Happy way belated birthday to my wonderful husband who turned 24 on the 27th. I helped him celebrate by throwing up all over Target when we went to pick up my prescription, what an awesome wife he has :).

Doesn't he look thrilled with his Seahawks Snuggie?? :)

Claire

I got to spend lots of time with our little peanut today and it was wonderful. It's still amazing that she is really here and that she is mine!

It's crazy to me that I have a preemie in the nicu but God has blessed us so much with her being healthy and I am so thankful for His many many undeserved blessings to our family.

1 week old today!

The UVA line (the belly button one) is coming out today! And she will
be able to be in a regular bassinet!! That's two steps closer to
coming home!

Going Home!

After what feels like being in the hospital for the entire 8 month pregnancy, we are finally headed home. Keri just got her staples taken out and the paperwork done, so we should be actually driving away in about an hour. We have a cart-full of flowers which is awesome and we're thinking about setting up our own floral shop.

Of course we won't actually be leaving the hospital for good since we'll be back a few times a day to be with Claire. Keri actually tried nursing her twice yesterday and she was sort-of getting it, but not really; Better than Kenley did at first, I think. We asked the nurse how long it would be until Claire would get to go home since everybody asks us and we have no clue. She said they like to tell people that it's around the due date, but actually turns out to be around the 37-38 week, so we're looking at another week or two. In this NICU, they have two family sleeping rooms, so if they are available, Keri and I might sleep there so if Keri is trying to nurse her we won't have to wake up three times a night to drive to the hospital. We'll see.

It's nice to finally see this stage (at least one part of it) ending.

And now what everybody actually checks this blog for: pictures.

So do you see a resemblance?

Here's Claire -

Here's Kenley -

A Keri Post

Keri here. Percocet posting :)

I had a really good day yesterday pain wise which I think caused me to over do it quite a bit, but who doesn't on Christmas? :)

My doctor came in this morning and said that I could go home today. But I asked to go home tomorrow instead. You may think that I am crazy for not wanting to go home right away, but I am so sore today and I am pretty torn about leaving Claire, and then there is the whole bowel thing....So I think I need today as a resting/processing everything day.

I just caught up and read through the blog posts yesterday. I have little to no memory of the time we were here before Claire came. I also had no idea that I was on a ventilator. The fact that a machine was breathing for me is a really weird thought. It makes me thankful for salvation. I feel so bad for Brian having to see me like that, I am sure he was terrified. I can not imagine seeing him like that, even the thought of that makes me want to cry.

I am so thankful for the grace that God has given us. He has been healing me so quickly and I can see His hand through this whole process. I am also so thankful for God's protective hand on our sweet baby girl. 5 weeks early could have carried many more complications for her but thankfully she is doing so well!

My husband has been amazing. I have definitely put him through the wringer and he hasn't complained one bit. He has been such a champ sleeping on that uncomfortable hospital couch for almost two weeks.

My surgical PA asked if Brian had an older brother :). She said that she noticed how amazing he was with taking care of me and that she was impressed by that and wants to find someone like that. I am so glad that he is my someone :)

Christmas update and more pictures!

Keri is doing great today. The doc came in this morning and put her back on a regular diet, which is good because Keri was FORCING me to feed her some of the quiche that my mom brought us this morning before she was on her regular diet. They also said she may be able to go home tomorrow, which is a good thing because she has to get ready for the surprise birthday party she's throwing for me on Monday.

Claire is also doing really well. Grandma Hiegel got to hold her for awhile this morning. She has also been completely taken off of oxygen so she is breathing room air now. She still has the hose in her nostrils for something that I wasn't really paying much attention to know what it is. They said she'll possibly have it completely taken out by tomorrow. God is good and continually shows his grace to us everyday.

Merry Christmas to YOU!

3 steps forward, 1 step back

Today was a pretty rough day for Keri. She said it was a "realization" day. I was gone most of the day, so I think she had time to just think about what was actually happening. I kinda feel bad for leaving her, but I was trying to get stuff done around the house FOR her, so that's how I justified it.

