1st Thanksgiving and 10 Months

Thanksgiving

With the holidays approaching, I have really been getting in to the spirit and the true meaning behind the holidays. My life has changed so much in the past year - for the better of course! At this time last year, I was about 25 weeks pregnant and spent the weekend directly after Thanksgiving, in the hospital. I remember it all so vividly... We had my family over at our house and everybody pitched in to help bring it all together as I sat on the couch trying to stay off my feet. We had a good day eating way too much, watching football and visiting with my family. Then, on Friday night or Saturday night, I wasn't feeling very well so I called my doctor and she told me to go to the hospital and get everything checked out. Off we went, around midnight, to the hospital. I was having contractions every couple of minutes so they gave me some medicine to stop the contractions and they gave me the steroid shots to help the babies lungs develop more quickly. I stayed in the hospital until Monday and was sent home on strict bedrest, which lasted 1 week before going back on hospital bedrest for the duration of my pregnancy. I'll stop my story there and pick back up in the next couple of weeks as I post more about the holidays (last year and this year) and reflect on all the things I am thankful for.

I also wanted to name a few things I am thankful for:

*The #1 thing I am thankful for are my 3 beautiful, healthy babies, Tyler, Whitney and Hannah!
*I am thankful for my husband Craig and all he does to support and provide for our family which allows me to stay home and raise our babies.
*I am thankful for my wonderful family - the babies have such awesome Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins to grow up with and get to know.
*I am thankful that we have a warm house to live in and call home.
*I am thankful for our church and all the friends we have.
*I am thankful for God - I am thankful to know Him.
* I am thankful for our country and all the brave men and women fighting for our freedom.

There are countless other things I am thankful for but I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on a few.


Now, I'll get to this year's Thanksgiving... We had big plans for Thanksgiving, although all didn't work out quite as planned. Wednesday, we had planned to visit with some of Craig's families long time friends that were in town from out of state. Unfortunately, that did not happen because the babies all started getting sick. It started with Tyler on Sunday. He started sneezing and having a runny nose and struggling to breathe through his nose. Then by Tuesday, Whitney and Hannah had it as well. I was pretty bummed because I was so looking forward to celebrating the holidays with all the family, especially with it being the babies first Thanksgiving, and now we didn't know for sure if we were going to be able to go. Tuesday night was awful! Hannah kept us up most the night crying inconsolably. Then, Wednesday, she refused both naps and was worn out as was I. We decided to take her to an after hours pediatric office in hopes of finding out what was wrong with her. The diagnosis was a minor ear infection in the left ear. You would have thought the world was coming to an end with as much crying she was doing! Geez! Come time for bed time, she would do nothing but cry...even when we held her. Usually she did all her crying when we would try to lay her down, but I guess since she hadn't slept all day and half the night before, the sleep deprivation was really kicking in. Then I had an idea...drive around with her and see if she would calm down and go to sleep. Craig took her for a hour and a half "joy ride" and she did fall asleep, but as soon as he got home, it was back to crying hysterically. I made some phone calls in hopes of getting some expert Mommy advice and then sent Craig back out with Hannah to go get some other medication that would hopefully help with her ear pain. He was out until after midnight...poor Craig and poor Hannah. Although, she got more sleep being drug around in the car than she would have if she were home. Plus, I was trying to sleep since we figured we would have to "take shifts" for the night. Anyway, he got home, put her to bed and she slept the rest of the night just fine.

Thursday, Thanksgiving day, we still didn't know if we were going to be able to go anywhere. We first wanted to see how they did with their morning nap. All went well as far as naps, (except for Whitney but that is normal for her) so we decided to pack up and head over to Craig's cousin's house. We had a great Thanksgiving lunch, ate too much and watched the Cowboys game and headed home.

Then Friday, we went over to my Mom's house for my family Thanksgiving. My sister and her family came in to town from out of state. We had a non-traditional Thanksgiving lunch with a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but it was all good. No stressing over food! We had a good time playing with the kiddos, visiting with each other and having food fights! Yes food fights!

