After a long 24 hours away from our Haley, we're home!

"I love my baths these days! Aren't I cute all bundled up in a towel?""I like to help Mommy hold up one side of the book while we read together."
"More, Daddy, more! I love books!"
"Here is some evidence I found on Mommy's camera that she was having fun without me, how rude! Katy & Greg-O at El Vaquero, what are those tasty looking drinks they have in their hands?"
"Well, Sydney has one of those tasty drinks too - I hear it's a strawberry margarita but that I have to wait 20 years and 7 months before I'm allowed to have one! Hmpf! No margaritas for Spencer though, he's Syd's DD for life! Lucky her!"
"Are they all wearing their seat belts? I have to be strapped into this crazy contraption with what seems like 27 belts and snaps on it, I bed I'd get in trouble if I tried to ride in a car like that! I hear they were on their way to a karaoke bar called Mickey's in Grandview and that they had a lot of fun there."
Well, on the way to Columbus yesterday we had a bit of an adventure. When we were about 3/4 of the way there, driving on 33, we suddenly got a flat tire - the whole side of the front driver's side tire blew out! Boo! Luckily I have AAA still from when I had my battery die on me earlier this year when I was living in Columbus by myself. So after waiting 1/2 an hour for a AAA guy to arrive, he changed our tire and we were on our way at the speedy rate of no more than 50 mph - woo hoo! When we finally arrived at Syd & Spencer's, everyone was famished and after a quick tour of their house we rushed off to El Vaquero for tasty mexican food and yummy margaritas. After that we headed over to Mickey's, a Karoke bar, which was quite entertaining and that I will have to go back to sometime when I'm feeling gutsy enough to karaoke myself. Then Chadmo and I stayed the night at Syd & Spencer's.

This morning (late morning) we all went to Marie Scrambblers and had tasty breakfast. Then Chadmo and I headed on our way to Sear's in Lancaster to buy a couple new tires for my car and have its' headlight fixed. While we were waiting we also picked out our Christmas washing machine from Grandma and Grandpa and it's supposed to be delivered to our house on Thursday - yay! I also had too much time on my hands and decided to try getting my ears pierced again. There's a piercing and tatoo place in the mall now that uses needles instead of piercing guns to pierce your ears, and needles are supposed to be less traumatic and make it easier for your ears to heal (which is what I've had trouble with before.) So hopefully this time they will take and heal nicely! The only funny thing is that they don't normally do such tame piercings as ear lobes, so the only studs they had are giant ZZ Top Cubic Zirconias, so I'm feeling a bit like a blingy gangsta at the moment and for the next month till I can change them!

FINALLY we got to come home to our Haley-bug! She is so cute, and so big, and it is soooo good to be home with her again. We missed her while we were gone. We have been reading books and catching up on all the fun adventures she had with Grandma and Grandpa. It's good to get to squeeze her and kiss her again! :)

A night out!

"Mommy and Daddy left me to go to Columbus and hang out with their friends. :( I will look adorable yet sad at the same time and make them feel guilty for leaving me!""But I am having tons of fun with Grandma and Grandpa, don't tell Mommy and Daddy!"
"Oops, I fell asleep! But only for a second! Grandma reports that I'm still going strong at 1 am. (Grandpa looks like he's about to fall asleep though!)"

Our Little Nudist

"Normally I hate to be weighed, but lately my love of being naked has outweighed (no pun intended, haha) my hatred of being weighed - Yay!" "Oh, there's that flashy thing again! It follows me everywhere!"
"Yay, I love it when they tell me I'm cute!"
Once again, who thinks my baby doesn't eat enough?!? They're crazy! :) She's the cutest little, rolly-polly love-bug we could ask for! Lots of big, loud laughs tonight - makes my day! And she weighed in at 6.18 kg today (13 lbs 9 oz), we might make it to 14 lbs before her second surgery which would be wonderful!

My Two First Girls :)

Haley-bug and Ruby snuggling on the couch, my first dog and my first baby! :) Love them to pieces! ("No, love me all together!" - for Syd!)

We Love Wednesdays!

Reading a book with Grandma.

"What's on this page?"
"I love to have people read books to me, look at the pictures, and help them hold up one side of the book while they read it to me!
All bundled up for our walk! (Plus I had a big, down-filled, toasty warm coat on over top of both of us.) And they tell me she doesn't eat enough!
We love Wednesdays because Grandpa only works half a day on Wednesdays so we come out to Grandma and Grandpa's house and when Grandma gets home from school we all go for a walk! Of course, Wednesdays are also sad because Daddy usually has class until 10:30 at night in Athens, but this Wednesday was extra wonderful because he didn't have class today! So we all got to eat tasty chicken and black bean burritos together, yum. Now we're just going to pack up and head back to our house. Hopefully the fire is still going! We'll have the teach the cats how to stoke it when we're gone! ;)

The paparazzi strikes again!!!

