Easter pics and other random stuff

For Easter we spent time with both sides of the family. First we went to Louisville for the Reitmeyer side of things. Here's Lewis in his Easter outfit, thanks to Justin's Aunt Emogene.





















Lewis and grandpa.





















Lewis and his cousin Mallory.
















We wanted to get some pictures of the kids, but it ended up being the kids and Aunt Ellen since Lewis didn't want to sit still. From left: Mallory, Will, Ellen and Lewis.






























Lewis mesmerized by Grandma's musical snow globe.
















We forgot to take pictures in Shepherdsville (which is exactly the opposite of what happened last year, oddly enough!). But we had a great time there too. Lewis has grown to love playing on their pool table. He is really good at rolling the balls into the pockets.

Today is actually our friend Taylor Wilson's birthday. She is 2 years-old! We went to her party on Saturday and had a great time. Our pictures are not the best, but here's what we've got.

Taylor's mom, Sarah, coaches her as she blows out her candles. She did a great job!
















Justin and Lewis explore his party favors.
















Lewis and a purple balloon. He still loves them!

BATHTIME: A Photo Essay by Lewis' Daddy

"I'm covered up, right? Make sure I'm covered up."

"I mean, seriously! Am I covered up??"


" I know! I'm so cute! I'll never wear clothes again!"

"I don't care what you say, pa! I WON'T stop passing gas in the tub! It's funny!"


"Oh, the hilarity!"

kissing daddy

Here's a video of Lewis kissing Justin over and over again. He's learned that good things happen when he gives us kisses so he has been much more willing to show his love.

march madness

After last weekend's snow, we were delighted to see it melt away by warmer weather! This week has been fabulous due to the warmth and sunshine. To celebrate, I took Lewis in to our friends at Shapes for a haircut. He did not enjoy it, but calmed down with some bubble blowing. He looks much better, just in time for Easter and the beginning of spring.

We took a family walk on the square the other night because it was light later (thanks to daylight savings!) and Lewis had a blast. He loves walking around and exploring.

It was difficult taking pictures at night, especially since Lewis was moving so fast!





















Lewis has been running around throwing his hands up in the air at random. We think it might be due to the college basketball we've been watching lately. Many of the players do this after they make a tough basket.





















Sidenote: We were particularly thrilled to see our WKU Hilltoppers win the Sunbelt Conference tournament this week. It has been a while, and they deserve it!!

Justin gave Lewis a break from walking for a few minutes. You can see Spencer's in the background. We look forward to more family walks in the square. :)

SNOW!

The weathermen finally got it right, and we woke up to quite a bit of the white stuff this morning. We know there was much more north of here, but it has been a couple of years since it really snowed in Bowling Green, and it was kind of fun!

We took Lewis out exploring. He whimpered most of the time due to the wind and how difficult it was to walk in, but he was irate when we had to go inside so he must have liked it somewhat!

Here are some pictures.

derek holt and floam

Tonight Derek stopped by before Foxhole practice and while he tried hard to get Lewis' attention, he just couldn't compete with Baby Einstein. We got some funny pictures of his efforts.

Derek juggling (what kid wouldn't like this?)





















Derek wondering why Lewis is not interested.
















Lewis confused about Derek....should he like him or not? Why is he juggling during his movie?
















Later, when the guys had left, Lewis played with his Floam. He likes it quite a lot. It's this gooey, sticky stuff that smells like glue. His therapist, Krista, brought it several weeks ago and he has been loving it ever since! It's kind of like play dough, but much easier to mold or tear apart.






















Floam is fun!

new belly shot--22 weeks

First of all, let me say--yay, it's March! We have been all over the place this week. Justin especially has been burning his candle at both ends, and Lewis and I have managed to stay busy too. Tuesday morning we got to spend some time with Julie and Madelyn Boyer (forgot to take pictures--oops!). On Wednesday we went to Louisville for a campaign fundraiser in honor of my sister, Ellen, and her bid for a Louisville Metro Council seat. If you happen to live in District 18, you should definitely vote for her. She even has a website you can check out! Lewis got to spend some time with Justin's parents while we showed our support for the candidate. It was fun!
















