Good Weekend...

Our prayers are being answered, Kenlee has finally decided to potty train!  She is telling US when she has to go potty.  She is not completely trained yet but she is very close.  Hopefully within the next week we will be 100%.

My friend Tabitha and I were able to enjoy an afternoon of eating and pedicures!  It was so nice to get to hang out with her.  A big THANKS to our family who watched our girls for us.

After rescheduling 3 times due to the snow, Kenlee got to go on her school field trip today.  She had a great time!  The slide was her favorite.

Snow Day!

The kids got yet another day out of school due to the snow. It has been snowing since about 8am this morning.  They get a little stir crazy inside so it was a good thing that daddy was home today.  He likes to take them out and play in the snow - they had a blast.  Joanna and I stayed inside - way to cold for us!  Enjoy the pictures.  As I was getting the girls dressed in their warm clothes, Brandon decided to put Joanna inside of his overalls.  What a dork!
After they finished playing, it was time to drink some hot chocolate and warm up.

Posts to come regularly......

I know many of you probably have given up on our blog but I do want to try and keep new posts coming as often as I can.  I just recently purchased a new laptop so now that I have one that works - I thought this should be a priority of mine.

Since the last post...

Kenlee loves school  She is our "funny" child.  Don't get me wrong, all of our kids make us laugh but Kenlee tries to make us laugh.  She has this new thing she does with her leg as she is walking.  She kind of kicks it up to the side and turns as she is doing this.  Her new favorite thing is to pray.  She wants to be the first one each night and then after everyone goes she wants to pray again.  She is such a joy to have.

Katelyn goes to school M - R from 8:30-12:10.  She has made many friends and is now asking me on her days off when she is going back to school.  She is into fashion, always has to have her hair up and a necklace on.  She loves to layer her clothes and enjoys playing dress up.

Alexis earned straight A's again this semester.  She recently signed up for 7th grade classes and seems pretty excited about what she signed up for.  She is involved in a small group with Bethel Temple and loves it.

Joanna had some dr appts in Cincinnatti in December.  The spots on her liver where gone!  They want us to get a scan done here locally in April and then come back up there one more time in September to get one last scan hopefully.  Ortho did some xrays of her arms, shoulders, knees, and ankles.  This was the first time any scans had been done to see what was under the skin.  Everything looked fine from what they could see.  They said she has made such great progress that they really don't want to cast anything on her right now.  They want her to keep growing and gaining strength and see us in September to see how much better movement she has with her limbs.  Joanna gets therapy once a week for an hour.  We have a great therapist who comes to our house - its very nice not having to take her out.  She is feeding well.  We now go to get weighed every other week!  Last week she weighed 13 lbs.  She has started eating some homemade baby food.  Her first food was avocados, then sweet potatoes, rice cereal, and bananas.  She loves the bananas.  She can only get food once a day and can only have about 1-2 tsp.  Reason is we don't want her getting full on the food and then not drinking the bottles.  And for those who were curious, YES she is still getting breast milk.  I still have a frozen milk supply.  I had to stop breastfeeding awhile back because she just wasn't doing well with it.  My hope is that I can get her to 12 months actual age.  

Christmas was actually good.  Our family adopted Lucianna, a little girl from Peru who shares a birthday with Joanna and Rebecca.  We chose to support her through World Vision in memory of Rebecca.  We went out to see Rebecca on Christmas.  My aunt made a wreath to put up by her grave so we took that out there.  Then of course we had to build her a snowman.  Her monument is ordered and should be placed before her birthday. There is still not a day that goes by that I don't miss her.  I think about her often as well as our experience in Cincinnati.  I miss all of our new friends up there so much.  I still keep in contact with quite a few people.  

Below are some pictures from Christmas. 

Catching Up

I’ve been thinking recently about why I haven’t blogged like I did when I was in Cincinnati. Other than the poor excuse of not having the time like I did when I was there, I have realized the more probable reason. The name of the blog alone tells the reason, The Twins. For months we blogged over and over about the twins. After Rebecca died, there were no longer twins to blog about. I tried, but every time felt a block when there was nothing to write about Rebecca and felt unable to write about anything else. Last night I decided while I was at work today I would update the blog.