Saturday and Sunday were spent at home getting caught up on some much needed house cleaning and organizing. Sure feels good to get something accomplished. The kids are still sick but slowly getting better. Hannah is probably struggling the most with her frequent diarrhea and diaper rash from the antibiotic, but the yogurt is helping with the diarrhea - and she is still fighting the naps!


Oh... one other update off topic... Craig is postponing his shoulder surgery that he was going to have next week, for later next year. He will do some more therapy etc. in the mean time. Part of me is glad because I really wanted him to be feeling well for the babies first Christmas and first birthday, but part of me wishes he would go ahead and do it so we could get on the road to recovery and start healing and hopefully feeling better permanently!


A few random shots and video (this was before Thanksgiving. This post is out of order.)

First big bathtub bath

Video of the babies first bath in the big bath tub. Tyler cried at first, not sure why... he loves baths now. I guess the larger body of water scared him.

Hannah after her bath.

Whitney enjoying play time in the bath tub. Whitney, Tyler and Hannah having fun. Thank goodness nobody pee pee'd or pooped in the water!

10 Months

Hannah, my sweet, sickly baby. We are still working on self-feeding. Hannah's desire to feed herself is lacking but it is improving. :) She still tries to stand up on her feet and tries to balance sitting up on her knees or one knee and one foot without using her hands. She is becoming an expert crawler - getting pretty fast. Still has no teeth. As I mentioned earlier, doesn't like napping right now, although I think this will change once she starts feeling better again. Hannah and Whitney give kisses (or something of the sort); they put their mouth on my cheek and rub it back and forth, side to side. Craig said they will not do it for him so maybe its just a Mommy thing. They call him by name (or something of the sort) saying dadadada but they give me kisses. :)

My little rosy cheeked girl. She looks like a clown. She's had the rosy red cheeks ever since she got sick. Whitney is the most improved as far as eating goes. She is getting so much better at self-feeding. She still has only one tooth. Whitney likes to follow me around and often cries if I leave the room... Separation anxiety here we come! Also, we like to play follow the leader around the ottoman. I get down on my hands and knees and we go in circles around the ottoman chasing each other. It is so cute! Whitney loves to dance (ie. bounce on her bottom) again, so cute! She also loves to be held and seems to be the most calm and content when being held.

Tyler my little mo-hawk man/spiky haired dude. Still has only 2 bottom teeth but the two front teeth are SO close to popping through. He may just get his two front teeth for Christmas! Tyler is by far my best self-feeder; he does pretty well with almost anything I give him. Tyler is a sprinter crawler! He is SO fast! And yesterday he pulled up on his feet for the first time. I was sitting right beside him playing on the floor and he held on to the couch and pulled up and fell to his bottom literally a second later. I think he kinda surprised himself that he did that. He is also starting to try to balance on his knees without holding on to anything with his hands. Or he will try to do like Hannah and put one foot down and the other on his knee. Tyler is in the habit of screaming in a high-pitched voice. Kinda reminds me of an opera singer that constantly screams and never changes the pitch or tone in their voice. He continues to do it until you give him what he wants. It is SO annoying cute! He is also our little adventurer... he gets in to EVERYTHING, pulls up on EVERYTHING, crawls EVERYWHERE. The girls stay put a lot more than him. They pull up, just not on as much. I am about to have to baby proof for the next stage!

This was the first and last group picture we attempted this month. Nobody is looking, Hannah is sliding down and my camera is off center as are several of the other individual shots above. They are just too busy and I was tired of fighting them to stay still. It was bed time last night when I realized it was their 10 month birthday and since we had professional photos taken a week or so ago, I decided not to mess with trying to dress them cute and get super cute, at-home, monthly shots. Hope you enjoyed the pictures and updates. Oh and aren't those blankets cute??? A friend of ours crocheted them for us.