Three Little Birds

Our Loie girl is doing sooo well! She is a pro at sitting up now, though she likes to keep her legs in a "W" position for extra stability. She has the occasional tumble, which always takes her by surprise and makes her cry, but otherwise, she is really good at catching herself if she tips! She is eating a lot more food, and is not the least bit picky AT ALL. She will try anything, and wants whatever we're having. She loves cream cheese, pizza, yogurt, cheerios, peanut butter, candy, noodles, and whatever she can get her hands on! She prefers to feed herself by hand, even though most of the food winds up on the floor this way. She is going to be our stubborn, independent lady! So Loie had her cardiology checkup the other day, and we are proud and relieved, to say that she has been discharged from cardiology! Yay!! Her ASD hole has almost entirely closed on its own, and the extra membrane (cor triatriatrium) continues to not block any blood flow or cause her any issues....

What I would tell you about Lennon, if you wanted to know... and I hope you do! Lennon is a beautiful and sensitive soul. He hates wearing too many clothes. Especially socks. He always wants to eat carrots, but they make him gag every time. He says "bye bye" anytime he is feeling sad, disappointed or anxious... I guess it's his way of letting you know he doesn't like what's going on. When he starts to cry, he tells himself, "it's Okay..." in between sobs. His memory, is incredible. He memorizes songs, lines from commercials, jingles, and the order of things.. keeps them all in place in his mind, and can retrieve them whenever he wants to. He sees the opening of the "Color Crew" show, and even though, to me, they all look exactly the same, he somehow knows this episode, is the episode about "brown." He repeats. -ESPECIALLY when it's something he really shouldn't be saying...   He has ZERO sense of volume control. He lo...

I know we've been a bit absent on the posts lately. A lot has been going on! but at the same time, not much at all has changed. We moved! We have our own little space and our own little home now, in Middleton. It's got a great backyard to play in, and plenty of room to be rambunctious for the kids. It's home :) Kids are doing soooo well! I can't even express to you how proud we are of them, every single day! Lennon has just turned 3! He's still our sweet little boy, who is just beginning to realize he is a "threenager." Though, him being rebellious is sneaking Mom's Milano cookies into his bedroom, stealing eggs from the fridge, and climbing furniture. He's such a good kid :) He has "aged out" of the Infant Toddler program, so will no longer have home visits from speech therapy. But, he and Loie have started swim therapy with Aquability, and Lennon is also just starting music therapy, which comes to our home as well, so we are filling ...

February 10th! Loie and Pearl's birthday, it was here so fast! I don't think I even need to comment on how emotional of a day this was for us. It was good bad and ugly. It was sweet and draining and amazing. How grateful we are to have Loie still here with us, smiling to celebrate her birthday... words can't describe. And how sad we are to know that Pearl is missing her party with her sister... well, there are no words for that either. Loie wore a beautiful party dress, which had a bow, conveniently located near her mouth for her to chew on all day! Mom didn't plan that very well.... It was an orange dress. Pearl's stuffed dragon that she had by her bed in the NICU was orange, so this was my homage to her, Loie tasted some cake frosting and LOVED it! And yes, we sang happy birthday to "Loie and Pearly." and I only teared up once...  This day, I'm sure, will only get harder. Someday, Loie might start to ask us about her sister. She will miss he...

 Loie and Pearl's birthday got me thinking and remembering. Our story of the girls, and how they arrived in this world. It's a long, complicated story, but it's our story and we lived it. It was the reason our lives were turned upside down. There was a lot going on that we shared with very few people, always with hope that everything surely would turn out fine. This is what I remember of it. ~~~We found out we were pregnant with our second child, in September 2016, just after having celebrated our son's first birthday in August. welcomed news! We found out a short time later that our second child was actually our second and third child... shocking news. Once my hands stopped shaking and I was able to actually wrap my mind around the thought of twins, I was ecstatic! Seriously.... on cloud nine. Life was SO good.... We went home from that first ultrasound in a haze. We hadn't really asked too many questions because, well, what were we supposed to ask?? We ha...

Well, miss Loie has gotten her first pair of glasses! And what a difference they seem to make! No joke, she is looking around so much more, smiling so much more, and actually taking much more interest in her toys! Who knew? poor little thing must not have been seeing very well at all... She looks adorable, we think. The idea is to let the glasses help her see for a while (she's very far sighted) and hope that it corrects her strabismus (crossing.) Hopefully it will correct it enough that she won't need any eye surgery. So far, so good! she's only had them a few days now. She (mostly) leaves them alone, and we think she is actually enjoying being able to see better, with less strain. So, she leaves them on her face, except when she is tired and starts to rub her eyes. Lennon saw them, and immediately wanted to grab them off her face! He loves glasses! and right now, he's also into hats. But, not wearing them, just putting them on other people. We had a heart m...