While I was home, Keri texted me saying the doctors were worried that she wasn't healing properly and so they took her off her regular diet and put her back on a clear liquid diet. Definitely a bummer. So with that along with "realization" day, Keri's had a pretty rough day.

Then, on top of all that, we went and saw Claire tonight and there was a little baby hat sitting on the chair with this note inside of it:

"Dear Special Care Parents,

Our son, Jake, was born 10 weeks premature. He was at Evergreen Hospital, Children's Hospital, and Providence Special Care from June 10th to August 20th 2000. The daily emotional 'roller coaster' of a preemie was exhausting. Did my child have a good day or a bad day? How many alarms? Did he digest his food? Will he ever nurse? The tears fell as we wondered when we were ever going to be together as a family at home.

We want you to know that there is hope! Our son is 10 1/2 yrs old now. He is a complete sports nut...hockey, baseball, snowboarding and wakeboarding. He is full of life and an absolute delight. We are truly blessed and thankful for God's precious gift to us.

We desire to bring your family hope and comfort this Christmas season. This time seems like forever, but it does pass. You will be home again soon. From the day we left special care, we promised ourselves that we would help others that are experiencing life in the NICU. My wife makes these hats and prays for the little ones that will be wearing them. Each Christmas, our family delivers these gifts to families like yours. Let it bring comfort to you knowing that through the toughest times, you are not alone.

With Love,

Blaine, Ann, Emmalee, Jenna and Jake McNeil

This is a special verse to us. We knew we were comforted with God's grace and our hope is that we can comfort you with the comfort we received!

'Praise be to the God...the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God..." II Corinthians 1:3,4"

Um.... awesome much??? Can anyone say providential? The day Keri is having the hardest time being alone in the hospital thinking about all the craziness going on, we get sent this "anonymous" letter with a gift. It was quite overwhelming. God is so, so good to us. I cannot even describe.

First Family Photo

Visitors

Just so you know, if you wanted to visit, today would be a good day.

Some pics and an update

Here's some pics, they're not in "order," but they're at least within 3 days of each other. I'd put them in order, except I have no idea what I'm doing on here.

Once again, things are continually getting better and better. Keri has been pretty sore and tired all day today, but still got up a few times to go walking and to go see Claire. I went home for about two hours this evening and while I was gone, Keri texted me saying she got her nose hose taken out and put on a "transitionary diet." So she got some toast, graham crackers, and some pudding. She looks SO much better and somewhat normal now. The doc said she may be able to leave in the next 2-3 days. Amazing!

Claire is also improving dramatically. We were told she could possibly get the oxygen hose taken out tomorrow and be breathing totally on her own. Then all we would really be waiting for is for her to eat well and get rid of what she eats well.

Some pics and an update

Things continually get better and better. Claire is doing really really well and they that she might be able to lose the oxygen by tonight or tomorrow and breath on her own. Praise the Lord! Since Keri got a chance yesterday to hold her, I got my turn today. Before we had her, Keri and I would always talk about how hard it's going to be to love someone as much as we love Kenley, and then somehow, it just happens.

Just real quick... doc came in and she said she was pleased with Keri's progress, so they clamped her NG tube and are putting her on a liquid diet.

Update 12/21

Keri and baby are doing great today. I had to leave for my final at noon and got back at 5:30. Right after I left, Keri was able to get in a wheelchair and go see Claire. I'm super way ridiculously jealous cause Keri got to hold her. No one else did, which means I'll still get to be #2, which isn't bad. Right when I got back, we went to go see her again with my parents, but they wouldn't take her out. They said she had a pretty rough afternoon and isn't able to settle down so they might start giving her some medications.

All in all, things are going well. While I was gone, one of the doctors said we'd be here at least another week. So we're thinking about waiting to celebrate Christmas until we get home, kids wouldn't care...

...um...that's weird...I said kids, with an s. Weird

And now for the news that nobody cares about, I think I did fairly well on my final.

Visitors...

Scratch my last post about having visitors.

