Caitlin's birthday

Thanks to so many friends and family members for making Caitlin's 4th birthday so special!

Food.

Nora's doing all kinds of busy big baby activities these days. She just figured out how to feed herself little bits of cereal...

She will not take a bottle herself, but loves to steal Ryan's bottle...which he basically refuses to drink anyway....

Speaking of Ryan's bottle...we are dealing with some trouble with him accepting food and formula by mouth. We are seeing an occupational therapist weekly and she has him doing some gum brushing before we feed him solids with this crazy brush, but he likes it.
She also had me try giving him these crunchy foods, which he accepted happily once. once. and from then on, even though he can feed himself, he hasn't taken anything. She thinks he has a sensitive gag reflex and a little bit of consistensy / texture / sensory issues with food that make him not like it (the gum brushing is supposed to de-sensitize this). I'd really hoped that once he learned how to feed himself, he'd go for it, but that's not turning out to be so. It's pretty exhausting trying to transition off the gtube feeds when he won't take much by mouth. And the colds and runny noses he's been getting one right after another haven't helped much either. So, I'm looking forward to spring.

Caitlin

PUTTING HER TO BED we always go back and forth about who loves who more. The other night went like this:

Me: I love you up to the moon

C: I love you up to the stars

Me: I love you past the stars

C:...(thinking)...I love you paster the stars

TWO NIGHTS AGO:

She has been imitating her Grandma Mary by singing and playing her piano at the same time. Here she was doing her own worship. I was bustling around the kitchen at the time, and didn't really hear all the words, but i did hear "JESUS IS OUR OWNER" at one point. John grabbed the camera and we got this little bit only...

She has been loving to write and draw lately and was very proud of this family drawing

Back in Business

We finally got our camera back and it's working--the babes have really gotten bigger and stronger in the past 3 months of being camera-less.

We assembled our new stroller and everyone wanted to try it out....as usual, Ryan is having a ball and Nora is skeptical.

Ryan is finally loving his bath, so we are having fun taking baths around here--we got all 3 kids in the bath together yesterday, of course Caitlin is at an age where she is intentionally left out of these...

After bath...sad attempt to get a picture with all three kids in their jammies--Nora uncooperative, Ryan distracted, Caitlin lollygagging until Ryan finally fell apart, then I got a decent one with my girlies only.

..and they're still bald.  and this picture totally cracks me up.

In other news, Ryan had a bunch of appts over the past week: 9 month well visit, intestinal rehab clinic, developmental clinic--all NORMAL AND IMPROVED!  He's doing awesome.   Nora's also doing well--got a big fat "normal" on her evaluation at the developmental clinic and we have her well child visit tomorrow, so hopefully that is uneventful as well.

NO CAMERA and brief updates

there is a lack of cuteness on this blog recently because our camera is at the Cannon Repair place...i hope....and coming back to us soon.  so that I don't forget: Auntie Joanie taught Ryan how to clap over Christmas and he hasn't stopped since--will get a video if I ever get my camera back b/c it's awfully cute. He is basically sitting up now too, just needs a pillow behind him for when he gets mad and throws his head back.  Nora is waving and rolling both ways now--she is really motivated to feel every little thing she sees, so I think once she gets more mobile, we'll be in big trouble.  

Caitlin's going back to preschool starting tomorrow, which she's been begging for since she left in the spring.  Just 2 half days to start, so hopefully all is easy with this transition.  We've been on a nanny hunt for the past week since the au pair situation didn't work out.  In the past 3 days we interviewed 3 good candidates and hope to have this part figured out within the next couple of days.  We are hoping for a less stressed 2010!