Luke Celebrates 1 Month!! :)

There he is - my sweet angel - who is 1 month old today! It's hard to believe how fast this month has passed. It seems like just yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital. He has changed so much already. Each day, he continues to develop his own personality and settle into a routine. Right now, he has a pretty steady sleeping routine - goes to bed around 10:00pm, up around 1:30am, and then sleeps until around 6:30am. Every now and then, he surprises me - like last night - he decided to wake up at 4:00am, eat, and then go back to sleep until 8:30, which worked out fine for me on this rainy morning.

He travels well - loves the car! Hates hats - so we don't use them! :) He is almost smiling - he's trying very hard. He can make his lips look like he is kissing - which is cute! I guess he has learned that because I kiss him all the time! :) I could eat him up!! He loves music of any kind - music soothes him. He also loves his paci (which I'm not thrilled about - oh well). :) He loves for mommy to read to him -now, that I do like!! :)

When I put him in his crib at night, he rarely fusses - he watches his mobile and then falls asleep on his own - I have heard horror stories - so I'm very pleased that he is able to soothe himself to sleep at night. Now, during the day, he gets fussy when he is sleepy - he doesn't want to sleep when everyone else is up - I think he has an understanding of day and night now - which is great!

Take a look at how much he has grown!! :) (We have a doctor's visit on Monday - I can't wait to see how much he weighs. I'm predicting around 9 pounds) By the way - the diaper he is wearing in this picture is the last newborn diaper that he wore - he has graduated to size 1 (oh - my baby is growing!) :)

Swaddling: here's a picture of Luke in his swaddle. Landis' boss gave us this "miracle blanket" with his initials monogrammed on the front. I put off swaddling for a while because he hated to have his arms tucked in and he would fight me when I tried to swaddle him. But, he was waking up several times during the night with that weird startle reflex. So...I pulled out the miracle blanket and tried the swaddle and he has slept much better. I rock him to relax him, then I swaddle him, and then I rock him for about 5 more minutes while swaddled and then lay him down. The result - this... (isn't he sweet??)

Yes, you see a bottle in the next picture - I am able to express tons of milk right now, which is great. I already have quite a bit of milk frozen. So - this weekend, Landis had a chance to feed him with a bottle. Luke takes a bottle great and it doesn't deter him from nursing. Landis was able to enjoy some bonding time with his little angel and mommy got a nice break from one feeding! :)

Next Friday night, I am going to attempt to leave Luke with daddy while I go to a jewelry party - this will be the first time he has watched him without me for more than an hour - should be interesting. I think he has already decided that he's going to ask his mom to stay here with him for extra support. :)

Great Grandparents!! The next two pictures are very special to us. The first one is my grandma Motsinger - so, it's Luke's great grandma. On Sunday, I hosted my dad's side of the family at my house for some homemade chili to celebrate my mammaw's birthday. We had a great time and Luke loved the extra attention. My dad held him for like 2 hours!! Luke has so many people around him that love him - he sure is blessed and doesn't even know it yet. :)

The second picture is Landis' 99 year old grandpa. So, it's Luke's great grandpa Byerly! What a blessing that papaw Byerly has lived to see his precoius great grandbaby. In Papaw Byerly's words, "He is sweeter than a pile of sugar."

That's all for now - I hear a little man waking up! :) I hope everyone has a terrific Thursday! Stay inside if possible - it's a yucky day!