Circus and Snow!

The circus was in town last weekend and Kaitlyn absolutely could not wait. It wasn't even the big time circus - just Circus Gatti. She didn't have anything to compare it to... this was her first circus experience. She had a BLAST. My mom was in town and her goal was to make it the best time ever for Kaitlyn. This is why she was able to enjoy:

The $8 elephant ride.

The $10 snow cone. (Don't worry, the cup lights up)

The $3 coloring book. Not too bad actually....

And although it doesn't look like it in that last picture, she had the time of her life. Her eyes were glued to the show the entire time. I think mom and I had more fun watching her than watching the circus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And because we live in Texas, we got to enjoy snow yesterday! This was Cora's first time to "play" in the snow. She loved it and cried her head off when I brought her back inside.

I have more fun snow pictures, but blogger is done with me I guess. I'll try again later. Happy Tuesday!

A few things I want to Remember

All about Kaitlyn...

* Anytime we are in the car she loves looking for "slug bugs" and "cruisers." (PT Cruisers) She is very good at spotting them. If she sees a slug bug, she also has to say the color. My favorite is when she sees a yellow one, she says "Slug bug! Yeller!

* She is absolutely in love with her sisters. She is such a big help around the house. She can even almost change a diaper by herself. This is a new thing we are working on. She is good at feeding Claire. And she loves to read to and play with Cora.

* She is a VERY big help around the house. She loves to clean the house with me - especially anything that requires dusting or Windex.

* She loves cinnamon toast.

* She actually enjoys shopping and trying on clothes. I don't know where she got this from, because I hate it.

* She is learning to read and doing very well! She reads a couple of B.O.B. books every night. She asks about Kindergarten frequently and when we can go sign her up.

* She is very into Webkinz. She has two of them that she is very good at taking care of. Chelsea and Wolfie are two of her favorite things in the world. (Even though Chelsea the Koala bear is currently missing)

* She has to color every night while I dry her hair. It has to be with a marker.

* She has started a snow globe collection. She calls them snow glows.

* She is just growing up so fast and we are so proud of her!

All about Cora......

* She also loves her sisters. She gives Claire kisses on the head all of the time. (I have a cute video of this that I need to try to post)

* Her words now are mommy, daddy, baby, sissy, Pappy, Mamaw, Nana, No, Bye-bye, please, thank you, pat-pat, Brenna, uh-oh. Not all very clear, but understandable!


* She loves to curl her tongue and chew on it.

* She is very good at taking off her socks and shoes in the car.

* She loves to "brush" her teeth, or have her teeth brushed. Or just chew on the toothbrush.

* She is getting a lot of teeth right now.

* One of her favorite things to do is take a cushion (always the same one) off of the couch and jump on the couch where the cushion was.

* She LOVES looking at books. She will bring a book to me (or anyone) and then just turn around and sit on my lap and wait for me to read it.

* She loves to sit on her pink bean bag and watch Baby Einstein movies.

* Her favorite toys to play with are a Tylenol bottle and a teething tablet bottle.

* She is still taking 2 good naps a day, which I LOVE.

* She loves to play chase around the house - this makes her laugh really hard. Her little laugh is so cute.

* She is the pickiest eater. I don't know how she stays so fat. She really only drinks milk and eats yogurt. Vegetables are the hardest to get her to eat, and she really won't eat fruit that much either. She does like Nutri grain bars and gold fish and bread. I hope she learns to like other things soon! What does/did your one year old like to eat?

All about Claire.....

* Little miss Claire got SPOILED rotten in the hospital. She was pretty much held for 6 days straight and now she thinks that's the norm. She doesn't like to be put down too much. Once we get her to sleep it's about a 50/50 shot at getting her to stay asleep once we do put her down.

* I think she is going to have big blue eyes like Cora.

* She sometimes likes her paci, but she is not, by any means, attached to it. She has also found her thumb a couple of times.

* She is a tummy sleeper - just like Kaitlyn.

* She is starting to smile more and more. It's funny to hear Kaitlyn talk to her in a real high pitched voice. She smiles a lot at that.

* She's a good eater! She is eating about 5 ounces every 4 ours or so. Her longest stretch at night so far has been about 7 hours. Not too bad.

I love our girls so much, but I am one tired momma. I did start back at the gym last week, so I'm hoping my energy will start to pick up. I've got some serious weight to lose before my brothers wedding in July.

The past few weeks we have enjoyed play dates with friends, Kaitlyn has started playing her second season of soccer, lots of trips to the doctor, a few shopping runs with all 3 kids, a couple of ACU baseball games, basketball games, and family walks on Sunday afternoons.

