Silly Lilly!

Lilly is slowly getting back to herself. She is still a little unsure of leaving my side...meltdowns are bound to happen if she thinks I am dropping her off anywhere. But, other than that, she is slowly but surely getting used to this whole "baby sister" thing. Here is her showing me her "silly face" she learned last night.

And, I snapped this picture of her the other night while she was doing her favorite thing...watching a show in mommy and daddy's bed before going 'night night'. I think it is such a cute picture of her.

I promise to post pictures of Claire next!

Family of 4!

Claire: We could not have asked for an easier, sweeter baby in the world. This time around, it feels like night and day. She eats amazing, she sleeps great, and she is so sweet. I can honestly say, from both me and Anton, we are so absolutely smitten and in love. We can't believe we created such a beautiful healthy little girl. What a blessing.

Lilly: She has done great with the baby, but has been struggling a bit with me because I "abandoned" her for a few days. Today, we played hard outside looking for "bugs!", we read books, watched movies and snuggled on the couch. It was just what she needed. I can tell she is slowly but surely getting back to herself. My heart was broken for her though, I am not going to lie.

Anton: I don't know what to say about this man. He could NOT have been any better through everything. Helping me through a painful labor, being amazing with Lilly, and now watching him with Claire is more than my heart can handle. I am so lucky to have him.

Me: I am recovering amazingly well. The labor was super quick, but very painful until my second dose of my epidural kicked in...which was right as I was beginning to push. Ouch! I have had one great big emotional breakdown, which lasted about two hours. Poor Anton. I couldn't handle watching Lilly be so sad. To see her world turn so upside down has been really hard for me. Every time she cries...so do I. My mom has been with us everyday, therefore, Lilly has been taken good care of. When Nana went to leave today, Lilly cried so hard for her to come back. So, guess what....we sat and cried together. I guess that makes two emotional breakdowns. But, I must say, I am doing so much better than I could have ever hoped for!

Introducing!!

Help in the kitchen

Here is what we did yesterday when it was cold and rainy outside...

We made Yummy, and I mean YUMMY, Ginger Cookies!!

Lilly was all about helping me in the kitchen yesterday. Oooh how I love her!

Chuckles

Meet my little nephew Charlie. Aka: Chuckles, Charles, Charlie. Isn't he darling? This picture was taken a few months ago - and let me tell you, he just gets cuter and cuter. He is so darling with his curly blond hair, and chubby cheeks. Poor little guy has been so sick. He has been struggling with complications due to a severe case of RSV and has been in the PICU at Primary Children's for several weeks now. Today my brother Nate and his sweet wife received some bad news about Charlie. My heart goes out to them as they are trying to hold it together for Charlie and their three other darlings.

We love their little family so much and hope that "Chuckles" health will begin to improve quickly.

Love you guys.

Just as I had finished writing this post, we got great news on Charlie! In my brother Nate's words: "Charlie woke up this morning in a recovery room, the Dr. there saw that he was struggling mightily to breath so he sent him back down to ICU. The ICU Dr. was going to intubate him again, but was able to calm him down enough to slow his distress. She demanded the throat Dr. take him to do the scope immediately, and finally they took him to the O.R. to put a camera deep down in his trachea. They were able to see exactly what they all assumed was happening: there was some scar tissue that had built up after being intubated, that was severely restricting his airway. Before the procedure he was breathing through a hole 1mm in diameter, after the procedure it was opened way up to almost 1 inch in diameter. They used a balloon to open it back up, and they put a topical chemo-type solution on there to inhibit the cells from re-growing. I spoke with his normal pediatrician and he told me that they are certain this type of thing happened as a result of the intubation, and that it happens in less than 1% of patients with a breathing tube.
The end solution is that his airway is open and he's breathing great again. He looks great, but a little tired and hungry. We'll probably get to take him home for good tomorrow morning! We have 2-3 more treatments with the deep broch scope, just to make sure it's continuing in the right direction.
Luckily he's a fighter, because many doctors have told us that their biggest fear was that he would just get tired of fighting so hard for breath and just give up all together."

Cute little Charlie! So happy he is doing better!

Happy Easter

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Even though Lilly was a tad bit of a monster during the day, we ended up having a great Easter. Here are some very random pictures from our day...

Today

*Had a Yummy breakfast..and Lilly ate every last bite! Big Win! Guess she likes fruit salad.
*Took stink bug to her Gymboree class.
*Stopped by Nana's house on the way home for a quick visit.
*Came home and had lunch.
*Played with blocks and every other random toy in the toy bin.
*Took naps.
*Went for a quick walk.
*Watched Dora.
*Had some snacks.
*Snuggled on the couch to look at books and Mama's catalogs (even though mama was trying to take a little break - Lilly wanted to gaze at all the stuff in the catalogs too!)
*Made & ate dinner.
*Watched Lilly delicately dance to the tune played on the baby's swing.
*Lilly wrestled with her Daddy. She LOVES to do that.
*Bath time for buggy!
*Watched Survivor with Anton, and Lilly watched Tigger & Pooh on Mommy & Daddy's bed.
*Lilly went 'night night'.
*Anton went to play basketball.
*I took a nice hot shower, and plan to go crawl in bed to read my books.

What a day. Something about today was perfect. Maybe it was the simple one on one time spent with Lilly, or maybe it was I didn't feel the need to get one thing done, it could have been the silly "conversations" I had with Lilly, or the fact that I feel so at peace with my life. I love Anton so deeply, I never knew I could love Lilly the way I do, and I am so excited to meet this new little addition to our family. My love grows for these three every day. Who knew that was possible!