sick again

Little Heath man is sick again. His temp reached 104.5 last night and I took him in this morning the the Dr. He has pneumonia again, but this time we caught it really early. He seems to be doing better this afternoon. Hallie has a cold too, so im hoping hers doesnt get near as bad. Heath crawled around, finding every blanket he could find.... and just laid there.
 

Hallie is winning the fight, then its a toss up.... in the end.... Heath won! (They know Hallie eats in the carseat , so I guess they let us know when they are hungry!

 

Fighting over the carseat (which Hallie eats in), again!

 

*Julie, next time I start telling you anything positive about my babies, STOP ME! I just got off the phone with you telling you how "I can't even remember the last time Hallie threw up". Well dang, now I know..TONIGHT... but I will say it wasn't like the old reflux junk.... She is running a fever and is congested , which made her throw up so bad she was gagging! After I posted my happy 1 week anniversary of NO TUBE, since Hallie all of a sudden got sick she cant eat. She cant breathe through her nose...so I gave in...I cant force my sick baby to eat...so I let her rest peacefully while I fed her with the G Button.
** This picture is of Hallie and her Pop (Justin's Dad, as if you couldnt tell!) , he is one of Hallie's newest favorite people...she now knows Pop alway has a pen or 2 in his pocket! And what Hallie wants , Hallie gets from her Pop.

* Harley got his first stitches today , he is ALL boy, so Im sure there will be more. He fell at the waterpark, but didn't understand why we had to leave!

We LOVE our bath, LOVE vanilla waffers, and LOVE riding on the 4 wheeler with our daddy. Even though 3 kids at one time was just posing for a picture!
 

15 POUNDS

OH MY GOODNESS..It's been a week with no feeding tube... I will admit the last 2 days have been kinda hard but I have stuck with it. She is SLOWLY starting to eat more food (or maybe its just my imagination hard at work!) To all you moms that are like me, that love hearing about foods babies with feeding issues will eat....well Hallie's new favorites is Pretzel sticks, the thick ones...Im sure its the salt but she will suck on it til its gone.
I took Hallie into the Dr on friday to check out her rash (eczema!) and anyways, he gave me a rx for that...but she weighs 15 POUNDS.... the best news is that she has gained 3-4 oz (in a week) with us not using the tube. She is also taking about 4-5 steps on her own...Yes, her size 1 feet can walk!!!
Heath is going everywhere...He stands up on his own and walks room to room. He has been doing great.
Harley's potty training is doing better...This weekend 4 different times he has TOLD us he needed to go potty, as opposed to us making him sit every hour and him holding it until we tell him to go. This is no baby step....this is like a grown man step!!
Kids are good...Life is good! 

NO BUTTON

We have gone 3 days with NO G button!! Yay! Everyone that has a kid with a tube/button can appreciate my excitement! We have gone a day or 2 without it before but it was a struggle and we had to return to using it 1-2 times a day but this time we have had more luck. She is waking up in the middle of the night for a feed , which I am NOT complaining about. She has been taking the same amount as always just adding the middle of the night feed. I am very excited and I hope that this is just the beginning. Even though the Dr. discouages using the infant feeder to take baby food, she has been taking some food too. Last night she took half a jar and tonight , she took the rest! She is DEFINITLY still eating tons better when she is sleepy or sleeping....but I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I love matching the twins. I never thought I would be the one to match their clothes and I always talked about people that named all their kids with the same letter, and here I am with Harley, Heath, and Hallie! Which makes it very difficult if we have anymore children. Do I name he/she with an H or make them feel left out?!? I'll worry about that when/if the time ever comes. Even thought I think about that all the time because there just arent a lot of H names to choose from. Anyhow, enough rambling!

Kim- notice how I can only get one baby to look at a time...really, show me your trick!
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DADDY!

WE LOVE YOU,
Harley, Heath, and Hallie 

MICHELLE AND DEION..... You guys are in trouble.... I KNOW that we (us, Halle Grace, and Julia) are your favorite patients....Then please explain to me why we weren't invited to take those awesome pictures I seen in the NICU hallway today.... Girls, you should be ashamed of yourselves!
ok, Im through venting over that!
On a happier note, during our visit to Dallas we had several hours to blow between Dr appointments and so we thought this would be a great chance to visit our old nurses. We were able to see each babies old primary nurse, Adena and Gloria. They of course thought they looked great and huge. Considering they look at 1lb babies all day...we are huge! It was great to see them again as well as a few other nurses. I don't think that they realize just how important they are to our family.
** Notice the picture..... I was telling the kids to look at the camera so I could take a picture of all the NICU friends in the pool. Its a proven fact, kids don't listen to their parents. Notice, Julia and Halle Grace look perfectly at the camera, while my 2 little rats continue playing like they have heard nothing!!!  

