7 Months Old!

It's unbelievable that Lukas is 7 months old already! I think I say that every time a new month rolls around, but time is just flying by so fast I can hardly keep track.

Lukas at 7 months is:
- sitting up as long as he wants to
- choosing his toys from his toy box (he really will look through the box to find the perfect toy)
- chewing on everything
- eating like a champ
- tolerating his breathing treatments for the most part
- crawling (as of 11-22-07....he's not very good but he's getting better all the time)
- working on 4 more teeth (according to the doctor) to add to his current 2
- still smiling at everyone (he is a very happy baby as long as he can breathe, is not in pain, is full, and is not tired)
- "requesting" to go to park as often as possible to swing (he would swing almost all day if we let him)
- grabbing at everything in sight which is continuing to make dinnertime interesting
- loving our cats most of the time more than they would like
- a ball of energy
- so much fun and such a blessing in our lives
- loving Mommy and Daddy more every day

As if I haven't posted enough pictures in the last few posts here's one more:

Baby Dedication - November 18, 2007

Sorry for the delay, but I kinda forgot I hadn't posted this yet.

A couple of Sunday's ago (11-18-07 to be exact) Lukas was dedicated in church. It was very special and humbling to stand before the church and promise to raise him in the Lord, and then to have our family and the church respond in kind. There was a video that featured the three babies being dedicated, and then the dedication itself done by the elders. We also chose a life verse for Lukas. This verse is what we hope for our son in the future. We chose Philippians 4:4-7.

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

We were blessed to have so much family able to join us. Most of our family lives in town, so it was not a far commute. Thank you to everyone (church family included) who made this day so special!

The actual dedication (that's us on the left!).



Joshua, Cadi, and Lukas....all newly dedicated.



The Swaynes with a brand new bible!



Grandma Smith, Great-Aunt Nancy, Mommy, and Lukas



Papa, Lukas, and Grandad



Mimi and Aunt Nilde (although not blood related we still claim her :))



Exhausted boy...such an exciting morning.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is always such a wonderful celebration in our family because we are blessed enough to get to celebrate with both sides of our family.

On Thursday Eric, Lukas, and I drove out to Graham, TX (about 2 hours west of Dallas) to celebrate with Eric's side of the family. This year we (and most of north Texas) got a huge surprise when it started snowing! I'm a big fan of snow, however when it was near 80 degrees the day before it's kind of weird.

These are pictures of (in order) Lukas and his cousin (technically 2nd cousin but that's too hard to remember) Logan playing, me and Lukas in the snow, Lukas playing, Nicole (Eric's cousin and Logan's mom) and Lukas, and Lukas and Mimi:












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Then on Friday we were able to go celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. So on our second day of fantastic food we drove to Arlington, TX to spend the day. The big thing on Friday is to watch the A&M / UT football game, which A&M won! We also went to the park (mostly so Lukas could wear his new hat and mittens)....and he was adorable!

Smith Family eating Thanksgiving dinner:



Lukas typing a message with Grandma Smith in the background:



Lukas chilling with Uncle Ryan (one of the first pictures of them!):



Cheering on the Aggies!



Swinging at the park....



Eric and I are so blessed to have this little guy in our life!

For more Thanksgiving 2007 pictures please check out our Flickr page. I'll be updating it later on today. The link to it is here.

On the Move....Slowly

Well, Lukas has achieved movement! It's not an actual crawl, but rather somewhere between an army crawl and simply launching himself. He most certainly goes no where fast, but if he wants to get somewhere he can. Thankfully, he does not go far, and it's usually only to a toy across the play mat. He is also getting up on his hands (or sometimes elbows) and knees and rocking back and forth.




In other news: The entire Swayne family has been recently sick. Thankfully, we all took shifts and so no two of us were really sick at once. It's just the fun sinus crud that's goes around this time of year. Lukas came out of it having had his first infection. It had to happen sometime, right? He got put on antibiotics which he hated and almost spit back at us every dose. He is now feeling miles better, thanks to antibiotics and also getting his asthma under control. He is a much happier baby now that he can breathe!

Just an update...

So this post is not going to be all exciting with pictures and videos, but I thought I should update since I haven't in a while.

Helmet Update: When Lukas started wearing the helmet a little over 2 months ago, he started at a differential (the difference in the measurements of the longest and shortest diagonals on his head) of 11. At his last helmet check, on 10-24, he had a differential of about 6.5. Yay! This thing is actually making fairly good progress. I was really hoping to get it off at the 3 month mark, but I think he might have to wear it a little longer. Oh well, we'll deal right? Better in the long run.

Teeth Update: He still has just the 2 bottom middle teeth in, but he's working hard on more. His doctor said the ones at the top are almost ready. Don't ask me when they'll come in because I have a hard time seeing what she's looking at. To me all his teeth on the top look about ready to come in, but like I said what do I know.

Asthma Update: For those of you who don't know, Lukas has been all but diagnosed with asthma. Dr. Naylor, his pediatrician, is not willing to say that's what it is yet, however he has an asthma action plan and 3 new medications. He takes Pulmacort and Allegra daily, and Albuterol as a rescue medication. The Pulmacort and Albuterol are administered via breathing machine, and boy does he hate it! We have tried 3 versions/variation of breathing machines and he hates them all. He doesn't like the big one that the doctor gave us because of the loud noise it makes, scares him every time, so we tried Eric's small and silent one. Well, that has ended up not working because he now knows what the face mask means, so he screams and pushes it away and it turns into a wrestling match. Then we received a pacifier attachment, but he won't suck on it. The noise of the breathing machine (it doesn't fit on Eric's) and seeing it attached to the medicine cup alerts him to what it is and so he pushes it away. Needless to say, it's been interesting giving him his meds. Oh, and he hates the Allegra...he spits it out every time.

General Update: He's now learning how to launch himself. He's only figured it out in the last couple of days, but he now knows that if he puts his knees underneath himself he can launch forward and go somewhere. He doesn't always do both knees, so sometimes it ends up looking somewhat like an army crawl. Jeepers, I'm not ready for this! He also has a runny nose :( ... like every other baby in town due to all the allergens. Suctioning his nose out has got to be one of the worst things ever (aside from the breathing machine). He screams bloody murder every time, and cries big fat tears that just rip your heart out. It's for his own good, but isn't there another way? We're putting him through enough already.

Jeepers, ok since this has ended up being such a long post...here's some pictures. My thanks for reading all the way to the end. Enjoy!