Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Since Billy had to work today, we celebrated yesterday. We had a family bbq at the Jones house and my parents joined us. Swimming, games, and yummy food! I love spending time with our families and I am so lucky that we are able to do all of our holidays and events together!

I framed this picture for Billy

And  this one for my dad and Steve

5 months!

Amelia is 5 months today! It's crazy how fast time goes by. We have had a busy 5 months, but I feel so blessed to have her in our lives. She's the perfect fit for our little family.

What I love about you. I love how easy you are to please. You are such a happy girl, and when your being held you are so happy. You like to swing and bounce occasionally, but being held is your favorite. You love rocking in the rocking chair with daddy. You love when your brother makes silly faces and gives you kisses. You love to cuddle with mommy. And you love to eat! But your still a tiny little thing. 13 pounds and probably about 23 1/2 inches. You are my strong little girl and such a little trooper!

So far at 5 months:
~ You can sit in your bumbo for up to 30 minutes before you get bored
~ You can roll over from your back to your tummy
~ You are getting your bottom two teeth in. They haven't broke through quite yet, but they are close
~ You like to TRY and sit up
~ You are SO smiley
~ You like to giggle
~ You are beautiful
~ You are SO loved

May 2012

Here's an update on our little family~

Billy will start working at a new store in a couple months, so right now he's been floating around helping other stores. 

I started working as a CNA/ BHPP (Behavioral Health Para Professional) at a Behavioral Health Home in March. I love it! It's a change of pace and I like learning how to deal with different behaviors and issues that people have. I also get to administer meds to my residents, so another learning opportunity. I usually work 16-24 hours a week, and then also stay home with the kiddos. I am blessed to be able to do both, and the kiddos love hanging out with their grandparents when we are at work. I am also blessed to have such loving people in my life that care so much for my babies. I STILL need to go down to the community college and apply to the nursing program. I have been slacking in doing so, but I will definitely get it done in the next month. 

Jackson has had such a boom in his vocabulary. He has started speaking in sentences, and he also loves to repeat words. He has such a personality. He loves his baby sister and loves interacting with her and making her giggle. He loves to be outside, playing with Marlie, snacks, helping Daddy with the yard and his jeep, and basically anything that involves being with Daddy. He also loves the pool, and for the past few weeks loves swimming with his floaties in the pool. He also went down the slide all by himself! He also has quite the attitude at times. He gets easily frustrated when we can't understand what he is saying, or when he is told 'no'. Boys will be boys. 

Ellie. What can I say about this little girl, besides the fact that I love her soooooooooooooo much. She is my baby girl, my little miracle. She is such a happy girl, especially when she's being held and/or nursing. Sometimes she likes to swing, or sit in her bumbo, or play in her jumperoo. I love her smiles, and she is so stinking cute! She has started teething and tried sweet potatoes for the first time the other day (loved them!). She has been through alot so far in her 5 months, but she is such a trooper and I just love having her in our family.

Ellie's surgery

So, as mentioned in the previous post, Ellie had surgery on May 31st to remove part of her amniotic band. From the beginning, we knew that it would have to be a two part surgery. Because there are so many nerves and tendons, it's best to not do it all at once. We went in that morning at 8:30. Her surgery was at 9:30. I last fed her at 5:30 because they needed her to have an empty stomach. Luckily, she didn't get fussy or hungry before the procedure. When we went to the pre-op area, the nurse explained to me that handing her off was going to be tough, so the best thing would be to hand her off and just walk back to the waiting room, instead of watching them take her to the OR. I of course didn't listen, and got a little emotional watching them take her away, with her little face peeking back at me over the nurse's shoulder. I was sick with worry that something would happen, mainly with the anesthesia. But I had faith that everything would be ok. I had Billy with there with me, and my closest friends praying for her. It was a long 1 1/2 hours, but finally around 11:30 they came and got us and took us to the post-op area. They handed her to me, all wrapped up in blankets, with a big bandage on her arm. I thought that she would want to nurse right away, but she was still somewhat out of it and was crying, so after many failed attempts to get her to nurse, Billy picked her up and she calmed down. Finally after about 30 minutes she was ready to nurse. We let her eat for about 15 min, and then left to head home. She was sleepy for most of the day, but finally around 4 or 5 pm she started to wake up more and was her happy self again.

The doctor had told us to keep the bandage on for 24-48 hours, and to put vaseline on twice a day. I chose to keep it covered longer because I was really paranoid of it getting infected.

