February pictures

Gemma 6 weeks old

Sofia in her merry muscles jumper

She loves to Jump!!

Gemma 8 weeks old

She loves her mobile

Pictures from January 2010

Preparing for the arrival of Gemma Marie

Here she is!!

Proud parents

Gemma Marie Lupoli

7 lbs 12ozs 20 inches

After her first bath...note the bow and fluffy hair :)

Proud Daddy

Just arrived home

Sofia getting an up close look

2 weeks old

I LOVE this baby seat - Bright Stars By Your Side Infant Seat

My sweet Sofia loves the camera - 2 years 5 months old

3 weeks old

Note the matching outfits!!

4 weeks old

Pictures from December

Preschool Christmas Program

Christmas Day

Christmas Snow

The last few months...

Well, once again it has been a while since I have posted on my blog...

Instead of running down the details of the past few months and trying to add a bunch of pics, I am just going to give a quick outline (you should join facebook if you want to see pics...faster to upload there!)

Tragedy struck our family just after Thanksgiving...my father-in-law unexpectedly passed away while on vacation in a drowning accident off the coast of the Dominican Republic. Our family was devastated...my husband was so strong during this very difficult time...he is trying to provide support and strength to his mom and also take care of his very pregnant wife and his children.

We stayed in Florida as long as we could, but being 35 weeks pregnant at the time I needed to get back to Kansas. We celebrated Christmas in Kansas, just Tom, I, and the kids since I could not travel. I was pretty anxious that baby would come on Christmas (it did not help that it snowed for days right around Christmas).

Baby Gemma Marie Lupoli was born as scheduled by c-section (I had c-sections with Michael and Sofia)...she was 7 lbs 12 oz with a head full of dark hair!! Wouldn't be one of ours without the hair!!! I will try to post pictures here soon, but I have lots on facebook already :) This was probably the most difficult c-section recovery for me...physically I got hit with two colds (gifts from Michael) and a horrible 24 hour GI bug...coughing and vomiting just days after a c-section is not fun. And the lifting that is required with Sofia really drained me. I took a couple of weeks off of taking her to therapies, but wanted to get back into routine as soon as I felt like I could manage.

Then once again our family was hit with difficult news...it was discovered that my mother-in-law had a very large tumor on her kidney. Tom headed back down to Florida to be by her side as she had major surgery to remove her kidney. She is 4 weeks post-op and is recovering well.

In Sofia news, she is doing really great!!! She crawls super speed now, pulls up to stand so easily, cruises some on furniture, is getting the hang of her gait trainer, crawls up onto Michael's bed, and is self-feeding like a champ!!! Verbally still no words, but new sounds...the latest are E's and N's. Planning on a laundry list of appts for her (on top of her therapy) so we can see the specialists and run any tests that may need to be done before our move back to Florida in July.

Check back over the next couple of weeks as I get pictures uploaded and add in more details of what is happening with the Lupoli's...

Natalie

Check out my August thru November updates!!

I got so preoccupied with everyday life that I was horrible at keeping up with my blog...so I decided to play some catch up!!!

Scroll down and start with the August update first if you want to go in order of events :)

November News

I have finally caught up to the current month!!! I need to work on keeping this blog updated...I tend to do better with facebook...so if you are not on facebook, you should join :)

I'll start with an update on the pregnancy...as I am typing this I am 33 weeks pregnant with a "mover n shaker" baby girl in my now huge belly!! Just as with my other two pregnancies I am on my way to my 40 lb weight gain, all of which seems to be in my belly!!! I get the "any day now" comments from complete strangers already... still just over 6 weeks to go until my planned c-section on Jan 6th (since both Michael and Sofia were c-sections). Even though I wouldn't be completely surprised if this baby girl decided to make an earlier appearance just to make Christmas more interesting...I wasn't early with either Michael or Sofia, but Michael did make things interesting in that he arrived on our anniversary!! I feel this baby moving around SO much!! It makes me think that I didn't feel Sofia move as much as I thought I did...but then again I am not on my feet all day working like I was with Sofia. My OB has also questioned if I feel this baby more, knowing about Sofia's delays and hypotonia...

