Weekend Review

My good friend Heather works at a photography studio here in town and took the boys' pictures on Saturday.  The boys were not in a great mood and were very distracted, so I was sure that we got no good shots of them.  But Heather is super talented and got some great pictures!

Usually Miller is my smiley boy and hams it up for the camera, but not this day.  Declan was all smiles and Miller was pretty serious.  I think the flash bothered him too.

This next picture cracks me up.

On Friday, Miller had a helmet appointment.  The doctor was super impressed with his progress.  He has improved so rapidly that the doctor thinks he will be out of the helmet by the end of next month.

I found one of Miller's preemie onesies while cleaning this week.  I put it next to one of his current onesies and you can really see how much he has grown over past year.  The preemie onesie used to be too big for him!

Lately, they have been pulling out every single book and puzzle we own.  They think it's hilarious.

And about 80% of my day now consists of refereeing these two.

We have been enjoying some nice days in our new kiddie pool.

The longer Miller's hair gets, the curlier it gets.

My best friend Katie and her boyfriend are in town, so we all went to the zoo yesterday.  We had a great time!  Declan walked almost the entire time and he loved seeing the animals.

Declan's favorite animal, the wolf.

Family pic.  Miller looks thrilled.  He did well, but I think he's just a little too young to really enjoy the zoo.
This was the first time Declan had a great time.

Five for Friday

1.  We celebrated May the 4th Be With You (Star Wars day).  If you know my husband, you know this is a semi big deal.  He loves Star Wars.  I got Thomas a little goody basket with some Star Wars notepads, notebooks, and a dry erase board.  Thank you, dollar section at Target!

The little men of the house sported their Star Wars t-shirts.

2.  Miller had to get an ultrasound of his kidneys and a full body x-ray this week.  Nothing was wrong, they just wanted to check these things since Lucas had kidney issues and a spinal abnormality.  We won't have the official results until next week, but the ultrasound and x-ray techs said nothing abnormal jumped out at them.

We waited for over an hour to be called back for the x-ray.  I'm guessing it's since his x-ray was routine and not an emergency, so it wasn't priority.  Miller is a wild man now and the only way we could keep him entertained was to walk laps around the waiting room.  He likes to be on the move!

3.  Declan has become quite the little artist.  He loves to color while we drive to our doctor appointments.

4.  I just bought these shoes for Miller from Stride Rite.  Like 3 weeks ago.  The boy has already outgrown them!  I'm hoping to sell these on a local resale site so we can buy him some new ones.  His therapist wants him to wear Stride Rite shoes for his everyday wear.

5.  Obsessed with this candle from Yankee Candle.  We just bought it yesterday and I'm loving it!  It makes the whole house smell good.

Choo Choo! All aboard the Birthday Express!

We had the boys' birthday party yesterday.  It was a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party and it was so much fun!  There aren't as many Thomas party decorations out there as I was expecting so we had to improvise a little bit.

We used the boys' Thomas toy and made different cars for food.  The animal car had animal crackers, coal car had oreos, log car had pretzel sticks, and we had cheeto puffs for train smoke.  We made railroad crossing signs out of straws.

We served pizza as the main food.  We had diesel fuel (Hawaiian Punch) and a water tower with water bottles.

One of the nurses from the NICU made the cupcakes and smash cake.  She did an awesome job and they were delicious!  She made Thomas cupcakes, some blue butterfly cupcakes for Lucas, and a conductor's hat cake for Miller's smash cake.

I wasn't sure how Miller would do with cake since he has feeding issues and an oral aversion, but he did well.  He basically just played in it and ate some icing, but it was enough for some cute picture opportunities.

Declan surprised me by trying to blow out the candles on his cupcake.  He needed a little help from Daddy though.

After food and cake, we opened presents.  We wanted to make sure Daddy was home for the cake and presents part.  He had to work that morning but got off right as the party started, so he only missed a few minutes.

We took a picture with Miller's nurses from the NICU.  I was so happy they got to celebrate with us!

Declan and Miller got so many great presents from their friends.  He played with his train set all night and even tried to take the trains to bed with him last night!

All in all, we had a great birthday party for the boys!