"I love to chew on the super cool ball Grandmum Wisconsin sent me - too bad my silly sleep sack kept puffing up and getting in my way! (This was taken at ~1 am, so I was supposed to be sleeping... ha!)"

Haley-bug's first time in her high chair - she liked it!
"What is this gross stuff you're trying to feed me Mom? It kind of tastes like cardboard!"
"I was a good girl and played with my ball in my high chair while everyone cleaned up after dinner!"
A day of firsts for Miss Haley-bug! Her first time sitting in her high chair, which she really enjoyed! It was amazing because both Chad and I got to eat dinner at the same time - yay! And her first time trying rice cereal - which she mostly thought was strange. She didn't really act like she disliked it, she just didn't really seem interested or to know what to do with it. I don't think she ever even swallowed any, just sort of slobbered it about, but it was cute! We'll try again in a couple of weeks...

Bug is a demanding little drama llama these days! She isn't content to even just have you stand and bounce her, now she wants you to walk all around the house with her. It's too bad the weather isn't at least a little warmer out and we could go outside and walk. Spring needs to hurry up and get here soon! She's wearing me out though, that's for sure, but maybe it will help me to lose my lingering baby weight!

We had to cancel Haley's 4 month appointment today because I completely forgot that Chad's car is out at my parents' house and that he drove my car to work! So no car to go to the doctor's in, but it's been rescheduled for next Friday with is fine with me. Can you tell I'm not overly anxious to take her to get more shots?? ;) Tomorrow the Physical Therapist from Help Me Grow of Hocking county is coming to see her and check her development. Hopefully all will go well with that!

Mimi has left the building :(

Daddy holding Haley-bug all bundled up by the fire after her bath!

My two cuties! Not necessarily the best angle, but I had to capture the full extent of the pink cuteness!
"Mommy, why don't you ever let me wear anything other than your favorite snail outfit?"

Well, we are home alone again. All our company from this weekend has headed back to Wooster or Columbus! Great Grandma Stevelt came over this afternoon so we wouldn't feel totally abandoned all in one whack, and it was lots of fun to see her! Haley was training her how to walk the floors, like she's trained all of us! No sitting down with that little girl!

Haley-bug's been a sleepy monster this evening. She mostly slept from 5 pm - 9 pm, though she did wake up for a little while and eat. I hope she will still go to bed for me tonight! After she woke up we gave her a bath and thankfully she's back to loving baths! She has some little animals that squirt water and she thinks they are quite funny. She especially likes it when they squirt each other, but is not too sure about it when they squirt her! Now she smells lovely and lotion-y and in case she doesn't feel well after her vaccinations tomorrow it will be okay if she skips one of her normal bath days. (She has her 4 month check up and vaccines tomorrow - a little late!)

Yesterday I didn't mention the most exciting thing - Haley waved 4 times in a row at 4 different people! Sydney and Spencer had stopped by to visit, and when they were walking out the door Syd waved at Haley - and she waved back! So then we had Spencer wave at her, and she did it again! After they left we had Chad wave at her, and he had to wave twice but then she waved at him, and afterwards she waved at Mimi too! It was so cute! We haven't been able to get her to repeat it totally, but maybe she's not convinced that we're actually leaving like Sydney and Spencer were! She would actually pick her arm up, wave, and put it down between each 'waving'. How fun!

Today when I was at the grocery store I bought some Rice cereal and I think we might try that soon! Should be fun, we'll be sure to take lots of pictures! :)

Lazy Sunday

Haley-bug snuggling her horsey while napping in her swing.

Indecisive Mommy, couldn't decide which was cuter!

Fattening Saturday

"I love to party at 12:45 am! I'm such a happy night owl! My pack n' play is pretty messy... I hope Mommy doesn't notice and make me clean it up!"

