So, when I had my shower in Bradenton, Chris's mom got MaryCate her very first antique. I am totally into it...but I am not into letting it sit in her room or the garage, I actually love to use this thing. It is a very old wooden buggy and she LOVES it. I can only use it at duskish time, because during the day it is too sunny and provides no shade. She loves to lay in the buggy and look all around. I use it to walk down to Publix and usually pick up a few things for dinner. The Publix workers love when I come in!! I am limited though since I can only fit so much in there with her. I wish we could take it to WI and use the sled part, but Chris claims it's just not practical to pack---whatever!! See the fun pictures below!


Look how much this girl loves her momma

Here I am pushing it along

Here she is carying all my groceries and my wallet

Seriously MaryCate

OK---so I got up this morning and I am so pumped for my day. Young Life has this great benefit where we are able to get massages covered at 70%, so Chris and I are totally into it...I was getting one today he is on schedule for tomorrow. I wake up, get ready and Chris and I get MC ready. He takes her to the office and I am off to my appointment. The massage was great and I am feeling all relaxed. I go to pick up MC. While I am at the Young LIfe office I have Chris help me test out the baby bjorn because I am pumped to use it. We had not used it up until now because of the oxygen, it was just too hard to coordinate. We put her in and she seems to love it. I think to myself --- this is great, I will plop her in this and get the rest of my Christmas shopping done this afternoon. So I feed her, make sure she burps proportionately and we are off. I get to the outdoor mall and get her all strapped in. I am totally feeling like a hip mom and loving it. I walk into the first store and exactly what I want to get for my brother is on sale---I continue thinking, does is get ANY BETTER? Then it starts....MaryCate coughs a little, and I am starting to panic because I know what comes next. For those of you that do not know MaryCate has a bit of reflux. It doesn't only occur when she is eating, it can happen at any given moment. So I throw down my item and quickly walk outside. As soon as I get outside, no joke the girl pukes DOWN my shirt....not on my shirt, straight up down it. I am wearing a collared shirt and she puked right in the opening down it. At this point I am no longer the cool hip mom I thought I was...I smell like baby barf and my daughter is simply laughing. I make my way to the car...mind you as I am walking I hear a family go ---"oh what a cute baby" and I am thinking if you only knew....since it went down my shirt almost no one around could tell what happened. We are now home and I am busy washing my shirt, her clothes and the Bjorn----I think I will wait a while to do that again and who knows if I'll ever get to that Christmas shopping!! See picture below of the hippest mom on the block!

OH Happy Day

At last the day has come. Our doctor visit went great and MaryCate is officially off the oxygen. No tubes!! I am not sure if she is more happy to be free of the tube in her nose, or if mom is more happy to be free from carrying all those cylinders around every day!! It is surely a happy day. We have been busy this week making sure we have all our ducks in a row for our trip to WI. Lots of calls to doctors to make sure she has what she needs. Now that MC is 6 months she can get her flu shot so we will get that taken care of next week and be ready for the cold. Just thought I would share the good news, as you can see from the pictures above, MaryCate is just as thrilled as we are! We are off to an OT appointment.

BIG DAY ........

This is what MaryCate learns in OT---how to hold her rattle!!


SO tomorrow is a VERY BIG day for MaryCate. We go to the pulmonoligist and so long as all goes as planned she will come off of her canula and no longer require oxygen. I am sure MaryCate cannot wait to get that thing out of her nose but you have no idea how thrilled mommy will be to get rid of all the tanks and tubes. I cannot wait to use the sling and baby bjorn--although I could use them before it was not easy. I will keep you posted and we will hopefully begin to post loads of no tube pictures!!!

Miles of smiles

OK---seriously, MaryCate is all smiles these days. Anytime I talk or even just look at her she will just start laughing, it is AWESOME. I am loving it. I sometimes think it is unbelievable how good she is and how much she smiles, it does not take much at all. I hope this continues, and I hope we can get some good pictures while she is in this stage.

In other news, I am obsessed with washing and sanitizing my hands, to make sure she does not get sick. Tonight I realized what a toll it has been taking on my hands, they are so cracked and dried out it is rediculous. I think tonight I will sleep with lots of lotion and the special gloves to try and recapture the moisture-----enjoy the smiles!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care.....

