Mother's and Father's Day

Well our first Mother's and Father's days with Luke have come and gone, but I've finally finished this post I've been working on for quite awhile. We had wonderful celebrations with lots of food, cards, and special gifts. The pictures are from Luke's birth to May 10th with me & June 21st with Matt (our special days). Luke is asleep in most of the pictures, which is very fitting for the song.

My sweet Luke,

I am so thankful that God answered our prayers for a baby! It is such a blessing to be your mom. I can't count how many people have told me what a wonderful personality you have. You are such a happy baby! I had no idea what the first few months of life with a newborn would be like. Feeding you every 3 hours, getting an hour of sleep here and there, and wondering if I'll ever be able to keep a clean house again. Going to numerous doctors visits made us get out and about a lot sooner than we would have otherwise. I think all that you've been through in your short life has made us both stronger. God is helping us along this journey and I know that He will always guide us if we seek Him. You always hear that life will never be the same once you have children. It's so true.....I get to see you look at me with those precious eyes, you hold my hand, you have lots of smiles, and the most precious laugh. I love to see you learning and growing. You are a gift from God, and I love you so much!

Momma



To my son,

From the first time that I was with you in the nursery at the hospital, I knew that I wanted to take care of you, protect you, and be with you! God is such an awesome God and I thank Him so much for you. As my love for you has grown, it amazes me all the more that God sent His only Son to die for us!! I will definitely fail you, but I want you to know that I will always try to love you like God loves us. I look forward to where God will take our family in the coming years and I pray that you will be a believer in my risen Lord and Savior! As my father has imparted wisdom and knowledge to me, I will try to pass that wisdom to you.

I love you, buddy!!!!
Daddy

Staycation

Instead of going camping in the middle of the summer, we spent a weekend at Grampa and Grammie's with Uncle Eric, Aunt Lydia, Elijah, and Haven. We went to several restaurants, walked at Long Hunter State Park, went to the neighborhood pool, played cornhole, and started a band. We had a GREAT time!


The pool was nice and warm this time so Luke really liked it. Daddy will be great at teaching him how to swim because he was a lifeguard you know :) (Pa can tell you a great story about Matt's "lifeguarding" skills.)

All nice and clean after being in the pool.

I can't remember why Matt needed my shoes, but yes, they fit just fine.

The pictures Grammie were in didn't turn out, but she was the best at cornhole. (Side note: I googled cornhole to see if it was 1 word or 2. This website http://www.playcornhole.org/ is full of info.! I guess we are joining in spreading the love of cornhole.)

This is what we all needed to do after a busy weekend.

All of us rocked it out at some point, but these are the only rockers that got caught in action. I'm thinking they should try out for America's Got Talent!

Our 7th Anniversary

Our 7th anniversary was on June 15th. We didn't have any plans since we had Luke's doctor appointments and we are going to officially celebrate at the end of the summer when Keith Urban comes to town. Since we had such great news from the doctors, we went on our first date since Luke was born. A few years ago we had gone to Stoney River- I loved it, Matt didn't. However he agreed to go back. Wouldn't you know that I didn't care for it this time, and he liked it (not loved it- because he only loves Ruth's Chris :) ). We did have a really good waiter, one who went above and beyond his call of duty.....There was this wonderful "piece" of chocolate cake served with 2 shot glasses of milk. Halfway through us devouring it, I realized we didn't get a picture of the cake intact. I started looking around to see if anyone else was having a piece delivered to their table, and planned to ask to take a picture. Luckily that didn't happen so I didn't have to COMPLETELY embarrass myself. I giddily asked Matt a couple of times if he thought they would bring one out from the kitchen. Being the WONDERFUL husband he is, he told the waiter what my "dilemma" was. Since he is so GREAT with people, the waiter said it would be no problem. Don't you know that he went to the kitchen and told them about the crazy woman at his table! So here is the cake & milk that would later be served to someone else :) Believe it or not, Matt ate more of our cake than I did! We had a GREAT day!

Medical Updates

We had GREAT news during the month of June. We praise God for His mercy and healing in Luke's life!


We visited the shoe fitter after Luke had been wearing the shoes for 2 weeks. He said "I've never seen anyone look this good".... in regards to his heel staying down, they weren't coming off, and he was so happy. Daddy is stretching his foot to help his heel cord lengthen.