Keri really wants to just have a full day of rest tomorrow, so if anyone had plans on coming, I apologize, but I'll let everyone know when she actually is up for visitors.

BTW... You should see my kid #2, she's ridiculously cute. If you want to come just to see baby, that would be fine and I could take you down there to see her, but I'll be gone from about noon to four or five tomorrow.

Settling...

I'm a little bit behind, but the good news keeps on getting better. At
about 2:45 I was at the Pacific campus showing off Claire to my
parents (who flew back early from Pheonix), my sister, the Higgins'
and Dave Light who stopped by to visit. Around that time, I get a text
from Keri's mom saying they're moving her back over to the Pacific
campus. So I head back and apparantly the doctor said she was in great
shape and had no more risks of oxygen failure/loss. Keri looked great
(comparatively speaking, I think I overheard Dave Light saying he
thought she looked to be in really bad shape) and was very alert and
could finally eat ice chips. Shortly after that, they had her back in
the ambulance taking her back to the Pacific campus. On the way up to
her room, the medics transporting her were nice enough to take her to
the 2nd floor first to have the first mother/daughter meeting. They
were having a battle of the number of tubes and wires attached to a
single person at one time. I think Keri won, but Claire was a close
second. Now Keri is back in her own room sleeping and Claire is doing
great down in the NICU.

I used this opportunity to run home to take a shower and take a short
nap before starting to study for the final I have to take tomorrow.

I know a lot of people are wondering about visits. She's feeling
rather good so I'm sure she wouldn't mind visitors at all and probably
be happy to see some other faces besides mine.

Keri and Claire's first meeting

What? Good news? Really?

So where do I begin? The first news I got was about baby, so I'll start there.

About 10:30 I went back over to the Pacific Campus to check on baby Claire and they just happen to be having their daily "all doctors and nurses discuss each patient time" and they were just about to start on Claire. Coincidence? I think not. So they let me sit in and tried to decipher all their medical jargon, but I'm still too stupid to understand anything they're telling me. They covered a few things they were concerned about, mostly the breathing problems, but nothing was for sure a problem. Even if anything they covered did actually become a problem, they said most of it was just a simple fix or would go away with time. Looks like we have a very healthy baby girl! It'll still be awhile before we get to take her home, but the nurses down in the NICU are great and are taking great care of her.

The biggest shocker is how quickly Keri has recovered. She still has the NG tube and oxygen and she still is on some killer pain meds, but she's very awake and alert and able to carry on conversations. It's awesome! The last ICU doctor we talked to said that everything was looking great and she'll probably get to go back to the Pacific Campus tonight. I'm still unsure if she'll be able to meet Claire just cause Claire can't leave the NICU and I think Keri's still bed-ridden. Maybe they can get her into a wheelchair, I don't know.

I don't think I have any bad news this time around. Weird. Still a long road of recovery ahead, but God has showed us an extreme amount of Grace to us today. Extreme to us, not to Him.

What's up with my kids and funky contraptions?

More detailed update

I'm still going to make this fairly short cause I want to be my bride's side and I also want to run back to the other hospital to check and see how Claire is doing.

The reason they sent Keri over to ICU is because she is having trouble regulating her oxygen levels (I may be way off, I'm doing my best to relay medical jargon). She's got a machine breathing for her, but she just started becoming alert about 10 minutes ago. She can shake her head yes and no, and I think she's partially breathing on her own now. As un-emotional of a person I am, seeing her like this is killing me and everytime I look at her I think I'm going to lose it. On the ambulance ride over I was thinking to myself how I only thought this happens in movies.

For the brighter side of things, Claire is doing really well. There were some concerns at first because of the medication that Keri was on. It was making Claire so "drugged up" that she was (in their terms) "forgetting to breath." They were somewhat expecting it though, so they were prepared and started again. But again, nothing a parent should ever see. I'm going to head back there shortly to check on her, but my main focus right now is Keri.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support from around the country.

ICU

I'll update in detail when I have the chance, but we're on the way to
ICU in an ambulance. Surgery had some complications. Update more later

Please please pray

Meet Claire Louise Ronk

Keri and I are the proud new parents of baby Claire. 5lb 7.5 oz. 18"
long.

