A New Playmat!

Natalie gets regular visits from therapists with the Infant Learning Program and on one of the recent visits, the physical therapist asked if we had a baby gym. I said I didn't know what that was, but I'd go buy it if they thought it was helpful!

Turns out, it's an activity mat with things overhead for babies to look at and reach for. Henry and I went to Target and he picked out this cool one from Baby Einstein. He based his decision solely on the fact it came with balls to put through the hole in the mesh - and he immediately took the balls to throw at his brother when we got home. Boys... 

But Natalie didn't mind the theft and she seemed pretty interested in the playmat as soon as I put her on it. We made a few modifications with blankets to keep her in therapist-approved positions and because the mat was a little slippery. I'm guessing it's easy-to-clean material. ;)

She likes floor time, but she definitely has a time limit. Luckily, it can be extended by a few minutes with company. Which is why Henry is reading her a book here! It's a favorite of his because he can read it so well (pretty much is just the word "Moo" over and over with different inflections).

Side note - the chocolate on his face was because I promised him we could make cookies. He pretty much made them all on his own! And of course an important part of baking is taste testing the final results!

But back to the baby - chilling on her play mat! With another new oral stimulation toy - the Zoli! I got this one after she tried to gag herself with the Nuk - she can't cram this one in quite as far. She still loves it though!

It's getting hard to keep her in tummy time, but we've found she'll tolerate it a little bit longer if she can stare at the beautiful baby in the mirror. Even that gets old after awhile and over she rolls.

But not so much that she can't see that cute baby... ;)

Onesie Modifications

Between the wires for the monitors and having to hook up the tubing for her feeds, it's pretty important that her clothing have openings to make life easier. This means that pretty much anything with a zipper is a no-go. Unfortunately those were my favorite style of pjs / clothing for the boys!

Shortly before she was released for the NICU, I realized we didn't have enough clothing that would work for her situation. So Henry and I went out and bought every snap-up outfit the resale store had in stock for a newborn girl. And they work great - so many options to run wires or tubes through.

But we had gotten soooo many cute outfits that now seemed impossible for her to wear. I figured I could look online and see what the options were for modifying clothing we already had. I came across one Etsy store that sold modified onesies and ordered one to see if I liked the concept or not. It worked pretty well for the g-tube (which it was designed for), but the other wires were still problematic. It's hard to tell from the photo, but they are going out the bottom of her onesie and then up through the top of her pants - less than ideal...

But since it feels like we were getting close to losing the monitors (my optimism knows no bounds!) and their problematic cords, I thought it would be good to start trying to modify her clothes. My sister nicely loaned me her sewing machine and I started tinkering around. The onesie I bought basically looked like a slit in the fabric with a fancy edging over the top to make it look nice. I found out that some machines do buttonholes automatically and I thought maybe that would do the trick. Heather's machine has that option, but you can see it still took me a few (8?) tries to get a buttonhole done correctly on the test fabric. 

Finally - I succeedeed! Also, I am not a seamstress by any means. I have mentioned sewing exactly once on this blog and my skills have not dramatically improved since then. Luckily my mother-in-law is a huge resource for sewing and she was helping me out via text messages. After I did this awful line of stitching thanks to the pins not cooperating (and stabbing myself with a pin), she suggested trying a glue stick instead of pins and it worked like a champ!

I didn't get a photo of the straight(er) line, but it looked much better. And I think I had the edging "flap" figured out pretty well. Time to bite the bullet and try it on a real piece of clothing!

And that's about when disaster struck...

I switched threads when I switched to the real clothing and I must have wrapped something wrong. It was a rat's nest of thread that pulled the onesie down into the machine. Grannie was ever encouraging and swore "it happens to the best of us!"

Besides the fact I somewhat mangled this particular piece of clothing at least twice, I did get the tube opening on there and made it look nice. Good thing this was a test run on a boring onesie!

And the onesie in action! It's a little hard to see because the tubing is white (milk is pumping through it), but you can see it coming out the slit in the shirt and running off to the right side of the photo. I think once we are free of all of the monitor wires, I'll be ready to start modifying all of her cute onesies for easy g-tube access. Can't wait for her to have all the wardrobe options! :)

Thomas Turns 6!

It is just impossible.

Impossible that my sweet baby has just turned 6! 

But he has indeed hit the big 6! He casually mentioned how it would be cool to have  donuts for his birthday and since I was up this morning at 4am to feed his sister, I went and got him donuts. Sadly, no one wanted to the fruit loop donuts - I thought they looked super fun! These kids are so unpredictable...

