22 months!

22 months today! And only 2 months until Charlie and Lily turn 2 - where does the time go?!!

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 ;)

Support the March of Dimes this Easter

Candy is good (Okay, who are we kidding? Candy is great.), but this Easter a donation to the March of Dimes would be even better! Joe, Charlie, Lily and I are the ambassador family for our local March for Babies this year, which takes place one week from today. We'll be giving a speech before the start of the walk, telling our story to all the walkers and encouraging everyone to continue to support the March of Dimes. Then we'll be kicking off the walk by leading everyone to the route. We're very excited to have this opportunity to work with the March of Dimes and help raise awareness about prematurity.

But we need your help too! If you would like to join our team and walk with us next Saturday, we'd love to have you! If you can't make the walk, please consider making a donation to our team to support the March. CLICK HERE to sign up to walk or to make a donation.

Two little somebunnies thank you in advance! Have a happy Easter!

"I'm hiding until we reach our team donation goal. Don't test me people, I can stay like this a loooooong time...."

Birthday Party at Kid Junction

Yesterday Rebecca, the daughter of our friends Ryan and Stacey, celebrated her 2nd birthday at Kid Junction and Charlie and Lily were lucky enough to be invited. They've never been to a place like Kid Junction before, so we were excited to see what they thought. They LOVED it! All four of us had the best time there, so I wanted to share some pictures of all the fun. Happy birthday, Rebecca! Thank you for having us at your fantastic birthday party! Charlie was in heaven with all the things to spin and move.Miss Adventurous immediately began climbing.

But it didn't take Charlie long to get the hang of things either.

Eventually we moved from the toddler area to the main climbing structure, where Joe and I got to join in the fun.

About to go down what may be the world's fastest kiddie slide.

Kid Junction also has all kinds of rooms for kids to play pretend in. Here are Charlie and Lily going grocery shopping.

And Lily, after a minor shoplifting incident... ;)

What's a birthday party without cake? The birthday girl gets ready to blow out her candles.

"Look Mommy, we got cupcakes!"

Apparently they were really, really good.

Annaleigh's Garden

I had to share this picture of the beautiful garden that Joe planted for Annaleigh at her grave. It's so gorgeous, and there is nothing like it anywhere else in the cemetery, at least not that we've seen. I love Joe so much for many, many reasons, but one of those reasons is definitely the way that he makes time to do special things for Annaleigh. And today he even came home with hyacinths and tulips for me and Lily to match the ones growing in the cemetery.

Easter Egg Hunt

This morning Charlie and Lily participated in their very first Easter egg hunt! The community we currently live in is wonderful with doing special activities for the kids. There's a new, free activity every month, and this month was an Easter egg hunt. Joe has been taking a poetry class on Saturday mornings, and today was his last class so Crackers came along to help us with the hunt. The weather was a little less than spring-like, at a chilly 45 degrees, but that didn't stop the fun. Armed with their baskets and ready to find some eggs."Mommy, why am I standing out here in the cold holding this basket?"

They're off! Crackers and Lily on the hunt.

Lily took to the egg hunt right away, but Charlie was a little intimidated at first by all the kids running around. I helped him pick up a few eggs, then after things calmed down we sort of re-created the Easter egg hunt for him.

"Oh, so THIS is what I'm supposed to do!"

Lily lends a hand.

Once all the eggs were collected we went into the community center for some cookies and party favors. All in all, the egg hunt was a lot of fun and good practice for the egg hunt that Joe and I are planning at home for Charlie and Lily on Easter morning :)