I am definitely more worried about the last couple weeks of this pregnancy and my recovery from the c-section because of all the care and lifting that is required with Sofia...Tom has worked it out where he is off most of January, so that is a huge relief!! This time around I am going to take full advantage of the time I am allowed to stay at the hospital and ask for more help from the nurses!!

I am working on trying to get all my "nesting" done...it involves a lot of trying to move things around our 2 bedroom apartment and down to our garage to make room for a new baby. Because of the small space our bedroom is going to have to also be baby's room until we move next June. It makes me think that we are going to try to add too many new toys at Christmas time since we are already tight on space!!!

Oh, I can't wait to have space again!!! And we have decided that space will be in a new home in Jacksonville, Florida!! Tom will be joining an Allergy practice based in Jacksonville when he is done with fellowship in June 2010. We were torn between two options...but our long term plans is what made the final decision for us. We are excited that we will be living close to Tom's family and our several of our close friends and their families. The potential for me go back to work is really good in Jacksonville (already have a potential lead...and they contacted me!! It makes me feel great that even though on hold, my professional career is still alive!!) We are hoping to be able to travel down to Jacksonville sometime in the late spring for house hunting...I am excited about being able to participate in the house hunt this time!! (I was away for a conference when Tom looked at our first house and put in an offer). Location will be a big priority for us...for many reasons!!

Michael is becoming quite the swimmer now!! After all our issues we had with swimming lessons the first 6 months (he did not like them and was often being yelled at and crying a lot!!), he is doing great and loves to go!! He is swimming longer distances and doing pretty go with swimming on his back. When we visited friends in Florida in September, he constantly wanted to go in their pool!! It is a great way for him to let out some energy...seriously making us consider a pool when we move to Florida!! Tom and I took him this month to see a plastic surgeon about getting his ears done...a bilateral otoplasty. One of Tom's collegues recommended a surgeon at the Children's Hospital he works at, so we thought we would at least inquire. The surgery itself doesn't worry me, it is the recovery...he will need to wear the bandaging they put on in the OR for ten days!! Then wear a headband for three weeks over his ears. It seems a bit challenging for a 4 year old!! But we also learned that typically there is no problem getting insurance to pay for it :) We are seriously considering doing this while still in Kansas....

Helping daddy bottle homemade wine

Now to update on just how great Sofia is doing right now!! She is crawling more and more everyday to get around instead of rolling...it is hard to imagine that just a few months ago she wasn't even able to get in and out of sitting!! She is pulling up to stand on all kinds of furniture and enjoys taking some steps with support. We have a gait trainer that she is slowly getting the hang of...lots of two footed pushing it it!! She loves to make a game out of giving hugs...and I just love now how she will crawl over to me when I am sitting in my rocker chair and just hold those arms up and squeal until I pick her up and hug her!! She is also finding it fun to give me kisses...it involves a lot of slober :) She makes it very known when she wants attention...especially if Michael is getting a chance to play with Daddy and she is not involved. But then she is great at going on her own to play...she loves to pull the books off their shelf and check them out and just explore the many bins of toys we have. She has just learned to open the cabinets in the kitchen...we'll see what kind of trouble that brings :)

See how tall I am!!

Feeding is going well...she is pretty willing to try many different foods as long as it is provided in bite size pieces. It will depend on her mood if she is willing to feed herself or if I have to feed her. If I could get her to self feed most of the time before new baby arrives that would be great!! I haven't worked too much on letting her try to spoon feed herself she she still tends to just throw the spoon. I would also love to get her off the bottle...she is just so stubborn about trying a sippy cup or straw...she physically can do, it is just a sensory issue at this point.

Yummy cookies!!

We still have a long way too go and lots of hard work...our current therapy schedule involves water therapy once a week, physical therapy once or twice a week, speech therapy once or twice a week, occupational therapy every other week...the schedule will end up getting adjusted a bit because of the arrival of the new baby, but we are going to try to keep up as much as we can!!

I'm cool in mommy's glasses!!

