February 2011

Some things that happened in February......

Ellie grew! She was about the size of this bear when she was born. At 4 months, she was 8 lb, 12 oz and 20.75" long!

Ellie tried out her new chair, now that she is getting a stronger neck. She likes it sometimes, especially if Ian is talking to her!

Ian read a lot - he loves to read!

We hatched some (toy) turtles (sorry, Laurie, that it's taken us so long to do them!).

Ellie tried cereal for the first time, she kind of liked it. But she mostly pushed it back out with her tongue.

Lots of stories were read to little boys......

We got LOTS of snow! I don't know the exact totals, but in a two week time period we shoveled 12" off the deck one day (and that after several inches had already melted) and another 9" a few days later. This is the enormous pile of snow that was shoveled off half our driveway (there's another pile on the other side), a driveway that has a car parked on it.....

And, most exciting of all, Ian turned 8!! This is him, in the birthday hat his dad and brothers made him, seeing his cake for the first time. He said he just wanted a rectangle cake with a math problem on it. He kind of wanted a party with friends, which he didn't get, so he planned a game to play with his brothers instead. He's very excited to be old enough to get baptized, and to be in cub scouts!

January 2011

Somehow Ian's picture turned out sideways, I have no idea why, or how to fix it. He loves Ellie! He always wants to kiss her and hold her, and always talks to her in a high baby-talk voice. It's cute. He is still loving school, he just finished a project about Ancient Egypt that was interesting. He likes math and science best. He has some circuits that he loves to play with, and he and his brothers play "Toy Story" all the time.

Caleb is always trying to get on Daddy's shoulders! Or climb on his back, or something. He's a climber. He loves to tie things up, I am forever untying knots or tying rubber bands on strings. He loves to play "Toy Story" too, and fireman, and construction worker, whatever - he's always pretending to be someone else. He's happy to be back home, and not going to preschool. He had fun there, but is happier at home! He doesn't like to go places, if I ask if he wants to come with me somewhere, he will say, "if it's cold outside I will just stay home."

Levi loves his stuffed friends! He takes good care of his baby doll, he tucks her in and feeds her (her name is Ellie). He sleeps with all the stuffed animals he can find. He loves to pretend, too, he and Caleb play and pretend all day long. One minute they are kings, the next construction workers, and then they're hanging up their Christmas lights. He has quite an imagination.

We've been doing some preschool activities in the mornings, and one day we were using yarn to figure out long and short, and they had the idea to put them all end to end and see if they were as long as the yarn. They were pretty close!

Ellie is definitely well loved!

Ellie is almost a month past her due date. She's over 8.5 pounds! She has awake times every day, where she is pretty happy. She also has a fussy time at night. She makes this cute little face sometimes......

....and, she's starting to smile! She is doing it on purpose now, although it's still hard to get a smile out of her. She is staring to "talk" also, when she's looking at you. She can be very intent on looking at you sometimes. She's mostly a happy little girl, and we're glad to have her around!

Happy Due Date

Ellie is three months old today, and today is her due date! So she is now zero, a newborn. Her development and growth will be based on today's date, for the first two to three years, rather than on the day she was actually born.

Ellie has been home for three weeks, and as of a week ago, she was 6 lb, 8 oz and 18.5" long. When she left the hospital she was eating about 2 oz every four hours, and now she's eating about 3 oz every four hours. All the hair on the top of her head has fallen off, Ian keeps saying she doesn't look like a girl without long hair. She does look more feminine with a bow in her hair (these pictures may show lots of bows, but really she spends very little of her life with a bow)! She mostly sleeps, but usually has an awake period each day, often in the evening. She grunts and groans while she sleeps, and so is quite loud, but she does sleep all night except for when she's eating.

All dressed up, with no place to go! Poor Ellie won't see much outside the walls of our house for months. If she gets sick, she could get really sick, back-in-the-hospital sick. So, she stays home to try and avoid germs (the doctor's office is the only place she gets to go, ironically, a place full of germy little kids......). Everyone has to wash their hands to be near her, change their clothes when they come home from work/school/church/the store, and stay away when they are sick. That's a little tricky when there are three little boys in the house who keep getting sick! But so far, Ellie has been healthy.

She's been busy helping me with the laundry since she's been home :). She liked this basket of warm-from-the-dryer clothes!

Ellie spent her first Christmas mostly sleeping, she didn't care much for any of the festivities, but her brothers were more than happy to open gifts for her. She finally woke up at night after her brothers were in bed, looking like a darling little elf!

And, just because I think they're cute.....

Christmas came early this year....

We got our favorite Christmas present on Dec 14 - Ellie came home!

I spent the night before her discharge in this room in the hospital with her. I didn't get any sleep, she was awake for a lot of the night!

All dressed and ready to go home! She got her feeding tube out the day before, she now has no cords, wires, or tubes! She's our first wireless baby!

Her first night at home went much better than her last night at the hospital! She actually woke up to eat (her brothers had to be woken up, several times during each bottle, when they were first home) and slept in between. Her nurse got her on a 4 hour schedule, so she eats only every 4 hours.

She came home at 71 days old, 37 weeks gestation, 5 lb 7 oz, 17" long. Here she is with her bear today, as compared to her with her bear when she was at her smallest. She has grown quite a bit!

Ian especially is really excited to have her home, and has wanted to hold her. Levi is fascinated by her, and Caleb keeps saying, as she makes noises in her sleep that we hear on the monitor, "that's Ellie on the thermometer!"

December 5

John and the boys survived their first week of work and school with me gone. They were more prepared this time for me leaving, which I think helped. Ian is actually enjoying the after school program, and Caleb and Levi like their "school." I think they're having a good time with their dad. He took them to see Santa yesterday. They saw Santa ride in on his horse, and got to sit on the horse (Ian and Levi did), then went to another location and got to talk to Santa. They've played in the snow, and watched movies. I think they're getting along pretty well!

Today Ellie is 4 lb 14 oz! She's really getting big! She has gained half a pound just this week.

I just thought this was cute, she had her first bath this week and her hair was all fuzzy and clean.

Her arm was as big as my finger when she was born, it's at least twice that big now.

Ellie moved into an open crib this week! That means she's holding her own temperature now. She is working on eating, last Monday the nurse let her try her whole bottle (she was only supposed to try 1/4 of it), which she ate, and that convinced the doctor that she should be able to try her bottles if she was ready for them. By the end of the week she was trying all 8 times, not finishing all, but at least trying. Then she got her two month immunizations, which did not make her very happy, but then today again she ate well. So now that she's breathing well, and holding her temperature, she just needs to eat all her bottles for long enough that they are convinced she can do it and she'll be able to come home!

And just for fun, some winter pictures....not sure if you can tell how steep this road is or not (the bottom of the hill is down under that highway overpass), but when it's snowy and icy it's not really a hill I'd want to be on! Thankfully now the main roads are nice and dry around here, much better than the slippery slush of the beginning of the week.

This is quite the icicle!

Talk about being snowed in.......