Sweet girl...

The fake cry...

kaitlyn reading to cora.. I love the expression on her face

what kaitlyn can do to cora when i'm not looking. she is ready to go with her backpack, her necklace, her lipgloss... and oh yeah - the laundry basket.

Baby Claire..

Happy Valentines Day to my FOUR Valentines...

There's no place like HOME....

We have all enjoyed having Claire back home with us. That was a long six days! She has been doing very well the past 24 hours. We will take her for a follow up appointment on Friday and then enjoy the rest of this flu season from the comfort of home.

Her sisters were especially excited to see her....

We think she may even have some red hair! This picture doesn't show it all that well, but what do you think?

Enough of this!

Claire has decided she has had enough of this stuffy room. Hopefully - if she continues to do well, we can go home this evening!!!!

She had a really great night and has been off of the oxygen since early this morning. If she can go through all of her cycles (resting, eating, awake) and stay in the mid to high 90's, then we are outta here. Praise the Lord!

I have to admit - as much as I want her home, there is a slight level of fear of having her there. My prayer now is that I can just trust that God will take care of her and I won't have to stay awake and watch her every breath.

Yay for 100%!!!!!!

End of Day 6

Claire and I are just hanging out watching the Grammy's...

There hasn't been much change today. They went ahead and did another chest x-ray this morning. We'll get the results of that in the morning. Hopefully things are starting to look better.

Her respiratory therapist was just in and said she's not going to take her off of the oxygen again until tomorrow. UGH!! The doctor wants it to be 94% or higher when she is off oxygen. Today she has been sitting at 95 or 96 while receiving oxygen. So... again - we just wait for her little lungs to clear up.

Good news: Her feedings have gotten much better. She hasn't thrown up since 11:30 last night. We had to stop her formula for awhile and just give her Pedialite. Now we are just watering her bottles down and she seems to be tolerating that pretty well.

Kaitlyn is feeling much better today. She has her appetite back and is not coughing quite as much. Sweet Cora's just been walking around wondering what the heck is going on. She has walked over to Claire's swing a few times and rocks it saying, "baby, baby...."

Hopefully she'll be swingin' again soon.

Day 5

It is such a beautiful day outside today! I am sitting on my little bed in the hospital room with the sunshine spilling in on me.... I kind of feel like I'm outside! Little Claire is asleep next to me in her Pappy's arms snoring away. Or maybe it's congestion. I don't know.

This floor of the hospital is completely FULL of sick babies with the same stuff Claire has. It's so sad to walk down the hall and hear all the tiny little cries. It's just not right I tell you!

The doctor made rounds today and things are a little bit better (I think). Her chest is beginning to sound less "crackely." She is just on a tiny bit of oxygen - I think the lowest setting. But still, everytime they take her off her level drops within the hour. It's so strange to me that 1/16 of a liter of oxygen - hardly anything - can make such a difference to such tiny lungs.

She is also struggling with her feedings. After every other feeding she throws up. And I'm not talking about a little spit up on my shoulder. She coughs and coughs and coughs and then throws up everything in her little tummy.. until there is just nothing left. Not sure what this is all about...

So, we wait. I have taken some really sweet pictures of her up here (I think her hospital gown is really cute), but James won't let me post them on here... you can take that up with him.

Thanks for thinking of us!

Day 4, Going on 5...

Claire has decided she is just going to take up residence here at the hospital. She must really like it. She seems to be doing a little better though, which makes me very happy. However, they didn't even attempt to take her off of oxygen yesterday because she really wasn't ever at 100% even with the nasal cannula. This morning they tried taking her off of it, but that only lasted for about 10 minutes until they had to put her back on.

We also got the results back from her Echo cardiogram. Forgive me - I can't remember the technical names for anything. Basically, Claire has a hole - not in her actual heart, but in one of the passageways where blood travels to and from her heart. The doctor said it is possible, but not likely, that is affecting her current condition. If all of her flu/bronchitis symptoms go away and her oxygen levels remain low - then they will possibly do more testing.

Most likely this hole will close on it's own as her heart grows. If it doesn't, then there is a simple surgical procedure that can fix it.

We really have no idea how much longer we will be here. Hopefully just a couple more days. It really is draining, and I feel pulled in so many directions with two other kids at home.

