First Smile

One momentous event for Bree occured on Christmas Eve. We were all getting ready to head off to church service to have Bree dedicated (which went great...and I will post pictures when I get them from our good friend!). Daddy was holding Bree while sitting in the recliner and Riley was standing next to them peeking at Bree. I happened to walk by and made some comment to Bree (I don't remember what it was), but she turned her head, looked at Riley and smiled. It was so precious that she gave her first "awake and aware" smile to her big sister. I can already tell that there is a special bond between these two and I can't wait to watch it grow and blossom over the years to come.

Hitching a Ride....

See...In our family, the women make the men ride on the back of the motorcycle. Rock on Riley!

Poor Ethan looked a little scared about Riley's driving skills though...

Happy Birthday Jesus!

We all had a GREAT Christmas today! We all got everything that we had asked Santa for...even little Bree got lots of cool toys. :) As a family we all sang Happy Birthday to Jesus (cheesy I know, but it is important to me)....We hope that you and your family had a joyous and blessed day as well.

The best gift of all...

Home sweet home?

When I always thought of bringing Bree home from the NICU, I thought it would be so great to snuggle with her, help Riley interact with her, and it would be filled with bottles, dirty diapers and all that other fun "baby stuff".

SURPRISE! It is nothing like that....we have at least two doctor visits (pediatrican check ups, eye doctor, pulmonologists, etc) a week that are out of the house, two nurse visits where the nurse comes to the house to check her weight, height, head and abdomen circumferences, and then to address any concerns that we have.

Here's an example of how our next week looks: Today is Christmas (Thursday). Tomorrow we have the RN coming to the house at nine in the morning. On Monday the nurse will come out again in the morning and then we have an eye appt at two thirty to check on her ROP. Tuesday both girls go to the pediatrician: Bree for a two week check up, and Riley for her fifteen month appt. On Thursday the nurse comes out again. And then on Friday we have an appt at PCH (Phoenix Children's Hospital) at ten in the morning with the pulmonologists to evaluate her need for oxygen and to see how she is doing.

Somehow I am suppose to find the time to pump amidst all of that. I am a little embarassed to admit that my pumping has fallen to the wayside since she has come home. I pump in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. I only get about 50-60 cc's each time. Luckily, we have a good stock of frozen breastmilk so we are doing half fresh, half frozen and then supplementing it with the formula to jump up the calories for her. I have ordered and am going to take an herbal supplement called Fenugreek to help boost my milk production. I had it recommended to me by one of the nurses at PCH so I hope it works. I was reading some of the side effects of it and it seems a little iffy. However, even with regular medicine (benadryl, tylenol, etc) there are some wierdo side effects so hopefully none of them from the Fenugreek will affect me.

As of Tuesday, Bree weighs 5 lbs, 12 ounces! Woo hoo! We are almost at the six pound mark !!!!! Yee hee!

Hope that this finds everyone happy, healthy and in love with life!

Early Christmas Present

With Adam's Mom here for a little visit we decided that we would each open one gift while she was here (each of which she either helped with or is going to). I tricked Adam by filling a large box we had with "stuff" (random things to make the box heavy), put a blanket on top of that stuff and put two small slips of paper on it with the tattoo's that he wants of the girls names. Before he opened it I asked him what he thought was in it, his answer was perfect..."I don't know, a bunch of crap? Ha ha ha!" He was right on the money!
Adam gave me a shoe box with a "certificate" for any type of shoe that I wanted. So I get to go shoe shopping after christmas! Woo hoo!
Bree didn't open any because, well, she can't. We didn't wrap any of her presents because as we learned last year, she'll get gifts that are wrapped from family so there is no point in us wrapping presents ourselves to unwrap them ourselves...
Riley ended up with a motorcycle...a crotch rocket to be exact. Seriously, she did. She loved it and enjoys being pushed on it so much! We even have the pictures to prove it:

Hope this finds everyone happy, healthy, and in love with life!