Dropped her off in the OR. It's tough not being able to be in there
right now. This is really happening.

Update on anesthesia.

Apparently Keri will NOT be awake during the process. Docs felt it was best if she were completely out for the other surgery. All is still good. Unfortunately with a general anesthesia, I am not allowed in the operating room, so photo ops have to wait until baby is delivered and then she will be sent directly to the NICU. My anxious, fearful, worrisome feeling have somehow just transformed into pure excitement to meet my second beautiful child. Can't wait!

Fully trusting HIS plan,

Brian

Claire will be here shortly!

About12:50 this morning the doc came in and said they decided to go ahead and go with the surgery. I'm not really sure why the sudden change of heart, but looks like baby Claire will be here shortly. Please pray for safety of baby and for mommy. It's the two-in-one-surgery. We're talking to the nurse right now about Keri being awake/being knocked out. Sounds like she WILL be awake for both the c-section and the exploratory surgery. Normally the bowel surgery she would be knocked out for, but they want her awake for the c-section. This is GOOD news since Keri wanted to be alert for the birth, so praise God. I'm thinking this will all be going down within the next 1/2 hour or so.

This is all happening quite quickly, and yet it's so obvious God is controlling the entire situation.

:`(

So there were two doctors that just came in. The consensus is that they are going to wait until tomorrow to do the surgery.

In the morning, they are going to take another x-ray to see where the remaining contrast has gone so they can hopefully tell exactly where the obstruction starts. They also want to try a few other procedures that may help, one of which is replacing the NG tube with a larger one... yay...

If that doesn't help, then they will go for the surgery. The surgery will be a two birds with one stone type surgery. First, obviously, is to get the baby out. Then it will be exploratory surgery to find the obstruction and remove it.

Each possibility has it's pros and cons. If the other procedures work, the pros are 1. It worked 2. Claire gets to stay in and keep growing 3. No surgery (besides the c-section). The con is what I'm watching now; Keri's having a pretty rough time with all this.

If we end up going to surgery the pros are 1. Keri's pain should pretty much instantly be gone 2. We have a kid 3. Tax break! The cons are 1. Claire is still fairly early and there are minimal, but possible health risks 2. Keri goes through yet another major surgery.

Praying for the Lord's guidance in this difficult time. Thanks for all the prayers and words of encouragement!

Latest news

So the OB just came in with the results from the CT scan. The good news is that there is no pneumonia and no blood clot in the lungs. The bad news is that they think the bowel obstruction has gotten worse. She was pretty straight up with us saying that this is most likely going to end up with surgery tonight or tomorrow. The general surgeon will have the final say though after looking at the CT scan results. She is suppose to come in by 4:00, but their track record for things being on time isn't so hot.

So now I'm in a frantic online shopping mode for carseat, toddler bed (for Kenley, Claire will get crib), etc... I think I'll have a little bit of time because I'm assuming Claire will be in the NICU for a couple days.

I'll let you know something when I know something.

Poor baby!

She'll kill me for posting this!

As soon as I got done posting that last one, the doc came in again and I got to hear first-hand. They're taking this pretty stinkin' seriously. So they are drawing her blood now, then they're going to put some contrast into her NG tube (she doesn't have to taste it...blessing), then send her off for the CT scan. They said they are concerned about a blood clot in the lung and if they find one, they will take her directly to surgery because it's life-threatening. The CT scan will also show if she does have pneumonia. They also said that there's the possibility that nothing is wrong except the bowel obstruction and they're on the right course with the NG tube.

I don't know if I realized how serious this was... please, please pray.

If you don't pray, get saved, then pray! (No, really, you won't regret it)

It WAS going well

Apparently the doc came in this morning and I slept right through it...nice.

They are now going to check her for pneumonia. Sweet! She's now on oxygen, has the cool tank on wheels and all. Later they are going to do another CT scan of the bowels and now again of the lungs. After that, they are planning on doing an ultrasound of the baby and I guess they have some system that they look at a bunch of different aspects of baby and grade it on a scale of 1-10 to see how developed she is.