Thursday and Friday I was shopping and volunteering at Lil Angels Attic, a local children's consignment sale. We were hoping to find some stuff for the new baby, but mostly ended up with summer clothes for Lewis, and a dancing Elmo.

The pregnancy is going well. I am feeling much more fetal movement these days, and generally feel pretty good. Pregnancy brain is setting in, however. I've been so forgetful. The other day I got to Kroger without my coupons and list, much to my dismay. Tonight, I forgot to give Lewis a bath. He gets one every other night, and it's usually not too hard to remember, but tonight it just completely slipped my mind. I've had some solid cravings lately for jelly beans and this yummy angel food cake/fruit dessert (recipe thanks to Laurie Basham). Besides that, things are plugging right along, and I have really healthy hair!

Here's my latest belly shot. It's at kind of a weird angle, but hopefully you'll get the idea. :)

lewis learns some signs

After literally MONTHS of trying to teach Lewis some simple sign language, he finally has a couple of words down. This first video is of him doing 'more' while eating some taco casserole. He does not do it correctly by ASL standards (he's close!), but he's consistent in always using the same gesture to mean 'more.'




The other word we've been working on a lot with our new speech therapist is 'please.' So far Lewis mainly uses them in conjunction together, but he will do his own version of 'please' which is really pretty close to the real sign. You can see him use both in the next video....forgive the longness of it. We're so glad to be communicating better with Lewis, and really hope this is just the beginning!

future artist?

Lewis is finally starting to get the swing of crayons. He still likes putting them in his mouth, but is more likely to scribble on the paper. This is his first drawing without help. Every mark was made by Lewis himself (except for his name and date! That would've been amazing!).
















He's finally figuring out some of his toys too. Toys, like his Glow Worm, are finally easy for him to play with and "make sing." We've been planting his worm in his bed each night and when we hear the music going in the morning, we know he's awake. He only jabbers a little bit these days and then it's on to playing in the bed. We are lucky to have such a good sleeper, and a kid who loves his bed so much!

Eating has once again become a challenge. He seems to want store bought baby food the most, and his constant staple, homemade yogurt. He's eating more veggies than fruit, oddly enough, and tons of beans. They say beans are the perfect food--protein and starch. Anyway, if he's going to be picky, we're glad he's eating beans.

He's also signing his own version of the word 'more.' He uses it for everything though, and seems somewhat confused that it doesn't mean 'please' and other things too. Still, if we ask him if he wants more, he consistently makes the same sign. Progress in small doses is good!

Here's a photo we forgot to post of Lewis and his Grandma on Valentine's Day.

it's a..........

boy! Well, we had our ultrasound today, and we are having another boy Shepherd. I was told specifically not to drink anything caffeinated and as a result did not get a great view of all the "parts" as the baby was not really moving a lot, but our radiologist assured us that it is definitely a boy. Here was the best picture of his manhood. Good luck!
















Here's one of him sucking his thumb (or so it seems).

















Pray for us as we try to think of boy names!

fun with corrie

Check out some pictures of Lewis hanging out with his friend, Corrie on the Powells' blog. They're pretty cute!

happy birthday, natasha!

And happy Valentine's Day to you! We often do not mention birthdays on our blog.....not that we forget, but it's hard to keep up with it once you do one. But my friend, Natasha, who lives all the way over in Belarus, has to share her birthday with the day of love. And since she is so far, and i always forget to plan to send a gift far enough in advance, I wanted to post a little something for her before her birthday is over (which gives me only about an hour since it's 11 p.m. there right now!).

