Lorelai is FIFTEEN Months

It's been 15 months and my heart can hardly take it! It's been a whirl wind. Crazy to think about. But a whole year has passed having little miss home and she officially one year old adjusted!!! wow just wow. She continues to be such a blessing to us and we are so thrilled she is doing well and adding to the craziness that is our family.

Since I'm of course like 6 months late on this post some things will be hard for me to remember; but I tried, I really did to keep up, but it's not easy having 3 kids and Lorelai though she is sweet as pie she is a challenging child and requires quite a bit of attention. But I at least am good at taking pictures....

She is such a sweet natured child. She is lovable and happy pretty much all the time. 

sleepy girl 

Happy baby; always. 

Back in December I ordered a bear from an organization called Molly Bears, it was started by a family who had a stillborn baby. They provide bears to families who have also lost children. These bears are made by volunteers and are specific to each family. When you order you get to provide details that you would like on the bear. These bears are made to help represent children lost. They are the exact weight of the child lost and will have the details wanted on the bear. I wanted it to have butterflies, be purple and have some sort of identical twin aspect to it. Let me just tell you...Sandy if you're out there, you delivered 10 fold. This bear is absolutely perfect. The butterflies are identical and one is smaller than the other, and it has her name, and is purple. I couldn't have dreamed up a more perfect representation of our girl. 

So I finally received our bear this month and took some pictures of Lorelai interacting with it for the first time. My heart melted and broke all at once.
   
Mothers Day was much better this year because I was able to have my 3 survivors together. Last year was so heartbreaking to have my kids in 2 different places. I'd worked the night before and the boys ran into my room to wake me up after my nap screaming happy mothers day and then Lola Rae just scurried over to me when she saw me. It melted me and was a perfect day with my babies.

oh sweet girl. 

pure love for these kids

I decided that I wanted a fire pit; so to save money I repurposed some of our yard bricks... it turned out pretty good and we've really enjoyed having fires with the kids; Lola just loves being a part of everything. But she doesn't like grass; hence the towel. 

  
Lorelai was evaluated for First steps last month and we were told her upper body wasn't very strong yet which was largely due to us keeping her in the jumper vs. having floor time; well in my defense the boys are not gentle and I worry about her; so they suggested setting up a 'playpin' which I've done to help protect her from her brothers and letting her get some tummy time to build up her upper body.

She doesn't love it; but shes getting stronger. 

She is getting stronger and Lincoln just loves to carry her; this was right after she had decided to crawl all the way down the driveway....

I'm sure she's thinking...PUT ME DOWN

This happy baby just loves life. and I love her for that.
  
One day we will ALWAYS celebrate in this house that is different from all other children is Lorelai's coming home day. The pain and the agony of not having all your children together is something only parents who have been through will ever understand. So her homecoming day is a day to celebrate her, her strength, her resilience and the beauty that is this girl joining our family!

  

I'm beyond thrilled to have had this girl with us a whole year at home. 

Lorelai is still quite the sleeper; the boys love to get up in the morning and wait for her to wake up then go in a play with her...as you can see by her expression she is not always thrilled.
  

Because they are the 3 most perfect beings here on earth.

May is quite frankly my one of my favorite months; spring is my favorite season and I love the cool yet warm days that we can spend at the park. Lorelai isn't quite sure she's ready to play on her own yet.

wouldn't let go of mama. 

you want me to do what? 

I was able to give her breastmilk until her due date! pretty proud of that accomplishment. We also finally got in to see the GI doctor whom I just love. She's conservative in her treatment of Lorelai which I appreciate and we are starting out with changing her reflux meds a bit. We've changed her wo 10 mg of nexium twice a day vs her 5 mg once a day before. We've seen some improvement and she seems to be tolerating things much better; we've also started feeding therapy and are seeing some improvements with that. All in time for our girl.

bottles are her favorite. 

I just love how she chooses to hold them. 

We are getting better with eating foods. 

Have you ever seen a more beautiful girl? 

     
We went to the zoo before our pass expires. Lorelai is unimpressed with animals, but the boys enjoy  it.

LOOK HOW BIG SHE IS!

I had bought our maternity package with the girls early in my pregnancy, so we are a little adjusted in our every 3 month pictures with Lorelai so these are her 15 months or what would have been her 12 month pictures. 

I love that we are able to have Laynie represented in Pictures. 

beautiful girl 

I forgot to do this picture at her birthday pics so I decided to do it now. I intend to
get this picture yearly. 2lb Lorelai vs 17 lb Lorelai

That face! 

Alicia has done it again. perfect family photo

my most favorite picture of her

      
  
We also went to the Children's Museum and she's really loving the toddler area.

fun with friends

  
Oh this girl has my heart; trying out some strawberries.

