Rayleigh - 1 Year Old

And last, but not least, the baby of our family, Miss Rayleigh. Over the past couple of months, Rayleigh has become the biggest mama's girl, and I love it! If I walk in the room, she wants me to pick her up. At night, she wants to snuggle up and sleep with me. She is a very curious baby. She will play and entertain herself. She's very focused, if she sees something she wants, she zeros in and goes after it. She's also very determined, she doesn't give up if something is hard, she keeps trying. She has  two teeth. She's babbling (says mama) and she can wave. She is crawling, sitting up, pulling up, and cruising along furniture. She's finally finished wearing her helmet!! She's probably the least social baby of the quints. She takes a little while to warm up to new people. At the birthday party, she cried; I think all the new people and so much going on made it a little overwhelming for her. She is the serious baby, however, she is a sweetheart and has the sweetest smile. She has dark brown eyes and brown curly hair. People say she looks most like me.

At birth, Rayleigh weighed 2 lbs 8 oz and was 14 inches long. Now, she's 17 lbs 0.5 oz and is 27.5 inches long. Rayleigh did the best of all the quints in the NICU the first month after birth. She was the only quint to not need to be put on the vent. However, as the other babies grew and were able to get off oxygen, Rayleigh never could. After Brant was discharged from the NICU, Rayleigh got very sick, very, very, very sick. She was so sick I seriously thought she was going to die. It was probably one of the scariest times of my entire life. Some of the other babies had moments when I was really worried about them, but I had a feeling they were going to eventually be okay. Not Rayleigh, I had the worst feeling that she was going to die and I was seriously a basket case. I really tired and I think I did a really good job of holding it together when the babies were facing serious issues in the NICU, but not when Rayleigh was at her sickest; I was a wreck. The doctors finally figured out that her problem was her PDA (a valve in her heart hadn't closed), so they transported her from Baylor to Children's and did surgery to close the hole. She was immediately better. A few days after the surgery she was off all oxygen. I can't thank God enough for bringing Rayleigh through that scary time. She's growing and overall pretty healthy and for that, I'm eternally thankful.

The day Rayleigh came home from the NICU. She was the fifth baby born and the fifth baby home. I guess 5 is her lucky number.

Her first trip to the ER early fall...  She was sick with bronchiolitis.

All the babies are pros at breathing treatments.

Playing around 

Love my baby girl.

The day she got her helmet.

Rayleigh is the first baby to eat out... We stopped at Cracker Barrel before one of her helmet appointments.

Happy girl

Her hair was so long is was coming over the helmet.

wild curly hair

first braid

Silly girl

Birthday fun

My little mini-me.

Rayleigh, you are such a sweet little blessing. I'm so thankful you're my baby girl.