Update

Well, we are still here. We're not going home today. Claire is still about the same. Her little lungs just still can't get the oxygen that she needs yet. It doesn't sound like we can go home until she is completely off oxygen for 24 hours. The doctor is pretty sure she has the flu and bronchitis. Not too fun for a 2 1/2 week old. Today they have just still been giving her breathing treatments and sucking out her nose and throat (not a fun thing to watch). We are still waiting on resuls from the Echo-cardiogram that they did yesterday. Thanks for your prayers!

Kaitlyn and Cora are doing okay. Kaitlyn is still running a fever and threw up a little bit this morning. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon. My mom and grandmother are here helping out - I seriously don't know what I would do without them here!

BTW - James turns 30 today. I wanted today to be really fun for him, and I'm not sure how that will happen. So, leave him a birthday wish!

Prayers for Claire

We had to take Claire to the ER last night because she was having trouble breathing. They went ahead and admitted her and we will be there until at least tomorrow. They have run all sorts of tests on her lungs/heart and so far everything has come back okay - but we are still waiting on a couple more results and for her oxygen levels to stabilize.

She gave us quite a scare, but I think everything will be okay. I just ran home to take a quick shower and then I am back up there.

Oh, and James had to take Kaitlyn to the doctor this morning as well - she has a full blown case of the flu.

When it rains, it pours.

More updates later...

Yada, yada, yada

All three girls are asleep right now. WHAT?! I know. I'm trying to enjoy every minute. So, instead of putting on a load of laundry, sweeping the floor, or washing out bottles - I'm blogging. Oh well. I just uploaded a bunch of pictures from the past couple of weeks.....

This is what we did to some of our Huddle girls last Wednesday night. I'm sure there is a spiritual application there somewhere.....

A couple of weeks ago, James took Kaitlyn and Cora to visit his friends at an "Activity Center for old folks." That's my name for it at least. This guy is literally 100 years old. He had fun pushing Cora around in his walker. I'm sure Kaitlyn just talked everyone's ear off. I think they had a good time.

I chopped and donated 10 inches of my hair. You can't see it really good in this picture (Kaitlyn took it), but I guess you can get the idea. It's way short. Yikes.

Just a few pictures of my three girls...

These little "stacking dolls" (not sure of their real name) are Cora's favorite thing right now. She will literally play with them for an hour straight.

Happy Friday!

Our family just keeps growing!!

I am so excited!! My brother Neil and his girlfriend Brittany got engaged on Friday night. It was so fun talking to him throughout the week as he bought the ring and made the proposal plans. After he proposed, he had planned for all of their friends and family to surprise her at a restaurant for a little engagement party. I hated missing it!

They are hoping to get married sometime this summer. I can't wait! I love Brittany and am so excited that she will be joining our family.

I should be getting more pictures soon, but this is when they first walked in to their party and everyone started cheering...

Our Little Squeaker

Since day one, we have nicknamed Claire "Squeaker." She just always squeaks. She squeaks when she is awake and when she is sleeping. Her breathing even sounds squeaky sometimes.

Yesterday we took Claire to her 2 week doctor's appointment. She weighed 9 pounds and was 22 1/2 inches long. So, she has grown a pound and a half and an inch and a half since she was born.

The strange thing was, after he listened to her heart (for a really long time), he said, "Well, she has a little SQUEAK in her heart." He didn't seem too overly concerned about it right now, but if it is still there at her 2 month appointment, we will have to take her to a cardiologist for more tests.

So, pray with us that next time we go to the doctor, the only squeaks he will hear will be from her sweet little mouth!

Ready or not, here I come!!

So, here's how it all went down. If you don't care to hear about the whole delivery, feel free to skip this post! Shanta - this may include you.

We checked into the hospital at 5:00 AM on Friday, January 11th. Actually, the story begins at 4:45AM when David Pittman brought breakfast to our house. How awesome is that?! It really was a great start to the day. Who knew that the banana I ate would later interfere with my tubal surgery....

I have no idea what time everything happened. But this is the order:

* Check in, change into the fabulously stylish hospital gown. Get all comfy in bed and answer about 1000 questions.

* Make small talk with the nurse while she sticks me 3 times looking for a good spot for the IV. Finally is successful in my right hand.

* Pitocin is started to get the contractions going. Thank you.

* Dr. comes in to break my water. This was WAY painful. He literally had to move the baby out of the way to even get to the bag of water. After he was through, he kindly said "Your tonsils look great too." W.O.W.

* Nursing shift change at 7:00 AM and Caroline walks into the room. I was so excited. She was the best nurse ever - we had her with Cora and were so excited to see her again.