Yesterday was Rebecca and Joanna’s 8 month birthday. I’m posting a couple of pictures  showing what 8 months have done for Joanna. She is still having trouble gaining weight. Jessica just called and told me she has lost 1 ounce this past week. The week before that she lost 2 ounces. The feeding clinic is trying many different techniques to help her increase her weight gain. Right now and for the last 2-3 weeks she has been without the feeding tube, hence the weight loss. She got to the point where she was pulling it out about every other day. Without it they decided to flavor her breastmilk with Nestle Strawberry milk syrup. She loves it but she was puking every time she ate. So, they decided to give her straight breast milk without even the Neo-sure powder. She has been doing that for about a week now but still not gaining. She is still growing in length and her head circumference but not adding weight. She is very alert. This weekend we put her in her bouncing seat that hangs on the door opening. She is trying to figure it out  and likes it in short sessions. She is cooing and talking all of the time and knows how to get what she wants. She is sleeping through the night for about 12 hours which also contributes to her weight loss. We went to Cincinnati about 3 weeks ago for a cardiology genetics visit. They did an echo and found that her PDA is still open but they can’t hear it anymore so they think it’s closing. They are wanting to rule out any sign of cardiac issues that affected Rebecca that could be genetic. They don’t see any sign of that at this point. We go back in 3 weeks for some more appointments and while we’re there Jessica and I will be getting echos done to make sure we don’t have enlarged hearts. They say an adult will show signs by the age of 30 if they have it. Once they rule it out for us, they will be satisfied Rebecca’s was secondary to her congenital valve defect and not genetic. Therefore, Joanna will be given an all clear. She has appointments with orthopedic doctors to follow up on her arms and legs. She has been receiving occupational therapy in our home weekly now since we have been home. She seems to be improving but her neck is still really tight when she tries to turn it to the left. Overall she is doing very well, we just need her to start putting on some pounds. 

The other girls are doing well also and are excited for Christmas. Katelyn has been going to pre-school 4 days a week in the morning and Kenlee just started going a couple weeks ago. She is only going Monday and Wednesday for a couple hours in the morning. This gives Jessica some time to get some things done. They do a great job of keeping the house a wreck for us, but they also keep us entertained so I guess it’s a good trade off (see below). Alexis is having a good school year earning straight A’s the first grading period. Last weekend she went to an overnight church camp which she had  a great time at. She’s also helping out a lot at church in the children’s ministry, which they are grateful for. 

Jessica continues to be an awesome asset around the house. She keeps everything going at the house from laundry to groceries. She don’t know how much she is appreciated, allowing me to work and follow endeavors. She has taken on some part time consulting work that she really enjoys doing. It’s just hard to find time for both of us to do everything we want or need to do. Our neighbors probably think we have the most  dysfunctional family because I will pull in and she will leave then vice versa. Somehow we are making it work but there aren’t any extra minutes in the day. Great things are happening in our lives and we are so blessed to have these opportunities. 

We finally ordered our monument for the cemetery week before last. We had looked at them a while back but finding the time to go without kids to look and decide on the design made us keep putting it off. Finally, we got tired of going to the cemetery and not having it there. Also, we wanted to make sure all bills were paid before spending the extra money on the one we really wanted. It’s a beautiful stone and it will hopefully be placed in the next month or two. 

Going Smooth

Here is a picture I should have posted a while back. Since her very first picture was of her holding a pencil in the NICU, I take a picture of her every month on the 28th. This one was from July.

I will say now that things are officially going smoothly. Don't get me wrong, there are still times we want to pull our hair out but now we know what to expect most of the time. Maybe it was the heat wave making everything crazy. We took Katelyn and Kenlee to their dentist appointment last week. A couple of days before that, Jessica took Katelyn with her to her dentist appointment to show her how it was ok since her previous experiences at the dentist have been embarrassing. Well, it didn't help. It took one of us holding her down including her arms and legs so they could clean her teeth. She was screaming and literally acting possessed. Kenlee on the other hand did pretty good. I was with her and although I had to hold her down, she didn't act too bad. Katelyn just can't handle the whole thing. This time she was due to get X-rays. We almost didn't do that part just because she was so bad during the check-up. After some coaxing and bribery, we decided she could do it. She did much better for this part, so we rewarded them with Dairy Queen for lunch. Both were given good reports and new toothbrushes/toothpaste. Last night we took Katelyn to her orientation at her preschool which starts Monday. She is really going to like it if we can just get past the initial separation when we drop her off. We are not looking forward to that part. She will be going in the AM, Monday-Thursday.

I want to say, Jessica has really impressed me with the whole stay at home mom thing. Thank you to everyone that brought us meals over the last several weeks since we've been home. Now that those are over, Jessica has even started to cook dinner. Her goal is something new every night that I'm home. I know it's aggressive but we'll see. She has been 100% on top of laundry and dishes also which is awesome, especially given the amount of each of those we go through.

