BIG NEWS!!!

Say woo hoo! Shout hooray! Lindy took her first two steps TODAY!!!!

This afternoon we went to a church member's house for a little visit. Their daughter was there and at one point was holding Lindy. Lindy started squirming so Lynn stood her down on the ground. Lindy just kind of took off. Lynn took her hands away from Lindy and she took 2 steps by herself!! We were so proud of her. I think she was oblivious to what she had done though. I picked her up and she had a book in her hands. We were all so excited and she just was looking at the book. She didn't notice all the praise we were giving her. We are so proud of her. I don't think she'll be running around tomorrow, but she took her first steps!!!

So now we'll back up to the rest of the week. Last Saturday Drew's Dad came up and went to the Father's Day breakfast with Drew and Will. Suzette played with Lindy while I got ready. After they got home we headed to Drew's brother's house for a Father's Day cookout with the family. We all had a good time. The kids took great naps which is unusual in a different place! Sunday was Father's Day and I think Drew had a nice day. We went out for lunch and then had a relaxing afternoon.

Lindy had a few appointments this week which all were pretty good. On Monday she had a hearing test to see if there have been any changes. Thankfully there have not been. Her hearing is stable. Drew and Will went with us to the hospital for her appointment but they went up and played on the rooftop terrace while Lindy and I were doing her hearing test. It's a really cool spot. A big enclosed area with playground equipment on the 12th (top) floor of Brenner's Children's Hospital. Drew said Will had a blast running all around and playing on the playground equipment. After Lindy's appointment we went by and picked up Drew's grandmother and took her to lunch. She doesn't see the kids much because she and her sister live together and smoke a lot. We can't take the kids into their house with the smoke. I think she enjoyed seeing the kids and we plan to do lunch more often.

Tuesday we had our weekly hearing appointment and Wednesday was our Governor Morehead (vision) appointment. Lindy did well with both of them.

Thursday was another checkup with her nephrologist, to check on her kidneys. She had a renal ultrasound and an appointment with the doctor. We actually were pleased to hear that her right kidney had grown a little bit. The last few ultrasounds had not shown any growth. The doctor seemed pleased with the growth, with Lindy's growth, and the fact that she hasn't had any reoccurring UTI's. She didn't even have to have blood drawn this time! We get to go back in 5 months to check on her kidneys and vesicoureteral reflux. Unfortunately the next appointment will include the dreaded VCUG.

As you can see, Lindy had a good week. We're proud of all her good news and the progress she has made. What a special girl. And cute as a button to boot!

Will on the other hand has had a rough week. I thought the terrible two's were upon us but now I think it might still have been teething. He has been getting mad and frustrated a lot this week. He absolutely hates when Lindy takes a toy from him. If he doesn't want to go where you want him to then he falls to the ground and cries. Finally on Thursday we started medicating him to see if he acted better and he did. He has been better the last two days with a little Tylenol. He is still waiting on one more canine tooth. Have I ever mentioned how glad I'll be when he is done teething?! Very glad!!

Will did get a little trip out with Mommy this week though. We really notice how shy he can be around new people and how not shy Lindy is. We realized how often Lindy gets out of the house and sees people at her appointments. Plus we realized how much time Will spends at the house with Drew and how often Lindy and I are out. We decided to switch things up a bit and so Will and I took a trip to Target together. He got to sit in the cart for the first time and had a ball. He waved at people and was so stinking cute!

Hope you all had a good week and have a great weekend!

Longing to go outside. Bob and his kids.

Bob and his kids and grandkids.

GrandBob, Will, and Drew. Check out last years Father's Day Breakfast.

Watching Drew open his presents.

I love her white eyelet outfit!

Happy Father's Day!

We love Daddy!

Will getting in another container.

I never post pictures of Jack, but isn't he cute. Just like Will, he gets in boxes!

Playing on the couch.

Lindy in a ladybug outfit. I can't believe I dressed her in this. I hate ladybugs but she looked cute! We got to swim this week! This time I had the bigger pool out and just put a little bit of water in it. It was great. We all had a blast!

Although Will does spend most of the time longing to get out and run around.

Lindy has been loving the water. She loves splashing around!

Lindy has also been babbling a lot this week. We have been hearing all kinds of new noises!

Will likes to help take off his shirt. His face is always so funny when he's doing it!

Busy Busy

What a week! Between appointments and deep cleaning the house, I'm exhausted!
Lindy had 5 appointments this week. Bright and early Monday morning we were at physical therapy. The brace company has agreed to make her another brace for her left leg, the taller one, because the therapist said her foot has grown/gotten fatter since we did the first cast. The therapist really wants these braces to last a good 6 months. We started off the session by recasting her foot and then had a regular meeting. Lindy and I got to go out and do a little shopping afterwards, since there is a special holiday coming up this weekend. Lindy got to sit in the front part of a shopping cart for the first time, because I forgot the single stroller, and she looked too cute. I didn't have a camera though.

