!

We've been getting out and doing all sorts of fun things as a family. A few of our favorites were, the Evergreen Aviation Museum, the Lebanese festival at St. Sharbel's, Beavers Baseball game, The Zoo and many trips to the local park. Luke is warming up to the swings.

Soon we'll be visiting Grandparents down near Florence, OR in Mapleton and that will be a our first family trip to the area in a long time. I think we're all looking forward to a trip away.

Luke is still working on crawling, starting to pick his knees up and moving forward, mostly backwards, but he's still faster with his scooting skills.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Melinda

Luke Turns 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for the delay since our last post. We've been busy! Included is a picture of Luke chewing on his Birthday bib, I am working on getting more pictures downloaded.

Since Bryan and Luke's Birthday's are only a few days apart, we did a kiddy party for both of them with 9 of their closest friends. They also had small parties on each of their real Birthday's.

We've experienced a lot of emotions centering around Luke turning 1, for me it started on the Friday before his Birthday, that was the day a year earlier that I had the doctor appt. that sent us to Emanuel, where we would wait for his premature birth. The thoughts of that day in particular caused a flood of emotions. Then on his actual Birthday, thinking back to the moment he was born, which started us on a journey with Luke, which we can't thank God enough for the outcome. And his Birthday also marking that he has been home as long as he was in the hospital, so we can officially say, he has now been home longer than in the hospital, which is a pretty darn good feeling.

What has Luke been up to? He is getting more and more expressive. He LOVES watching Bryan and just wants to do what he is doing, always trying to get his toy or get over to where he is. He is the pro "scooter", he can scoot anywhere. He has started getting up and rocking on his knees, so he will be crawling any day now. He is saying more sounds and is displaying more expression for his likes and dislikes. He's a pretty feisty guy and does not like it when a toy is taken away from him. He's eating more solids, but is quite picky, so we're working on those veggies.

Upcoming things for Luke are his vision follow-up appt. and a sedated Echocardiogram in September, sedated because he won't stay still long enough to get good readings. He's being weaned from his Sindenafil heart drug, so if his Echocadiogram looks good, he will be off of it for good. He still has a pending hernia operation for this fall, it will be a day surgery to fix a hernia he developed from an incision site during his intestinal surgery. These are just small things compared to what he's been through, but we wanted to keep you updated.

We've seen some of our NICU friends this month and we always enjoy seeing them and it's apparent they enjoy keeping tabs on Luke.

Hope to get more b-day pics up for you soon.
Melinda