Happy Birthday!!!!

 It is her first birthday today. But we celebrate her tomorrow!!

Grandma Jo is in town which means we've been having a lot of fun the past couple days and  tons-o-fun today soooo tomorrow when we add few little baby friends into the mix and top it off with cupcakes & ice-cream  it just might be the next best thing to being born.

Happy Birthday Baby!!!

I love this picture

May 29th

My Grandpa passed away today. 

Only a short 7 months and 2 days after my Grandma passed away.  They are together forever, once again.

Baby Reagan & my Grandpa, her Great Grandpa

Love you.

As of 4:15pm today

she walks.

This is BY FAR the longest and furthest she has ever gone.  My flumsy fingers couldn't get my phone to video record mode fast enough and missed the first couple minutes but little did I know she would keep going....

3 days from her first birthday.

He needed a license plate for his ride

so we got him one :)

Foto Friday

 Glimpses of imaginary play.  Monkey got some milk this morning :)

 

If you care to read the write up we received from Childrens Hospital in Hartford - the link to the 4 page document is below.  There is a typo at the very end where they used Maya? instead of Reagans name...not sure what to think about that but otherwise a good evaluation.

 

Autism Evaluation Write Up

Almost

Had a photoshoot with the little lady this afternoon while we were waiting for big bro to wake up.  One week from today she will be the big

  ONE

Sleeepy

Milk, Curls & Books

For anyone keeping track baby girl turns one year old next Thursday! 

What's new in her life you ask...

We scooped the last scoop of formula. We've made the switch to whole milk.  We started doing half & half with Logan at 11 months and well little lady gets the good ole fashion cold turkey switch.  Originally, the plan was to be tough Moma and make her drink cold whole milk from a sippy cup straight from the get go.  But one big pouty lip and a hot minute later I caved and handed her a bottle full of warm whole milk.  Baby steps.

She's got hair!!! And a little piece that curls around her ear just enough to see it when she faces forward but the front better catch up before she gets any further into mullet mode.

She crawls backwards to sit in my lap while I read books.  YES :)

Foto Friday

 ice cream sammy's in the sunshine

 

TGIF!

He is not Autistic.

In fact sometimes I think he could be the next Einstein.  Case in point tonight I timed him - 7mins.  It took him 7 completely focused & determined minutes to balance his big car on his big truck.  He didn't give up until it was balanced completely.  Maybe another kid would have given up or cried with frustration.  But Logan took deep breaths, stuck his tongue out and got the job done.

His appointment at Childrens Hospital in Hartford:
Went well.  He met with a Child Development Specialist and a Speech Pathologist.  The Developmental Specialist said that maybe on paper he could be placed somewhere on the Autism Spectrum but that his interaction and socialization gave her a confident opinion that he was not Autistic :)  Logan's not wired like everyone else.  Period.  End of story.  As we've been told many a time, Logan is Logan. 
We were told to intensify and increase all his therapy...they recommended increasing each Birth to Three therapy (speech, occupational, and physical) from twice a month to once a week combined with doing out-patient physical and occupational therapy. 

Our take:
Another Doctor might have been quick to look at Logan on paper and diagnose him on the Autism Spectrum.  That label would have stuck with him all his life.  So we are very happy to confirm what we had hoped would be the outcome.  But there is a strange disappointment that I feel.  Only because since the very beginning I've been desperate to figure out what exactly is going on with Logan...something recognizable.  Something that I could tell all those starring eyes when they look at our sons big 2year old body crawl across the floor.  Something I could tell the Doctor when they assume Logan can stand on the big boy scale.

3 Birth to Three therapies once a week combined with 2 out-patient therapies is A LOT.  We're not sure yet what will become of our schedule and/or what we can afford to do.  Birth to Three is a state funded program so that cost won't change regardless of how many services we receive but we have yet to see what his out-patient physical therapy will cost which will determine whether we can take on out-patient occupational therapy.  Money aside it's still a lot.

And that's that.

Made it a solid 27 months without the roll of toilet paper being discovered

Happy Mothers Day!!!