We have had so much going on recently that we decided not to throw him a big party this year. But we tried to make it a perfect birthday in every other way (thus the donuts), so when he asked for a race track cake, he was definitely going to get it. It was actually pretty easy to make compared to other cakes they have requested, so that was lucky for me.

Though apparently he didn't approve of the car I originally had winning the "race" and had to rearrange the cars so the orange one would be crossing the finish line. 

Everyone is in the party mood! :)

Looks pretty happy to be the birthday boy, huh?

A full-ish crowd to sing him Happy Birthday!

But he wasn't so sure what to do *while* everyone was singing. I feel you, bud. It's one of the most awkward things to have everyone staring at you singing. Eek!

But he got over and blew out all of the candles on his cake!

And his dad managed to cut the cake into a pretty good "6". It was completely unintentional, he just wanted to get to the center where there was extra icing. :)

The one concession we made since we weren't throwing him a big party was to get him this super awesome Lego set that teaches kids coding. We thought about getting it for Christmas, but it's not a cheap set and he was already getting so much other stuff. So this was his one and only present from us, but he loved it! It needs a phone or table to do the coding to program the robot, so I had to donate my phone for the evening so he could play with it. (Apparently the iPad is way behind on software updates and I couldn't even get the right app on there.)

Happy Birthday, Thomas! While, I can't believe you are 6, I'm proud of the little boy you've become. :)

Random April Photos

I haven't done a random photo dump in a few months, but that's probably because life has felt a bit random overall the past few months. We're kinda settling down into something resembling a routine, so random photos are returning! :)

Nonni getting in a little more grandkid time before she left after Easter. It looks like Natalie isn't behaving since her O2 monitor is reading below 90%, but to be honest it's probably the monitor. That thing tends to go a little crazy if she moves much and she's getting very active when she is awake. So it's a nonstop battle with the mute button on that thing most days if she's not asleep...

Matt gave me such a hard time about not buying him any Cadbury eggs for Easter. I barely remembered the event for the kids and it's not like he bought me any candy! But I am willing to take feedback into consideration on our marriage at any time.

So I bought every single cadbury egg they had left at Target the next day and let the kids hide them all over the house. I think they had more fun hiding these things than they did hunting for their own. But I also knew we would lose track of where they all went, so I took photos of where we hid every single one. No need to attract any rodents into the house!

My Natalies! I haven't managed to get a great photo of the two of them together. Furry Natalie isn't the best at having kids propped up on her, so I have no idea how I am going to get a photo shoot of them until baby Natalie is able to sit up better...

Chilling out in her blanket cocoon. The therapists with the ILP suggested different ways of positioning her with blankets to keep her in "neutral" positions. Plus the blanket pushes her shoulders/arms forward where she is more likely to use them and reach for things. And she's got her Nuk massager that she likes to wave around like a sword. The speech therapist adjusted her grip to be closer to the head of the massager and Natalie stuck it right in her mouth and started trying to gnaw on it - perfect!

Side note - she is in a sea of pink! :)

So many coworkers have been bringing us food and it has been so helpful! One person brought us a bake-at-home custom pizza and bought mini-pizzas for the kids. It was so thoughtful and they had a blast putting their toppings on! 

I let Thomas borrow my phone to text Nonni and he did awesome at it. I know he's been in Kindergarten almost a whole year, but I am still blown away by his reading and writing skills! Can't wait to text him all the time when he is older!

Most mornings these days have a little bit of quiet time chilling with Natalie before our day really gets going. I think all three of my kiddos have always been in the best moods in the morning. Cherished time, for sure!

I do my best to plan her meals around appointments, but it isn't always possible. Especially when I get the appointment time wrong (twice in one month...). We made it to the appointment, but she was still finishing her milk as we were checking in. I managed to McGyver a set-up in the car and on her stroller to make it work. 

I feel like I have no clue what I am doing some days, but I'm learning!

I honestly have no idea why he was growling at me anymore. But how can I not share this face with the world??

Trying to get a cute photo of us to send to Matt and she punches me right in the face. So rude! ;)

When you find out Pluto isn't a planet anymore...

Not at all what caused this meltdown, but it was Kathryn's response when I sent her the photo and waaaaaaay more fun. Not sure why everyone isn't morally offended that Pluto got demoted, but this family certainly is. :)

When your four year old really wants you to play uno and is suspiciously carrying around his hand of cards already...

He was soooo upset when I looked at his cards. There were real tears and more collapsing on the floor (sadly, not in a rocket costume this time). But I don't know why he thought he needed to cheat, he won the first two times after I re-dealt the cards. 

