Getting In the Christmas Spirit

Morgan calls our tree "ooo oo" because that is what she says everytime she sees it. We ask them, "Where's your Christmas tree?" and they both point at it. Then Morgan says "ooo oo". It is so cute. This Christmas is going to be so much fun. I can't wait to see their little faces light up Christmas morning when they see all the goodies Santa is going to leave them.

Morgan is mesmerized by her first Christmas tree. Maddy loves the blinky lights

Our First Visit with Santa

Maddy couldn't wait to see Santa. She ran to him.

Morgan was very curious as to who this jolly guy was :)

Our "Official" picture with Santa.

Happy Happy Thanksgiving

We have been so busy around here. William was off for the holiday and we had a nice four day weekend together. We really tried to pack in the family time. He has been working six day weeks for months and months and the time together was such a relief. Thursday I cooked Thanksgiving dinner all by myself down at my dads. I made a ton of food and the turkey turned out perfect. It was golden and juicy. I was afraid before it finished that it was going to be like the turkey in "Christmas Vacation", but thankfully it wasn't.

Maddy and Morgan have been sick since last week. They ran fever all last week and we ended up at the doctor's office last Wednesday. Maddy had a double ear infection and Morgan they said had fever from shots she had had two weeks prior? Thanksgivng day was kinda rough with Morgan, she ran fever all day and was really puny. She really wasn't up for all the festivities and ended up sleeping away most of the day.

Friday both girls perked up and were feeling so much better. We layed around the house most of the day but in the afternoon we took the girls to a Christmas Event here in our town. It benefits the hospital they were in the NICU at and it had all these animated animals and lights to walk the children through. It was indoors, though it wouldn't have mattered since it was such a gorgeous day outside here. Maddy and Morgan loved the exhibit and we walked through it twice so they could get a good look at all the animals. It was exactly the same as I had remembered it from when I was a little girl. We didn't however see Santa there. Because they had been so sick I was wary of more germs. So we just pushed them around in their stroller. After that we headed home and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and working on a puzzle.

Saturday, William woke me up at 9am and asked me if I wanted to take some of our "junk" to the flea market up the road to sell. We haven't done this sort of thing since before I was pregnant. It is really a lot of stuff to get together and seemed too hard to throw together at the last minute. But it was such a pretty day outside and William really wanted to go because his brother was there. So he packed it all up in his nephew's truck and I packed up the girls and the playpen. It was a lot of fun and we made $152.00 in 4 1/2 hours. They do say that "one man's junk is another man's treasure" I was glad we cleaned out some space in our barn and excited to have enough money to get our Christmas stuff out of layaway.

Yesterday we spent the day at home. I wanted to go to church but we aren't able to put the girls in the nursery during RSV season and we didn't line up a sitter. I went to Walmart and got groceries and William worked on his car. The girls played all day and literally had toys scattered from one end of the room to the other. They had a blast but were exhausted by 7:30pm. William and I finished our puzzle and watched a sad sappy Hallmark movie on tv. It was a nice quiet end to our "vacation" weekend.

It was so much fun. I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving holiday. I know this year was more exciting for me because I realized just how very much I have to be thankful for. I look at my two little girls and my heart wants to explode with love for them. I look at them and literally see how much God must love me to have blessed me this much. It was a wonderful thanksgiving for us and I really hope it was for you too.

Test Results and Power Tools

First and foremost. I got the test results from Morgan's EEG and MRI tests she had last week. Both tests came back completely normal and she is scheduled for a followup with her doctor in two months. This is great news and is 100% proof that she doesn't have any brain damage from NICU and no cerebral palsy. We are so excited!!!

Morgan is up and walking more and more now and Maddy is running from room to room like a wild woman. Both of the girls are ahead of schedule on their fine motor skills even if you don't correct thier age, and they are right on target for their gross motor. Our OT is talking about reevaluating them to see if they are ready for discharge soon. Our PT is going to hold off on putting Morgan in leg braces to see if she corrects her funny foot positioning as she gains more control over her balance with walking. This is all such good news for our family. With all the preemie stuff we deal with every day it is nice to finally be heading in the right direction. It is wonderful to hear positive news.

