Christmas 2010 at OneTrueMedia.com

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'Tis the Season....for chaos

December is always a busy month. That was an understatement for this year (hence the lack of blog posts). We're usually a pretty boring family, but this was a month filled of Godinez accomplishment.  Most importantly, Luke is officially a baby room graduate. Although I am very proud, it makes me cry! My little baby going to the big kid room means that he isn't a little infant anymore.  Well, I guess we knew that since he's working sitting and standing up!

Speaking of graduation - The chaos of the last 6 months is FINALLY over! Patrick is officially a Weapons School graduate.  It was a long 6 months of intense training 6 days a week (with super long days), but he finally made it. Luckily, Grandpa and Grandma Godinez were able to come spend a few days in Shreveport to spoil Luke so I could enjoy Vegas baby-free.  It was a fabulous reward after all the long hours and time away from each other.

Well, the fun didn't get to last too long because I had a large work project which started the day after I returned from Vegas.  I can officially say that I work for an official business because we passed our audit from the American Petroleum Institute.  Other than the last day of my first year of teaching (which was the biggest relief in life), this was probably the most epic day professionally for me. Although I loved teaching, it was fun to write our technical manual, see it come to life, and have it audited and approved on my first try.

Now, we don't know what we'll do with ourselves. Patrick is on leave, Christmas shopping is almost done, my finals are turned in, and other than a short trip to Kansas for Christmas, our lives are wide-open.....You know us; this probably won't last :)

My favorite time of day....

Every morning I wake up and hear the sound of Luke's soft breathing on the baby monitor. You would expect to find a little baby snuggled nicely in his crib. Unfortunately for Luke, he has his mommy's sleep habits. Go down the hall toward his room, and you'll realize that soft breathing is actually snoring. Although I had originally put him at one end of his crib, covered nicely, this is how he woke up... at the other end of the crib :)

Busy Lazy Weekend

Hello everyone!

Sorry it has been a few days since the last post. It's been busy around our house since all of our Thanksgiving company left. Patrick is wrapping up his LAST week of Weapons School out in Vegas...FINALLY! Since graduation is next weekend, I have extra incentive to clean, finish finals, wrap up work projects, etc. I'll head out to Vegas on Thursday, and Grandpa and Grandma Godinez will be here Wednesday to spend the weekend with Luke! I'm sure they're excited to not have to share the baby with a single person for an entire weekend :) Luke is counting down the days until he gets spoiled again. In the meantime, he's working very hard on sitting up, and we're soooooo close to having it figured out!

Fall 2010 at OneTrueMedia.com

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Best Buds

Before Luke was born we had no idea how the dogs would react. We figured Sophie would snuggle him and be the "mommy", and we prayed Ralphie wouldn't eat the kid. Little did we know that Ralphie and Luke would become best buds so quickly.  Our nightly routine involves the two playing together and giving each other kisses. Even when Luke pokes him in the eye and tries to yank off his ears, Ralphie just snuggles in for more.

Daddy is Home!!

This weird thing happened tonight.....We were all home, the house was clean, there was very little homework or therapy to be done so we watched football. We miss nights like this. 25 days....

Happy Side Note: Patrick passed his physical fitness test today!!!

Luke's First Road Trip

Finally! For the first time since July, Patrick finally had a day off. Some people might clean the house, do laundry, or go grocery shopping, but who would do that when there is Christmas shopping to be done?!? We (Melissa) found an awesome deal at the Renaissance Hotel, Patrick's mom reminded us that a giant sample sale was taking place, and Luke was dying for his first road trip, so away we went. Between the Christmas shopping, finding Melissa a new wardrobe, eating at delicious restaurants, and enjoying a fancy hotel made the trip perfect. Speaking of perfect, Luke was a stellar little travel buddy.  He conveniently took long naps during the drive, shopping extravaganzas and dinner Friday night - all key times. Here are some pictures from the mini-vacation:

Sleepy Boys

Baby Professor

Nothing in this world is funnier than a baby in glasses.....until you have to try keep the dumb things on his face. Last week we visited Dr. Richards, a pediatric ophthalmologist, for Luke's 6 month NICU follow-up. The good news was that there was no damage from him being on oxygen at birth, but the bad news was that he needs glasses, and possibly surgery.  We've been noticing his eyes crossing for the past few weeks, and the doctor said the only way to help is with glasses. Then, we'll re-evaluate in about 6 weeks and if there is no improvement, Luke will have that little outpatient surgery that they do on babies. Keep your fingers crossed the glasses work. More importantly, keep your fingers crossed that we can keep them on his face.

Happy Halloween

What a busy weekend!  Grandma Karen left on Saturday, and Luke was SSSSOOOO sad! He cried ALL day because he wasn't getting as spoiled as he was used to. However, he was so worn out from all the attention that he slept most of the day :) Then, we went to our Ron, Suzi, Joseph, Anna, and Baby's house to carve pumpkins. Patrick is an expert carver, and our pumpkin turned out beautifully. Then, on Halloween, everyone from the 'hood came over for burgers before trick-or-treating. Luke LOVED having the beautiful princess and witch over. Then, later on, Peyton the Monkey came to say hello. Our poor little scarecrow couldn't take much more excitement because he was sound asleep by 7:30.

Playtime with Grandma

For our classroom friends....

It's another semester, and Mrs. Kilgore's class in Kansas is back to reading our blog to learn more about parenting and raising a child with special needs. One question that her class asked (as have MANY other people) is how severe is Luke's case of DS. Well, the only answer is that there is really no way to tell.  According to all of our doctors/therapists, Luke is just slightly delayed with his gross motor skills.  Since he has low muscle tone, it's a bit harder for him than other babies to sit up, get ready for crawling, etc. However, his social/emotional/behavior characteristics are right on track for where they should be for a typically developing 6 month old. The only thing we can do is keep working on occupational and physical therapy, and monitor his cognitive development as he gets older. Good thing his mom was a teacher and knows LOTS of different ways to help him learn to read and write when he gets older :)

Keep the questions coming!

Playdate with our friends

While Anna and Joseph's mommy and daddy moved into their new house, this is what we did......

Fun with Ms. Anita at Occupational Therapy

Practicing sitting up with little support.

Yep, it's almost time to crawl! Luke LOVES watching the singing flowers! We even got some for the house because they are so stinkin' cute.

Really? You are going to make me use my arms? I wanted to kick my feet up and roll over, but Ms. Anita insisted that I practice weight-bearing in my arms. I need to do some push ups to build some muscles because I have noodle arms.

We needed some snuggle time to recover from all that hard work! The Santa jingle bells were the perfect reward for all that hard work.

It was the end of the session, so Luke couldn't decide if he wanted to cry or laugh. Here he is getting ready to transfer objects from one hand to another while sitting up.