Our stockings hanging above the fireplace---I am not sure how but MaryCate's is quite a bit larger than ours...I am sure she will have no problem with this


Our Christmas tree all set up and decorated perfectly


...In hopes that St. Nick would come, and he sure did!!
So when Chris and I first got married St. Nick was a bit of a contraversy, Chris had never heard of it. I was not sure where it came from but I knew we celebrated and I wanted to continue. I think when he realized he might get some fun presents he was in, but he hates getting presents before X-mas so he tried to argue against it. To make it a bit easier on him, we did regular gifts from St. Nick---I get a x-mas cd, and he gets boxers!! My sister-in-law tried to tell me this year that since we had kids, no St. Nick for us---to that I said NO WAY. So he did indeed come, even to MaryCate. I got not only Faith Hill's new Christmas CD but peppermint oreos as well---I must have been extra good this year. MaryCate got diapers, formula and a warm outfit for Wisconsin, and Chris got boxers of course, as well as some gum, kitkats, and grape juice, which are all his favorites.

We also started a new tradition. For those of you that do not know me that well, I am WAY into traditions. Chris actually gets nervous every time he does something that we are going to have to do it again at the same time next year. Anyhow we decided to make oatmeal in the crockpot on the night St. Nick comes.....it made the house smell great and made for a really fun treat while we were opening up our stockings!!

Dr.'s Dr.'s and more Dr.'s

Can anyone really resist those cheeks!

MaryCate loves her Grandma's



So obviously the life a preemie is filled with doctors. More times than not this is a great thing. She gets weighed a lot, which I love and they are all watching her every move to make sure she is growing and developing in so many areas and on so many levels. I feel so safe.
But it gets really complicated when they all tell you to do something different. One will say keeping her in the car seat is good because it keeps her form arching her back and will help with development, while another says keep her out of it because it does not help with the reflux. One says feed her on demand and do not give her more than she wants, while another says make sure she is getting 25-30 oz every day even if that means feeding every 2 hours---and then another says do not feed every 2 hours because that is not long enough for the stomach to empty. So what do I do?? I give up and go with my gut----they always say momma knows best right!!

Team Dinners

So I think I mentioned that we had the entire basketball team over for spaghetti 2 days after we moved in. If that wasn't bad enough, last week====the week of Thanksgiving, on Monday Chris remembered that there was another home game on Tuesday...you gotta be kidding me. I about died but we quickly joined forces and whipped up a meal once again for 14 players and a few of the coaches. Needless to say I have taken it upon myself to get the schedule and now I KNOW when I can expect them again. I included some shots of the team here at the house. It really is a blast to have them here, they are all so polite and love to see MaryCate.
Here are 1/2 the guys eating in the family room

And here are the other 1/2 the guys eating around the dining room table

This is Josh, who mind you measures in at 6'11". It is so fun to put him next to MaryCate---I just am always reminding them, you can look but do not touch, unless you are fully sanatized, thank you very much

Sleeping Beauty

MaryCate loves to hang out in her robe after her daily bath----so here she is just lounging around!




So if I haven't said it before, I believe based on what I hear from other moms, MaryCate is a pretty easy baby. She eats, plays and sleeps, poops on occasion. Anyhow her newest trick is sleeping for long periods of time----most mothers dream come true....and for a while it was for me. Yesterday MaryCate had her 6 month appointment. She is up to 10 lbs 7oz and measuring just fine for her adjusted age of 2 1/2 months. Her shots did not go as well as they had in the past. I think while in the NICU she was so used to getting pricked it was no big deal, but yesterday oh man it was a big deal. I think I almost made the nurse cry. Anyway I knew I would have to talk to the Dr. about her sleeping, literally like 6-8 hours a night, and so last week I decided to track how much she was eating. Some days she will go with only eating 12-14 oz and the Dr. wants her eating 20-30 (which I am not sure I understand because they all she is gaining weight fine)...so basically that means I need to wake her up to feed her....are you serious??? I have a baby that sleeps through the night and I can't even enjoy it?? Well needless to say I am going to do everything I can to get the oz in during the day --- biggest problem is she pukes when she gets too much at a time, so I am feeding her less but more often. It is like a puzzle trying to figure it out but well worth it if it means I get to sleep 8 hours!!!