Rewind to Christmas

Christmas Eve visiting Santa

Every year my sister and I take our kids to the mall to visit Santa. This year, since we had so much snow (she was actually snowed in her neighborhood for a while), we didn't make it until the very last minute...we met at South Center to visit the man in the red suit...

Morgan waits for Santa...she used to call him "Sadsap" and was terrified of him....this year she is excited to see himMicaela, Connor, Tom, Morgan, and Andrew waiting for Santa to come back from lunch

These kids have fun together...sometimes too much?

This is a cute one :)

Tom, Connor, Summer on Santa's lap, Andrew, Morgan, and Micaela

Next stop...Granparents' house #1...my parents' house
We have so much family in the area, a few years ago, we came up with a routine....Christmas eve with my parents and sister's family, Christmas morning at home, then off to my in-laws for Christmas dinner and more, many more presents! Yes, it is quite the long, tiring, but fun, Holiday :)


Andrew and Morgan taking turns opening presents


Grandma Norris with Summer

Morgan, Micaela and Tom


Debbie with the Angel ornament I gave her...she really kept me going this last year :)


The picture collage I made for my parents...take note, you will see this repeat gift later...

Christmas morning at our house

Our tree....this was taken at 7 AM...right before I finally got to bed...zzzzzz

Our mantle after Santa's visit


Tom's stocking....beware, the contents! Andrew's so lucky...look what he gets :) Morgan's green devil duckie and stocking

Santa in our house has a twisted sense of humor...Andrew got squirrel underpants! Those little creatures need to have a little decency after all...

Morgan

Tom unloads his stocking very carefully...Daddy cuddles with Summer

What lucky kids...who else gets a bloody, rubber finger and a box of tater tot pencil toppers?

Morgan got a whole collection of "Parasite Pals" accessories

Andrew loves his Basset Hound Webkin...he named it Sophie, like our friend's dog

Morgan, Andrew, and Tom

Morgan, Tom and Andrew love their baby sister, Summer

Santa rocks! He brought the boys Guitar Hero for our Wii

Grandpa and Grandma Norris with Summer

Morgan and Mom...Morgan drew my name and got me a cool Cinderella pop-up book for us to read together (thanks to hubby of course :) )

I had Andrew's name...I gave him a snake and horse Webkin and some books...he was so excited

Me and Andrew

Andrew had Dad's name...he gave him a nutcracker and made him a penguin ornament out of clay

Dad had Tom's name....he wrapped up his own book with a bunch of coupons stuffed inside....things like; no shower day, sleepover, movie night, etc.

The kids got a bunch of Nintendo DS stuff...oh happy day

Tom loved his Webkin bat

Morgan and Tom

I didn't get any sewing done this year, so the boys all got tiny cut-out promises...still haven't finished them...

Wow! Look at all that snow...yes, we are still in Washington!

I grabbed Morgan, she fought me and screamed, but hey, the camera caught her looking like she smiled :)

My parents always come over Christmas morning...we caught this pic as they were leaving

A white Christmas

Tom rocks out during our breather from present opening

Grandparents' house #2...the Camerons

With so much family close by, we have a very long 2 days, but the kids love it!

Emily loves holding babies....the older girls were sick, so she was the only one who got to hold Summer :) She enjoyed it :)

Emily and Summer

Andrew, Tom and uncle Matt

Eric, Nathan, and Andrew

Jeanette and Jared open a present

Lucky for Rachel, Tom had her name this year...how cute, remote control Liederhosen, complete with Bratwurst remote control....ooh, too bad he can't have my name !

The grandkids gather around Grandma Cameron while she opens the photo book Jeanette made for her...all the kids' pictures were included with their own original artwork...it was really nice

Ah, the craziness of Christmas with 12 kids!

Morgan unloads the huge giftbag from Grandma while Ryan waits patiently behind her with his box that was bigger than he is...

I had to include this pic because my two curly headed kids have their mouths hanging open the same way...Andrew, Morgan, Emily and Ryan

Morgan found a huge Pinky Pie little Pony at the bottom of her bag....so happy!

Julie holds up her granparent frame ..look familiar?

Mom and Summer...Morgan wore this dress when she was a baby...Summer is starting to look a lot like she did...so cute.

Brianna and Tom rock out to Guitar Hero with Whitney...

...she is a VERY enthusiastic groupie!!

Jared and Jeanette

The night ended with cuddles for Summer from Grandma

We had a very nice Christamas. We ended our day (well, officially the next day) around midnight, as usual, and back home to re-coop.

It's about time!!

It has almost been a month since I updated this thing...no there is nothing wrong :) Just busy, busy, busy! Oh, and there is the little detail like...my laptop isn't connecting to our internet at the moment, argh....hubby is out spending more money to fix that problem as we speak, oh yea :)

To sum up....Summer is now 12 pounds 2 ounces...that's 3 pouns in the last 4 weeks!! The nurses have been telling me that once she got home, and things were somewhat figured out, she would start really plumping up. I was waiting and waiting for this to happen...guess we have hit her chubbin' up point!