Joanna is still doing very well. She went to the pediatrician yesterday for a check up and now weighs 8# 12oz. and is 21 3/4" long. They didn't change anything with the night time feedings, and she still has the feeding tube. We get one day a week without it on the day we change it out. Keeping it taped is always a struggle. If there's one good thing about the feeding tube, it's that she is sleeping through the night pretty much all the time. Kenlee doesn't make it through the night without wandering into our bedroom to get in bed with us. When I got up at 2:30 this morning to fill Joanna's milk, Kenlee was asleep on the floor in the hall outside our door. Sometimes it's on the floor just inside her door. One thing she is never without is her blanket and pink pillow. A lot of times when she wakes up she will start yelling for the person that put her to bed. Jessica called me the other morning and told me she was awakened by Kenlee yelling, Daddy, Dad, Da-da, Daddy down the hall. One of the churches we went to in Cincinnati played this video in service one day. Kenlee often reminds us of this. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNkp4QF3we8 .

Lastly, here is a new video by our friend Chris Weatherly. It was created as a small part the One Life Henderson night of worship that is happening tomorrow night 8/21/2010 at the Henderson Fine Arts Center. Check out the video below and get tickets for this event at http://www.onelifehenderson.com/.



Barnard Story from Chris Weatherly on Vimeo.

Welcome Home Celebration

We are having a come and go welcome home celebration for Joanna on Sunday, August 8 anytime between 2 pm and 5pm at our house. Anyone wanting to drop in to see Joanna is welcome, we'll provide the hand sanitizer. If you need directions, just email us at barnardtwins@gmail.com.

She went for her checkups Thursday, one at her pediatrician here in Evansville and another at the High Risk Clinic in Cincinnati. Since I had to work, our friend Emily offered to go with Jessica to Cincy. Jessica said the trip was a complete waste of time. The only news from the day was that she only gained 6 oz. in the 14 days and they want her to gain about an ounce a day so they are keeping her night feeds on the pump the same for a while longer and actually increased them just a bit. She just need to start eating during the day a little better from the bottle or mom. Other than that, she is being a pretty good little girl. Our other little ones are making up for her with their behavior. Jessica is doing awesome as a stay at home mom, somehow not losing her mind with them while I'm at work. Katelyn's swimming lessons have been going ok. The first day went great until the end when they let her go down the slide by herself and she got all turned around and went under. She was not happy. The next day I took her and she was not interested in being there at all. With much bribery and threatening, she eventually did as little as possible to keep from having to go to the truck with me. Thursday, Grandma took her and she went off the diving board by herself that day, go figure. We'll see how next week goes. Kenlee is struggling with the potty thing still, sometimes taking her diaper off after she has gone..... not good. Other times she does exactly like she is supposed to. We know it's a learning process so we just need patience. Alexis is in her final couple of weeks of summer break before going to middle school. She's not looking forward to getting up early again.


Click to enlarge

Finding Normal

We have been home for a little over a week now and are all starting to find our normal again. First of all, Joanna is doing very well. She is still getting a continuous feed by pump for 12 hours at night but sometimes she wants a little extra by bottle. During the day she takes her bottles every 3 or 4 hours as she decides. Keeping the tube taped where she can't pull it out is probably one of the biggest problems we have. They made it look so easy in the hospital. I told Jessica we are going to have to order a dumpster because the trash cans we have for pickup don't seem to be sufficient. I don't know how one baby can make a difference but it seems like we take out the trash and empty the dishwasher 3 times a day now and we don't even put the diapers in the trash can or put the bottles in the dishwasher. Thursday we take her to her 2nd pediatrician appointment here in Evansville, then take her to Cincinnati for a follow up appointment at the High Risk Clinic. We have had some in home visits with home health and a person from First Steps for early childhood development for preemies. The other girls are adapting pretty well I would say. Kenlee brings us the remote control constantly and says "Becca Song" which sometimes means she wants to watch Rebecca's movie and other times means she wants to hear Rebecca's song. She always lets us know when it comes on the radio by yelling "Becca's song, Becca's Song". Kenlee has become very whiney and always wants to be held. This week was a big week for Katelyn. We signed her up for Pre-school, swimming lessons and tap class. The new arrangements in the house are slowly working themselves out. Katelyn actually slept in Kenlee's room last night with her because Kenlee got some new flower shaped lights that hang on the wall and she thought those were pretty cool. I topped it off by putting a spare TV in there so they could watch as they went to sleep. The TV in the bedroom thing is a special occasion for them. Jessica is doing well also with the transition from working mom to stay at home mom. She actually told me yesterday, staying home with 3 kids is less stressful than working full time with 2 kids.

Apparently, there are still a couple of people checking the blog so I apologize for the length of time between posts. It was just a lot easier when I was in Cincinnati with nothing else to do. Here are some recent pictures also.