Praises and Prayer

The first praise we have to go along with the title of this blog is we had our official follow-up appointment for our baby girl's growth and she passed with flying colors. She weighed in at 1lb. 8oz. Her length actually was above the 50%! The most important measurement for them was her belly, as that had fallen in the 3% last time; this time is was in the 26% which I thought still was maybe small, but they said that's great....so we'll take it! At this point in time my doctor didn't think we would need to do anymore ultrasounds to follow her growth/weight we'll just keep track like any other pregnancy with my weight and uterus measurements. Not many people get a 24 week ultrasound, so we were lucky to be blessed with some more wonderful 3-D pictures of our little girl. Here are some that we just had to share with you...isn't she adorable?! :)

Our second praise to God is for our Denver (I want to call him our little Denver, but I guess I need to get out of that habit as he's growing and soon will be a BIG brother!). Denver continues to amaze us every day. He's growing into this adorable, intelligent, fun, loving boy. This boys vocabulary continues to grow every day it seems. Denver received an "ABC fridge toy" for Christmas that had originally been put away so we didn't have too many new things out at once. I took this out a week or 2 ago and within the first hour of it being on the fridge he hit the button that sings the "ABC's" and he began saying a b c with it! I was busy in the kitchen and couldn't believe my ears and then later that night he did it for his Daddy without even playing with the toy! He continues to love music and to "rock out" to it. His little arms go up in the air and he moves them around like he's directing a band or playing the drums. Anytime he hears music he stops and starts dancing. Denver's also learned how to give a serious/mean look and gives it out all the time now. When he gets yelled at for doing something he's not supposed to do he looks at you and stares you down with this look.

Denver got to enjoy this past weekend with his 1st cousin Jacob! He loved on him so much. Denver would always be looking for Jacob and if he'd see his car seat he'd go over there and start moving the blankets around trying to find him knowing that it was Jacob's. When he'd find him he'd be leaning in for lots of love, whether it was kisses or to snuggle his head to him. There were moments of slight jealousy when Jacob was getting the attention that Denver so desperately thought he needed, but he really did quite well. We just hope and pray that Denver feels the same about his little sister when he finds out that she's here to stay, not just for a weekend!

Our other request for prayer is for Denver to continue to grow and to be healthy. We are approaching Denver's 15 month "birthday" and this is when we go back in for another weight check and a decision on what to do about his continual drop on the growth chart. I've talked to one of the neonatologists that I work with in the NICU and asked her for advice if we should go ahead and do the testing that our pediatrician wants to do and after explaining things to her she felt that it would probably best if we did, as if there is something wrong it's all things we can "fix" and how terrible would we feel if we didn't do it when we could've helped him. While saying this, I also want people to understand that I truly believe that our amazing little boy is just going to be little his whole life whether we like it or not, and that nothing is wrong with him. At Church the other day I realized how much more active our little man is than a lot of kids his age. Denver runs non-stop and doesn't like to take extra time to eat any extra calories. He'd rather continue to burn the ones he's taken in by running and playing.

Denver loves mac and cheese!

We have quite the little cleaner on our hands. This past Sunday we caught Denver "cleaning" the vacuum cleaner with some wet wipes that he got into. There are plenty of other times when we've been cleaning and he'll find a paper towel and start wiping down the floor or the ledge by the window. Maybe I'll have a helper to keep this house clean before the baby comes!? :)

Someday Denver will probably not appreciate me for sharing this story, but it's too funny to not share and have documented for Denver to read some day so here goes our past Sunday afternoon. If you have a weak stomach you may not want to read this. When we got home from Church we put Denver in his high chair to eat his lunch. He was being poky with eating, but very content so Evan and I began doing other things around the house while he finished. After awhile Denver decided he was done and Evan took him out of his high chair; when he took him out he never thought to check his pants first....as a Denver who sat there that long, that quiet...he had to be up to something. We continued on with our things until I heard Evan yelling from the other room. I went to find the problem and Evan's pointing to the floor...."I think that's poop...where did it come from?!?!". I said sure enough and it came from him (pointing to Denver after looking down his pants). We went to Denver's room, put a blanket on his floor and I went to take off his shoe to put my hand in a pile of poop stuck to his shoe! As if this wasn't enough to make Evan get all excited I started pulling off Denver's pants to find poop stuck to his pants and all the way down his leg....stuck to his onesie, etc, etc (you can only imagine....as the onesie came off up the back to his head it went). We immediately went and put Denver in the tub to finish cleaning him up where we then would give him a bath. Before we could get him wiped up Denver plopped his little bottom down on the tub and now we had a tub to get clean before we could start filling the tub besides finish cleaning him up. Needless to say, we've never had quite the excitement with changing a diaper before and we HOPE this will be the one and only time. :)

Denver has found the "tupperware cupboard"! The tupperware cupboard is one of the cupboards that I haven't minded if Denver found and/or played in and today he found it alright. He had all sorts of containers out and was finding the right lids for them and putting them on. He loves stacking things and putting lids on things so he had a blast with this for quite some time.