Unfortunately, it still got infected...I took her to Urgent Care and they gave me an antibiotic and a cream to apply to the stitches. I asked if there was anything that could be done to have prevented it, and the doctor said that because she is so young, she doesn't have her full immune system yet, so it could have happened regardless.

Here are some pictures

And this is when it got infected

Luckily we got the meds we needed, and she has a follow-up with her plastic surgeon tomorrow morning.

Busy busy!

Ok, to start, I really need to keep this more updated. From here on out I am going to update at least once a week! Or at least I will try!

So the past couple of months have been busy. When Ellie joined our family, I thought it would be quite the adjustment trying to satisfy the needs of two kids. However, I quickly learned that Ellie is the easy one! It's my 2 year old crazy boy that is more of a hassle! Ellie is happy as long as she's fed, changed, and being held. Jackson is a busy little dude. He loves playing outside constantly, but he's also at the stage where he is trying to communicate but easily gets frustrated if we don't know what he is saying. Therefore, he screams and whines ALOT. He LOVES to play with his cars, play with the water hose outside, have snacks and his best friend is our dog Marlie. Anytime he goes outside, he wants her to come too, and gets mad if she doesn't want to. However, I can say that he is great with Ellie. He loves her so much, and she loves him. It's amazing how they can develop a relationship so fast.

When Ellie was about 6 weeks old she had to start wearing a Pavlov harness because she had a very mild form of hip dysplasia in her left hip. So she's been wearing that for the last 3 months and now she's finally out of it. She just has to wear it at night, but that's just to phase it out. She's also been seeing a plastic surgeon for her amniotic band, and she had surgery on May 31st to remove that. She'll have one more surgery and then i'm hoping things calm down for awhile. I'm sick of doctor visits!

Amelia Elizabeth Jones

So, as I shared in my previous post, we added a beautiful little girl to our family on January 11th, 2012. That day I was 36 weeks, 1 day. I woke up in the morning feeling some pressure as if she had 'dropped', and throughout the morning I was having spontaneous contractions in my back. I called Billy and had him come home from work, just in case. With him being an hour away, I didn't want to take any chances. Of course, as soon as he got home, my contractions seemed to stop. However, around 2 pm they started back up again. I will keep the details to myself, but a few things happened that made my contractions speed up quite a bit. Luckily, I had an appt with my OB that day at 4 pm, so I packed my bag just in case and we headed to the appt. Once I was there, I let the nurse know that I thought I was in labor. When my OB checked me, she told me that Amelia's head was very low and I was at 4 cm dilated. They did an ultrasound to make sure she was still head down, and told me that I could head to the hospital! We dropped Jackson off with some friends, and were back at the hospital within 10 minutes. My best friend Sarah met us there and I gave her full control of my camera. Once checked in and in triage, we discovered that I was completely dilated/effaced and I was ready to push. They rushed me into a delivery room, my OB ran over from her office, and within 30 minutes Amelia was born. We had checked into the hospital at 4:45 pm and she was born at 5:24. I was able to do the delivery all natural and without pain medication as I had hoped. Besides being tiny, she was perfectly healthy. However, she was born with something called an amniotic band on her right arm, right above her elbow. Basically, when in utero, a piece of the amniotic sac wrapped around her arm like a rubberband. In Amelia's case, her radial nerve was affected, so she doesn't have much control of her wrist at the moment.  We were referred to a plastic surgeon, who told us that they will have to perform a surgery when she is 4 months to 'release' the band, and in doing so and with physical therapy, she will have full use of her wrist.

Starting Over

Wow! My last post was titled 'It's been Awhile' and that was about how I had been slacking in keeping this blog updated. And that post was almost a year ago! Oops!

So i'm starting over. The past year has been a busy one. Billy and I found out that we were expecting a new addition, due in February of 2012. The pregnancy wasn't the easiest. When we went in for our 18 week ultrasound to find out the baby's gender, we learned that we had been pregnant with twins. Sadly, one of the babies had passed around week 14, due to a neural tube disorder known as anencephaly. We were sent to a perinatologist, where we learned that the twins shared a placenta, and we still had a 30% chance of losing our healthy baby girl. That was devastating to hear, but we had to keep thinking positively and just hope for the best. Luckily, my sweet Amelia was a fighter and she came to us on January 11th, 2012 at 36 weeks gestation. She was perfectly healthy, but small, weighing in at 4 pounds, 15 ounces and 18 1/2 inches.