Happy Thanksgiving Late!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you all remembered the things you are grateful for everyday, I know we did! We are thankful for so many things, but first is our 3 beautiful daughters who we can't imagine what life would be without them and for our families and all the wonderful people who have come into our lives to help Lauren and Alison, many I know will be friends for life.

We traveled to San Diego on Thanksgiving morning (it poured rain most of time) but we made it safe and sound and Lauren actually did not fuss at all (a miracle in it's self). The girls enjoyed playing in the rain in Grandma Marla's fanstatic backyard.

Alison had learned another facial expression, Brainstorm, from one of her TV shows, Imagination Movers. She had tried it out on many people and no one can keep a straight face. She is definitely a comedian! And she loves Broccoli and Lauren loves to spit out her milk :0)

Grandma and Taylor enjoying putting a puzzle together on a rainy Thanksgiving!

We came home on Saturday and once again Lauren stunned us by not fussing again, AMAZING, we are actually considering taking a week long vacation since she is getting so good. Our girls amaze us everyday, but Lauren is so determined to stand and walk it brings tears to my eyes. Today at PT she walked on the treadmill with her PT holding her and she actually kept up by herself for a few steps. At school she got to try out her stander, which is piece of equipment that she is strapped into from head to toe that allows her to stand on her own and she loved it, the teacher took a picture of her playing with a toy on the tray and if you didn't look hard you would have thought she was a "normal" child playing, WOW Lauren!!!

Our main challenge with both the girls now is getting them to eat and getting rid of the bottles. They each have 3- 8oz bottles a day of Pedisure for the calories (talk about expensive $11 a day!) We are trying to work on food but neither one can take in enough calories, both girls are about 10 lbs underweight, they are 32" long and only weight 18 and 19 lbs, so even though they are on their own growth curves they aren't even close to being on the charts for their age. Example - Taylor weighed 18 lbs when she was 6 months old and was 32" long when she was 16 months old. Another amazing thing they are still wearing the same clothes (size 12-18 months) as they did last year at this time, I think Taylor outgrows her clothes every 3 days. Anyway, Lauren is getting harder to even feed her bottle to, she fights and it SOOOO frustrating, it takes me about 30-45 minutes to feed her a bottle and Alison about 2 minutes, so add trying solid food first and each meal involves feeding each of them 2 times. So we are having to face the possibility of having Lauren get a g-tube so we can get the calories in her, take the bottle away so she can re-learn to eat normally without the bottle hindering her learning process (if it is even possible). I dread the thought of a g-tube based on our experience with Alison and the g-tube but then again I am about at my wits end trying to feed her as she grows and gets stronger. So for now we doubled her Prevacid to see if it is her reflux that is causing her to fight and the next step will be to the GI doctor and a possible Upper GI endoscopy to rule out heital hernia (common in kids with cerebral palsy) or any damage in her esphogus from reflux. Alison is still not walking but is so close, at her last PT evaluation it was determined to reduce her PT from twice a week to once, so that is great for her. Lauren will continue with twice a week and both will continue with OT twice a week.

Wow that was a HUGE update, guess I felt like typing tonight! Oh another huge thing is Taylor lost both of her bottom teeth and tooth fairy came twice in one week. She is about a year ahead on losing teeth, height and weight. Here she is showing Ali her letter and money sprinkled with fairy dust.

I will end here.......best wishes to everyone!