Fun on the Farm

First I must start by saying that November is Prematurity Awareness Month and today is actually Prematurity Awareness day. Early birth touches so many lives and not all of them end as happily as our story did. We need to continue to support the March of Dimes and the research that they fund to help little babies like my girls. The girls were born at 28 weeks gestation weighing on 2lbs. 10 oz. and 2lbs. 15oz. We were so blessed to be able to take home two healthy babies after two and a half months in the NICU. Please support further research to help save babies that are born too soon.

Now on to the current Life of the Laughlins. Things have been pretty crazy lately (I am pretty sure I always say that now). Anyways the girls have basically been sick with fevers, coughs, and upper respiratory infections now for almost two weeks. We even had to have one visit to the ER (more details below). We are hopefully on the mend now with antibiotics. We did get to go spend several days at my parents house while Adam was away on a hunting trip (those were the three days they were well). It was the girls' first time to spend more than two nights away from home and they did great. We had such a wonderful time playing with their cousins, Great-grandma (meme), and my parents. It was a bit of a vacation for me as well because it was fun to always have someone to help me with the girls during the day. This picture above is actually of the girls at our house before we were going down to the barn to feed the horses. I just thought they looked precious in their little hats! Here is a glimpse at the fun on the farm visiting with my parents...
Here is Meme and Reagan driving the golf cart. It is a great way to travel in the crazy wind and cold because it has a canopy thing on it. The girls loved it of course and loved driving with their Meme.
We spent alot of time riding trikes, bikes, fourwheelers etc in the barn out of the wind. The girls usually made a big protest when we had to go inside. This picture is special to me because it is my tricycle from when I was a little girl. I loved it so much and used to ride it everywhere. I cannot believe my mom still has it! I must admit it still works great and the girls were thrilled with it, of course they couldn't quite reach the pedals yet. Doesn't Renna look so grown up on it?
Renna riding in the golf cart delivering feed buckets.
The girls were obsessed with the feed buckets. They always each had to have one and loved digging through (and of course trying to eat) all of the feed.
I had to include this picture because Renna has discovered baby dolls. She fell in love with this one at Grandma's house and loved playing with it in this old toy highchair (another one of me and my sister's old toys). She now has latched on to some baby dolls at our house. It is so cute to see her want to be such a little mommy. Reagan is begining to love them too and likes trying to rock them.
Reagan riding the John Deere...her favorite ride!
Did I mention the girls pretty much got to do what they wanted while Grandma or Meme were around? Here they are digging through the kitchen cabinets. They were fascinated with the idea that there were no baby latches on the cabinets. It provided hours of entertainment! Aren't they cute in their little Carhartt jeans?
The girls got to go to church at Grandma and Papa's church for the first time. It was really fun to meet some of the people who prayed for them so much while they were in the hospital. It was also awesome to be at church with so many relatives to pass the girls around during church. It went so much smoother...if only we could be with them every Sunday.
Come here Goaties!! Time to eat!
More animals to feed. This is Renna walking with her cousin, Sara. Aren't they so precious together? What a sweet little cousin.
Papa was trying to teach Renna a little golfing. She actually got the hang of it...look out Tiger Woods!
This picture is before we were going out to do chores. It is so funny because the stocking caps totally crack me up, however if you know anything about my family they always think you need to have your head covered when you go out in the cold. So on Meme's pleas we always wore their stocking caps. Thanks for keeping their heads warm Meme (she actually bought us the cute little blue hats in the first picture too).
Papa built a little enclosed stool that the kids can stand on to help cook. Both girls fit nicely in there and they were overjoyed to get to help cook and watch everything...shockingly enough they didn't even push each other out.
I had to post this funny picture from home. They were fighting over the ever popular fairy car...the funny part is we have two of them. You can clearly see it in the background but in true twin fashion they always want the one the other sister is on. My sweet silly girls, at least they were trying to share a little I guess. You can see Reagan is also holding my phone. I am trying to teach them to text and drive early! Just kidding!!
Here is our visit to the Emergency Room last Friday night. My poor little Reagan Pickle had a 105 fever in this picture. Don't notice how gross I look, we were already showered and ready for bed. Needless to say when her fever got so high we knew we needed to take her in. It was very scary for me and daddy. She ended up having an bronchiolitis with a secondary upper respiratory infection but she needed some antibiotics STAT. We were so worried about her because the fever came up sooo fast and she was really out of it. They did chest x-rays and gave her an antibiotic injection and after several days of antibiotics she is feeling much better. Hopefully we don't have to make any more sudden trips back to the hospital. It was really weird being back at the same hospital where we basically lived for so many months when they were in the NICU. We need to thank Grammy and Papa for coming over so late to stay with Renna so we could both go to the hospital with her. We are so blessed to have them so close. They were life savers!