WOW!!!  Luke is 1, hard to believe this time a year ago we were praying all would be ok for our little preemie.  All is fine for sure. After our visit to our pediatrician last week, Luke weighed in at 23 pounds and measured 32 inches.  All great stats for starting in the lowest of percentiles.  He is so cute and sweet.  Luke smiles and laughs so much!!!  He just seems to be having a great time all the time.  Like most preemies though, he is a little behind in some developments such as crawling which he only started doing at the end of June- almost 11 months and sitting - he was eight months before he got that down without sliding over.  He is not walking yet- which is fine with me.  I think when he starts walking, he and Sophia are going to be big trouble.  Luke loves to follow her around now, I can only imagine what it will be like when he can walk/run.  He did start to pull up on everything once he started crawling.  In the last couple days, he has started to stand alone, so maybe walking isn't too far away.  Luke does say a few things- 'da-da' is his favorite and has been saying it the longest.  "Goo" "ga" and "nah" are his other sounds.  Luke is really a great baby, seems like once he got past 6 months when he started sleeping through the night on a consistent basis and we changed babysitters, he has been wonderful. 

We had a huge party for Luke at our new house.  We were so happy to have all of our families here to celebrate.  The weather held and we had an outdoor party with a bouncy house and water activities for the kids.  Luke thoroughly enjoyed his cake and ate EVERY bite!!

In other news, the summer is coming to a close.  It has been by far the BEST summer ever since I have been teaching. It was also the longest :~)   In all seriousness, we have done so much!  We moved into our new house, Sophia and I have been to the zoo, the pool, the park, and the library just to name a few fun places that just the girls went. I found it was much easier to manage one kid at a time when they are both so little.  We all also went to visit LeeAnn in Ohio for a couple days. 

                                                       First Haircut

                                                   

 

                         Checking out the elephants at the Louisville Zoo

Speaking of Sophia, she is doing great!!!  She is really starting to talk a lot.  She will imitate almost anything we say, except her name.  On the rare occasion she does attempt it, it always comes out, "Fofa".  She mastered Mommy this summer, instead of "mimmys" as I was called for months and she has replaced "Da" with "Daddy".  Sophia had her first ever haircut in June, and already needs another.  Her hair has the most beautiful curls.  She loves Luke and gives him lots of hugs and kisses each day~ she does that for Mommy and Daddy too.  She tells him goodbye when I drop him at day care.  She still will not attempt to eat any veggies, but does love fruit.  She loves to listen to books being read to her and she loves Curious George both books and TV show. 

All in all, the last year has been great, trying at times, but still great.  We look forward to many more great memories!!!