Denver loves to sit in our rocker recliners and to rock. Today he wanted his blanket and a pillow so he could lay and rock. He also loves to play on the couch and thinks he's hot stuff when he's on "big people" furniture without being held.

Updates on the kiddos

It's been a little crazy here lately that I haven't had time to do any updates, so I figured I better get a quick update done before anyone goes through any withdrawals! :) First, last week we had another ultrasound to see our baby girl. This was for the study that we are participating in and it was so nice to see our little girl again. The ultrasound tech was great and spent lots of time getting very accurate measurements and said she weighed 14 oz. This is a 3 oz. gain in a week and one day, and I am not a doctor, but I think that's a pretty big gain, so I'm guessing our measurements at our 20 week ultrasound were not correct and that she really isn't too little! She is laying in a hard position for getting good measurements by ultrasound so that's part of the problem. This also makes her less photogenic than Denver was for his 2o week ultrasound, but we were able to get a couple more glimpses and pictures of our little girl in 3-D. We have another appointment in a little over a week with my doctor and will have a follow-up ultrasound for that (if you're wondering...the study we are participating in does not give my doctor any information (and vice versa) and that's partly why there are so many ultrasounds).

Now...our little man. He's keeping us busy as always. Denver has gotten very fast and loves to run around. This has become a problem with shopping; which Mommy loves to do so very much. The other day I was in the fabric store and put him down and looked away for one second and turned back around and he was gone. He's so fast and too short that he's not easy to spot! Don't worry...it didn't take long and I found him. He also LOVES to play in between the racks of clothes. I know all kids love to do this, but this is kind of funny because Evan and I always talk about how we liked to play in the racks of clothes when we were little and remember doing it at the same store...so we joke we maybe even played with each other as kids in that store! The past couple days Denver has not been acting himself again. Sunday he threw up for the "first" time (other than his "spit ups" from reflux when he was younger). Since then he hasn't been very interested in eating or drinking. I took him into the clinic yesterday as we had noticed he had been pulling on his ears a little more (which he seemed to have started when he had his cold a couple weeks ago). Of course his ears looked great, but that was a big relief since Daddy had to have tubes in his ears when he was little. It was obvious when we were in the clinic that he didn't feel good so they didn't want to just send us home without checking out anything else so they checked him for RSV and influenza. The quick strip came back negative and we're waiting on the longer results. This test can also detect if he has some other virus, that I can't remember the name of, but our pediatrician said if he has that virus we can't do anything for it (like any virus it just has to run its course), but that would be the explanation for his crabbiness. They also checked his weight which was a big disappointment for both Evan and me...and of course our pediatrician too. He weighed 18lbs. 11oz. I had so hoped he would be in the 19lbs area! This weight puts Denver at a 2oz. gain since his 1 year check almost 2 months ago. Although, with that said we have to keep in mind he was sick several weeks ago and went about a week without eating so he lost a lot of weight and he has gained that back so we need to be thankful for that. Last night Denver seemed happier and more himself again. We went to cousin Ethan's basketball game and when Denver was running through the hallway he fell and bit his lip and now has a fat lip! It's a little owie looking but he ate almost a full bowl of oatmeal this morning so it must not be bothering him! So, I think he's back on track. Otherwise, not a whole lot to update on Denver. His vocabulary continues to grow and he gets smarter every day about how every day things work. He now will take his "uck" (dirty diaper) after I change him and go put it in the diaper genie. Yesterday he tried pushing the button that you have to push in as you lift up the baby gate to open the gate because he wanted to go downstairs. He's gotten really good at drinking from a regular cup or a bottled drink. We've been trying to let him feed himself with his own silverware more and more. This is very hard for us though as he makes a mess and he loves to play/explore with his food and silverware. He's getting pretty good at it and can stab things with his fork to eat and scoop things with his spoon. I also think a mouthful of teeth are on there way in and that's been a big part of his crabbiness.

Our mischievous little boy!

We continue to run like crazy between working and going to basketball games and everything else going on in our lives. Last weekend we actually had a weekend that we got to relax and make our own plans. Saturday night Evan and I enjoyed a night out with some friends which was absolutely wonderful. Saturday morning we finally got our Christmas tree taken down along with the other Christmas decorations. Here's some pictures of Denver enjoying the last few looks at the tree before we took it all down. I never really accomplished any pictures of him in front of the tree this year (other than this one below) as he would run away as soon as I put him in front of it! Oh well, next year he'll understand and he can hold his little sister down and I'll get a picture! :)