I assume they're only doing that for one reason, to see if they can safely take baby out.

I guess once the high risk surgeon comes in today the general surgeon, high risk surgeon, and baby surgeon are all going to "discuss" what to do.

Prayers are definitely needed. We still serve a great God and are so thankful for everything He's done for us already.

I'll let you know as soon as I know.

Something somewhat notable

Well it's a little after 3 in the morning and the doctor just left after hanging out with us for about a half hour. Keri's magic happy feel good button stopped working and it showed how much pain she was really in still. She told the doc that the pain as coming in and out so they hooked up the monitor to her and the pain was perfectly matching with every recorded contraction, so now baby talk has come into play again. They gave her some medicine to stop the contractions and it seemed to have worked for the time being. The doc said that if Keri would have just been coming in now without the ileus problem, she would have no problem delivering the baby.

Keri was asleep for about 1/2 hour, but now it's 3:24, obviously the best time for the lights to be full blast and a blood draw.

I'm out for the night!

Visitors

In regards to Bekah's comment on visitors... I should probably clarify just so there's not a herd of people all coming at once. Visitors aren't a problem at all, in fact I need to leave in an hour or two so it would be great to have someone come sit with her.

BUT

Fair warning, all she does is sleep, occasionally she'll be up and alert to talk and what not, but that's few and far between. The best thing to do if you want to visit is give me a call or shoot me a text to see what's going on. 425-320-6777. Again, probably not best to have a huge swarm of people coming in, but I know that a few people have asked, so hope this helps.

It seems like last time we went through this process it was a lot more exciting. (Exciting bad, not exciting good).

Keri sleeps a lot and I look at things to buy a lot. I've already found a few of my Christmas presents.

She keeps getting better and better and her snoring keeps getting louder and louder. Hopefully that doesn't stick around. She's gotten up and walked about 3 times today already, which is great. Still no signs of the problem getting solved other than the junk coming out of the NG tube, but feeling better is a step in the right direction. Thanks for all your prayers and comments and visits and flowers and food, etc...

Last post of the night

Things have progressively gotten better. About 9:00 tonight, the nurses came in to force Keri to get up and walk. She got up and did 3 whole laps around the hospital and felt pretty good, thanks to the magic happy feel good button. She looks WAY better than before. Definitely not normal, but better. After that, she said she was up for taking a shower and that was great for her. After her shower, I took off for the house again to do some more things around the house and Keri's mom stayed here with her. I just got back and Keri is sound asleep.

Her experience with the NG tube has been a lot better this time. She says that it's a lot better than the last one. I sure am proud of this lil' lady.

Did I mention this room is like 13 degrees? I came prepared with a think sweatshirt, beanie, and a king size heated blanket. I'm not repeating last night.

To answer Emma's question, right now it looks like the plan of attack is to just keep this up and let the nose hose do it's thing. There hasn't really been much talk of c-section lately.

Sorry, bad updater

I apologize for the lack of updates, but I have two excuses:

1) Nothing super duper exciting is happening.

2) I just got back

So anyway, last night was sort of a 1 hour on, 2 hours off type of thing. After medicine she would be fine and it would make her really drowsy and she would sleep great. After about 2 hours or so (This is my best guesstimation based on how many times it seemed like I woke up and my perpetual "what's going on/half asleep" state), the drugs would wear off and Keri would be back in a ton of pain, but it wasn't "time" for her to get her next dose of drugs yet, so she had to sit there and suffer for about a half hour... believe me... pitiful! Once they got the drugs, she would take off into some serious R.E.M. Here's one of the conversations between Keri and the nurse right after getting the drugs.

Nurse: How's your nausea feeling?

Keri: (Groggy) Eh... better

Nurse: Good, are you having any more pain?

Keri: .....

Keri: .....

Me: Hahaha!

Keri ......

Nurse: Keri?

Keri: Huh? Okay....

The nurse and I had a good laugh about that one.

