Happy Easter! (and a NICU evaluation)

We had a wonderful Easter this year! The whole day was just so nice and so much fun. It started after breakfast when Charlie and Lily received their Easter baskets from the Easter bunny. The baskets were filled with toy cars, travel Magna Doodles, sidewalk chalk and a little chocolate bunny each (which they ate before 9:00...hey, it was a holiday!).
"Mommy, where are you going with those?!?!"
A new use for the Easter baskets. Lily came down with roseola last Wednesday and battled several days of fever, then a full body rash. She wasn't quite herself yet on Easter, but still tried to get into the spirit.

Later that morning, Grandma and Pop Pop came for a visit, and Charlie and Lily were treated to another set of Easter baskets. Cars! Charlie's new favorite thing in the world.
After checking out all their goodies, Charlie and Lily headed outside for an Easter egg hunt. They did a great job finding all their eggs.
Making a final sweep for eggs with Pop Pop.
Two bonus eggs at the end of the hunt!
After lunch and a nap, Charlie and Lily put on their Easter best to go to Aunt Diane's for Easter dinner.

"Seriously, how gorgeous am I?!!?"
Being admired by Nana.
Charlie and Lily received yet another set of Easter baskets from Aunt Diane, which were filled with toy cars, sidewalk chalk, magic coloring books, mini M&Ms, books and lots more. They also got an Aqua Doodle mat from Crackers and a Lego pirate ship from Aunt Jill. After checking out their gifts and having dinner, we headed outside to play. We had gorgeous weather!

Charlie and Lily swinging with Crackers and Uncle Aaron. Winding down the day with a little sidewalk chalk art. With all we've had going on recently, I've forgotten to mention the NICU clinic appointment that Charlie and Lily had last Wednesday. At St. Peter's they were evaluated by a speech therapist, occupational therapist, physical therapist and the head neonatologist, our beloved Dr. Hiatt. We are so happy to report that Charlie and Lily did exceptionally well!

Both of them were right on target for their adjusted age, and actually scored a little above average on their fine motor skills. They even did things with total ease in the evaluations that I honestly had no idea they could do, like putting pennies in a piggy bank. So no therapy required at this time. I honestly can't believe how far they've come.

Oh, and their weights were good too. 24 lbs 9 oz for Lily and 24 lbs 1 oz for Charlie.

Things they did tell us to work on were getting Charlie and Lily to ask for things more, and do identify actions like running, riding, eating, sleeping, etc. I asked the speech therapist about their aversion to certain food textures like pasta, rice, etc. She said that they get used to things like that through feel first, so that I should try more things like finger painting and even cooking up pasta and putting it in a big container for them to dig through and explore. Time to add those to the lesson plans ;)