10 Month Old Babies

Today is the babies' 10 month birthday! It's hard to believe. Time has gone by really fast. Check out some comparison photos below. None are great photos, but you can get the idea of how much they have changed. My babies have come a LONG way!!

We had a quiet Memorial Day weekend. Sunday afternoon the babies had their first trip to Target and to O'Charley's for dinner. The babies wore yellow to church. Will wore his suspenders, just like his great-grandfather, with whom he shares a first name.
Monday we stuck around the house but we did go outside to get some fresh air.

The babies had a round table discussion. I overheard Lindy saying, "No, I'm cuter!"
This has been a big eating week for Lindy. We had been struggling with getting her to eat more than a tablespoon of rice cereal. This week I decided to add some fruit to it. We started with applesauce and boy what a difference it has made. She eats two tablespoons of cereal or oatmeal and a little less than an ounce of fruit, twice a day. She must like the flavor! She eats so much faster and holds her mouth wide open. We have also introduced peaches and she has enjoyed those as well. Next we are going to try some veggies.

Below is her first bite of applesauce. Not sure at first, but soon loved it! Just to see what Will would do, I gave him a tiny corner of one of the baby puffs. He was not sure at all. I finally got some funny faces out of him. I'm pretty sure we aren't ready for finger foods quite yet but not too much longer!
We had NO appointments this week. We were supposed to have one but it got cancelled because the teacher thought she was getting a cold. We postponed just to be safe.

Lindy has done so well off her oxygen. Many nights we haven't even had to put it in her nose at bedtime! We have monitors to tell us when she starts satting too low. She is such a big girl. It's awesome to walk wherever we want with her!!

Lindy has started smiling at us a lot lately. Until this week you had to physically be touching, tickling, or kissing her. You had to work for a smile. This week I was looking at her, making a face and she smiled! She has smiled at toys I've brought to her face and to Drew and I. How fun. She has the sweetest smiles!

Lindy has also started rolling!!! She has been rolling from belly to back for awhile but on Wednesday she almost rolled from back to belly. She does what Will did at first, she made it almost the whole way. She ends up resting on her arm and can't get her head up yet. She has been working at this for awhile and I was so happy to see her almost get it. With all of her issues going on, it makes me so happy when she progresses developmentally. It might all be pretty delayed, but she is progressing and that is really what matters! She did it once on Wednesday but has been going crazy today!

Not much is happening in Will's world. Still a happy, smiling baby. We hope it stays that way! I feel bad for not writing much about him but there just isn't much to write. He seems like a regular little baby. He has started bearing a lot of weight on his legs. He can stand up in your lap and on the ground. He looks like such a little man when he is standing! He also got his feet up to his mouth once this week but hasn't gotten them back yet.

A quick, funny Will story for you. Before going to bed I always check on him. Most nights he has rolled to his belly so I usually flip him back over. Wednesday night I flipped him back over and he put his legs in the air and grabbed them with his hands, just to make sure they were still there I guess. As he was grabbing for his feet, he ripped two loud toots! What a man, tooting in his sleep!

Have a great weekend and here are a few more cute pictures.

10 month old babies
10 months old today!

Kicking the O2 Addiction

Many of you guessed correctly! Courtney you win the RED Porsche, not black! We went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon and were told we could put Lindy's supplemental oxygen on "stand-by." What a glorious day! They told us we might need to still put it on her during naps and at night. We did end up putting it on her Thursday night but she did not need it last night!! She went all day yesterday and last night without it. I really think she enjoys not having it in her nose! It also makes it easier to keep her hearing aides on which is really good. We are still trying to adjust. I caught Drew trying to get some slack on the oxygen tubing yesterday - even though there isn't any oxygen tubing! It is hard to break our habits.

We have had a pretty busy week. Lindy had occupational therapy on Monday. We are to work on the same stuff. Cheeks, sitting, and pushing up during tummy time. Tuesday Lindy had new ear molds made. She is outgrowing the present ones we have. After her appointment Lindy got to run errands with me for the first time. She made her first trip to Wal-Mart. A big day for her! I kept her in the car seat in the cart with the shade thing pulled pretty far down and hand sanitized a million times. She did well. Will also got to go on a new adventure this week. He got to ride with Daddy to the strawberry field and get us some freshly picked strawberries. Too bad he can't eat them, they are so good!

Wednesday we had the teacher from the deaf and hard of hearing program come. She asked us a lot of questions about Lindy but didn't actually work with her. We decided to start with the auditory verbal mode of communication, where we want her to talk and listen. Depending on her vision and vocal cord paralysis, we'll add other strategies if needed. If because of her vocal cord paralysis she can't talk, then we'd eventually have to give her some way to talk to us. Some of this we will just have to wait and see. Right now our goal for her is that she becomes aware of sound.

Then Thursday we had the appointment with the NICU follow-up doctors for both babies. According to their scales, Will weighed 17 pounds 6 ounces and was 26 inches long. Lindy was 14 pounds 14 ounces and was 24 1/4 inches long. They were very impressed with Will and commented that he didn't even seem like a preemie. He is in the normal range developmentally for his adjusted age (6.5 months).

Lindy is obviously delayed but we knew this. She has some hypotonia, low tone, in her trunk. Which we also knew and is why we are working with the occupational therapist. They actually said she might be gaining a little too much weight! She is gaining weight faster than she is growing long. This means she has a lot of meat on her short bones! She had been staying nicely in the 10% (on the preemie chart) and this time she jumped up to the 25% in weight! Who thought I'd end up with chunky babies? They said we could stop adding the Neosure to her bottles and that we could take away her late night bottle.

So Thursday night we fed her at 7pm, put her to bed and she didn't wake up all night! We fed her at 7am the next morning. It's been a good week! Last night she woke up for one of her early morning parties but fell back asleep without us having to do anything. We are hoping by taking away the late night bottle that we can get more cereal in her. We'll see!

Enjoy this week's pictures. They all have Lindy in her cannula though.

Will was rolling around and took the blanket with him. One of Lindy's favorite toys. A light up wand.


If you know Drew at all then you probably know that he wears a t-shirt and tan shorts every day. It's his uniform. The babies had on their tan shorts this week. They formed the tan short club. They even made a secret handshake. Our first overnight trip to Charlotte went pretty well. A few minor glitches on the way to and from, like Lindy throwing up and Will freaking out when we got there, but otherwise it went well. We celebrated Mother's Day a week late. Here is Mimo with her granddaughters, Lindy and Molly.

Aunt Anna and Will.
We stopped by Drew's Dad's house for supper. Here is GrandBob and Suzette.

Sweet pictures at GrandBob's house.

I love this little outfit. She looked "Cute as a bug" with her ruffly skirt!A little brother-sister playtime at home. Will wouldn't leave her stuff (cannula, glasses, and hearing aides) alone that day.

The babies were sporting their Northwest Missouri State University pride this day. It's the college in Maryville MO where most of my family went, my grandparents live directly across the street from, and where my grandfather taught for 42 years.
The weather was so nice this week we had to sit outside for a little while. This shirt sums up Will the best. We call him a 'Silly Monkey' all the time.
The fresh air put Lindy to sleep!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. The babies want to wish their cousin Hayley a happy 5th birthday. They wish they could be at her flip-flop birthday party today!

Contest

The first person to guess what's different in this picture gets world-wide fame and a brand new red Porsche. he he.

Check it out.

Monkeys and Disco Parties

Happy Mother's Day to Me! Pictures from my first ever Mother's Day. We had a nice trip to church where I won a hanging basket for having the youngest kids there! After church we had lunch at IHOP. Don't laugh at my choice of restaurants. I wanted French toast on my day! It was a wonderful day. Our anniversary was nice too, although it kind of got swept to the side.

Sweet church outfits! I LOVE Lindy's dress and sweater. Thanks Pam!

The rest of our week has been good. Governor Morehead (for vision) came on Monday and she brought new toys. She brought some pretty cool light up ones this time which both babies love.

Tuesday we had a lady from a program called Beginnings come to the house. It's a program for parents of kids that are deaf or hard of hearing. They explain a lot about hearing loss to you and they introduce the ways that Lindy can learn. Drew and I will have to be choosing a way for her to learn this week. Big decision. We can either use an auditory verbal approach where we want her to listen and talk, or use only sign language, or use a combination of the two. There are always things to take into consideration, such as her vision loss and how bad her hearing really is. Always something fun around our house.

Wednesday Drew spoke at a neonatal conference for nurses in Hickory. A lady we met and talked with a lot in the NICU at Baptist asked him to give a father's perspective of the NICU experience. He said everything went well. He got to see a lot of people from Baptist, a nurse from Forsyth where the babies were born, and even an attending doctor from Duke that took care of Lindy.

We are being brave and adventurous again this weekend. Tomorrow night we are headed out for our first overnight trip. We are finally getting down to Charlotte to visit Drew's parents. I started a list last weekend of everything to take. It's a bit ridiculous for one night! Wish us luck on our overnight adventures!

A few pictures from the week. Silly Willy waiting to take a bath!

Silly Monkey loving his feet!

I love how Lindy has her eyes cut to the green cup in this picture. Good times during bath night. Have I ever mentioned how much we hate bath night? WE HATE IT!!!!
Awhile back I said Lindy liked to have parties in her crib and no one believed me. Here is proof!!
With no flash you can see Lindy enjoying her disco ball. One of the cool things the Governor Morehead lady brought.

10,000 Visitors and A Big Weekend

Our blog has had over 10,000 visitors to it. That's pretty crazy! Who wouldn't want to see the cutest babies ever each week? Get ready for a ton of pictures. I had so many cute ones from this week that I had a hard time choosing. So I just posted a lot of them! This is going to be a long post.

We have had a good week. It was pretty quiet. Monday we had occupational therapy at the house. She watched Lindy eat cereal and was impressed with how well she did. The problem with Lindy and cereal is that she just isn't hungry enough for it. I don't give her much at all but a lot of times she won't finish her next bottle. We're kind of stuck right now. The OT wants us to keep stretching her cheeks and work on her upper body strength. She doesn't push up much on her belly. We also had the NC Early Intervention Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing come out this week to sign us up. It’s another free program (like Governor Morehead for vision) that works with kids with hearing impairments. We just did paperwork and talked briefly about what they do. They will come back in a couple weeks to actually start working with her.

Practicing sitting up

I think Lindy might have gained those two pounds last month in her chin!

A cute outfit.

Will has just been chilling out this week. Still rolling away. He's getting a little better at rolling belly to back. He has tried oatmeal and prunes this week and ate both just fine. I didn't think the prunes were very good though. I think they might be responsible for the blowout all over his clothes this morning. We hadn't had one of those in awhile!

This is one of my new favorite pictures of him. He is starting to sit up pretty well. Too bad it usually compresses his stomach and makes him spit-up.

The camera used flash and over-exposed him. Oh well, it's still cute.

I felt Will was getting a little bored with his play time lately so I busted out the exersaucer. Technically they are not really recommended for preemies. I have asked why and they said that preemies have a tendency to walk on their tippy toes because of all the heel sticks they received in the NICU. The way they hang in the exersaucer can reinforce this. We have only let him hang out in it for short periods of time but he seems to love it. We need to rig it up so he can stand with his feet flatter in it. We tried Lindy but she was a little short for it still. These were our sweet church clothes last week (from Aunt Amy). Yes, we went to church again. Two weeks in a row! The babies went to the nursery and did fine. We think this picture is hilarious. Look at the way she is checking him out! Too funny!
Lindy can be such a snuggle bug sometimes!

Yesterday was a great day for us. We were feeling a bit adventurous. I had seen an advertisement for the Mayfest in Pilot Mountain. We decided to check out this little street festival. It was just like any other street festival, mostly junk, but it was fun to get outside and walk around with the babies. I didn’t realize we would attract so much attention. The double stroller is a little big I guess. We had a few issues afterwards with warming up bottles but we got everyone fed and happy. We took off from there and headed to Pilot Mountain State Park. We were able to drive up and look around a little bit. They had some very short trails that gave you awesome views. We couldn’t stay too long because we were just carrying the babies and they were getting heavy!! We left there and headed to King for our first ever trip to a restaurant with our babies! I told you we were feeling adventurous! It went really well. Lindy was asleep most of the time and Will was really good. I had brought all of his cereal and veggies, spoons and bowls and I fed him while waiting for our food. Then he sat pretty patiently while we ate. We even ordered dessert they were so good. All in all, we had a great day out and about with the babies.

Will in the double beast stroller at Mayfest.

Sweet Lindy having fun in the back with Mommy! She was being so cute!

Pictures from Pilot Mountain State Park.

What an amazing view.

Pilot Knob. Isn't it strange looking?

In honor of it being my first Mother’s Day I have included myself in some pictures. It’s my little ode to myself. Happy Mother’s Day to me! I’ve been through an awful lot to become a mother but it’s been worth it. I have two beautiful babies at home with me. I wish I had three beautiful babies at home with me. I'm so thankful for the two I do have, but it's hard not to miss the one you don't have.

My precious baby boy.

And my precious baby girl.

Would you believe that my first ever Mother’s Day is also my 6 year wedding anniversary? It’s been an amazing 6 years! Drew and I always have so much fun together. We have had a unique relationship in the fact that we spend a lot of time together. With Drew’s office at home for the last 5 years and me usually just working part-time, we see each other a lot. And yet we still like to hang out together! Happy Anniversary Drew!

Awww, so sweet!!!!!!