I haven't updated very much lately and I do need to get my camera going again. Doctors appointments seem to be slowing down but I seem to be getting busier. I think a lot of it is this stage we are at with Emma and Olivia. They want to be held ALL the time and I'm not allowed to sit down....I must be standing up holding both. Boy, do my arms hurt? : ) I hope this stage will pass soon but we'll see. Emma is growing strong. She is up to 16 lb. 10 oz. so I am thrilled. We have her on plain whole milk right now. Olivia weighs 25 lb. 6 oz. Emma is walking around like crazy which I love to see. I hope she starts talking a lot more here soon. We will probably go ahead and start speech therapy soon.

I can't write long but I will hopefully get some more blogs and pictures up soon.

Doing well...

Everyone seems to be doing well here. Some snotty noses but overall good. We went to Emma's pulmonologist last week. We waited for 2 1/2 hours before we were seen but when you've hauled all the kids and waited that long, you just can't leave. Olivia snuck a crayon out of the lobby and took it back and colored (red) all over their office floor. So she probably was paying them back.
Anyway, it was a very good conversation and I feel like we've touched bases and established him as her lung specialist. So next time she is in the hospital with another lung issue, I can have them contact him to come see her and that makes me feel good. This last time around was pretty frustrating in there.
He also said to stop the treatments - they weren't doing any good for the condition she has. That was music to my ears. Trying to hold down a strong girl and get her to breathe that stuff in is trying to accomplish the impossible. Now we will still do the albuteral treatments when she gets sick. But I can handle that. She is holding steady at 16 lbs. He said a lot of her size issues are due to the TTTS. I've, since then, have been researching the long term effects of TTTS. I'm hoping to understand things a litle more.

We have recently done the older girls room. Enjoy the pictures!

Emma had her ENT appointment today. There were no new cholesteatomas so that is good news. There is no fluid so that is great too. So we will be doing a CTscan soon and we will go from there depending on what the results are. I'll go into details once I know results. It could anything from good news, to monitoring to surgery. Any of those three. I'm hoping for the good news. : )

Emma is walking everywhere and doing really well. Her weight is only 16 lbs. and Olivia is 25 lbs. We are almost out of the formula so I'm trying to decide where to go from here. I'm looking into pediasure so I think that will probably be our next route. High calorie and it would be all liquid which she is more into now. I'm looking to find coupons because it is expensive. If anyone knows where to get coupons, please let me know.

Loren is potty-trained which is wonderful!!!! One less in diapers. Two more to go. : )

We are slowing down with our medical issues at this point. I'm glad for the break. I won't completely be able to breathe until we find out about Emma's ears but after that we should have a break. Alyssa will start her orthodontics this summer. She will have a spacer put in to start spreading out her upper jaw/mouth to prepare her for her bone graph in a year or two. They will take bone out of her hip and put it in her upper gums. We are going to check up with the plastic surgeon but I think we will be taking a break. If anything I will see if there is a surgery they can combine with her bone graph.

Alyssa's eye is showing improvement with the contact. So that is now our focus where she will be wearing her contact to school on some days. It seems to be helping even when we don't patch.

I'm hopeful for a relaxing summer. It has been a crazy couple of months and I'm looking forward to some down time.

Thanks for all the support and encouragment! We always cherish that!!!

I cut the girls mullets off. I'm feeling better...just had to get out there and exercise some of the stress off. Emma is doing very well. I was very excited to see that Emma has all her 2 year mollars and Olivia doesn't have any. It was just cool because it was the first thing that Emma is ahead in so that was cool! Olivia is cutting hers and she is not a happy camper. Enjoy the pictures!