Tuesday was a morning spent at the hospital for 2 appointments. We saw the ENT doctor first. He follows her because of her ears and her paralyzed vocal cord. He said her ears look great and he was pleased to hear she seems to be making more noises and the noises are getting longer and louder. We are hoping that no surgical interventions will ever have to be made to her vocal cords. It's still a wait and see game. He felt comfortable not seeing us for another year. Next we went down to see the pediatric ophthalmologist for a checkup. The only news of note was that Lindy was much more attentive to the Teller Acuity cards than ever before. They flash these cards up with black and white lines on them and they see if they grab her attention. The lines start out really big and go down to very small. Lindy seemed to glance at the 4.8cm/cy card with both eyes, and with each eye separately. This roughly correlates to 20/100 with her glasses on. The doctor was surprised she saw the same card with both eyes individually.

On Wednesday we had two more appointments, thankfully these were at the house. In the morning we had our Governor Morehead teacher (for vision) here. Wednesday afternoon we had our hearing teacher here. Both were normal appointments. We have recently tried teaching Lindy to use play audiometry. It's a type of conditioned response. We help her hold a toy up to her ear and when she hears us do one of her 6 sounds she is supposed to put it in a bucket. Before we have been relying on her to turn to sounds but this is supposed to be more accurate. We are still in the learning phase though. Sometimes she seems to get it great and sometimes she just puts the toys in the bucket without us making a sound.

We were finally able to get out and play in the baby pool again yesterday after many rainy days. It's hot today so we will be going out again today.

Will has been busy working on two teeth this week. He has been pretty fussy. I will be so happy to get all his teeth through!Will has kept busy this week by trying to kiss. He's been very lovey towards Lindy but she is definitely not sharing the love with him. He goes in to give her kisses and she denies him. She turns her head and quickly crawls off. One time this week he backed her in a corner and kissed her a bunch and another time he had her laid out on the floor and got to kiss her. He has also started burying his head in your legs when he is scared or acting shy. It's pretty cute when he does it. Then he figured out that he could go through our legs and he has been doing that all week. It works great for Drew since he is tall but I had to lift my leg up in the air for him to get under. He's a funny boy.

Have a great weekend.

Is it possible to get any more PINK on her?

Cute overalls.
Will pinned Lindy on the ground so he could kiss her.

Lindy was pushing him away!

He finally gave up on kissing and moved to crawling all over her.

Will burying his head in Drew's legs.

Funny boy!

Yesterday was a nice hot day so I took them outside for snack. I stripped them down and let Lindy practice her self feeding. She's recently been doing a little better. She has started turning the spoon vertically so she can actually get it down in the bowl to get more yogurt.

"Hey Lindy, that looks like fun."

"I think I'll slide in there and play." Lindy could care less when Will takes a toy. But if she did this to him, he'd be crying and whining about it!

Pushing her baby.

"Hey, who is that pretty girl I see?"

Looks mischievous, doesn't he?

A Week in the Mountains

We have had a great and busy week since I last wrote.

We got the results of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development testing they did on the kids June 2nd. We were really pleased! At the time they were tested they were 22 months and 2 days. Their adjusted age was 18 months and 11 days. Will's results were: mental scale - 21 months; receptive language scale - 22 months; expressive language scale - 12 months; gross motor scale - 17 months; fine motor scale - 23 months. His results were: At chronological age, mental and motor skills are average and language skill is low average. When adjusted for prematurity, mental and motor skills are high average and language skills are average. Lindy's results were mental scale - 17 months; receptive language scale - 17 months; expressive language scale - 7 months; gross motor scale - 11 months; fine motor scale - 17 months. Her results were: At chronological age, mental skills are low average, language and motor skills are significantly delayed. When adjusted for prematurity, mental skills are average and language and motor skills are mildly delayed. We were very happy with both of them! Will does say words but he definitely doesn't say them around new people so he got no credit for that. Lindy obviously isn't talking yet and isn't walking yet. But mentally she is right on target with her adjusted age!

Last Sunday after the kids woke up from their nap we went to a nearby park. We walked around a bit and then sat on a blanket enjoying the afternoon. Will chased a ball down a little slope and he fell down and started crying pretty hard. We think he twisted his ankle because he couldn't walk on it for awhile. He'd try but it would buckle on him and he'd fall down. He was moving it all around so we knew it wasn't broken but he couldn't walk on it. It was so sad to see him limping that evening and the next morning. By lunch time on Monday he was back to normal.