 
For memorial day we had Adam's family up because his uncle was in town from Kansas. It was a beautiful day, we had a cookout and celebrated Adam's Brother's birthday. Lorelai loves her cousin Blaire who is 10 months younger than her, either that or she loved her pacifier...

trying to take Blaire's paci?

family

BK with their grands

Uncle Kirby with the grands; Blaire looks the same size as Lola!

The month wouldn't have been complete without the pool opening and a day enjoying it. I mean come on she's so cute! 

unimpressed by the pool

Enjoying our new to us swing set too.
      

Our final monthly pictures! My camera isn't acting right so some of the pictures are a little dark, but while I'm grateful to be done with these pictures, it makes me sort of sad at the same time. But Lorelai you're a blessing to all those you meet. I'm grateful for being your mom, you're a delight  and Daddy and I could not love you more.

    

Lorelai is FOURTEEN months

Each month with Lorelai truly gets better and better. Her sweet little personality comes out more and more, She is always a laugh, she smiles constantly and is just pure joy to be around. She has made such great strides this month and is really coming into her own.

• She started feeding therapy this month, and I've seen some improvement. We first started by changing her nipple to a size 2 to see if that helped her with eating more. She still wants to only drink a few sips before shes done and moving onto the next thing. Unfortunately I didn't really see a difference in that, but we are slowly working on it. Shes doing better with solid foods, she will try anything and you can tell that she really wants to eat but its just uncomfortable. Unfortunately I'm giving her a little more processed foods than I would like to try and help with her gag reflex, but we have to do what we have to do. 

Give me the bottle

Trying out some solids. 

• She is becoming more and more active and interactive. She enjoys playing with toys. She also gets her self into some troublesome situations. She's just so sweet. 

sweet girl

stuck and not happy about it

• Her and I went to Chicago to see TT because I had a bachelorette party. She had a lot of un with her TT, and I realized how long her hair was and can almost put it in a pony tail!!! :)

Sleeping on the way home for Chi-town

Big girl is pulling up!! I was in the bathroom which is across from her room, cleaning out cloth diapers and I looked into her crib to see her standing!! WHATTT??? I just love when she reaches another milestone!!! So proud of her!

• The weather has been getting nicer and so we've been spending a lot of time outside going for walks and playing at the park. She loves being outside, not quite as much as her brothers do but she does enjoy it. She likes swinging but is NOT a fan of the slide. 

group hug with Mimi

Nap time during grocery shopping. 

Landon Helping her swing

sweet pretty baby

think she got bored...time to go home and sleep. 

sleepy girl 

She will suck on her bottle for the whole hour walk!!

• I often wear her during our walks and she will fall asleep like this which is just precious and sweet. 

• We had another round of high fevers and puking that lasted a little over 12 hours. Luckily some extra TLC was all this girl needed. She was so sad and it broke my heart to see her that way. But I'm glad it didn't last long. 

sleepy congested baby girl 

• most nights she is a great sleeper. She will go to sleep around 9pm and sleep until 8-9am, or even sometimes longer than that! She takes 2 naps. though I am trying to get her down to 1 but little miss likes her sleep!

• We met up with a friend of mine and one of the nurses who took care of us while I was on High Risk. I just adore her and love how much she loves my girls. 

• Her first time on a plane, We went to a plane pull and we walked through some planes, so I of course had to document it. Even though she still hasn't ridden in one. She walked through it. :)

• She is getting stronger, and Daddy just loves to lift her! She is a crawling champ, babbling like crazy. she will say mama, dada, and baba. She does a great job of mimicking us and will blow raspberries. She is a lot of fun. 

• Although she loves her mama the most, she loves her dada and has suck a sweet twinkle in her eyes when she sees him. 

• We had a family birthday party and Adams Parents were in town that weekend, so we enjoyed some extra snuggles with Grandma and then some other family members. 

• I have cousins who were pregnant at the same time as me with the girls. They are twins and our kiddos were all born within a few weeks of each other. Emily (on the right) was the oldest and then 6 days later the girls were born and then in May Blake was born. It's so fun having kids the same age as my cousins. We always enjoy our time with family. 

Blake, Lorelai and Emily

We participated in our first of I'm sure to be many March of Dimes walks. It was an emotional day, I cried, I felt at peace and It was a bunch of fun with my Sister In Laws family. My SIL has a sister who had idential twin boys at 27.5 weeks as well. It was so nice to be invited to be a part of this walk with all of them. Team L Squared was well represented.

My sister is my Guardian Angel

Monthly photos....She's getting so big and its so much harder to do these. Sorta looking forward to being done next month. 

This comparison photo shows how far she has come. Such a beautiful little thing! So proud of this girl!!!