Happy Birthday Laurie

Little Laurie turned two today! She is a joy to have in our family. Laurie is extremely active and mobile. Her primary method of transportation is the beloved butt-scoot. However, she is using her walker often and will crawl occasionally. She absolutely loves climbing up the stairs and is starting to cruise along furniture. We love you Laurie!

Laurie on her bike.

Laurie on the move with her walker.

Our nephew came to celebrate with us! He's a bit crazy... (We love you Hunter!)

Laurie had her favorite meal on her special day... lasagna!

Laurie with Kali (Kaliyana). Laurie's middle name is Kaliyana. Laurie was even born on Kali's "arrival day". Kali arrived to the United States from India on June 15 when she was one year old. These two share a special connection!

With regard to her health, Laurie is doing very well. A couple of weeks ago she had tubes put in her ears. Well, she had one tube put in her right ear. The doc wasn't able to fit the tube into her left ear because the canal was too narrow. 2 mm to be exact. Apparently she has some sort of ear canal stenosis that is getting worse as she grows. We see the doc again tomorrow and I'm sure we'll discuss when she'll need surgery to open that canal up.

Laurie also recently saw a pediatric geneticist. Several of her doctors have recommended that Laurie get genetic testing done because of her abnormal head size and other anomalies. We saw the doc and she is pretty sure Laurie has some type of syndrome. I'm not sure what to think. They want to do DNA testing. I'm kind of dragging my feet to get it done. I'm just getting tired of people (mainly doctors) telling me something is wrong with Laurie and getting myself all worked up over something that may not matter that much. It's really hard to explain. To me, Laurie is thriving! She is healthy and improves every day. I know it will be important to know if she does have a genetic disorder and I'm sure we will do the testing eventually. {sigh}

Laurie currently weighs 18 lbs.! Since getting her tube in, her vocabulary has increased rather quickly. We still consider ourselves the luckiest parents because of her incredible sleeping schedule. 6 pm to 6 or 7 am!!! She doesn't like to be rocked or cuddled at night. Just put her in her crib and give her the pacifier and she's happy! Haili and Laurie are starting to play with each other. I think as soon as Laurie can walk independently that will be even better. Laurie is just starting to want to play dress up and use her imagination more often. It's so dang cute.

Happy Birthday Laurie! We love you and will always be grateful that you are part of our family!

Look who's crawling!!!

Today, completely out of the blue, Laurie figured out how to crawl! We tried and tried and tried to work with her on crawling and a couple of months ago we decided to put our focus more on walking. I figured that she'd learn to walk before she crawled... I was wrong!

Last week Laurie also got her foot/ankle braces. I will post pictures and video footage of her walking with her little walker later.

Miracle Mason

Please remember little Mason in your prayers today. He is rejecting his new heart. Click here or on the button on the side to learn more about this sweet little boy.

Laurie's sick... but it's good news!

Hey everyone! Last week Haili came down with the croup. And because she loves to share everything with her sister, Laurie also got the croup. I was certain that it would quickly develop into pneumonia... I've taken her to the doctor twice now and her lungs are clear! She is on oxygen at nights but besides that, she's acting like a normal sick child. It's pretty exciting. Never thought I'd be happy to have a sick kid. A normal sick kid. Awesome!

At this last appointment, Laurie weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs. 10.5 oz.! She is currently 20 months old... She will be two in June!!!! Laurie knows about 6 words and at least as many signs. She can pull herself up to kneeling and can stand with the assistance of a table or couch for 4 minutes. Our little girl is growing up!

Haili is 3 1/2 years old. She has an incredible imagination and currently has a good imaginary friend named Melly. Melly is a little baby who relies on Haili to everything for her. When we sit down to eat, Melly needs a plate, too. Thank goodness she doesn't eat much!

Kevin is loving his job. I'm a big fan of 4-day work weeks! He gets most Fridays off. Kevin also has taken up running... For those of you who know Kevin, you know is an avid road biker. Spandex and all. However, this summer Kevin and I will be running in the Wasatch Back Relay.

Basically a team of 12 people take turns to complete a run from Logan to Park City... 188 miles! Awesome. Kevin has gone crazy with training. Yesterday he ran 7.2 miles and felt like doing more - but he didn't have more time (he only gets 45 minutes to an hour to exercise at work). Yes, he gets PAID to exercise at work. Sheesh. I figure with Kevin being a super strong team member for our relay, he'll be able to make up for what I lack! I am a distance runner, but a slow one. I ran a marathon several years ago, but again, I am slow.

That's what's going on in our neck of the woods. Here are a few recent pictures for you to enjoy!

Trying out our new RedOxx bags.

Little Laurie

Princess Haili

Laurie's favorite hangout spot.

Holiday Happenings

Haili with her new princess accessories.

Laurie with her favorite gift - a glow worm!

Haili really enjoyed opening gifts this year!

Laurie enjoyed eating as many candy canes as she could- wrapper and all!

Grandma Barb and little Laurie

Kevin and his dad.

Haili and Laurie's fort. It provided hours and hours of fun and entertainment!

Kevin's birthday cake. Notice a piece missing... while I was getting everything ready, Kevin stole a piece! He said he couldn't wait until after we blew out the candles! He got away with it only because it was his special day.

Caught in the act...

The good news is she was actually trying to cut her hair correctly. She has been asking me to cut it for a couple weeks now. I thought that she would forget about it... I was wrong!

Haili with her new "do"!

The Butt-Scoot

18 months!

Laurie is officially 18 months old! She is growing up so quickly. Her latest skill she has mastered is the butt-scoot! I am going to post a video of her in action soon. She LOVES being able to move around. Laurie had a cardiology check up on Wednesday. Dr. Cowley heard a heart murmur this time (in March he couldn't hear one). He said that her pulmonary valve isn't really working very well - but that's to be expected because of the valvuloplasty. He told me that kids can really tolerate it for quite some time. Her chest x-rays and EKG were perfect. Dr. Cowley was amazed with how well she was doing! We'll go back in June. Laurie acts like a healthy little girl, so sometimes I forget that her heart is less than perfect. We're grateful that she's doing as well as she is.

A couple of days ago my good friend, Laurie B., came to visit me! She is from Australia and was an exchange student at my high school. She is also a reason we chose the name Laurie for our daughter. Kevin will get to go to Australia in the next few years for work - so I'm looking forward to tagging along to visit Laurie B. in Sydney!

The two Lauries!

My friend, Sarah H. and I. Sarah was my workout buddy all last year and lives in the valley. We met in college and she is one of the reasons I did so well in my 20th century music course! We sure had fun studying until 4 am in the music building. Thank heavens for yummy Chinese food!

Now that Little Laurie can sit up all by herself, she sometimes refuses to take her naps! The other day she had been crying for about 15 minutes (it's unusual for her to cry at all when I put her down for a nap or at night) so I went to go check on her. This is how I found her! She ended up getting out of her nap because she just looked so sad!

We've recently been hammered with quite a bit of snow. Haili loves to help shovel our driveway. It's one of the few times we can get her into pants, instead of the usual princess dress.

The other morning I woke up to Laurie laughing in her crib. I went in to see what was going on and saw her peeking out of her crib. It was priceless! Honestly, could she get any cuter?