This girl pretty much always has something in her mouth every time we give her food. The NICU staff said it would be important to make sure she has positive oral experiences, so we took that to mean we should try to convince her food comes through things she puts in her mouth. They even said we could dip her pacifier or chew toys in a bit of milk so she can taste it. So we're doing the best we can to keep her engaged and it seems to be working - at least she usually looks pretty happy at meal time. :)

Grandpa Comes to Town!

Since it didn't look like Natalie would be making it to Texas anytime soon (like I had planned months ago), my dad decided he could wait no longer to meet his grand-daughter and came up to visit! 

She was pretty excited to meet a new person and hung out with Grandpa at the table while Nonni and I were making breakfast. In case I have failed to mention it, that turtle is her favorite toy. I think it may have something to do with the mirror on the underside that she likes staring at, but either way, she loves it. 

Apart from playing with her turtle, her top activity these days is hanging around with her favorite people and sleeping on them. 

Grandpa was more than happy to oblige! Doesn't he just look smitten already?? She tends to have that effect on people...

Since Grandpa was in town and we had another birthday coming up, we definitely had to go to our new favorite birthday spot - Benihana's! I thought I would get Heather to take a photo of me and the boys instead of the usual selfie. Unsuprisingly, they were as uncooperative as usual...

Side note - we went for lunch so we could have one of Natalie's home-care nurses stay home with her. The hibachi show was the same, it was definitely still too much food, but the bill was almost half as much! Well I guess we learned something valuable today...! ;)

I made my dad a loaf of sourdough while he was here, hoping that months of (understandable) neglect hadn't killed my starter. Thankfully, it is a resilient bunch of yeast and the bread turned out awesome! Dad was getting a bit concerned that everyone was eating *his* bread, so I promised to bake him a loaf of his own to take home.

Baked goods from his daughters has always been one of his favorite things, so I'm glad to keep that tradition going. It's a small thank you to the man who taught me many of my kitchen skills! It was great to see you, Dad, and I can tell your grand-daughter already loves you. :)

3 Months!

Another month has flown by and everyone is doing awesome around here! Especially Natalie - she's getting bigger and stronger every day! Everyday we're getting closer to having her home longer than she was in the hospital. Woo!

Look at these three awesome kiddos! So excited to be taking photos with each other.

And no pjs this time!

(It's a miracle!)

As always, I got a great one of everyone looking at the camera with pleasant expressions on their face. And then the rest of the photos...

Haha - what is Henry doing here?? Natalie looks super intent on the camera though. :)

Though she starts to get a little concerned the longer she thinks it is in her personal space. Sorry baby, but that's pretty much life for you now. ;)

She's doing a much better job leaning on the arm of the chair, huh? I mean, she looks a little skeptical about the whole concept, but she's hanging in there!

She definitely prefers the security of her pillow though! I love how she's holding up her card and staring off into the distance. I must be boring her.

And you can see the wires that are the give-away that we still have to deal with the monitors. One of these days we will have a cordless baby... ;)

This cutie patootite! She may only be giving me a half smile, but I think you can tell she's pretty happy to be hanging out with her momma and brothers. In case it's not obvious, she's got the whole family wrapped around her tiny fingers and I think she might know it!

Happy three months, baby girl! We love you whole bunches! :)

Texas Trip

Matt and the boys headed down to Texas this week for the funeral. As much as I wanted to be there, it seemed like the better idea would be to stay home this time. We aren't quite up for that much traveling with Natalie just yet.

I was a bit worried about the boys behaving for the funeral, but I got multiple reports from family members about how great they did at the service. (They didn't really have any nice clothes, so Matt took them shopping down there to get some appropriate clothing. Don't think look like handsome young men?)

Of course, as serious as they took the occasion during the service, they are still two little boys who are a teensy bit silly and goofy. Look at these cheese-tastic smiles they were giving their Nonni! 

It's pointless to go to Texas for less than a full week, so they did get to have some fun hanging out with the family while they were there. And of course, they got to eat at all of *my* favorite spots!

Matt thought he was going to end up being the "boring" parent compared to when I take the boys to Texas and they go to all kinds of fun places. I told him to take them on an outing or two and they would be just as happy. So he ended up taking them to the Dallas Zoo and they had a blast!

Well they *were* having fun until one of the birds landed on Henry's head. Poor guy didn't want that feathered creature up there and the bird didn't care one bit. Oh well...

Other than that, I promise they had fun! I got several short video clips of them playing with their cousins and overall being little boys hanging out with their dad. (I am very concerned about the level of rough-housing I keep hearing about...!

