Six Months Old

Lewis is 6 months old today and I just can't believe it!!  It seems like yesterday I was having to wake up every three hours to feed him.  We went to the doctor this morning and he's doing great!!  Dr. Schofield said he was a happy, healthy baby and Dan and I feel so lucky to have him.

He weighs 19 pounds 12 ounces (the scale said 19.8 pounds so I converted .8 to ounces but now that I think about it the decimal on the scale might have been in ounces so let's just say he's shy of 20 pounds).  His weight puts him in the 83rd percentile.  He's 27 3/4 inches tall which is the 89th percentile and his head still measures in the 90th percentile.  He's just growing like a weed!!

It's a fuzzy picture but here he his sitting up all by himself at the Dr.'s office this morning.  He even sat up all by himself when I put him on the scale.  I had just told the nurse he couldn't do it by himself so he quickly made a lier out of me.

Here is a typical Lewis face, he's biting his lower lip.  He hasn't started crawling yet but he's practicing by pushing up on his hands.  He still has those baby blues (and I hope they stay that way).  Notice the blue blanket he's laying on (it was my dad's but that's not why I wanted you to look at it).

Here's another typical Lewis pose.  He likes to grab a corner of the blanket and then roll himself in it like a burrito.  Not sure why, probably just because he can.

Sleeping and Eating

So Dan and I think Lewis is the cutest thing in the world when he's sleeping.  Well, we think he's the cutest thing ever all the time.  Here he is sleeping on his side.  He does this from time to time now.  He's wearing a giraffe print sleep sack that is my favorite.

 Lewis loves to eat his cereal and fruits.  Here he is licking the bowl after he finished.  He's had bananas, peaches, pears, and prunes.  He likes them all but we quit feeding him prunes because he's started this weird fake cough that's making us wonder if it's an allergic reaction.  He started it at the exact same time as he started prunes.  Certain fruits made my ears and throat itch in the past so maybe prunes make his throat itch.  It really is the most fake sounding cough you've ever heard.  You can really see how blue his eyes are in this picture, too.

ASP

From July 10-16 I was on Appalachia Service Project with my church.  We go every summer and work on houses in the Appalachia region (mostly Kentucky and West Virginia).  This was my 10th or 11th one, I'm not quite sure.  Mary Grace, Trey, Lauren, and Carol Ann were also on the trip to.  My group was fortunate enough to work on the inside of a house (Mary Grace's and Carol Ann's group worked on roofs). Trey was in my group and we replaced drywall on two ceilings and two walls (after we cleared out the two rooms we were working on and trust me, that was no small task), took out a 300 pound flue blocker from the kitchen ceiling, and mudded and sanded the ceilings and walls until we were all covered in drywall dust.  It was hot, hard work but in the end we left the house warmer, safer, and drier than when we started. The crew coming in after us was going to finish up by painting the ceilings and walls and repairing the kitchen floor.  Here are some pictures with descriptions below:

Here is me trying to lift the flue blocker, it's a concrete block with a cylinder cut out of it.  It was used when the house had a coal burning stove, it kept the smoke from getting into the attic area.  The current homeowner didn't even know it was there.  The walls and ceiling in the picture are bead board and they had been covered up by drywall.  The concrete thing was putting major stress on the roof trusses so we had to take it out.  The trusses had bowed over time because of the added weight.

Here is the process of the flue blocker falling.  Paul is standing in the foreground.  He sawed all around it and then had to pry it loose.  Our first plan of action was to have Trey and Mason stand on ladders and catch the thing when it fell.  After actually thinking about it we decided that wasn't a good idea and we put old tires on the ground and let the concrete block fall on them.  It did and bounced off.  It was way heavier than we expected it to be.  It's a good the the work crew the week before us had replaced the floor joists because otherwise it would have gone right through.

Here's Trey and the homeowner showing off their muscles after the concrete thing fell to the ground.  Lots of bricks and mortar and stuff fell down with it.  

Five Months Old and More

Lewis turned 5 months old a little over a week ago and I just haven't gotten around to posting about it yet.  Then he weighed 17.5 pounds and yesterday he weighed 18.5 pounds so either our scale is screwy or he's just growing like a weed.  Here's the only picture from the day he turned 5 months old.  He was super tired and it was close to bedtime so Dan got some snuggle time before we had to wake him up for his bath and bottle.

Lewis is on his third fruit.  He's started with bananas, moved on to peaches (which had the same reaction as bananas at first), and now he's on pears.  He loves pears and would probably eat them all day if I'd feed them to him.  He still can't sit up by himself yet but we keep practicing.  He still rolls from his back to his front and then gets stuck and can't remember how to roll back the other way.  I always find him sleeping on his stomach so he takes after his dad in that way.  He's starting to nap a little more than he used to.  He now has 30 minutes to an hour long nap once or twice a day.  He's been sleeping pretty consistently from 8:30 at night to 6:45 in the morning so I'm sure that will change tonight since I'm posting about it.  Whenever I make a comment about his sleeping patterns he likes to switch it up on me.

We celebrated the 4th of July at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Lewis went swimming and played outside in his cousin Shelby's pink toy.  Look at his hair in the picture below, he has a faux hawk!  I had to put sunscreen on his scalp the day before because I forgot his swim hat and I couldn't get it all washed out so on Monday it was like he had hair gel in.

He doesn't have any teeth yet but he's been grabbing his left ear lately and I've heard that could be in indication of teething.  Dan really hopes he doesn't start getting teeth until after next week is over because I'll be out of town on ASP with my church (and my sister and three of my cousins).  Dan's going to be a single dad for a week but I'm sure he'll do fine and enjoy all the time he gets to spend with his little mini me.