Anyway, about 9:30 this morning I had to take off for Seattle to do one of my make-up finals. Got back around 1:30 and everything was still the same, which is a good thing. So I left again to go run some errands and just got back about 15 minutes ago (3:15) and everything is still the same.

So there's your update.

A lot of people are asking about the C-section. When Keri first got here with her mom on Wednesday morning, the doctor on duty was apparently all ready for doing a c-section to find whatever it was through surgery. The next doctor that came in wanted that to be last resort, and it's pretty much stuck with that. Now that they actually know the problem, they can take other measures besides c-section, mainly the NG tube. C-section is still not totally out of the question, but the NG tube is suppose to fix it. I think Keri is hoping to do the C-section just to get this fixed, but I'm not sure she's thought about the fact that we're totally not ready for baby #2 yet, I still haven't finished debating the middle name yet!

Thankful for a great hospital with awesome nurses and all the offers from you guys to help out in any way or watch Kenley or whatever.

And a big shout out to my mom for doing our dishes yesterday...

Bring on the nose hose!

So I left for about two hours to get some stuff done at home since Keri was sleeping. When I got back, apparently she had just woken up and was miserable. She described it to the doctors as "crippling." As much as she dreads and hates (and every other negative word you can think of) the NG tube, she realized that it was the best option for her, so that's what we're waiting on now. They did just give her some more anti-naseau medicine and that's helped a little, but it looks like the nose hose is a go.

My poor wife...

Just for a quick update...

...There's nothing really to update.

Keri slept for about 5-6 hours and only woke up every once in awhile to take a lap around the hospital. The doctor still hasn't been in since I've been here, so I really don't know what's going on and what the "schedule" looks like, but the last nurse that came in said they were going to try everything to not make her have the baby, but it's still not totally out of the question.

Didn't we already do this Ileus thing?

Greetings! This is your neighborly blogger's husband proxy-blogging for Keri.

Most of you reading this might have already seen Keri's FB post about what's going on, but I'll do my best to fill in some details and give you some history.

It all started about a month ago when Keri was having some terrible side and back aches. I went to go play MNB (Monday Night Basketball) at GBC. After toughing it out for a few hours she called me and said that she wanted to go to the hospital because something wasn't right. This was approximately 10 or so at night. So I take her to the hospital, still in my basketball shorts and t-shirt, it's FREEZING and I smell like...well, really really bad. After a full night in the hospital with a fairly rude nurse that seemed like she didn't believe Keri was in pain, the answer for the problem was "oooh....hmm....gee.... here's some percocet." After the drugs, Keri felt fine, and we went home, thinking it was some fluke.

The second round came about two weeks ago when the same thing happened, this time adding a great amount of throwing up. Again, Keri, being the rock hard awesome woman that she is, tried to tough it out, but alas, we ended up back in the hospital. This time we got a nurse who was much kinder when she said "oooh....hmm....gee.... here's some percocet." The doctor said it was possible that it was Kidney Reflux (There's a medical name for it, but I can't remember it), which is basically the tube coming out of the Kidney getting pinched so that urine flows back into the Kidney. Really nothing you could do about it except lay on the opposite side that it hurts. After some percocet, Keri felt better, and we went home.

It happened to her again I'm guessing about a week ago, but knowing the hospital couldn't really do anything about it, opted to stay home and continue toughing it out, which she did and it eventually went away.

...And that takes us to our current bout...

Tuesday night it started again and it was really bad. She had a difficult time even moving because it hurt so bad and was throwing up a lot. We went to bed hoping that it would subside. Me, being the selfish husband that I am, fell right to sleep as I always do. About 3:30 in the morning I wake up to the sound of my beautiful bride throwing up and crying from the pain. She is wonderful to me and wanted me to go back to sleep because I had finals the next day. About 5:30 in the morning she woke me up saying that she wanted to go to the hospital and just couldn't take it, so off we went. It seemed as if they might actually try to find what was going on. Doctors were in a lot more instead of nurses. They were great to us and ran a bunch tests and got an ultrasound to try to find exactly what it could be. The problem with that is that they wouldn't allow Keri to take any pain medicine because it would throw off their assessment with her. Keri wasn't very pleased. Long story short, it ended up with another "oooh...hmmm...gee... here's some percocet." (This isn't even a military hospital). Keri started to feel better but could still feel the pain and could hardly move.