We take his shoes off about an hour every day. He does enjoy "free feet time".

These next 2 pictures were taken while we were waiting to see his orthopedic doctor. I cannot tell you how glad I am that we no longer have weekly appointments with him! There was only 1 time that we didn't have to wait more than an hour before we were seen. This day we waited about 3 hours, the doctor came in said he looked great, we hurriedly asked our questions, and he was gone. Needless to say, we were VERY glad to hear that surgery is still not needed at this point. Just wish the "best orthopedic doctor in TN" wasn't so busy!

June 15th was a HUGE day in Luke's life!!! This was when he had his follow up appointments with the genetic and ENT doctors.

They had sent blood samples to several places (Mayo Clinic, Baylor University, etc.) for genetic testing. We were supposed to be contacted before our appointment if any of the tests came back with a positive result. However, some of the tests would take longer to run than others and we didn't know for sure when they would have all of the results back, or if they might have decided to wait until our appointment to give us all of the results. We were very nervous about this visit! One of the genetic counselors came in first to get family history, etc. During the middle of this she asked if we knew why we were here today....we said to find out the results of the blood work taken while he had been in the hospital. She looked at us and said that all the tests had come back negative. We felt a HUGE load lifted! Out of the hundreds of genetic disorders they tested for, Luke does not have any of them. PRAISE GOD! They want to follow up with him when he's a year old to see how he is doing developmentally.

His ENT follow up was much easier than we thought it would be since they did not have to do another scope of his throat. The doctor said again that he should out grow his laryngomalacia (floppy voice box) by about a year old and that everything else looked okay. He will see him again in 6 weeks.

We think this bib was perfect for his doctor visits that day. (Genesis1:31) Regardless of the outcome of our visits, Luke was made perfectly by God and what He has made is very good!

The ENT doctor is very tall. Daddy got to take a ride in a fun chair so they would be high enough for the examination.

Next was another swallow study. He had one done while he was in the hospital at the end of April and the results showed he did not aspirate when using the Haberman bottle, but did with a normal flow nipple. This time the results showed that he had trace amounts of aspiration with just the milk from the Haberman bottle. When the milk was thickened with rice cereal, he did not aspirate. He seems to like this mixture much better! It is easier for him to control since the milk isn't running to the back of his throat so quickly.

To end the month, I took him to his pediatrician because he had a strong cough. He had been coughing for quite some time, probably due to aspirating, but it had gotten worse. He got his first taste of bubble gum medicine. I wonder how many times he will have this during the next few years?

Sleeping Beauty

One sunny morning in the middle of June, Matt woke up and asked if I had fed Luke during the night. I have been very blessed that my husband has allowed me to sleep from about 11:30 to 6:30 for awhile now. So no, I had not gotten up. Our little boy slept about 8 hours that night! This isn't something that he is "allowed" to do right now since he still has feeding problems. It is good to know that when that time comes he will be ready :)

Making Friends

Luke is quite the social bug.... This is Cara's little girl Avery. So sad they don't live close by! The next time they see each other I'm sure they will be very mobile :) Wes is Brandon and Beth's little boy. We went to eat at Otter's, a new restaurant in Murfreesboro. (Matt and I don't plan to go back- it's not horrible, but it's not great). "Who are you looking at? You ain't got nothing on me." Sorry Haven, Luke won the drooling contest!

Feel the burn!!

This is what happens when you spend 2 hours outside on a bright Saturday morning mowing and watering the flowers with your shirt off.


And this is what you do the next time.

Hand-me-downs

"I like old clothes, Hand-me-down clothes, Not-my-own clothes. When somebody grows And gives me his clothes, I don't say, "What, those?" And turn up my nose...." Jessica Fleeger That is something I should have learned growing up :) Luke is very blessed with LOTS of clothes (thank-you MeMa & Grammie). We look forward to sharing them with another little boy sometime. These fashions are courtesy of Elijah and Micah.

First time at the pool

Daddy had to work during summer school registration at the end of May so Luke, Jasie, and I went to Grammie and Grampa's. Luke went swimming for the first time.

This was his first touch of the water. The pool had not had time to warm up yet so it was cold!He got used to it pretty quickly.
This is the life :)

Everyone was so excited to see little babies at the pool. And no, Haven and Luke are not twins :)