Proud, with a capital P!

I am one proud mommy! And, I'm sure Brian would agree that he's one proud daddy as well.

Brooke had her six month IFSP meeting with all of her therapists (physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and developmental therapy) this week. Everyone was extremely pleased with her progress. In fact, her delays are not that significant considering everything she has been through. You must have a 30% delay in order to qualify for Early Intervention services (Brooke automatically qualifies because she is on the vent). If it weren't for the vent she wouldn't receive some of the services she gets! In the last six months she has made some wonderful gains and we look forward to the next meeting. She is also SO close to crawling. If I could just find the one thing that really gets her motivated, she would be off. And, I don't know what I will do then. I had our "Go" vent put in a backpack so I can wear it on my back which is much easier to handle. I guess I will just have to follow her everywhere she goes.

Last Sunday we took Hadley to her first Cardinal game at Busch Stadium. It happened to be her first Cub game as well. We think she had a good time. It was a beautiful day for a game. She cheered for both teams (clapping when anyone clapped). Now, when she sees a baseball game on T.V. she gets very excited and talks about her game. With your first trip to Busch Stadium comes your first trip to Jack In The Box. Yummm grease!

We continue to work on our home improvement projects. I hope to have a picture of the finished outside of the house next week. We just need to mulch the flower bed and wash the front of the house. It's really looking cute around here.

This weekend was Rochester's prom weekend. We took the girls to the promenade on Saturday evening. They were even able to get their picture professionally taken with their daddy. I don't have one of those to post but here are a few from the evening. They were two pretty princesses!

This next story qualifies as this week's "Oh... I wish we had the camera ready" award. Brian and I were in the kitchen getting breakfast ready and we heard Hadley saying "Giddy Up Horsey." We looked around the corner to see Hadley riding Brooke like a horse. Like I said, Brooke is ready to crawl so she is always in the ready position which was very inviting to a certain two year old. Needless to say, Brooke wasn't amused.

I have one video for you this week. It's just a miscellaneous video of Hadley being Hadley. I'm not sure exactly what all she's saying but she's pretty funny saying it.

Have a great week!

Germs, Germs, Germs

I hate germs! Hadley and Brooke both came down with a cold this week. We took Brooke to the ER on Monday for an X-ray just to make sure it wasn't pneumonia. Thankfully it wasn't and we left after sitting there for four hours. If I ever run a hospital, I will make children on ventilators more of a priority. Needless to say, I was pretty irritated when we finally did get out of there. She seems to be back to her old self and we are ready to enjoy this beautiful weather.

That was one germ story... now for a Hadley germ story.

We were sitting in the living room one night last week---Brian, Brooke and I were on the couch and Hadley walks by with a paper towel mentioning something about germs in her mouth. We didn't think much of it until she disappeared and was quiet for a few minutes. Brian went to check on her where he found her standing by the toilet. She had dipped the paper towel in the toilet and was wiping her mouth with it! Gross! It's a good thing the toilet was cleaned recently. And, I think I read somewhere that toilets are actually cleaner than our mouths are. Maybe Hadley knew what she was doing after all.

With this warm weather comes home improvement projects! I don't think Brian likes me very much right now. He took the shutters off the house and washed and painted them. We are painting the porch tomorrow and hopefully will get the house painted this weekend. We weren't planning on painting the entire house but when you take your shutters down, you realize just how dirty your house is. Our house looks pretty sad right now. We are also painting our bedroom and the living room and dining room sometime in the next couple weeks. After we paint the living room and dining room, we are rearranging/removing furniture to TRY to create more space.



Hadley and Brooke playing in their "fort"












Hadley picked out her own outfit including socks and hair bow. Doesn't she look great?

Brooke's new game

Hadley reading to her little sister

Happy Easter!

We colored eggs on Friday night. Brooke wasn't allowed to have the real eggs because she tried to eat them. Hadley was having fun dropping the eggs in the color, which explains why she isn't wearing clothes. She wasn't very careful when she put the eggs in the dye. I promise she really does wear clothes when we are at home.

Brookie had her first swing on Saturday. I think she enjoyed it until Hadley thought she needed to go "really high."

The Easter bunny came to our house and Hadley was so surprised. "I didn't know that when I was sleeping the Easter bunny would come in my house!"

I have three videos for you this week!

The Easter Bunny brought Hadley a hula hoop. Here is a short clip of hula hooping Hadley. She hasn't quite figured it out yet :)

This next video needs a little explaining. She's not just singing her ABC's. We have a rabbit that sings "Here comes Peter Cottontail." Well, the poor thing has been played so much over the last couple weeks that he needed new batteries and wouldn't finish the song. So, when Hadley would try to sing her ABC's, she just couldn't finish the song. Her song was broken just like the rabbit's. It was really kind of funny because she would get so frustrated with herself. It was like she really believed she couldn't finish the song. This video is her finally getting her ABC's back.

Here is one of Brooke. She is standing next to her new ottoman which goes with her new chair bed. Thanks to all of her grandparents we have a new chair that makes into a twin size bed for her to sleep on.

I am definitely looking forward to the warmer weather they "say" we will have this week. Maybe we'll have some outside pictures or videos to share next blog. Have a super week!

What a Week!

Things have been pretty crazy (in a good way) around the Tweryon house. I haven't been a very good "blogger", so this one will be a long one. Hang in there!


Hadley and I visited her preschool last Thursday. She was very excited and enjoyed playing with the other kids. We stayed for the entire two hours. Hadley was able to do two art projects, see show and tell, have snack and go outside for an Easter egg hunt. She really had a good time. Here a few pictures of her day at school.