* Anesthesia comes to give me an epidural. I wasn't even feeling anything at this point, so I was getting very excited and hopeful that I would not feel one thing throughout this entire delivery. I was really nervous about the epidural this time b/c I got a spinal headache last time, and I didn't want that to happen again. It went in fine - not too painful. It worked great for about 45 minutes.

* During those 45 minutes, my parents brought the girls up to see me. We enjoyed visiting and hanging out for awhile before things got crazy.

* Played the electronic 20 Questions game with my fabulous nurse Caroline and James for awhile.

* 45 minutes is up.. start feeling the contractions. We let Caroline know ASAP and she begins to call for Anesthesia to come up my epidural.

* Long story short - he got there too late. I went from a 3 to a 10 in like an hour and a half. The epidural never could catch up to that - and I felt every single thing that happened.

* Fortunately, I only had to push about 5 times. That was the worst pain I think I have ever felt.
* I forgot all about that pain a few seconds later when I heard Claire's little cry.

* I was reminded of the pain again when the Dr. tells me I have to push the placenta out.

* Pain goes away quickly again. We get to hold our third baby girl and are overwhelmed one final time with the inexpressible joy that comes with seeing your baby for the first time.

* Family comes in to see Claire. Cora is not sure of anything... Kaitlyn can't wait to hold her. I'm still trying to just hold it together.

* About an hour later, they tell me it's time to head to the O.R. for my tubal. By this time my epidural has kicked in.

* As they are wheeling me down to the O.R. they find out that I had eaten a banana at 4:45 that morning. This means they are unable to put me under for the surgery, and will rely on the epidural that has just decided to kick in.

* With a little more medicine, I am completely numb from the shoulders down and they proceed to cut my belly button open and formally complete our family of five. During the surgery they discover that I had a hernia under my belly button and and a small cyst (later turned out to be a benign tumor on one of my tubes) that he had to remove.

* I hang out with Caroline for a couple of hours in the recovery room before I'm finally wheeled to a regular room and am able to spend some time with Claire.

So, there you have it. It was a very long day, but a most wonderful one.

I just think this is a really cool picture with our doctor, and the light coming into the room and everything.

Caroline and Claire

One week down!

Well, we have managed to survive one week and one day as a family of five. With the help of both of our mom's however. Today is our first day with just us. James took Kaitlyn and Cora to church this morning, so Claire and I are just hanging out. I thought I would post some pictures of our first week at home. It has been so sweet watching Kaitlyn and Cora love on their new baby sister.

As soon as I gave Claire to Kaitlyn she, very loudly, "unloaded" if you know what I mean.

Claire Elizabeth

Well, we made it home today! I'm sorry it's taken us awhile to update on her arrival! I'm too tired to post the entire story, but after a very NON EFFECTIVE epidural, Claire made it safely weighing in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and a whopping 21 inches long. She was the lightest of the 3 girls, but tied with Kaitlyn for the longest. She is just as sweet as can be and we are so blessed and honored that God chose us to be her parents. Kaitlyn is being a great Big Sister just as she was/is with Cora. Cora, however, is having a little bit of a hard time adjusting. She wants nothing to do with me right now. It doesn't help that I can't pick her up or hold her - because of the surgery to have my tubes tied. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks she will adjust! It just kills me to not be able to pick her up and squeeze her!

Enough about that! Here are a few pictures of sweet Claire. Thanks for your prayers! I'll write more about the "birth story" later.

Just one more night...

Well, we have to be at the hospital in 6 hours. I might as well just stay up and blog, right?

Tonight I had a really fun "Girls Night Out" shower at the Olive Garden. It was so fun! I am so blessed with such wonderful girlfriends. For some reason I have been really nervous about this delivery. I don't know if it's because I'm having another little surgery (tubes will be getting tied tomorrow as well) or what. I've just been a little on edge this time around. You would think by baby #3 I would just be shooting the breeze!! Anyway, after spending just a couple of hours with friends (and my mom!), I just feel a sense of peace. I'm not sure how I will feel when we get to the hospital in the morning, but for now - I feel peaceful.

I can't believe I am actually posting this picture, but here I am. Please excuse the slicked back ponytail and the no makeup.

We'll keep you posted as the events of the day unfold tomorrow. My goal is to have a baby by lunch time. We'll see if I'm right or not.

I'll leave you with a picture of my other two beautiul girls:

James took this picture last night and titled it, "LL Cora J"

Poor, poor, pitiful me....

Seriously. It's 12:30 AM and I've been trying to go to sleep since 9:15. My legs will not be still and my ribs feel like they are about to poke out of my body. So, now I have retreated to the couch and am watching Intervention on A&E. Does anyone watch this? It's so fascinating to me for some reason. It's really a sad show, but right now I just wish this girl that is addicted to pain medication would be kind enough to give me some of her stash.

