Be Mine!

(Had the onesie - couldn't resist!)

Cousins

My sister, sister-in-law and I were all pregnant at the same time and due within 8 weeks of each other.  Tate was supposed to be the last one born....Ashley is 4 days younger than Tate and Carver is about 7 weeks younger than the 2 of them.  Carver is the biggest in weight (and also has more hair than Ashley and Tate combined!), but he had a head start since he weighed almost 9 pounds when he was born! Ashley is a lot taller than the 2 of them- but she has already grown more than 5 inches in length since she was born!

It's going to be lots of fun- and more than a little crazy - watching the 3 of them grow up together!

First Smiles

Tate gave us his first real smiles today - and, of course, they were for Daddy not Mommy.  He is such a daddy's boy!  He has smiled several times for us throughout the day - luckily I had my camera out and ready at one point and I caught these.

Cousin Ashley

Tate finally got to meet one of his cousins this week - Cousin Ashley came over for a visit.  Ashley is my sister's little girl and she is 4 days younger than Tate.  Their first little play date didn't go so great - we put them down on the blanket together for pictures and Tate started crying immediately...

Ashley's like "I don't know what's wrong with this kid

Until Tate decides to try and eat her arm.  She wasn't having any of that!

Ashley was born with a condition called laryngomalacia, which basically means her voicebox collapses in on itself when she breathes, causing airway obstruction.  Most children outgrow this condition by the age of 2, but some have to have surgery to correct it.  Ashley also has severe acid reflux (a common condition in babies with laryngomalacia) and her pediatrician is concerned about her weight gain because she isn't gaining weight as quickly as most babies (another side effect of the laryngomalacia).  Because of this, they might soon be meeting with a surgeon at Children's Mercy (the closest place that does the specialized surgery) about the option of doing surgery. Please add Ashley and her mom and dad to your prayers.  Pray that she starts gaining more weight, more quickly and that her laryngomalacia will start healing on its own.

been busy

With weather like this:

Some places around here got 8-12 inches of snow.  I don't think we had that much here, but schools are closed again (third day in 7 days!) because of the brutal cold.  It's 9:30 am and the wind chill is still -13 degrees!  Brrrr! Plus it just started snowing again!

combined with the fact that we aren't supposed to take Tate anywhere....I have had lots of time to get some of my projects done.  And it's a good thing too.  Jamie laid down the law last week and said I could NOT start any more new projects till I finished all the ones I had half way done.  So I got to work (and put Jamie to work.)  Here's a little preview of all my finished projects...and I have a whole list of new ones waiting to get started! 

vinyl above the bay window in Tate's room

the abacus that my handy husband built.  It turned out really cute. I love it.  I got the idea from a blog I follow - Under the Table and Dreaming. We changed it up a little to go in a kids room.  Hudson loves playing with it so I am sure Tate will someday too. 

the rag quilt I made for Tate.  I have never attempted a sewing project like this before.  I am really pleased with out it turned out.  Not perfect but handmade by mommy.

Close up detail of the quilt.  This is the fabric that was the inspiration for the color in Tate's room.

A sign I made from a tin plaque I bought off the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby.  I just spraypainted over the picture on it and then used my cricut to decopauge the letters on.

The shelf Jamie made that hangs over the changing table.  Found this idea on my favorite site - http://www.anawhite.com/. She's amazing!

Another sign I made and stickers I put on the picture frame.

I made this at taxgedo.com.  Really cool concept.  It takes words and makes a shape out of the words.  All I had to do was put in my blog address and it used the words from my posts to make this elephant shape.  Cute and meaningful since it used words from all the posts I wrote while Tate was in the NICU.  And I handmade the frame matte out of some leftover fabric from the quilt.

And the "T" mobile over Tate's crib.  I saw this idea on a website too - can't remember which one.  It's made from sewing circles and a wooden "T" that I spraypainted.  Then I strung it together with fishing wire and a couple beads and Jamie hung it from the celing.  Cute!

So that's all the projects in Tate's room (for now!).  On to the rest of the house:

I had the intention to put some vinyl letters up in Hudson's big boy room, but because of the circumstances, never got it done.  So since I had the cricut out - I put this up on his wall.  I really like it!



And I went a little crazy with the Cricut vinyl and since it's been 9 months since I redid the master bedroom, and I still hadn't come up with anythign to put above the bed, I went ahead and put some vinyl up to.  I like it too...but I already have several other ideas floating around my head to do above the bed, so we'll see how long it lasts!  Good thing it was free!



and my new mantel decor...minus candles for the candleholders and a picture in the big frame.  I am going to take a picture of the boys for the big frame...just waiting on Hudson's hair to grow out a little longer first.  Gigi cut it REALLY short right after Christmas and I want some of his curls in it...