Well, a happy thanksgiving to everyone!! We are having a fairly subdued stretch of holidays this year since I can not travel and family is waiting until new baby arrives to come visit. But since we love food of course we are going to make all the trimmings and make sure we have leftovers!!

Enjoying an evening by the fireplace!!

Natalie

October...the month of germs!!

October brought us back into what I was hoping would be a month of a regular schedule to get us back on track with school and therapy...well it wasn't to be that way at all!!! Michael started us out with getting sick with the flu (pretty darn sure it was H1N1 since that what was going around). Poor kid was a mess!! He had a croupy cough, fever off and on for a week, barely ate (he still wanted his instant carnation breakfast though!!!), and slept a lot!! Then Sofia had a fever for a couple of days, but never had it quite as bad as her brother. I also had a low grade fever and overall felt exhausted, but not sure how much of it was from being sick or from being pregnant taking care of two sick kids while Tom was busy working a lot and also was gone back to Florida for more future job related matters. Then as we all seemed to be getting better, Michael came down with an upper respiratory infection that he passed along to the rest of us...lots of congestion, snotty noses, sore throats, etc. Luckily both kids were pretty good for Halloween so we could get out and do some trick or treating. Michael wanted to be Luke Skywalker this year, so we appropriately had Sofia be Princess Leia!!! Sofia wasn't to happy to be in her costume...it was tough to keep the "hair" on!!

Michael was finally healthy at Halloween time, but Sofia seemed to follow-up her cold with a stomach bug and fever (puked all over herself in the car, not a pretty sight) and what we think was an ear infection...she became so irritable and inconsolable for several days!!! It put a big dent into the therapy schedule and made me completely exhausted!! When she is upset or hurts she doesn't have a way to properly communicate it, so she tends to things like throw herself backwards with no regard for what she may hit her head on. She had a hard time falling asleep that required driving her around in the car and I brought out the new baby's swing...she was a bit big for it, but it did the trick!!! Typically Sofia is a happy child with no problems sleeping, so it was quite a change. Fortunately some antibiotics did the trick and she was more cooperative just in time for Tom to head out of town once again to a conference for a week in Miami.

Even with the illness that traveled among us, Sofia had another great month developmentally!! We started out the month with a follow-up appointment with the Developmental physicians...Sofia was on her game that day and showed some of her true colors and skills!! So the physician was happy with her progress and just how much we are doing for her in terms of therapy. No new discussion of an official diagnosis on their end...and no tears for me during this appointment!!

We also had a follow-up appointment with Rehab Medicine this month...nothing new to report from them either. They just reconfirmed that the hip x-ray taken after her last appt was normal. They feel her current sure step foot orthotics are the most appropriate for her. Of course they noted just how flexible she is (which is felt to be from her hypotonia) and that is part of what requires the extra support needed in her feet and hips during therapy until she can build her tone and strength in her muscles. There was talk about getting Sofia a gait trainer (a walker with built in seat/hip/torso support). This was a discussion I already had with her aquatic therapy therapist and that she has some we can borrow to try out. Sofia was feeling great for this appt as well, and spent about a third of it trying to escape by army crawling out into the hallway!! At least she was showing off some of her skills!!

This month we also saw Sofia improve upon her gross motors skills by continuing to pull up to stand on her own at the couch, a little bit of cruising on the couch if you helped her with some foot movement, and short little stretches of real crawling on her hands and knees!! Her feeding skills have grown by leaps and bounds during Sept and Oct...lots of new foods and lots of feeding herself different finger foods. The girl who once hated sweets now loves them... marshmallows have become quite the motivational tool during therapy and she loves when I bring out the pudding!! She has learned to sign "eat" and I think in part it is because she is starting to enjoy food!! She gets very vocal (which means screaming at me) when I am taking to long to prepare her food!! And she can really pack away the food when she wants!! She eats much more than her brother at times, yet she still stays so skinny!!

We were able to get outside and do some apple picking at the beginning of the month (or maybe it was the end of Sept...I don't remember for sure)...but it was a beautiful day and Michael loved walking around the apple orchard!!



Keep on reading the other posts!!

Natalie