We had a wonderful, leisurely, fattening Saturday today! (Besides the fact that poor Chadmo had class all day. :( ) After Mimi and I stayed up till 2:30 am with Haley-bug last night and watched an old movie called "The Little Foxes" with Bette Davis in it, I slept in till noon and Haley-bug slept till 12:30 pm! Then we slowly made our way out to Grandma and Grandpa's house so we could visit with Aunt Kelly, Jenny, & Guy. When we got there we had a delicious lunch of fresh mozzarella and pesto grilled on sourdough bread - an idea I got from visiting Katy last weekend! Mmm, Mmm was it good - if you haven't tried it you should! Then for dinner we made pasta primavera, garlic bread, and another cheesecake pie with blueberries. If I ate like this every day I would weigh 500 lbs, but it's fun for the weekend! Haley-bug was a pretty happy little girl today, smiling more than the last few days and being very talkative and active. Hopefully it lasts! She didn't eat as well as she did yesterday, but she did okay. Finally at midnight we decided we better go because our hosts were looking pretty sleepy - draped all of the couches with their eyes half shut! They're not used to the closing-down-the-bars schedule Miss Bug has us on! ;)

Mimi, Aunt Kelly, Jenny, & Guy are here!

"I like Farrah. She's soft and her tongue feels like sandpaper! I like to watch her walking around the room. Maybe I'm learning to pet her?"

"Mommy, don't you want to pet Farrah too?"

Unfortunately we didn't hear from Children's Hospital today about when Haley's surgery would be. :( I called up a couple of times this afternoon, and each time someone was supposed to go find out, call me back, and let me know - but that never happened. The nurse did warn me on Wednesday that we might not find out till Monday or Tuesday, and I guess she knows better than the doctor! Still I'm anxious to know, and I know a lot of you are too as we've gotten several inquiring phone calls this evening. Sorry we don't have a date to share yet.

Some good news - Haley-bug at 725 ml today! YAY Tylenol!! :) Maybe if she keeps it up we could push the surgery back to 6 months... That would be wonderful! But I'll try not to get my hopes up too high yet. She's sound asleep in Mimi's lap as I type, which probably means I should be sound asleep too...

We had lots of guests tonight at our house for dinner - 8 people was about as many as my little dining room can manage! I made potato soup, french bread, fruit salad, and a cheesecake pie - yum yum, if I do say so myself! Haley seemed a bit overwhelmed by so much company and so many dogs (6), she was pretty serious the whole time and it was difficult to elicit smiles! She didn't nap much with all the excitement, so I think she has zonked out early for the evening. I'm off to do the same! Good night and Good weekend!

Mimi comes tomorrow!

So, Haley-bug sneakily fell asleep before I thought about taking her picture tonight and I didn't want to flash her for fear of waking her up. Thus, as a poor supplement, I have taken a picture of her new night-light which I just adore! It's a toadstool, as you can see, and it also has hedgehogs, mice, fairies, and so on painted all over it. It's very Beatrix Potter-esque, if any of you are Peter Rabbit fans. :)

Today we tried giving Haley some Tylenol throughout the day to see if it would help with her teething pain/eating, and it did! The last couple of days she's only eaten about 540 ml (18 oz) a day, and today she at 640 ml (21 oz) which is at least 30 above her minimum - YAY! Hopefully she can keep it up with the help of a little Tylenol. This morning I could actually see her trying to latch, then having it be painful and trying to shift the nipple to the side of her mouth which obviously is not a very effective way to eat. Poor little Bug, teething is no fun.

We are excited for the weekend because at least Mimi, Jenny, Guy, and Aunt Kelly are coming tomorrow, and possibly Bill & Eva are coming on Saturday! We're looking forward to a fun weekend of family. And hopefully we'll get to see our friends, Adam & Katie, sometime this weekend so they can finally meet Miss Haley! Yay weekend! Except boo on the fact that Chadmo has class all day on Saturday, at least there won't be toooo many more Saturday classes before he's done with school forever! :)

More Laughter!

Hmm...what color will her eyes end up being?
"Modeling the sweatshirt Mimi got for me while she was on vacation this summer!"

More Haley-bug laughs today! After she'd taken a nap, woke up, and had a bottle, I was carrying her around and was giving her lots of neck smooches and she kept laughing and laughing! It was too cute and it just made me want to eat her up! Tonight we watched the movie 'Up', Haley napped through the first half but then really watched the second half. We sat in the rocking chair together and she never made a peep, so I assume she really liked it! It was a cute movie and I'd highly recommend it, wish I could get my hands on 3 of those dog collars...

Laughed again!

Haley-bug playing with some of her billions of toys!

Her smiles were too elusive to catch on camera today unfortunately! I think she's teething and that's making her a bit fussier.

"That's my puppy, Ruby! She's soft!"

Haley-bug laughed again today, finally! I was at work unfortunately, but she laughed out loud for Grandma, and I'm so glad that someone else has finally gotten to hear it too! Hopefully she'll start laughing all the time now! :)

The Glenn

Playing on the floor at Katy & Greg's!

"I was very happy at 1 am!"

"I love to hold onto things now!"

So we had yet another recheck at Children's Hospital today with the cardiologist! Dr. Wheller said Haley's echo looked as good as any hypoplast's echo can ever look, so that was great news! Her blood oxygen levels, EKG, and blood pressures were all good too. Unfortunately she's still being a finicky eater, though we think she may be teething and that could be contributing to it, and she has only gained 0.1 kg in the last 10 days. So Dr. Wheller said he would present her to the surgeons either on Wednesday or Friday and recommend that she have her Stage 2 (the Glenn) procedure. He said it's not urgent, but there's no advantage to waiting longer if she isn't going to keep gaining weight. Plus having the Stage 2 done should improve her eating and let her start gaining again - we hope and pray! And of course they don't want her to start losing weight or anything either. He said the surgery will probably be done sometime in the next 2-4 weeks, whenever the surgeons decide. They will call us and let us know by Friday afternoon at the latest what her scheduled surgery date will be.

I'm bummed out that she's not going to get to wait until 6 months to have this done. It would've been so nice to have her get to be healthy, happy, on a routine, and relaxing at home for a little while. It seems like whenever we finally get settled in and she starts to be really happy, then we get sent back to the hospital. But I have to admit that with the way she's been eating I didn't really think there was any chance we were going to get to wait that long. And it could be another month before it happens, which would make her 5 months old and give her an almost 2 month stretch at home! Of course so long as she comes through the surgery well and gets to come home with us again, it will be great to have it done and over with. Plus then we will be done with the every day weighing, pulse ox-ing, and having to keep track of every milliliter she eats and exactly when she eats it. But lets face it, I'd really rather just never have to take her back there ever again and have her be totally healthy without any surgeries at all. So no matter how much I tell myself it's a good thing and point out the pros, really I hate it and the matter of the fact is that it's necessary. It's necessary, it has to happen, so we just have to suck it up and deal with it and hope that someday we can look back on all of this and say "That was terrible, but we are better and stronger people now for it. And look at the wonderful, beautiful, healthy, happy little girl we have to show for it." So I will be counting down the days, hopefully no more than 780, till we can attain that mindset...

Sleepy Sunday

Haley-bug and I had a good Sunday hanging out with Katy today while Chadmo and Greg-O worked on our Columbus house (yet again!) Haley went to bed late last night and unfortunately she woke up earlier than usual this morning so she was a bit of a fuss pot today. She was really fighting the naps, but when she finally caved in around 5 pm she woke up a much happier girl afterwards! Since it wasn't so freezing cold out today we got to go for a couple of walks around Worthington - we went to my favorite store, Fritzy Jacobs, and got Haley an awesome night light! Later we took Katy & Greg's dog Dax for a walk around the neighborhood. It was Haley's first venture out in the Baby Bjorn frontward facing (besides Fritzy Jacobs which she was pretty fussy for) and I think she really enjoyed herself, she just kept looking up at the sky and trees like they were amazing! It sprinkled some while we were walking and she also enjoyed sticking her tongue out and licking rain drops, seriously.

Unfortunately there was a lot more junk in our house than I anticipated, and the goal of getting rid of it all and cleaning the house was far too ambitious for a day and half's worth of work time, especially with a Haley-bug in tow to limit the number of available workers. But we have gotten far enough that now we will just have to pay someone to come haul away all the trash and clean the house so hopefully they can still get it listed this week. At this point I think the cost of hiring those chores done will be less than waiting around for us to do it and having yet another mortgage payment on an empty house! Wish us luck that our house lists this week and sells PRONTO! *fingers crossed*

We've enjoyed our stay at Katy & Greg's! It's really good to get out of the house! Even when I go to work I just walk across the driveway, so it's nice to have a change in scenery. Hopefully now that we are getting the hang of traveling with Haley we will come up more often. It worked out well this weekend too because she has a recheck appointment at Children's Hospital tomorrow at 1 pm. We're praying for all good news again, she's back to being a poor eater and I hope it's just finicky baby stuff again. She's certainly getting to be our big, alert, happy (most of the time) girl! Alright, hope you've all had a great weekend!

Flashback Saturday

A picture of Haley-bug from New Year's Eve at Aunt Kelly's!
Aunt Kelly giving Haley-bug a bottle on Haley's first night away from both Mommy & Daddy - New Year's Eve - they had lots of fun together! :)

Haley-bug, Chadmo, and I are all up in Columbus staying with Aunt Katy & Uncle Greg tonight and tomorrow night! We are trying to finish up getting all the junk out of our house and getting it all cleaned up so it can be listed again finally on Monday (hopefully!) Tonight we pawned some of our furniture we were going to donate to the Good Will off on Adam Rice (another friend) because he just rented a new apartment, so that was good for all! Then we all had dinner at Katy and Greg's, tasty Mexican, and Haley enjoyed entertaining everyone. She also enjoyed seeing Mommy & Daddy's old house and Adam's new apartment! Now she's sacked out, so we better hit the hay too! Happy weekend everyone!

So glad it's the weekend!

"I love it when Mommy makes kissy noises and gets closer and closer and closer and then gives me a BIG smooch! I smile big, chuckle, and scrunch up my face in anticipation!"

"Isn't my new hat cute??"

"I love my stuffed chicken-thing that laughs and giggles when I shake it!"

Haley got her third RSV shot today and she was a tough little girl and only cried a little bit for it! (Or so Grandma reports, I chickened out and left.) She's been a happy cookie and more awake this evening than she has been the past couple days. She ate a tiny bit better and we'll take whatever we can get! She's been so smiley and chuckling a bunch tonight. I think she's glad to have her Daddy home to spend time with her, she misses him during the week when he's gone at work all day and has to go to bed early! I know I like having him home. :)

We've had a productive Friday evening. Since Daddy's been home and could hold Haley-bug for me, I had time to box up all her clothes she's outgrown and all of the clothes Cousin Kylee has been nice enough to share with Haley that way we can ship them back to her! It was really sad to box up those little outfits though, I just kept thinking of how cute she was in them, and where she'd gone and what we'd done while she was wearing them, and the fact that she's too big now and won't get to ever wear them again! I guess that's a good thing, but it was still sad! It was good to get her nursery cleaned up and organized though, it was really over flowing with clothes. Then I took down our Christmas tree finally, which I realize was long over due but I still thought it was sad to take that down too - it was Haley's first Christmas tree! At least that won't be hanging over my head any more though. Though they were both kind of sad chores, it feels good to have them done!

Sleepy Baby

"I LOVED my bath tonight, for the first time in a long time! Grandma is funny!!"

"I'm a happy baby!"
Haley-bug has been a sleepy baby the last couple of days. When she is awake she is a very happy girl, but she's been snorking lots and not eating very well. She was eating great until yesterday, so hopefully she'll get back to normal in a day or two!

Ever since we came home from the hospital this last time, Haley has hated her baths. But today while Grandma was babysitting she decided to give Haley a bath and she just loved it! She was so smiley and happy in the tub, I couldn't resist taking a few pictures! She's a kicker and a splasher these days, so we have to line the counter tops with towels to catch the overflow, but she's just too cute in there!

13 pound baby!

Her hands are always in her mouth these days!

Haley-bug officially weighs 13 pounds 0.3 ounces today! Yay!! :) We had a momentary set back with the 1/2 pound of weight loss while we were in the hospital, but now we've over come it and gained a whole other pound to boot!!! Go Haley! I can't believe she's getting to be such a big girl.

I had my second afternoon back to work today and I have to admit that I just loved it. I do truly love my job. Though I hate being away from Haley, it's great to know she's with her Grandma and it's so much fun to have her be so happy to see me when I get home! Today I took care of a snake who had been attacked by the rat it was supposed to eat and had at least a dozen bite wounds all over it. I scrubbed him with betadine and sent a prescription for silver sulfadiazine cream, per the recommendations of my friend who is an exotics vet and snake owner himself. Then I vaccinated a couple dogs and lastly I did a fertility exam on a 7 year old male labrador retriever. It was a good day and I got to do a couple out of the ordinary things, so that was extra fun!

Alright, I think Bug is going to bed strangely early (11:30 pm!) so I better wrap this up and go to bed myself. Night all!

Monday

"I love to look at, bat, and grab my butterflies! One of these days I'm going to get a good enough grip to pull them right off their velcro!"

"What's that shiny silver thing that you hold in front of your face and keeps flashing me in the eyes, Mom?"

This evening Haley was having a good time realizing that she could 'stand up' and then sit down over and over and over again with my help while I was holding her in my lap! Every time she would 'stand up' she would give me a HUGE smile - saying, "this is so cool Mommy!" Each new little development is just so exciting, and it's tons of fun to watch her learn and be excited about it. She is just too smoochable!

Wheeee!

"Wheeee! I love flying up in the air these days! It takes me a second once I get up there, but when I make eye contact then I give a BIG smile!"

"Here's one of the super cool onesies everybody made for me at the baby shower Aunt Kelly & Aunt Katy threw for Daddy & Mommy!"