XOXOXO

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a nice today with B.J. getting to spend some time with his Dad and then his parents watching the trio tonight so we could go out to eat to Stillwater, our favorite local restaurant!

Thursday Annabel had her follow-up weight check/post surgery appointment with Dr. Gessner and she was very happy with how well Annabel is doing. She now weights 18lbs 4ozs (Johnathan weighed 18lbs 8ozs and Mady took the lead at 18lbs 10ozs at baths the other night) and is 30 1/4 inches long! She is back on track for growth so the plan is stay on straight pediasure for her liquids until our 18 month well baby early March, after that we will probably start weening her off. In talking with the pediatrician we decided that it's time to start weening the kids off their bedtime bottle so we've started reducing, hopefully we'll be done in a week or two.

Friday Johnathan had his speech evaluation, with Annabel having her's next Friday. We are planning to take both kids every two weeks. From Johnathan's eval it appears that he's ok for his adjusted age but with the extra therapy we think it will be a big help towards getting them on track sooner. From some of the questions the therapist asked me, Mady is not even completely on for their age so we'll definitely be using all the learning at home for all 3!

Annabel will start aqua therapy this Tuesday and today I got her scheduled to start therapuetic riding in May, Saturday mornings thru September. We decided to go with a person whose child is also special needs and we were referred to by our Early On PT. She is local, can relate to Annabel's needs, and the price is fair so we feel good about it. Depending on how she does we may still take her to the hippotherapy person in the winter months since she has an indoor rink but it is quite a bit more expensive so we'll see.

This week Johnathan has started walking half-way across the room all on his own and Mady has started climbing the stairs now too! Mady has also been blowing kisses for a few weeks and is now "showing us her tongue". We are now working on waving hi and bye and identifying body parts with all three. Annabel continues to do well with her therapies and enjoys her new walker and her straddle sitter and table. We are so thankful for all the equipment we've been able to acquire thru Early On to help her!