We became friends in the fall of 1998 when I moved to Belarus for the first time. We were not best buds right away or anything like that, but it's a friendship that has grown over time, and now I have to say she is one of my closest friends, in my heart anyway. She is funny and real and not afraid to share her thoughts and opinions which is something we Americans hold back all too often. Besides that--she has an incredible life story--growing up in one of Russia's "secret cities" and coming to know the Lord through meeting a believer in an aerobics class of all things. This woman just continues to grow and endure the twists and turns of life. I guess you could say she's one of my heroes (those of you who know Nate Jones may have heard a hero speech here or there). I'm praying for this to be an incredible year for you, Natasha. Thanks to skype, hopefully we'll be able to have many conversations through the wonders of the Internet.

This photo was taken by Natasha when she was visiting and I love Lewis' hairdo. She really captured him at a great post-bath moment.
















Before Natasha went back to Minsk, she spent some time in California. Desperate to meet a celebrity, she went looking in the Los Angeles area and found none other than:

















Chelsea Clinton!! She posted this picture on her Facebook account and it absolutely cracked me up. Here was her caption: "i wanted to take picture with a celebrety...somebody cool and handsome but all what i got is Chelsey Clinton." Natasha sure has connections!

We love you, friend! Hope your birthday was a blast. :)

bubbles, snow and the Gap

We finally got to meet Lewis' new speech therapist on Friday. John Paul (Logsdon) is a very enthusiastic fellow and hit it off pretty well with Lewis. He blew bubbles and had a ton of other fun toys that lured Lewis in. These items proved to be good motivators to get Lewis to respond. Hopefully in time we'll see him communicate through signs and/or sounds to express his anger or desire for "more" bubbles etc. We have hope that this will be a good match for Lewis.

This weekend we went to Louisville to see my family and so that Justin and I could visit the Gap Clearance Center near the Cincinnati airport. I had some gift cards to redeem which go a long way at this place. I found some great deals on maternity stuff while Justin stocked up on a wide variety of shirts. Our best deals were for Lewis--shirts for 49 cents and socks for a quarter a pair!

Our visit also gave Justin an opportunity to work with my sister Ellen on some campaign materials. If you haven't heard, she's running for a seat on the Louisville Metro Council to represent District 18. It's pretty exciting! I have to say that we're more excited about her race than the other elections this year. :)

We forgot to take lots of pictures this visit, but managed to get one of Lewis and Grandpa before we left.
















Side note: We did have a bit of a tricky ride on the way home in the pouring snow. Traffic was slow and there were some accidents (mostly on exit ramps), but once we got past Sonora things cleared up. We got home without any trouble and found that there was no snow in Bowling Green!

happy super tuesday

We don't get vote or anything special today, but we are enjoying the outside temperature! The unseasonably warm weather has allowed us to spend more time outdoors. Lewis enjoyed going to the park the other day when there was still a chill in the air.





















Since then he's actually gotten to go out without his hat a few times. He loves the play equipment at the park, but especially going up the steps,
















and beating on the big sturdy posts they makes those contraptions with.





















We also cut his hair again over the weekend. It has grown so much in the last six weeks! It was even starting to curl up after his bath.





















Now he looks like this.
















At the request of some of our faithful readers, here's my first side shot at 18 weeks pregnant. Not huge, but certainly bigger than at this point the last time around.





















My doctor says I'm growing right on schedule. The baby's heart-rate yesterday was 159 bpm. The poor nurse had a hard time figuring that out though, because the baby was moving so much. I'm only feeling small motions here and there, but this may be a wiggler! We scheduled our ultrasound for President's Day. This baby is sure to be a true patriot--due on the 4th of July, in an election year....it seems like every milestone is on some sort of holiday. Hopefully we'll get some cooperation and find out the sex. :)

We also get to meet Lewis' new speech therapist this Friday. We are excited to see what his approach will be. Lewis does seem more interested in communicating lately, even if that means screaming to get his point across. Hopefully John Paul will have some techniques to motivate him.

end of january

Lewis rediscovered his Elmo piano the other day. It has 3 settings, moving from easiest to most difficult. He has mostly played with it using the easiest setting where he just has to hit one piano key to play a whole song. The hardest setting requires him to "follow the lights" hitting the keys as they light up to play a song. He figured out how to do this, and it absolutely cracked him up at first. Now that he's a pro it's not funny anymore, but we're glad we caught him in this moment.




Also this week we finally got to pick a new speech therapist. We chose a man named John Paul something who has a lot of experience in speech therapy, but also with feeding issues which should help us. We haven't met him yet or even set up our first meeting, but we should see him in the next week or so. We feel good about our decision so far! We're hoping that a man may have a completely different impact on Lewis in the area of speech.

We also had Lewis' hearing screening yesterday and he passed with flying colors. Our boy can hear! We figured he could, but wanted to be sure there wasn't a problem we were missing. Lewis' main passion these days is listening to his Laurie Berkner "Victor Vito" cd. We'll all be relieved when he passes through this phase. It's wearing us out!!

trying not to freeze

We have been cold the last few days! Really, Lewis does not seem to notice the colder temperatures, but it does give him an opportunity to wear all his cute sweaters. Here he is doing his new favorite activity--putting his shapes in his shape-sorter. He's gotten really good at it.





















Here's Lewis with some funky hair earlier this week.





















Because Lewis has improved so much with his mobility, his therapist (developmental interventionist) is now working on art skills. He's been exposed to markers, crayons and play dough. He liked the play dough best, and has enjoyed chewing on the markers and crayons. He did actually scribble some with the crayons this afternoon, which is a start! He also scribbled a lot on his face as he tried to sneak the crayons in his mouth.





















After coloring, he ate some Cheerios, which he has rejected for over a month. I guess that wax got his palette warmed up for a snack. He ate a ton of Cheerios. Here's a close up.






















Our meeting to pick a speech therapist has been rescheduled for Monday. We're looking forward to getting that going again. One more random note--Lewis had a molar come in this week. The other three seem to be trying to break through too. He's been a trooper even though he's been going through some discomfort! Hopefully he'll be eating steak in no time. We won't push our luck!

not today

Our meeting today to pick a new speech therapist was canceled due to illness by our coordinator. We have not rescheduled yet, but are hoping we can pick someone soon because it's been a month since Lewis had speech therapy. The sooner the better! But it gives us all more time to pray so maybe it's not so bad. We'll keep you posted.

bouncing and spinning
















It took Lewis a while to really get the hang of his Bounce & Spin Zebra, but he's got it now and really loves it! We took a video this week because the last time his grandparents were here, he was so excited to see them that he wouldn't "perform" by jumping on the zebra. So for your enjoyment and theirs, check out this clip.





Lewis is also eating much better these days. We made another attempt at spoon-feeding him vegetables and he is willing to eat them once again. We would LOVE for him to make more attempts at self-feeding, but at this point will take what we can get. This way we at least know he is getting some nutrients (though he's not eating the meat and beans he once did). He is also not starving, which helps his sleeping and digestive system. :)

At the suggestion of his pediatrician, we are picking a new speech-therapist on Monday. Lewis is happy to roar like a lion, but that is his only sound these days and we are hoping for something more for him. We often wake to his growling on the monitor, which is kind of scary! We're hoping for the more pleasant "mama" or "dada." Pray for this meeting with our First Steps coordinator. We have a couple of names (suggestions), but basically will be given sheets describing 10-15 therapists (similar to resumes) and have to make a choice without meeting anyone. It's hard! It will take a special person to motivate Lewis in the area of communication so please pray that Justin and I will have wisdom to make this choice well.

18 months

Lewis had his 18 month check-up on Monday. His current stats are:

Height: 32"
Weight: 25 lbs.
Head: large (don't remember the measurement)

He's slightly below average for height and weight, but his head remains in the very large category.

On the same day, my friend Natasha came back through town on her tour of America. She and Lewis spent some special time together Monday evening so that Justin and I could do the same. Thanks, Natasha!! On Tuesday, Lewis, Natasha and I spent some time shopping, and stopped in for lunch at Spencer's before heading for Nashville--the next stop on Natasha's travel schedule. It was great to have some extra time with her before she heads back to Belarus.

pregnancy update: 14 weeks

Today was my 14-week check-up, which means I'm in my second trimester, yay! Everything went fine. The baby's heart rate is still high at 174. At 9 weeks, the heart rate was 183 (I'm pretty sure). Lewis' earliest heart rate was 173 (at 10 weeks), so maybe this will be a girl? We'll have to wait 6 weeks for our next ultrasound to know for sure. My doctor likes to do them at 20 weeks, so I'll have another check-up at 18 weeks and then a separate ultrasound appointment two weeks later. It might be better that way!

Otherwise, everything is going well. He measured my belly and said I'm right where I should be, and could definitely tell my uterus is growing. My clothes are telling me the same thing!

In other news, Lewis has been eating a little better. He has gone back to yogurt and fruit most days, letting us feed him again, though breakfast has consistently been graham crackers. Who wants to fight with a cute boy early in the morning about food?! He's also eating chicken at night, most nights, and even had some chili earlier this week when Justin got brave. He had part of a ham and cheese sandwich today. It all gives us hope that he'll continue to progress in this area.

Speech-wise Lewis is verbalizing less than ever, so I'm not sure what to think about that. Again, it may just be a phase. He seems to talk most after a good meal, so the eating issues may be affecting his speech too. Hopefully if his eating improves he'll vocalize more too.

We're looking forward to warmer temperatures and longer days! :)

new year's Belarussian style

A couple of my good friends from Belarus have been visiting the U.S. the last few weeks, and it has been fun to see them and catch up after our long separation. Because they were visiting, Justin and I spent New Year's Eve apart (he had to work the next morning at 7 a.m.!) so that I could attend the Belarussian celebration in Lexington. Several American friends have married spouses from Belarus and most of them live in the Lexington area, so it was fun to be with this crowd to ring in the new year.

The tradition in Belarus is to eat a big meal around midnight and basically stay up until 6 a.m. celebrating. This group only made it until about 2:30 which was pushing it for me! Due to the craziness of all this, Lewis spent the holiday with his Aunt Ellen, for which we were really grateful!

Here are some pictures:

Andrei Golubev holding Lewis at my dad's house in Louisville. Andrei stayed with dad and Martha for a few days before Christmas.






















Dad and Lewis playing a new game.





















Lewis and I; Natasha Rybinskaya; Val, Heather & Annabella Morozov; & Tasha Caruthers at our house in Bowling Green last week.
















Me, Tasha and Natasha having an interesting New Year's Eve dinner at Nagasaki Japanese Grill in Lexington.
















Our blurry group photo (not sure what happened here, but I'm hoping someone has a better one that can replace this one!) Front row: Yura Metelsky holding Val Jr., Val Morozov, Tasha Caruthers and Andrei Golubev. Back row: Natasha R., Heather and Annabella, Lovell and Vera Fouchee (our hosts) and Lovell's mom.

Christmas pics

We enjoyed Christmas this year, although Lewis and I were both fighting off infections which made things a little less fun than usual! Lewis did not get into opening gifts, but sure enjoyed the gifts once they were no longer hidden behind that boring paper.

He also learned to climb stairs at his grandparents' house and got lots of practice since we were visiting plenty of people with stairs over the last couple of weeks. He really loves climbing stairs.

Here's Lewis with his grandpa in Shepherdsville. He loves this ball!





















Here is Lewis at the Reitmeyers' celebration, sitting in a sea of unwrapped gifts.


















Aunt Ellen read Lewis his new book about Elmo.

















Along with the holiday cheer and our illnesses, Lewis also has developed some food issues. He would be happy on an all-liquid diet. Besides pretzels, there are few things he will eat consistently, and most of those foods have no real nutritional value. We keep putting a nice array of options before him, but most of it hits the floor (which is not so fun), and he is becoming more independent, not wanting to be fed like a baby, and yet not able to use a spoon himself. All of this adds to the fun of parenting these days. We're just grateful for Juicy Juice Harvest Surprise which helps him get fruit and vegetable servings each day. Fun times! :)