We started the week with our only appointment of the week. We had Lindy's hearing teacher here for her regular visit. I keep meaning to write about the cool sounds Lindy has been making. She is consistently saying 'buh buh buh" now. She has been doing this sound for a few weeks now. She usually does it when she is cruising around the furniture. Last week she started making a "guh guh guh" sound as well. And in the last day or two I have heard a "ga ga ga" sound. It's so cool to hear her making sound!

Tuesday we left for a few days away in the NC mountains for Drew's annual ministers meeting. We stayed at Lake Junaluska with our friend Katie and her kids Micah and Claire. Katie's parents own the house we stay at. We love staying at their house. It was much better than last year when we took the babies for the first time. Last year it was over 90F and the house doesn't have air conditioning. This year was much cooler (even though it rained each day). Lindy was still on oxygen last year too. What a difference a year makes! We had such a good time this year. I have a newfound interest in the NC mountains and can't wait to go back and explore more!

We went up a day early so we could go do some exploring in Transylvania County - the land of waterfalls. We set out with no itinerary and no place to be and we ended up having an awesome day. We first stopped at the Cradle of American Forestry and toured their little museum. They had a 1.3 mile walking trail that we did and saw an old saw mill and a train. We had a great picnic lunch under the rhododendron thicket before heading out to our first waterfall. Our first stop was the Sliding Rock waterfall. People really slide down the rocks so we watched a bunch of people do that. Maybe one day when they are much older we can actually slide down it. We left there and went to Looking Glass waterfall. It was really big and pretty and right off the road which was nice. Our last stop was at Moore Cove waterfall which we actually had to hike over a mile to get to. But it was worth it because you could walk behind the waterfall. On the way back down the trail we saw TWO snakes. uggggg. One was a baby ring snake and the other was a 6 foot timber rattlesnake. Another family came up and the rattlesnake was in the middle of the trail. Thankfully they moved it out of the trail minutes before we got there. They pointed it out to us. It still gives me the willies just thinking about it. By the end of our hike we were pretty tired so we just took a little drive through Brevard and Hendersonville. We also rode out to Dana UMC, where Drew spent one summer doing an internship during divinity school. We had dinner in Hendersonville and then headed back to the lake.

Thursday we finally got to go down to the lake after it had rained all morning. Katie and I took the kids down and walked around a bit and went back to the house for lunch and naps. We were going to go down again but it rained again when we were getting ready to go. After dinner that night we went back down and walked around a little bit. It truly is a beautiful place to be.

Conference usually lasts until Sunday but we had to leave on Friday this year. Drew had to be at a wedding rehearsal on Friday evening. We stopped in Black Mountain for lunch and the kids slept most of the way home. Drew went to his wedding rehearsal and I dealt with two very cranky kids and unpacked. Saturday we went to the wedding and reception and the kids stayed with two youth from our church. Thankfully they went to sleep well (something Lindy did not do in the mountains).

Today we had church and then went to the 1st birthday party of a little boy in our church. The kids play with him in the nursery. It is crazy that he is only one because he bigger than both our kids and they are almost 2. Oh well. His dad is about 6'4". After we got back from the party I blew up a little baby pool and the kids went swimming for a little while. Will climbed in and out the entire time. Lindy enjoyed it because I put warm water in there. Our swimming came to a drastic halt when I realized Lindy had pooped in her swimmy diaper and it somehow escaped out the diaper. It was not pleasant!

Enjoy a ton of new pictures from the past week.

The kids church outfits last week.

I LOVE this outfit! One of my favorites.
Sweet Willy

Me and my babes.

Poor Will after he fell and hurt his ankle.

Ready to head out to the mountains!

At one of our favorite restaurants in Maggie Valley. To compare the kids this year to last year, click this link.

Drew had to stay close so they wouldn't dive off the bench!

At the Cradle of American Forestry on the walking trail. The mountain laurel was blooming and it was SO pretty. They said it was the prettiest it has been in the last seven years.

Eating our picnic lunch.

Sliding Rock waterfall. They said the water was so cold!

Looking Glass waterfall

Moore Cove waterfall

Behind the waterfall

Lindy and her buddy Claire.

Will and Micah played with cars together.

Our friend Katie and Micah, Lindy, and Claire.

Lake Junaluska

The beautiful lake and mountains.

Our porch swing picture.

At lunch on the way home.

A funny shirt

Lindy can kind of ride on the zebra now. She bounces and can touch with one foot. I finally found shoes to go over her braces. Hot pink crocs! Thanks to Nana for finding the right size. We're still on the hunt for some others, thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions.

Cute church outfits today.

Swimming fun today - before the incident. Lindy was splashing herself!