I had plenty of free time (as much as you ever have with a baby!) while the boys were all gone, so I decided to be productive and move them into one room. We have been talking with them about combining rooms since it looks like Nonni will be up here quite a bit helping out with Natalie. Matt had talked about building them bunk beds because their current beds are both so big that they eat up the whole room.

I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a dry run with room sharing to see how it went before committing to the bed building. Here's hoping they are excited and don't flip out when they see what I've done...! 

I also had a spectacular failure with making almond brittle. You ever have one of those moments where you know something is a bad idea, but you are rushing and there is a baby crying and you do it anyway? Yep - that was me today. After making almond brittle in the microwave, I turned on the cold tap water into a super hot bowl - those cracks show thermal shock is indeed a bad thing!

Natalie didn't seem to mind the extra time with her mommy, though she definitely got more tummy time than usual since all of my time could be focused on her. She's not the biggest fan, but look how awesome she is doing today! I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact I put the popsicle on her lips to let her feel the cold/taste it and she is staring it down trying to will it to come back... ;)

Happy Easter!

Once again, this holiday snuck up on me. But since Nonni was here, Heather asked if she could cook Easter dinner* at our house. In a last minute Target visit, I decided to buy them candy and eggs to hide them in. 

Of course, I wasn't thinking clearly because Nonni being in town also meant that Nonni had come prepared to spoil them! She had already started giving them treats by the time I got breakfast on the table. So I got their easter baskets out of the closet they were stashed in and made the treats look all official!

I saw a coffee mug the other day that said "Nonni is my name and spoiling is my game!" I really should order it for my mom for Mother's Day. Pretend to be surprised if I do, Mom. ;)

At least they still seemed excited about the cinnamon rolls I made for them. I didn't waffle them because I didn't feel like cleaning up the usual mess it makes of my waffle iron, but they survived with them cooked normally.

It was finally Easter Egg Hunt time! They had to wait until after nap time to give me a chance to actually fill and hide all of the eggs I had bought. And of course Aunt Heather brought more eggs and baskets for them. I don't know why I worry about these things when clearly other people are covering it for me...

I offered to hide the eggs outside for them, but they decided that they didn't want to mess with the yard that is covered in melting snow. Whatever, it's fun to hide the eggs inside too!

Oh and you can just see the "new" changing table we got for the living room. Mom had made a comment about how it's pretty hard to change her on the floor and we have all of her medical supplies downstairs, so I thought we could look into getting a table. And that night a coworker posted on facebook that she had one she wanted to get rid of. Perfect timing and we have the best little baby corner now!

There were two sets of PJ Mask "eggs" and Henry found both of the Gecko eggs, so he made sure he gave the second one to Thomas. Such fairness!

This boy was so excited about *every* egg he found! Which is probably how Thomas ended up with more eggs, Henry was too busy doing a celebration after every one... ;)

Also, you can see the easter egg decoration on the window behind him. If you leave a seasonal craft up long enough, it comes back in season!

Look at their haul! I told you they got spoiled - two full easter baskets! Henry looks like he can barely hold up the weight!

Heather also wanted to start up the money grab tradition that our grandmother used to have. Which is basically throwing a lot of coins on the ground and you get whatever you can pick up before your sibling. The lighting in the living room is pretty awful this time of day, but Henry just looked too hysterical to not share. That kid is ready to fight for some coins!

Of course, Thomas picked up coins *way* faster than his brother because it's Thomas and he's just a bit competitive...

No idea where he gets that...!

But they were both pretty quick on the coins. I was teasing them that I have never seen them move anywhere near that fast when I tell them to pick up their Legos...

Natalie's concession to the holiday was to wear a festively colored outfit. She wasn't fazed by all the excited yells from her brother's, she was happy to just snooze on her Nonni. 

Big Natalie was pretty content to get some snoozes in too. Poor girl now needs an adjective or the boys get a little confused when Matt asks them where "Natalie" is. Furry Natalie is the other preferred adjective. ;)

Finally time to dye the Easter Eggs! I got pestered about it all morning, but I forgot to boil the eggs until today, so they needed time to cool. And I found these egg dyeing cups in the same closet I had hidden the easter baskets. So much easier than trying to find appropriately sized coffee mugs! I buy the best stuff on sale after holidays and then totally forget about it until the holiday rolls back around...!

