Christmas Spirit!

We got in the Christmas spirit at our house today and put up our tree.  Avery is loving looking at all of the lights.  She just stares at all of those twinkling little lights.  We may just have to leave the tree up all year.  We all tried to take a few pics of the little one to use for a Christmas card/birth announcement, since I haven't done that yet.  I think we got some cute ones.  I just love all of those expressions!

Loving her tree!

I love how these next two look like she is dancing!

Visitors!!

Today Grammy and Grandpa Bahn, Cousin Conner, Aunt Jess and Uncle Joe came down to visit us, since we didn't make the trip up for Thanksgiving.  We had a yummy dinner and Conner and I got to play all day!  I wasn't too sure about sharing my play mat, as I haven't had to share any toys yet.  We did good though, and as you can see, it really tired me out and I had a good nap that evening.

All tired out

Playing with cousin Conner

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving..and a happy one it is!  I think Cullen and I have realized this year more then ever before, just how much we have to be thankful for.  We had the best day ever.  We decided we wanted to just hang out the three of us, and not do anything to elaborate or head out anywhere with the little one.  We just made a nice dinner here, and hung out.  Avery pretty much just slept and snuggled the day away and we wouldn't have had it any other way.  The family did come over for a little while tonight, and they got some snuggles as well.  I can honestly say it was the best Thanksgiving ever!

All snuggly after a bath

Spiky, fluffy hair after her bath.  She even wore a cute outfit for the day - all preemie size and so tiny, yet they are big on her still!

Avery loves her soothie and her glider

No mom, please -  no more pictures!

My Growing Belly

I don't have too many belly pictures from my pregnancy with Avery.  I had good intentions of doing them weekly, and started out doing really good, but then I kind of stopped remembering, and the weeks went by too fast!   I would highly recommend it, and hope to be better the second time around.   It is so fun to see that baby grow!  But I do have a few and thought I would come back and add the ones I do have to my blog, as she might like to see them someday.  I didn't want them at the beginning, so I'm putting them here!

This one is the last one I have and was taken at about 30 weeks.  She was born at 33 1/2 weeks, so I got a little bigger, but not a whole lot.  I never really did get to that hugely uncomfortable stage.

This one was at 29 weeks

16 weeks

12 weeks - starting to show more

8 weeks

Just found out..4 weeks...SO excited!

We're Here!

We are officially home, and it feels AWESOME!  Cullen of course, drove us very carefully from Minneapolis to New Prague!  He did say he was pretty nervous.  I sat in the back to keep the little one company, but of course she slept the whole way.  We did think it was important we capture the memory of the place we called home for the last week or so.  So here are a few pics of our sleep room!  There are also a couple of Avery in the carseat ready to go!  She looks SO tiny!

Home Home Home!!!

YEAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!  Our second sleepover was a success!  Avery was a trooper through the night.  I don't think Cullen nor I slept a wink.  She is a noisy little sleeper and we were pretty nervous the entire time, but she did it!    We are packing up now and will be headed home later this morning.  Thanks again for all of your love and support through this whole process.  We couldn't have done it without you.  Let's bring our baby home!

Sleepover #2!

We are going to try it again!  Everything has gone well the past two days.  They adjusted her meds, and got her back on one of the ones they took her off before and that seems to be doing the trick, so we get to try to room-in again tonight.  We are pretty nervous after last time, but also super excited again.  Because once again, if this goes well, we will be headed home tomorrow hopefully!  Keep your fingers crossed for us!  We will update you tomorrow!

Didn't Go So Hot :(

Well last night didn't go a planned, and much to our dismay, we will not be leaving today.  At about 11:00 or so, Avery started acting kind of how she was acting last week in Waconia.  She was really jittery and super fussy.  I think we both didn't want to admit it, or maybe though it was our imagination.  Anyway, around 3:00 or so, we brought her down to the NICU, and sure enough, her heartrate was super high again.  So they gave her some more medicine and kept her there to monitor her for the rest of the night.  I'm pretty much a wreck all over again today.  We so had our hopes up to go home, but that isn't happening.  The doctor said we can possibly try again tomorrow night, if today and tomorrow go well.  We'll see.  We will keep you posted.

Our First Sleepover!

We got the news today that we have been waiting for!!  Avery is continuing to do really well, and they are beginning to get things ready for her discharge.  YEA YEA YEA!!!!!!!  She will ahve to go home on some meds that we will have to give her, but home is home!  Tonight we get to have our first sleepover!  We have been anxiously awaiting this.  Basically, this is what you have to do before you get to go home!  We went down to the cafeteria to eat supper, since there will be no leaving the room, and then we went to pick her up!  We have Avery in our sleep room with us.  She will hang out here all night, and if everything goes well, we may possibly get to bring her home tomorrow.  It is actually kind of comforting knowing that we have the nurses right down the hall.  But so far, so good!  We have just been hanging out in our tiny, little space.  We are enjoying some much needed, private snuggle time that we haven't been able to have yet.   Yea!  Our first night, just the three Bahns!

This is how Avery was hanging out in the nursery when we went to get her for the night!

Snuggling with Nana..and a sweet hat!

Nana came up today and hung out with us, because Cullen had to go back in to work today.  It has been nice he has been able to be here with us so much.  I think they pretty much just snuggled most of the day away!  We did take a run to Babies R Us while Avery napped in the morning and picked out some treasures for her.  The best news of the day is that she no longer has to take the iodine!!!  This was one of the meds she was on for her iodine and it was horrible!  It was just iodine, and she had to take it orally.  I hated giving it to her because she hated it so much, but we knew she needed it.  So it was good news to hear that one is no longer necessary.  Things also continue to look good, and they are even mentioning possibly going home this weekend!  Yea Avery!!!

A funny hat they gave her at the NICU..looks pretty funny!

This is pretty much what Avery and Nana did most of the day!

You can see the scale in the background..we weigh her before she eats and after to see how much she is getting each time. We do a little victory dance when it's a good one!