Hallie went to the GI Dr. today and she weighs 14lbs 13oz!! GO HALLIE! The Dr. told us to stop using the G Button all together (we were only really using it 1 time a day).
In this top picture Hallie was getting a morning bath and I guess she didnt realize she wasn't still in bed. She slept through the whole bath. It was so funny but also pretty hard to hold her up.  

And Heath is off! He started walking this week. He still prefers to crawl since it is faster but he CAN walk!! Yay! He has also learned how to get on Harley's big boy bed, so the babies are no longer allowed in their without us. We took a trip to Dallas today to take both kids to the Dr. Heath went to his ENT Dr and he said Heath's ears look great. He weighs 20lbs!!! New Carseat here we come!
 

Hallie looks so happy in this picture. But, look very closely... she has a cheerio in that back of her mouth and she is actually gagging. The kids have been doing pretty good lately. Heath is starting to walk, he is becoming such a big boy... He has taken up to 15 steps! Hallie is doing about the same on all her eating issues. She still takes her 5:30 am feed with the tube, all others are by mouth and she still isnt eating any solids. She loves putting cheerios in her mouth but she still gags every single time. Im waiting for that one day when she just "gets it". Thursday we have an all day trip with the twins to Dallas. Heath goes to see his ENT specialist and Hallie goes to her GI specialist. What fun that day will be! But we will know what Hallie's new weight is.
 

Cute picture, right? WRONG... it would be cute if this wasn't what I walked into after the kids were down for their nap for 5 minutes! I was in the office and I thought I heard something so I walked into their room, and there they were standing up just talking away to each other. It was cute but I would have much rathered them be sleeping!
I think it is time that I take the mobile's out of their beds , I walked in to get Heath the other day and he was playing with the mobile, while he was laying down in his crib...yes, he took the mobile OFF his crib.... and I wasn't even thinking... I popped it right back on, like its not going to happen again! TROUBLE, x 2! 

pool party!!

This really sounded like a good plan. Get a little pool and let the kids splash around! Well, too bad 3 of the 4 screamed bloody murder for the first 15 mins. In the black and white picture you can see that my 2 along with Julia are trying to escape, and after much screaming .... they won! After they watched Halle Grace have the whole pool to herself, one by one they started to join. Then they all loved it!! Who knew kids that love cry getting out of the bath would cry getting into a baby pool. I dont think I will ever figure kids out!
The bottom picture is when everyone calmed down, and it really looks like we were baking the kids in the sun, but actually....we were in the shade!!  

NICU FRIENDS

NICU FRIENDS!! Saturday we spent the day with our old NICU buddies, Julia and Halle Grace. Halle Grace was Heath's first roommate and since her name was Halle and that was my daughters name, there was an instant connection!! I would always tell everyone "Heath is by Halle but not our Hallie". Julia's family was the first family that we became close to. There are so many rules in the NICU but it seemed that everyone knew about us being close , we could go visit the other ones baby and ask question, which is unheard of! It was so nice getting to see them again, I feel like we see each other all the time since I do stalk their blog site's and talk regularly on the phone...but seeing them in person and watching the kids interact was MUCH better! The mom's may have enjoyed it more....or maybe the dad's did, since we made it a mom's day with the kids and the dads went and did their own thing.....Julia is so big and has the cutest head full of curls, and it was so sweet when i first got there she just held her hands up for me to hold her, like she knew me forever! Halle Grace, goodness...she has got to be the smartest 23wker EVER, she talks and talks, asks questions...answers questions... I like to flipped out when i picked her up she asked me what my braclet was....Here we are just trying to get the twins to say "mama'! She amazed me, to say the least!
The top picture is the only picture I had of all four of them almost looking at the camera. L-R Julia, Halle Grace, Heath, and Hallie.
The bottom is Halle Grace holding Heaths bottle. Heath was teaching class: How to drink-101.
They paid attention, not sure they learned anything though. We will sure have to get together again some time SOON!