No Excuses...Just No Blogging Either. :)

One of my fellow SB mom friends posted on Facebook recently that she noticed those of us with children in the three year old range haven't been blogging as much lately. (Kimberly Dill) :) I wonder why that is? Other SB moms kind of weighed in with our opinions. One obvious reason is just time in general. Three year olds keep you busy! Yes, they are a bit more independent than a one year old, or a two year old, but with that becomes..... well......INDEPENDENCE! Which means I have to actually watch them more closely! They used to just pretty much stay in one room by me. But now they go downstairs by themselves, they put movies in the DVD player by themselves, they go potty by themselves, they flush random things down the toilet by themselves, they get snacks from the cupboard by themselves, they climb on couches, chairs, counters, railings.....by themselves! So as you can see life with two 3 year olds is pretty interesting.

Another opinion that came out from the Facebook post was that when our children were born with SB we were scared, we were confused, we needed support. Well, yes we still need support. But our lives with our children have just become our "normal". Especially when it comes to our Gwendolyn. If you have been following us from the beginning you know that our girl had a rough start! She had SO much going on. We had a lot to talk about. Well, now our days have pretty much (by the Grace of God) leveled out to "our" normal. I guess when either of us have thought about updating our blog with what's going on we've kind of thought to ourselves, "Would anyone be interested in our daily lives anymore? Does anyone care to hear about it?" Well, we've heard from several of you. You ARE! You do still care about our somewhat mundane lives. :) I guess if nothing else, you at least want to see pictures of our beautiful girls! :) So, we apologize for not updating much lately. We will try harder to keep you posted on all of us.

One bit of excitement is that we have only a few more months until we welcome our third baby girl to this quirky family! We have decided to name her Shea. We had thought that we had also chosen a middle name. One that I picked out and loved. We even shared it with family. But, we have since decided that because Braelyn and Gwendolyn both have middle names that reflected one of our families in some way, it was only fair to give the same to Baby Shea. I think we have now decided on the middle name, but are probably going to wait until she's born to make the final decision and reveal it to everyone. The girls are extremely excited to finally meet Baby Shea. They talk about her daily. They hug and kiss my belly and tell me how much they love Baby Shea. Not sure that they are aware yet what they are wishing for, but hopefully they will still love Shea as much when she gets here and takes up a lot of Mommy and Daddy's attention.

Things with Braelyn have been pretty much the same. She is so darn creative and smart. She has invented a dance that she has named "The Macaroni Dance". It's a family favorite to watch. I will see if I can get some video sometime to share. She (speaking of independence) now insists on reading her and her sister's bedtime story. She is very fluent in reading the classic Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See? She enjoys going to her new daycare where "her people" are. She is able to play with her cousin Lindsay there and has made several other friends as well. I think she is going to be our outside loving girl though. Every day when we pull in the garage at the end of the day and she sees some of her outside toys she asks if we can play outside. I keep telling her we can when it gets warm again. The other day I think she had gotten frustrated with that response and she said, "Mommy, when I am in college will it be warm outside finally?" I of coarse told her that it depends on if she goes to college where Mommy did in Iowa, or where Daddy did in Florida. (I'm thinking she will lean more towards Florida weather, so watch out Nana) :) I have no idea how she comes up with this stuff.

Gwendolyn has been doing pretty great as well. She also goes to preschool at our local Early Childhood Center which she LOVES. She adores her teacher, Miss. Loretta. She even gets to ride the bus from her Grammies house which she is now a fan of as well. One day last week Gwendolyn was sitting next to me and she said, "Mommy, know what I have at school? .........a friend!" Makes me tear up just typing that. She is still extremely shy around strangers. And has proven to still be extremely shy at school even though she's been there for a little over 3 months. But it makes my heart swell to think that she feels like she now has her own friend. I was not able to get a name for this friend from her, but I did get an email from her teacher that said there is a boy at school that has taken a certain interest in her well-being. He apparently gets her walker and her crutches for her. He also takes every chance he gets to sit next to her. I guess she hasn't warmed up to him enough to talk with him yet, but she does smile at him from across the room. So, we are thinking that the feeling between the two must be somewhat mutual. ;)

Gwendolyn also went through her third sleep study last month. This was just a follow up from our previous studies that had horrible results.We were absolutely dreading this test. We hate them and Gwen hates them. But it was a bit easier this time because we were able to explain things to her a bit and prepare her to be wrapped up in monitors and bandages. And we are so very grateful to sat that this test went WAY better than the previous two. The results came back and she went from having over 30 apnea spells an hour, down to less than 6 an hour. That's a HUGE difference! So the doctor said we are finished with sleep concerns. If nothing else pops up as a concern we have graduated from the Sleep Clinic. Yay!!!

Gwendolyn is also getting around on her own pretty good lately. She wants to walk more which we have been overjoyed to see. She can practically run in her walker and feels extremely confident with it. Now we are just trying to get her to feel as comfortable with her forearm crutches. She walks well with them, but is obviously much slower, which just doesn't satisfy her one bit! :) She has had a little issue with her right leg as of late. It's been getting in some awkward positions when she walks. Her Children's Mercy PT has thankfully been very good with her as we don't hear much (or anything)  from her PT sessions at school. He's very proactive with her and notices things I may not notice in our everyday. I had noticed that her knee was jutting out a bit when she walked and he brought it up to me as well. I noticed over the past couple weeks that it was getting much worse so  I took her in yesterday to have it looked at. She ended up having an x-ray when thankfully turned out normal for both her knee and hip which is what we were most worried about. Unfortunately, the x-rays do not show tendons. So this is where we think her problems lie. As of now, they tweaked her braces a little bit to try and bring her foot in. It has helped a bit but we are continuing to keep an eye on the situation.

 Ok, I think that may pretty much wrap up our update for this time. Hope this finds you all well! And hopefully there are still some people who haven't given up checking on our blog and will be happy to see that  we are back! (again) :)


Well, because we had some catching up to do, some of these pictures are from Christmas. Hope you don't mind. :)

All wrapped up for Sleep Study Number 3!! And still smiling! 

Our Elf on the Shelf that the girls named "Jen". No idea where that name came from, but they LOVED Jen and still talk about her. 

Mommy's attempt at baking Christmas cookies. 

Nana visited for Christmas.

This was actually a hand-me-down easel from a friend of mine.  We  saved giving it to them until they got a little bit bigger. Santa brought it for Christmas and both girls have loved it. 

Just hangin' out like sisters do. 

One of our fellow SB friends was featured on the cover of Parents magazine! It was awesome because the issue was not about special needs, or Spina Bifida, it was just an adorable picture of an adorable little girl. 

Gwendolyn gets to pick from the treasure box at school on Thursdays if she is good all week. She  is sweet enough to share with her sister (usually) when she brings her goodies home as well. 

Our newest addition, "Baby Shea"