Spring

Clearing the fridge

Last night while I was preparing today's liquid for Delaney and getting a snack I wasn't really paying attention to Delaney. Jess walked in and started laughing and I turned around to see her doing this!

Sicky Baby

Delaney has been wheezing and rattling all weekend. She's had a cold for about 4-5 days but seems to have gotten a little worse. We took her into the pedi this morning and they sent us to get a chest xray. They are calling it reactive airway disease and bronchiolitis. Breathing treatments and watch her.

Toddler Bed

Delaney got a "big girl" bed this weekend. She took her naps in it and slept in it for an hour at the beginning of her nighttime sleep. I also threw in a picture of her sitting on her chair (a chair I had when I was her age that turns into a step) drinking her lemonade. She has all of a sudden gotten so so big! We are super excited for the little person she is becoming every single day. She is becoming the little independent toddler that wants to do it on her own and wants things in a particular way. Gotta love her! :)

More New Outfits

Her "Pride" dress

Bathing beauty

Love her!

Gotta love that toddlers are too busy to pose

Cutie

Hybrid's are cool

These boots were made for walking

Silly girl

Package from Violet

Delaney picked out this outfit right away!

Then we had to try this one on...I mean seriously Violet...you have amazing style!! :)

Then we fell asleep in this outfit! Playing dress up wears a girl out!

Skyping with Uncle Chris

We signed up for Skype this morning and as soon as we got it done Uncle Chris called to talk to his nieces!

Splints

Delaney got splints yesterday to help straighten her legs out. She has a difficult time straightening them so they thought by putting these on at night it would stretch her muscles and train her legs to straighten easier. Delaney picked out her own splints which are strawberry shortcake. They stayed on her legs for about 2 minutes last night and then she wanted them off. We will keep trying.

Bath/Bubble Time

Park Time

Cute girl...playing hard at the park and taking a picture break

Swing time with sissy

More swinging

Walking

Walking walking

She loves loves slides

Wood Working with Grandpa

Walking!

Jess' Hair Gets Chopped

Sad Baby

Another fever of unknown origin. Another trip to the pediatrician. Sent home because they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Poor little buggy boo

14 Months

Wow...14 months...where did the time go!! It feels like just yesterday that she was sitting in a boppy and being swaddled.

At 14 months...

• She is 18.2lbs
• Delaney has taken a few steps
• She likes to play "chase" with her sisters
• She loves playing peek a boo
• She waves constantly
• She's found a new forever friend Peyton
• She ate her first cheese sandwich
• She is drinking from a sippy cup (water, juice)
• She is still breastfeeding
• She does not sleep through the night but it's getting better
• She has a little temper on her if you tell her "no"
• She loves being pretty and will sit completely still for you to paint her nails
• She loves shoes
• She hugs everything from pillows to clothes to dolls to boxes
• She has now qualified for speech therapy measuring significantly behind her peers
• She still loves music and can often be found carrying around my ipod. She loves Adelle and Jack Johnson.
• She starts in home therapies today (pt, ot, speech)
• We have found her to be double jointed/extremely lax joints in her hands and feet as well as her ankles and knees.
• She has 6 teeth now...two on bottom...two fully out on top...and two partially out on top
• She is getting tiny baby curls on the back of her head SO SO CUTE

"Welcome to Holland"

By Emily Perl Kingsley, 1987. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Yum Food!

She's a bit of a hoarder...

I'm so glad I finally got a picture of her teeth

Construction Physics-Suspension Bridge

Julia and her friend Jordyn once again made a really awesome bridge. This week they were studying suspension bridges. They had 7 straws, masking tape, 4 paper clips, and a 4 foot piece of string. It was supposed to support a 5lb weight. Their bridge passed with flying colors!

We have a step!

As many of you in our real life and FF life know...Delaney was diagnosed with Hypotonic Cerebral Palsy yesterday. We still have a pretty uncertain future but we are processing the diagnosis. Our little girl wasn't phased as you can noticed by her taking a step today...she did it probably 10 times today but I managed to catch one on tape.

*WARNING* Gross Video

This video is self explanatory. ICK! No wonder if the kid is having a hard time balancing to walk or stand!

GROSS

Rotated about 80 degrees out

I'm not even sure about this but it just doesn't seem like legs should bend like that at the hip!
Her thighs are touching the carpet.

180 degree turn! her knee is also rotated around 90 degrees.

Charlotte goes SHORT