The boys had so much fun putting these face stickers on the eggs. Hopefully they won't throw a fit about me wanting to eat their egg friends tomorrow. I'm pretty excited for some egg salad sandwiches...! :)

* We had 11 people here for Easter (including the kids) and I got virtually no photos of any of them! Thanks for coming over and spending the holiday with us, sorry the kids were the only focus of my camera. ;)

Back to Normal-ish Again

I'm not a superstitious person by any means, but it does seem like tempting fate to post an update about how life is returning to normal after a hospital stay... Oh well, guess I'm going for it anyhow!

I have been playing games with the kids for awhile, but they've really gotten into the family game night kick recently. Mostly with Uno and mostly after dinner. This little guy does not need any help, thank you very much. Henry still needs a little bit, but not much. These two are going to be little card sharks like my grandmom very soon!

I was cleaning up the bathroom before Nonni came back again and found a can of bath foam that wasn't empty. Long story short, it's empty now...! That stuff is so much fun to spray all over the place. :)

Look at all of these boy clothes we are getting rid of! Our friends are having twin boys and after the first small donation of clothes we sent them, they made the mistake of saying "Oh yeah, just send over whatever you guys want to get rid of!" We got so many girl clothes by the same method that I just don't see any reason to keep most of the boy clothes, though I did pick out a few of my favorite dino and space shirts for her. ;)

Thomas had some extra money from a field trip and has been begging me to take him to buy Legos. Well today he got a lesson in how much money Lego kits cost and that $6 won't buy much. Henry had a whopping $1 and just wanted to find *something* he could buy. Somehow we ended up on the aisle with yogurt and I pointed out they were 2 for $1. Once Henry picked out his two, Thomas decided he wanted the ones with M&M's. They were so cute picking them out and then paying for them. Thomas almost forgot to grab his change in his excitement. ;)

The boys don't have many video games they like to play yet, but the dancing game I got them for the Wii is definitely their favorite. They take turns on picking songs with minimal arguing (Thomas has the remote that is in control on the menus because Henry hasn't quite gotten the pointing at the screen down). While they both have a blast doing the dances, one of them has gotten the concept of correct "moves" down better than the other one... 

He may not follow instructions well, but he has fun anyhow. And he's not a sore loser like his momma*, so he doesn't seem to mind never winning.

*I'm working on it. I lose all the time to them when playing Uno, so I am definitely getting practice in...

Natalie seemed interested enough in watching them play that she didn't protest too much about being forced to do tummy time. It's not really her favorite activity otherwise...

The newest addition to the family tech is Natalie's Mamaroo! They had this fancy infant swing in the PICU and she loved being in it when there wasn't a family member to hold and rock her. It's got bluetooth so you can turn it on and change the pattern from across the house. So far, it's not *quite* as magical as it was in the hospital, but I am still glad we got it!

Since we have Nonni in town and since it's still a little stressful driving with Natalie and all of the monitors, I moved Henry to the far back seat with Thomas to temporarily free up the spot next to Natalie. It's a little harder to get him buckled in back there since I have to get in the minivan to fasten the belts. So I was trying my best to see if he could at least unbuckle himself. 

To give him credit, he tried very hard! He can get the top buckle undone, but he's just not strong enough to release the lower buckles. Thomas can get it when he is in the car, but alas, he was not on this errand we ran the other day. Anyhow, I thought he was being super cute when I was asking him to try harder and he was wagging his finger at me and saying "I can't do it!"

2 Months!

Once again, we made it home from the hospital just in time to do the monthly photo shoot! The boys were super excited to take photos again, though they were both pretty insistent that they get to wear their pjs this time. 

Thomas actually went and changed into non-pjs just for photos last month, but he wasn't interested this month. And Henry wore the *exact* same pjs last month... Sigh.

Her clothes kinda look like fluffy pjs though, so we'll just go with it being the theme this month. ;)

Once again, I really only got one decent photo with all three of them looking at the camera, but I like this one because Henry looks so excited!

Doesn't she look sooooo cute in this fluffy pink zebra outfit? And in case it's not obvious from the fact she's not looking directly *at* the camera, this girl has discovered ceiling fans and she loves looking at them.

See what I mean? Such amazement in those eyes! Speaking of her eyes - just like Henry, she seems to also have gotten her daddy's blue eyes. Nonni think she looks like me as a baby, but I'll have to go dig out some baby photos to compare. 

This kid may not be cooperative on outfit changes, but he was definitely happy to help me get the camera set up for photos. And he even smiled normally! He seems to love making faces more than smiling these days...

I swear it doesn't seem like that long ago that I was taking his two month pictures. How does time fly by so fast?? It's hard to believe this tiny little guy has turned into this crazy four year old already! 

Still has though awesome cheeks though! :)