Today Melissa came over and I told her about how I want to put my big Christmas tree up this year. Last year I just put up a tiny tree on a table. It was all I could muster with the girls being so little and demanding and I was so happy when it came time to put it away because all I had to do was fold up the branches and stuff it in a box. The problem I had with the little tree was that it didn't do anything to bring in the spirit of Christmas. I missed my fancy tree and all my decorations. I missed putting the presents under it (last year I just kept them piled up in the closet till time to take them to parties). I really am looking forward to doing a big Christmas this year ... but ... I have been very worried about the stress of keeping two very curious toddlers away from the tree and safe. So I devised this plan to build a box in the corner of my living room and behind it I could put the tree. It really is more of a L. Two long boards screwed together with "L" brackets and then I wanted to cover it with batting and Christmas fabric so if the girls touched it they wouldn't get a splinter or hurt themselves. In my mind this idea made perfect sense.

When Melissa got here I got out the tape measure and we figured out the dimensions we would need and headed to Lowes to buy some wood. Two babies in the cart and two women walking around Lowes must have been more than some of the employees and shoppers could handle. Every turn and every question was answered with condescension like we couldn't possible have a clue what we were going to do. Just a simple request for help with lumber was met with a "You don't know what you're doing" stare. When we got to the station where they cut the wood for you, the cutter guy was friendly but kept asking us the dimensions again like we must have them wrong. At one point he even got out his tape measure and started pretending he was building what we were describing just to see if it was logical. Of course in the end he just cut the wood to the size we needed. He had to ask us like four times the measurements (which were very simple) because he kept forgetting. When he finally passed off the cut wood to us he said something like "Good luck with your project" in a way that sounded like "You can't do it" We walked away sqwaking about it. We had asked the wood cutter what aisle the screws were on and he told us two. So off to aisle two we went. On aisle two we looked up and down for the "L" brackets and screws but weren't finding them. Another employee walked up and we asked him where to find the brackets. He scoffed and told us we were looking in the wrong place and then took us over a couple of aisles. It just seemed like every row we went to people were acting like we were trying to build a house with no instructions. Like we couldn't possibly know what we were doing. I found it humorous. Melissa was aggravated.

We got our wood loaded in the car, packed in the kids, and off we went to Walmart fabric department, where we were treated like we knew EXACTLY what we were doing and then we headed home. While it was quite humorous and times putting together the wall. It was overall very fun and in the end I am so proud of what we did. It is really pretty. It works and fits perfectly in the room. The girls think it is cool and best of all they can't reach over it. It comes up to about their armpit level (18") and it has this pretty fabric with a snowman scene across the bottom. I can't wait to show you pictures but my camera batteries are dead, figures :). I guess I will have to wait till I get my tree all up and then take a picture of the whole thing at one time. I usually put it up Thanksgiving weekend.

Hope everyone is having a great week. I will talk to you all soon :)

Mostly About Morgan ...

Here are some more pictures from recently. I haven't had a lot to write about and most of the things I do have to write about I haven't really felt up to writing about. So I figure I will just write a little and post some new pictures.

Morgan shows off her pretty butterfly shoes. Isn't this just the cutest dress? Someone gave it to us from Baby Gap and it still had the tags on. Would you believe it is a 0-3mo. size. Isn't that crazy?

Yesterday I took Morgan to the hospital to have her MRI and EEG. It was not a fun experience to say the least but we did get through it. We ended up being at the hospital for eight hours total. We don't have any of the test results yet but I am hoping that by tomorrow we will have some clue as to when we will at least find out the results. I called the neurologist office today and they are going to call me back tomorrow and set us up an appt. or give us the results over the phone? I don't know. I love the doctor but the office seems a little scatterbrained to me.

Here are some pictures of Morgan's post "EEG hairdo" It was crazy stiff and she still has paste in her hair today from the procedure. I think I washed it at least four times last night, put baby oil in it, and combed and brushed it for about an hour and still there is stuff stuck to her head today :)
Because she was such a good baby all day long and was put through the ringer with these tests (three sticks for an IV to sedate her) and hours and hours with no food or drink. She deserved a balloon. This is her balloon...and a teddy bear ... which Maddy kept taking while Morgan was getting her hair brushed. So we have had an adventurous week so far and it is only Wednesday. I hope the rest of the week is calm and more collected :) Hope to hear from you. Going to go brush up on some of the blogs I haven't had the chance to read lately. I hope to update more this week.

Happy Halloween

We had a really happy Halloween. We had a very busy day out and about. We went trick or treating at my mom's work and at my old job too. The girls were so cute and they loved all the attention they got. Last night we went over to my mom's house and handed out candy to all the cute little kids. Maddy and Morgan had a blast. They really don't eat candy yet so we put Gerber Fruit Puffs in their pumpkin and they had so much fun digging down in it to get their "treats" out.

Here are some pictures of them in their cute little poodle skirts.

Our Pumpkin