Mama Bear was in true form this weekend.  Caring for all of us, cutting the grass and somehow managing to get me feeling better.  We celebrated by making the best of it.  We got the kiddos a water table, soaked in the warm CT weather, ate some good food, did some shopping and gave the kiddos some extra lovin'.  Happy mother's day m'love : *

 Last man standing - thats me.  The fam. is sick sans me and Logan is sick, sick.  Took him to the doctors today after a day of wheezing - 2 hours, 3 breathing treatments, the talk of x-rays and 3 prescriptions later we left the doctors office.  He sleeps now & we're to do breathing treatments every 3 hours for the next 24hrs as well as dose him up a steroid and antibiotic for the next 4 days.  whew.  My mothers day weekend will be spent doing what I do, mothering and loving.

In exciting news - Logans orthodics arrived today :)  We slipped them into his shoes, then slipped his shoes on and held our breaths as....

he walked the most normal we've ever seen!!!

We only tried him walking a few times since he isn't feeling well but in that short time he walked a couple times between Kevin & I (4 or 5 steps each) and then as if he was saying "Hey wait this feels good" he stood up at his walker on his own for the very first time.   I think Kevin & I are reeling in our excitement a tid bit just in case tonights few steps were a random occurrence....but I have a hunch that these little shoe inserts will change a lot of things.  

Getting excited at the thought of having 2 new walkers in the next couple months :o

Foto Friday

Babies & now Kevin are still sick :/ So no new photos. But here is a picture from our vacation that I can't stop looking at:

Growing up

Our babies are turning into little kids.

The two weeks prior to leaving for Houston Logan was back to taking 2 naps a day?!!  Crazy'ness - but the kid couldn't handle being awake for very long and would fall to sleep instantly and sleep hard each nap.  And now in retrospect we realize it was a freggin GIANT growth spurt.  Logan talks?!! And kinda walks??!!! All new in the last 10 days.

He repeats everything you say.  He can say some letters of the alphabet when you sing them (thank you Aunt Andrea), he can count to 3.  And he has had several instances where he was standing at the table or couch and left (on foot) towards another object, unprompted :o

But the biggest news - he is in a big boy bed as of last night.  Is he ready?  Maybe not - but were we ready, yes!  I was tired of him waking Reagan up and vice versa with their rooms being soooo close together upstairs especially with  Reagan not having a door to her room.. Done with it.  Sooooo right before we left for Houston we moved Logans stuff down to the guest room and Reagans stuff into Logans old room.   His first night was last night - unfortunately he is sick so he didn't have a great night due to that but he seems to not notice that he is in a completely different room in a completely different bed. lol.

Reagan has taken her first 5 steps.  First 2 were in Houston.  And today she took 5 steps :o  She stands independently, she gets to standing from the middle of the floor without effort.  Amazing how odd a sensation it is to watch your baby learn how to operate entirely on instinct something we've never seen from Logan to this day. 

But the girl is going to take off any day now.  She dances, has a handful to little words, loves ANY plush animal,  and has a lot of teeth :)  She is fascinating to watch grow up.

Back to life, back to reality

We made it back - we gave the return trip a 7 outta 10.  A mark lower than the flight there not because the babies were bad but because of situations out of our control, I'll explain via the short version:

I had 4 diapers in my diaper bag (2 for each kid), Reagan had two diaper changes before each leg of the flight and Logan had 3 major blow-outs up in the air which required instant diaper changes.  You do the math.  We made the executive decision to remove the diaper from Reagan in order to change Logans 3rd blow-out.  One diaper short of a perfect trip.  Rats!

But we made it.  And our kids traveled well :)

Sad to leave for so many reasons.  Couldn't even muster a good-bye outloud.

And a couple hours into our return home the babies fell ill.  Uggggh.  Sick. Sick. Sick from some yucky airplane germs.   So now we recover from a gorgeous, fun vacation and work on getting back to healthy and back into our groove.

Boo.

We leave tomorrow :(  

Fastest week everrrrrr.

more pics added to the album

Happy CInco de Mayo

More pics added to our vacation album!!

Having Fun

added more pics to the album because we keep having fun like this:

Foto Friday: Date Night Edition

4 adults 3 hours 0 babies.

yes. please.

We're here!

Made it to the Hertel house in what we are saying was an 8 out of 10 kind of travel day (10 being absolutely perfect) - so YAY for that!

Not sure how often I'll be posting while we're here - but I'm going to try to keep uploading my favorite pictures to this album Houston Vacation so check it out often for the next week cause we be takin' lots-o-pictures like this: