Marching for Dimes

The March of Dimes Walk is this weekend.

I'm really looking forward to it

for a few different reasons.

First of all, I get to see my family and my beautiful nieces.

The little girls haven't all been together since Stella was 6 weeks old.

She'll be 7 months old on Saturday.

That's too long!

Second, I think March of Dimes is a great cause

and I'm so glad that my sister formed a team.

March of Dimes works to prevent pre-term delivery

and birth defects.

In our family, we know a thing or two about pre-term delivery.

We know we are incredibly blessed to have had a healthy baby girl,

thanks to our wonderful doctors and nurses who took amazing care of both of us.

In 7 short months,

we have gone from this....

to this happy amazing and healthy girl!

I know we're blessed.

We feel it every day!

If you want to donate, please click the

March of Dimes logo on the right hand side of the blog.

->->->->->->->

It will take you to my March of Dimes page

and you can donate there.

Thanks!!!!

Brace Face!

Cole better get used to that

because that's what I'm going to call him from now on.

Not really, and I don't think it's much of an insult, but I think it's funny.

 

Here is the last picture of Cole sans braces for quite some time.

His orthodontist office is cool.

They have a Hollywood theme.

And they make the kids feel special when they are having something major done.

How are you feeling Cole?

Thumbs Up!
Ready for Action

And then...

this was what I got to see for the next hour or so.

Just his feet

Until...

Ta-Daaa!

The finished product.

Let's have a look.

He got blue & yellow bands to represent his school colors.

We had to go out to eat to celebrate, and try out the new hardware.

It was also around this time that Cole started

to get annoyed with the picture taking.

It went something like this:

"Mom, are you seriously going to keep taking pictures of my teeth?

I can't keep smiling like this.

Oh, Mom, please don't take pictures of me in Chipotle!"

Me: "Ok, I'll stop"

Well, just one more

to document the fact that you can still eat.

Yep- they still work.

Embrace The Camera

I don't very often make it into the pictures in our household.

I am the picture taker.

Not the picture subject.

So I'm taking the "Embrace The Camera" challenge.

Stella wears her helmet 23 hours a day now.

One of the drawbacks of the helmet is that I miss snuggling up to that furry soft head.

Snuggling up to the hard plastic just isn't the same.

Here we are snuggling during our one free hour.

I love that furry head.



Phone Photo Dump

I've been neglecting the blog.

I realize it, and I feel bad about it.

But we've been busy.

With moving and such.

We closed on our new house yesterday.

And we're partially moved in.

We can't find anything, but we slept there last night.

That's a start.

So I'm feeling badly about neglecting the blog.

But I don't have anything prepared to blog about

So I'm dumping photos from my phone today.

Enjoy!

The cutest pirate ever!

Aaaahhh, Look at that smile.

This is actually the pink & white fuzzy stocking hat that the baby girls

in my family have so adorably sported all winter.

Here it looks like on of those furry Russian hats.

I tried to google furry Russian hat to see if I could find the proper name for them,

but all I came up with was a bunch of sites selling Furry Russian Hats.

So, I guess that's what they're called.

Stella likes to touch faces now.

If you get close to her she loves to reach out and touch, or grab.

She likes to touch her Daddy's beard.

And Cole lets her grab his lips and nose and cheeks.

We managed to take advantage of the few nice days that we've had so far.

The swings are a hit.

I dunno,

some menacing looking clouds that I felt were photo worthy.

Awww, this was on the day we were moving out of our house.

This is in Cole's room, which was the only room that was cleared out when Stella needed a nap.

It seemed appropriate to put her right in the center of the room.

Her first (of many I'm assuming) shoulder ride from Dad.

I'm not sure who enjoyed it more.

Cole In The Newspaper!!!!

Cole made the newspaper today!

His middle school was participating in a Civil War event

and his character was John Wilkes Booth.

We called him J-Dub :)

He was excited last night because a reporter asked his name

so he was sure he would make the paper.

Then he was disappointed when he didn't make the print edition this morning.

Turns out his pic just made the online version

but they did use his name, so that's fun.

Here's the LINK to the story.

Turns out he also made his school's website.
Here is the photo of Cole (JWB), Abe (as himself), Megan (Mary Surratt) & Cassidy (Mary Todd Lincoln).

Stella's New Lid

Ta-Daaaaaa!

Stella has a new lid.

She got her helmet yesterday.

She's got a mild flat spot on the right side of her head

that needed a little rounding.

It's pretty common for preemies to get a little flat spot because their neck muscles are not strong enough

when they are born to move their head around.

We were still supporting Stella's head when she was almost 4 months old,

so it has just taken her a long time to build up those muscles.

We also noticed a few months ago that this was her preferred position for sleeping.

Always on the right side.

We tried positioning her differently but it always came back to this.

After a visit with a physical therapist we learned that she has

torticollis, which is why she leans her head in this direction.

She starts physical therapy for that on Monday.

So back to the helmet...

We visited the Helmet Clinic at Children's Hospital in Omaha

and met with some wonderful Doctors and their Occupational Therapist, John.

John is kind of legendary there.

He has been doing this work for 20 years.

He knows what he's doing.

And it's very obvious that he loves kids.

He likes to make nicknames for the children he works with.

He calls Stella "Poodle Doodle"

Here is John measuring Poodle Doodle for her helmet.

They put this stocking on her head

and the dots in her ears for the scanner.

It's a pretty slick system that only took a few seconds.

No more plaster casting.

Here is a link to a news story done a couple of years ago on the

Helmet Clinic

It shows the scanner that Stella was in.

So far she has done great with the whole thing.

We are easing her into wearing her helmet, but by the end of the weekend

she should be in it 23 hours/day.

They're telling us 3-6 months of wearing it.

We're hoping it comes off before her 1st birthday.

We think she looks adorable in it.

It highlights her cheeks nicely!

Moooo-ving

It has been a bit crazy around our house this week.

We are in the packing up and do without stage of moving.

Our closing dates have been moved up on both houses,

which is exciting for us.

We're anxious to get into our new house and get settled.

Cole said today that his room looks "depressing."

He's right. Most of our rooms look depressing.
If they're not jammed with boxes, they've been stripped of all of the extras.

We have stacks of boxes in various places throughout the house.

This is a stack of empty boxes that migrated in from the garage.

Hope we don't need to get out the front door any time soon!

There is one member of the family who is doing everything she can to make sure she doesn't get left behind.

Every time I bring an empty box in to pack it

this is what I find inside.