Love these boys!

Supporting Children's Miracle Network

After spending the first 5 months of Andrew's life at Arnold Palmer Hospital, CMN has been one of the nonprofit organizations we've supported.  This is because of their obvious support for children's hospitals like Arnold Palmer; from the bed Andrew slept in to the portable x-ray machines & even the hospital play yard.  Since then CMN funded the renovation of the Cardiovascular ICU at Arnold Palmer.  This year we are doing their new Miracle Marathon, where we walk 1 mile each day beginning October 1st through the 27th going a total of 27.2 miles - a marathon plus 'going the extra mile' for the kids.  Local family & friends, please consider joining us on the 27th for a fun afternoon for a great cause.  As always thank you for supporting our family and our own miracle heart, Andrew.

P.S. If you are not able to join us the 27th, you can still help by donating on my miracle marathon page:

http://www.miraclemarathon.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=1021

Thanks!

Our Growing Baby

Sorry so slack with the updates.  What can I say, these boys keep us busy : )

Luke is ONE month old!

It's hard to believe it's been a month AND hard to believe how much our littlest guy has grown in the past month!  He is filling out that newborn onesie now, even outgrown a couple of his newborn sleepers.  He is a great baby & we just love him!  Happy One Month Birthday, Luke.

Life

The cheeks on our kids!

Daddy did my hair...

...it's funny!

My mama loves me!

Andrew went straight to the computer in the waiting room at cardiologist.

He likes to play the coloring game.
(Thanks Children's Miracle Network for the computer : )

Andrew had a great cardiac check up last Tuesday.  He doesn't have to go back for a whole year!

Luke was born a champ in staring contests.

He loved his first real bath.

This towel was Andrew's.  I love the things that they can share!

And then there were four

Finally face to face.


About 8 hours old.


Chillin with Daddy.


Love those cheeks! Sleepy 1/2 grin.


Andrew holding Luke for the first time.


He likes holding his brother!


Sweet snuggler.


Andrew is adjusting better then we could have hoped for! He seems to be enjoying having both Mommy & Daddy home each day. He does well entertaining himself between mommy / daddy time & curiously checks out happenings with Baby Luke.


Our newest little sweetheart!

Big 'Ol Belly

Here I am with my gigantic belly in Luke's room. It's just about finished & I promise we'll take pictures to post soon. The pregnancy is going well. Besides running out of energy & needing to cut salt way down in my diet, everything is going peachy. We had an ultrasound last Saturday. Didn't get any clear pictures, but Steve & I enjoyed seeing his chubby cheeks : ) I'll see the doctor again tomorrow & I'm curious to hear how big she thinks he'll be & if I'm going to make it to my due date on the 29th. Time will tell.

32 weeks down

32 week belly!

 Andrew loves to do his math work.  He can do addition & subtraction with the blocks.  He also learned to skip count through 15 with his Classical Conversations curriculum & Steve has taught him how skip counting is also multiplication, so he's pretty stinking good at multiplication trivia now too.  He also still loves books & is doing well with beginning reading books.  His favorite books right now are I Love You Through and Through & I Love My Mommy Because (he 'reads' these from memory : )  He is such a fun kid!  When we ask him about Baby Luke he pats my belly.  Sometimes he'll even mention Baby Luke on his own.  It will be interesting to see how he feels about Luke once he is out of my belly.

Falling asleep with Daddy

Wrapping up the 2nd Trimester

26.5 weeks

Andrew is such a sweetheart!

Starting to figure out the RC car.

Sorry we haven't kept up with the belly pictures so well.  As you can see, Luke has grown quite a bit in the last month.  It seems like this 3rd trimester has snuck up on us & I'm feeling like we should be much closer to being ready for a new baby to come home (as every expecting mom probably feels about this time).  Steve can testify that I've been harassing him more about working on the former music room so it can turn into Luke's room.  It's all pretty exciting though!
Andrew is as sweet as ever!  We just love him to pieces.  He is learning so much lately.  He can now add & subtract with blocks and is learning how the skip counting he memorized though school is multiplication (numbers are his favorite 'subject).  He is still doing beginning reading with his BOB books which is adorable.  I'm even learning a lot of history facts through his school memory work - it's amazing how much this boy can retain.  He is starting to eat much better & gets about 1/2 of his calories by mouth with encouragement.  He also continues to make progress with using speech for communication.  I love that this weekend he changed his 'no!' into 'nope'.  It's much easier on the ears time after time.  He likes to tease us & make us laugh.  He especially likes to make me say, 'be careful' or 'hold on tight'  He & Daddy have a good old time making mischief.
I guess we could say we are very blessed!

Our Heart

      Luke & Mommy at 22 weeks.  We went today for our fetal echocardiogram & the cardiologist said everything looked beautiful.  We are very excited and thankful for the awesome report on our littlest sweetheart!

     Luke's big brother goofing off with me at bath time.  Andrew us such a fun kid.  Doing great learning all kinds of new things with school.  Still working on eating more by mouth, but we notice progress little by little in this area too.  We sure do love this sweetheart!