Her new bookbag is about as big as she is.






Her teacher is helping her use scissors to cut her cross. She thought this was pretty neat because we don't use scissors yet at home.




Now I need to brag about Brooke a little. She has been breathing room air (still on the vent but with no oxygen) for about 4 straight days now. We had been taking her off her oxygen during the day but we hadn't tried it at night. We finally decided to try it and she did very well. We were a little surprised that her "sats" stayed so high (between 96-100) while she slept. We joke that we hope the monitor is working correctly.




Brooke's physical therapist did her six month re-assessment and she EXCEEDED, not just met, but EXCEEDED every goal we had set for her in October!!! I remember thinking in October that she wouldn't get some of them, but she proved me wrong. Her score on the test she did in October was 15 and she scored a 39 this time! I can't wait to see what she's doing in another six months. I keep telling her it would be fun to get off the vent by September when her brother or sister is born.



Brooke also had her first "real" bath this week. Yes, you read that right, her first real bath! I had been really nervous about trying her in a tub because technically she is hooked up to electricity through the vent. Our respiratory therapist gave me the green light for baths and swimming pools so we tried a bath and she loved it! Hadley is a big help as you can imagine. I don't know who gets into more trouble dumping water, Brooke or Hadley. We haven't put her in the big tub yet. We just use the blow up tub we used with Hadley, but now it's in the living room.





On Friday, a new TREON 3 mobile made it's way to Oak Street. We bought a new car. It was almost impossible to go anywhere with the four of us, and it would definitely be impossible to have three kids in my car, so we decided it was time to buy a new car. We said good-bye to the Altima and hello to a Chevy Trailblazer. There is plenty of room for our family and all of our junk. I really like it but I feel like a monster driving it. Watch out :)





I still have Easter pictures to post, but both of my girls are asleep AT THE SAME TIME! I am going to take a nap. I will "blog" about Easter tomorrow.

...And, SURPRISE, SHOCK, WHAT? makes three!!!

Well, as you can see from this picture, we are pregnant with baby #3.



Were we trying? NO! NO! NO!
Were we shocked? YES! YES! YES! Many tears were shed from my eyes.
Are we crazy? Right now, No! (although we might be come September).

The baby is due September 26 which makes me about 16 weeks along. Right now things look good and we are praying that the baby will grow strong and healthy. We have talked with Brooke's doctors and my doctor will be following me pretty closely. All we can do now is wait and pray. We have our 20 week sonogram on May 7 and I will begin having higher level sonograms at St. John's the following week.

We truly believe that everything happens for a reason and God has a reason for this. Brian got me a sign for my birthday that says: "God doesn't give us what we can handle; God helps us handle what we are given."

Please keep our family in your prayers. I will post in the next couple days to let you know how Hadley's day at school went.

Talk about Chatter

I couldn't wait until next week to post these.

Brooke's kept me busy today. I've been trying to get some laundry and cleaning done and she isn't very happy about me leaving the room. Here she is "yelling" at me.

A Little Snow and A Lot of Chatter

I rarely (ok let's be honest, never) get the opportunity to sleep in. Last Sunday Brian was nice enough to get up with Brooke at 6:00 so I could sleep just a little bit longer. Now I ask you, how can anyone sleep when you live in a house with a two year old and five inches of surprise snow is waiting for you outside? The answer is easy. "IT'S SNOWING!! MOMMY IT'S SNOWING! DADDY IT'S SNOWING!! CAN WE GO OUTSIDE? WHERE ARE MY BOOTS?" She was so excited. As hard as Brian tried to keep her quiet, it was no use, I was awake. We did take her outside, but it was later at my mom and dad's house. We didn't think our neighbors would appreciate Hadley's screams at 6:45 in the morning.

My Aunt Jeanie and cousin Devon were here from Florida, so the snow was definitely a shock for them. Devon was a good big cousin and took Hadley outside to play. He even humored her when she tried to throw snowballs at him. The fun ended when she rolled backwards down the hill and got stuck. You all remember how hard it is to move when you have snow pants and boots on.

The next day it was 60 degrees and Jeanie and Devon took Hadley to the zoo. Hadley loves the zoo and this time the monkey did NOT puke. We went to the zoo last summer and the monkey did puke and she still talks about it. It's amazing what she remembers.

Brookie had an ear infection in her left ear this week. We went to the doctor for her one year check-up and vaccinations and he said her ear looked pretty icky. She hadn't really been showing signs that she didn't feel good. She really is one tough girl. Brooke remained pretty healthy this winter with only a couple minor colds. I think she even had less antibiotics than Hadley did her first winter. This winter was much easier than we anticipated.

Hadley will be going to preschool in August. I called the school this week to ask about registering. We get to go visit the school next Thursday. Hadley can hardly wait. We had to write it on the calendar and she already picked out what pants she wants to wear. I don't know about a shirt, but she has the pants ready to go. On Wednesday, I took the girls to "Hadley's School" to play on the playground. We even looked in the windows and saw her classroom. Later, when Brian asked her what she saw, she talked about the "alligator??" We aren't quite sure what she saw but she was excited about the alligator.

There are so many pictures from this week, I don't know where to begin.

Brooke loves playing peek-a-boo. She even uses plates.

Hadley stayed home from day care this week and we decided to paint. Hadley painted, Brookie tried to eat the paintbrushes and grab the eggs that Hadley had painted.

Hadley is such a good big sister. She loves her Brookie

I have two videos this week. Enjoy!

I was finally able to get Brookie "talking." She was in such a good mood today.

Have a great week everybody.