Alaina saying a few words

Rockin' Brothers

Lainey's Walking!

Lainey's been taking a few steps here and there for the last couple weeks, but this past weekend, she really took off with her walking!  As we walked out of church on Easter Sunday, she walked down the sidewalk all by herself, not wanting to hold my finger or anything.  Miss Independent!  Some people say you don't want to rush them into walking, but I was actually really excited for her to walk.  Especially since it's been such nice weather outside and we spend so much time outside.  It will be nice to not always have to be holding her, or having her in a stroller, or her crawling around on the ground.  She is my latest walker, at 14 months.  Ethan walked at about 10 months and Caleb at 11 months.  How interesting that the third child has been the latest for many milestones!?  Well, our whole world is about to change even more with her on the go!  :-)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

Update on Caleb

Thank you to our friends and family who have been praying for Caleb and for us.  About 3 weeks ago, things were extremely bad with Caleb's anxiety and we ended up having an emergency appointment with the specialist doctors who have been seeing Caleb since last October.   We agreed that we really needed some extra help for him, since sensory things, and natural things we'd tried were not helping.  He has been taking a very small dose of anti-anxiety medication under close supervision of his doctors.  It is the best decision we have made for him with this situation!  Honestly, by the second day I could tell a difference in the way he was thinking about things.  It was like the things in his brain that were not formerly connecting, were now connecting and he was thinking so much more logically.  Meltdowns haven't stopped completely, but even if he starts to overreact to something, we generally can talk him back down to bring him out of it so much faster than before.  We notice that he is feeling better, and notices it in himself too.  It's so nice to see more of Caleb's fun, happy, quirky personality come out more and more.  Instead of only seeing a glimpse of him every once in a while, we are seeing his great personality regularly now.  It was definitely a hard decision to come to, but we had tried everything else.  It is not unlikely that his struggle is hereditary too.  But I am just so thankful for the positive results we are seeing.  It may not be something he has to take for the rest of his life, but for now, it is the right thing for him.  So, thank you to those of you who prayed for him and for us.  We have felt such a peace with our decision, and the entire mood of our household has been so much better.  Instead of feeling like everyone has to walk on eggshells around him 24/7 for fear of the awful meltdowns that would result for illogical reasons, we are enjoying each others company and living what I feel is a regular family routine.  It has it's ups and downs and nothing is perfect, but our whole focus isn't just on Caleb and how to get through the day with him.  So, thank you again for everyone's concern and for lifting us up in prayer!

We are not experts on SPD, just parents learning as we go.  Please see a licensed professional to learn the best ways to help your SPD child.

Hairstyles

So, I realized we are already 10 days into April, and I haven't blogged about March yet.  I looked back through the pictures I had taken in March, and most of them were of Alaina and me having fun dressing her up for church and trying different hairstyles on her.  It's so fun having a girl!  I hope as she gets older I can get her to hold more still to do some more fun hairstyles.  Or at least be able to bribe her better to get her to hold still!  So, here are a few pics of Lainey after church and fun hairstyles.  Did I mention, it's fun having a girl?  :-)