We got home about 3:00pm and she still couldn't move and starting throwing up more and more. After some more medicine, she went to bed and I followed shortly after. About 12:30 this morning, I get woken up to the sound of her throwing up and she said she had to go back to the hospital because "I can't live like this." She was willing to let her mom take her because I had my final make-up that day. I do my selfish thing and sleep. I figured it would be the same thing as every time before.

About 7:10 this morning, my father-in-law comes into our house and wakes me up (My alarm was set for 7:15. I hate that!) because I need to get to the hospital. I look at my phone and there were no calls or texts. I walk out of the bedroom (I'm pretty sure it was a bomb shelter or something because it gets no service) and my phone starts lighting up from a bunch of texts Keri's mom sent me. Great. So I take off for the hospital.

Apparently, Keri has another Illyis, which is the exact same thing that happened a week after Kenley was born. If you want that story, visit August 2009's blogs. I guess the doctor that left about an hour ago was prepared to do a C-section right then, but the on-coming doctor wants to wait 24-36 hours. Keri is finally sleeping, which she literally hasn't done in two days. The doctors said they would hold off on the NG tube (nose hose) if the throwing up goes away.

Please keep her and unborn (possibly soon born) baby Claire in your prayers. I'll try to keep this as updated as possible. We serve a great God who already knows exactly what is going to happen.

Three

3. It is December 13th and we still have not taken our Christmas card photo... Maybe tonight!

2. I tried Brussels Sprouts yesterday and I loved them! If only Trader Joes were closer I would go get some more right now! I think they taste like a cross between broccoli and popcorn!

1. We have entered into a new stage of parenting. It's the dreaded "Look Daddy, I can take off my diaper during nap time and paint everything with it's contents!!"

At least we know she will be artsy :)

Seriously?

A massage while my laundry gets done? Awesome! Haha

Customer in Training!

Tree Hunting!

Since this will be our first married Christmas where we will actually spend the holiday in our own home, we decided that it would be fun to go and pick out a live tree.

Honestly, this place didn't have much of a selection of "traditional" Christmas trees. But we don't have room for a huge tree anyway so we picked out a cute little spindly one.
Kenley really liked being able to walk with Daddy like a big girl
On our way out, one of the workers gave Kenley a candy cane. She was so excited so we just let her hold onto it for the car ride from the tree farm to Gramma and Grandpas... Big mistake! She opened it and got sticky candy cane all over herself and the carseat.

{This is the only candy cane picture I could get, she was so excited she wouldn't hold still}

I finally put the lights on the tree today and hopefully we can get around to the ornaments sometime this week!

Sewing

I hated almost every second of it but I am super happy that I am finally finished with my collar sample piece. Now I jut have to start on my actual fabric... Yikes!

Christmas Photo Cards

It is December 2nd and we still haven't taken our family photo for our Christmas cards, the snow last week really slowed us down on that. Hopefully this weekend we can get a good picture or two for our Christmas cards. I have been browsing Shutterfly.com for Christmas Photo Card ideas.

Here are a two of my favorites:

The Gift Tag Card:

The Colorful Frames Card:

Of course with me being almost 33 weeks pregnant, baby stuff is constantly on the brain! Shutterfly has really cute baby shower invitations and birth announcements. I was having a lot of fun tonight playing around with their Baby Card Finder. Type in the name of your (soon-to-be-born) baby and Shutterfly comes up with cards that go well with that name.

My favorite Birth Announcement is this beauty! I love gray so this one is definitely my style!

Last year Amy made a photo calendar for Fred and Terri that they love. I have a crafty plan in my head for our 2011 calendar but I think that a photo calendar would make a great Christmas gift for my parents this year!

Shutterfly is offering an awesome promotion for bloggers to get 50 free photo cards! Want to get in on it? Click here!