Friday.... come soon!

By the way - 34 comments?? I totally did not see that coming. Uh.. I'm working on a surprise to email out. Unfortunately, I don't think I have all of your email addresses - but I'll do the best I can!

You must be really bored if you read this entire thing.

Wow. Way too long in between posts. I have no idea where to even start. Since I last posted, we have celebrated Cora's first birthday, traveled some, had Christmas, taken down everything Christmas, celebrated New Years, had doctors appointments, re organized my whole entire house, and I'm sure lots of other fun things.

My "baby" is ONE!! Her actual birthday was on December 21st, but we celebrated it the weekend before. My cousin graduated from ACU and some of our family was in town, so we just decided to have a small family/a few friends party. She had just woken up from a nap when the party was getting started, so she was a little shy. She did NOT like wearing the party hats. She cried huge tears whenever we would put one on her. She loved her little toys that she got. She wasn't too sure about the cake. She didn't want to touch it with her hands, she would just lean over and take bites out of it. It was pretty cute. Here are some of the things my sweet Cora is doing at one year:

* Her vocabulary consists of mommy, daddy, sissy, Pappy (my dad), baby, diaper (biper), pat-pat (she does this to my fat tummy and to her baby dolls), night-night (ni-ni), no-no, bye-bye, yay (she yells this when Kaitlyn is driving her around in her Jeep), more (mo), and please (pees). She talks all the time - just in her own little language. But she is rarely quiet!

* She LOVES baby dolls. Kaitlyn never really had an interest in the, but Cora has quite a few! She loves to hold them and rock them and give them kisses.

* She loves Kaitlyn and anything Kaitlyn does. It is the sweetest thing to see them together.

* She is a very picky eater. She loves her bottle. She won't eat anything chunky. Or green. She doesn't like milk. We have been making her bottles half water and formula and half milk and she hasn't noticed a difference. But, she won't drink milk out of a sippy cup. She will drink juice or water out of a cup though. Any suggestions on how to break her from her bottle are greatly appreciated.

* She loves to kiss everyone and everything.

* She is beginning to show a little bit of a temper when things are taken away from her, or if she is being redirected from somewhere she shouldn't be. She either screams really loud, or she gives you the saddest face ever, covers her mouth with her hands, lays down on the floor and cries.

* She loves bath time. And splashing. Lots of splashing.

There are many more things, but this post is going to be very long as it is. So, here are a few pictures of our precious Cora James:

Christmastime!!! We traveled to the Metroplex the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with James' side of the family, and some of my extended family in Ft. Worth. We had a wonderful time and drove home with a van full of goodies. We are so blessed with such an awesome family. I am notoriously bad at taking pictures at Christmas for some reason. But, here are a couple from that weekend:

We were back in our own house again this year for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Last year I had just had Cora and this year we were just a couple of weeks away from having Claire. Crazy. My parents and brother drove in and spent the holiday here, which was so nice. I think we are beginning to like waking up on Christmas in our own house. It will probably become our tradition. Kaitlyn got a new bike from Santa, and Cora got a little "sit and learn" chair that, believe it or not, she is completely obsessed with. This year Kaitlyn decided to leave Santa a cookie and she threw a piece of cheese out on the front porch for the reindeer. How thoughtful. I'm sure they loved that.

New Years!!! James and I actually got to go out on a date on New Years Eve. Thanks again Mom and Dad! We went out to a nice dinner and then to see Juno. I thought it was a great movie. Then we just drove around for awhile and stopped by our good friends David and Amanda's house. We thought for a second about ringing in the New Year with them and Ann and Derran, but being the completely miserable 9 month pregnant wife that I am - we were home by 9:30. I was the only one up at mid-night - and not by choice. I am just SO ready for this baby to be here.

So, that leads us to the arrival of Ms. Claire Elizabeth. She is now due to make her appearance NEXT FRIDAY!! January 11th. There is an end in sight. My doctor seems to think it could even be before then, so we will wait and see! I am so anxious to meet our third baby girl. I can't wait to see what she looks like. Mom and I finished getting the nursery re-organized with another crib, more closet storage, and a little re-arranging of furniture. I am a little overwhelmed and nervous to say the least. If you think about it, send up a prayer for us as we begin life with a 41/2 year old, a newly one year old and a baby!

Annnd..... if you are one of the 2 people still reading this, leave me a quick comment and I'll email you a surprise!

Happy New Year!