We had Speech this morning. Amy watched Lilah (and Alec) take down a whole piece of peanut butter toast, several bites of scrambled egg with cauliflower, blueberries and cereal. Not to mention several swigs of milk from her sippy cup.

Lilah has been out eating Alec for almost a week now! Even dinner has picked up.

The other new development is that Lilah has been drinking her milk (and formula) 2oz at a time. Last night she drank 4oz of her 6oz feed right before bed. I still give her a bolus feed after she goes to sleep depending on how much liquid she has had for the day. Last night it was only 4oz!

The BEST news is that we get to drop down to having speech only once a month! I love speech. I have learned so much, but this means that we are getting even closer to being finally done with that feeding tube!

This was taken about a week ago. Lilah wants to be just like Alec. Here she was only drinking about 1/2oz a night. We've come a long way!

We ended up getting the stomach flu horribly over spring break and Lilah stopped eating completely. It felt like we had gone back to the reflux days. There was a lot of puking, a lot of crying and a lot of laundry.

Alec, Dave and I got over the vomiting after 24 hrs but poor Lilah continued to have trouble keeping things down for over a week.

Two weeks after the flu she finally got back to the great eating she was doing. This weekend was by far and away the best yet. She has been eating full meals! Tonight for dinner she ate better then Alec. She even ate cauliflower and lots of it!

The next goal is to work on liquids. Up until this week we could get her to drink about 1/2 oz at a time. Last night she drank 2oz of formula before bed so she has already started to make progress.

She will continue to see a speech therapist every other week to work on it. We are happy with her progress as well as holding our breath hoping it continues.

She has really started to walk this weekend as well. It won't be long before she is keeping up with Alec.

I just recently had an annual meeting with the school district and they have graduated Alec from the early intervention program. They normally recommend preemies stay until two but they think he is doing so well that they were very confident taking him off the program. He continues to do well. He is running and babbling and laughing all the time. Occasionally teething makes him grumpy, but even then it's pretty easy to get a smile out of him.

Easter, just toward the end of "flu week"

They love being outside. Alec likes to find sticks so he can stir the dirt in my empty flower pots.

Lilah's hair is finally long enough for pigtails!

Both kids are really into music. There is lots of dancing and bopping any time the tunes are on. Last night a family friend played violin after dinner and Alec threw a fit when we wouldn't let him play too. Today at a friends house we found bells that fit perfectly around baby ankles... Alec had a blast!

About a month ago we met with the speech therapist at the hospital and the dietitian to talk about switching Lilah over to pediatric formula because of her age. Pediatric formula contains different nutrients than baby formula that is more age-appropriate as they get older. However it is also more expensive.

Fortunately for us because it's medically necessary insurance is able to cover part of the cost. But the most amazing thing is that pediatric formula has more calories which means we can feed her less food and still make sure she's getting enough to gain weight. With the baby formula we were feeding her five times a day: four while she was awake and one after she fell asleep at night. I was waking up at 4:30 every morning for the first feed in order to make sure we had enough time in between feeds that she could get hungry at least a little bit.

With this new formula now we can feed her four times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner and I feed her one time after she's gone to sleep at night.

Since switching to the formula a fews weeks ago her appetite has increased and eating solids has increased significantly! We have been careful to make sure that were taking her favorite foods and mixing it up a little bit so she doesn't get burned out on them. However every day she surprises me by being willing to except something new.

Just last night for the first time she took her reflux medications by mouth right before bedtime. I have been trying to get this to happen for months. It seems fitting that yesterday was also a year from the day that we brought her home from the hospital. It was a great day!

Recently I was showing the doctor who delivered the children pictures of them and how they've grown. That's when I realize that almost every single picture I have of Lilah is when she is eating. I guess if you didn't know the situation it would probably seem pretty strange.

I can't thank you all enough for the prayers and support that you have given us over last year and a half. She still have some work to do with accepting liquids but she's making progress with food in leaps and bounds.

Now the challenge is going to be making sure that she's getting enough nutrition and gaining weight without needing the tube. We still use the tube for every feed just to make sure she's getting enough nutrients and hydration.

November

December

January

Lilah's eating

Tonight Lilah took five bites of squash and might have had more if I would have been able to get her to stop sucking on the spoons. She had a really fun time playing in it too which is good. The goal is for her to be comfortable and have fun with the eating experience and hopefully the volume will come.

I didn't think to take a picture of her until after we had clean hands and faces (yes, I was covered too) but you can see her hair and shirt.

Alec is on the move. He is army crawling but only when he sees something that he shouldn't get into (phones, iPads, computers, the vaccumm cord, the dogs fur, etc) it is fun and terrifying all at the same time.

We have backed off on Lilah's speech therapy. She struggles with even eating the puréed food now. The only time I can get her to eat is when I present her with something she can hold and suck on. Unfortunatley those items are not always the heathiest. There is a fine line between incouraging her to try chunky foods and scaring her away from food because of gagging. The trouble is if we don't continue to work on chunky foods she won't get past the gagging.

The other issue is volume. She has not made the connection between eating by mouth and getting a full tummy. I pray every day that today will be the day she figures it out. I know she'll get there, I just can't wait!

She propped herself up standing and then slowly her leg started to give out

Outrage at the Vikings. This was right after the third touchdown and then immediate interception.

First time at McDonalds

Chillin'

That's all for now!