We have lived in our house 6 years this month and I still had several windows without window treatments!  When we put the blinds up in Tate's room we also put blinds up on the 2 windows in the basement. So that left only 2 windows without treatments.  The back patio door and the bay window in the kitchen.  I actually started making curtains for the kitchen windows about a year ago and ran out of fabric.  So that's one of my goals in the next few months to get more fabric (if they still have it!) and finish those.  The other day I finally found some curtains and put them up on the back door.  I wasn't sure what to do here because it's a sliding door and we have a doggy door in, hence the reason nothing's ever been put up.  So I decided to just find something and go with it.   I found these panels for 9.99 each at Tuesday morning, and used my 40% off coupon for the rod at Hobby Lobby.  So I finished this window for less than $30 - and I love the finished look it gives the upstairs.  Should have done it a long time ago!  Now the only question is whether the dogs will be able to use the doggy door still.  I think they'll figure it out!  (And speaking of the dogs ...they have been at my grandma's since I went in to the hospital, and no, we haven't gone over to pick them up yet!  Some day soon!  When it stops snowing and warms up a bit!  She keeps telling me not to rush - so I'm not!)

So that's everything I've been up to...in addition to taking care of the boys, cooking, cleaning, paying our medical bills (yikes!) and getting caught up on clinic stuff.  I got the billing and posting reviewed through the end of the year. Now I have to do the books, then get started on our taxes.  I have a month before taxes are due, so I better get on it!

Bottlefeeding

Since I've talked so much about the bottlefeeding I thought I'd show you how it's done. Tate is doing SO much better now with his eating. He rarely chokes anymore (although he did while he was filming so I stuck that in so you could get a sense of how scary that is - and this wasn't as bad as some of them. He's up to 85 mls now. It is taking him about 12 minutes to finish a bottle. Pretty good considering we started out at around 30 mls and he had 30 minutes to finish it...and rarely finished them. So far we haven't seen him trying to pace himself (breathe while he's sucking) so we are still pacing him - although I now let him go about 5-6 sucks before sitting him back up to breathe. So he's doing better. You'll see that towards the end he gets pretty tired and his breathing gets raspier. Plus you can really see him do his "catch up breathing" when his body shakes with each breath.

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11 weeks

Tate is 11 weeks old today. Two weeks, three days adjusted age. He has changed a lot this last week. He’s started being awake more often, for longer periods of time. In addition to looking at the blinds and lights, he’s started watching our faces. I have even heard a few little “coo” sounds from him. And I just might have gotten a tiny bit of a smile out of him this evening.


Tate quickly learned that when he cries someone comes and picks him up. So now he cries louder. And louder. He rarely cried in the NICU. Maybe he just had to reach his due date first. But when he figured it out, he figured it out! Hudson hates it when he cries. He covers his ears and says “Tate’s crying. He must be hungry.” Although the other day instead of saying he was hungry he did say “he must need me”.

He’s holding his head up a little more and we’ve started doing some tummy time too. So far he likes it better than Hudson ever did. Tate’s eyes are still a gorgeous slate color. Halfway between blue and gray. I’m hoping they’ll stay that way but I’m guessing they probably won’t.

Tate has been home from the NICU for 24 days. It’s weird cause it almost seems like that whole thing never happened. As soon as we got home and adjusted to being here we’ve kind of forgotten everything we went through. It feels like we just had a baby and brought him home. It’s kind of nice to be able to “forget” all of that and put it behind us. Now we’re just a little family of four – figuring out our new life and enjoying our time together.

I think Tate is starting to do better with breastfeeding. Instead of offering him a bottle right away after he nurses I’ve started waiting to see when he gets fussy again. At first it was pretty much immediately, or at least within 5 minutes, but the last 2 days he’s gone back to sleep for about an hour before acting hungry again. So either I’m wearing him out cause I’m letting him nurse a little longer or he’s getting more milk. Not sure which. Since he should be close to 8 pounds now I’m going to try to add another nursing session in during the day and see how he does. But, to be honest, it’s a little annoying trying to add the nursing sessions in with his bottles. We have him on a nice schedule and then I nurse him and it throws the schedule off, which in turn throws my pumping off. Which is hard enough to keep up with as it is. So I’m struggling through figuring that all out. It would be nice to get him up to where he was only nursing at night at least. Then we wouldn’t have to mess with bottles when we’re half asleep, walking around like zombies. But until he’s actually taking in enough there’s no point in trying it. Otherwise I’ll be up nursing every hour…

Tate’s taking his bottles like a pro. He’s up to 80 mls now! It’s pretty rare for him to not finish a bottle anymore and he doesn’t choke much anymore either. He doesn’t need the chin and cheek support as much as he used to, although we still have to pace him. They said one day it will just kick in and he’ll start pacing himself. But we haven’t seen any sign of that yet, and we’re too scared of choking to push it too much. But it’s going to be hard to keep feeding him like we do as he gets bigger, so I hope he figures it out sometime soon.

Jamie goes back to his regular hours at the clinic tomorrow. I’m a little nervous about that. It will be my first full day alone (except for his lunch break) with both boys. Hudson hasn’t taken a nap the last 2 days. So adding his screaming and crying for an hour and a half in with Tate starting to being awake more has been frustrating. But we’ll figure it out.

We’re in the middle of a blizzard here, but since we never leave the house anyway it’s not a big deal. But it’s been nice today to look out at the snow and hear the wind howling and know I have an excuse to not go anywhere!