Summer has been so happy and healthy lately too. At our appt. a week and a half ago, Dr. Horslen pointed out her liver function numbers...they are almost completely normalized! At one point, they were almost 300 (with a norm between 40's and 60's) and now have come way down. Her bilirubin is still holding at 0 and obviously she is thriving on the formula we have been giving her :) What a relief!

We also got the okay to go every two weeks to the GI clinic instead of every week....ah, it is nice not to drive into Seattle as much :) I am hoping that lasts :)

I have a lot more updates to throw in here too....look for Christmas pics and more to come....I figure it is about time for that since my Christmas tree is finally down :)

Summer is home again...

...and look how happy she is about it!

Yesterday I left early for the hospital so I could make it there for rounds. I walked in right as they were reveiwing Summer's progress. A few minutes into it, the Doc said "should we send her home and see how she does?" YES! I squeaked in my cold induced voice...after 8 days we were definitely ready. This hospital visit, though not the way I would have chosen to spend the first week of our New Year, has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We got to bring her home without oxygen (YEA!!), we figured out the best way to get her to gain weight, (she is now 11 POUNDS, 1 OUNCE !! that's almost 2 pounds in a week!) and she got the much needed blood transfusion to help her anemia.

Summer is so happy...she was before, but now that we see her feeling so good, we know what Summer's happy really is! Last night I tucked her in bed around midnight and she slept until 8:00 AM. She has been all smiles and coos...it is so nice to have her home :)

It was time to go, so we loaded up our cargo....precious and perishable :)

Summer is happy to be going home! Notice no backpack in sight...she was on her 4 hour TPN break and was unplugged from her food until we could hook her up at home...it was the first time we got to hold her without tubes. I picked her up and walked around the room...not a tube dragging behind, it was fun :) We took her home in her carseat without the attachments too and brought her in the house that way. The kids were really happy to see her :)

Morgan immediately ran over to the couch, sat down and said "I hold baby Supber pease?"

The girls got some good cuddles in...Summer seemed to enjoy it too, she even smiled when I said "Say cheeeeese" :)

Look....they match now :) Summer's color is so pink and healthy, and her dark hair is starting to be replaced with the more golden color Morgan has.

She's fat and happy :)

Look who I saw today...

...notice anything different??? :)

I walked in Summer's room to find her in a swing...she spotted me and burst out in smiles...grinning from ear to ear. I guess she missed me too :) I kissed her cute little tape free cheek and she smiled again...they turned her oxygen off yesterday around 3:30 PM and she has been off ever since...she must be so happy not to have the oxygen blowing up her nose anymore! I am just a LITTLE excited about this milestone myself...woo hoooooo!
At this point they had turned Summer's food off again yesterday to give her bowells a rest. She was still stooling a lot and had traces a blood in it. She has been having this for the last few weeks and we didn't know why until now. All signs are pointing to an allergic reaction to breast milk. Is that possible? We asked the same question...apparently it happens. It isn't actually the breast milk itself, but the whole cow's milk protein that is transferred through the breast milk to the baby. Most of the time, the mother's body will break this protein down, but sometimes it is transferred directly without any break down or processing. This is a very harsh protein for some kids to process, so they have an allergic reaction like diarea and blood in the stool. It takes several months for it to build up to this point, but once detected can be taken care of. However, though in a baby with a normal functioning gut, this can be taken care of by reducing the dairy intake of the mother, Summer's gut is a little trickier. There would be no way for me to use the milk stored to feed her through her NG tube and I definitely don't have the ability to reproduce the volume I had a few months ago. I have moooved on, ha ha...The docs feel she benefited greatly for the past few months and was able to heal well while taking it, but now feel the formula is to be her sole diet. Though this may seem like a dissapointment, it is actually a huge relief to me. Just knowing that stupid breast pump was still in my house, caused stress in my life. I have been so happy to provide what I could for Summer, but the lack of sleep and complication from the whole process will definitely NOT be missed :) So, Tom says we need to start our own home dairy or start using it in our cooking.....homemade cheese anyone? I hope you haven't restricted yourself to fat free! EWE...

Summer has been taking 10 ML's an hour of formula for most of the day and doing well so far....maybe she will be home sooner than we think! I will spend the day with her tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed....maybe I could sneak her out in my backpack...no big oxygen tank to haul and she still doesn't weigh much, haha.

Once there was a snow man....

Wierd Washington Weather!

Last Sunday it started raining, as it does very often here, and the many inches of snow we were graced with, were gone within hours....

This is all that remained of our beloved "Lumpy the snowman"...sniff....until...

It snowed again!

It started snowing last night around 5 PM and continued most of the night. By 7 PM there was already about 2 inches and suddenly people forgot how to drive, again. I decided to spare myself the hills of Seattle and didn't go see Summer....sniff. She was doing great, and I would go the next morning.

After all......by morning...

...our yard looked like this again!