Happy Holidays!

Christmas...already? My world has been so busy with running to and from the NICU the holidays really came out of nowhere!

As usual, we did our annual tea at the Roosevelt Hotel which was just lovely as ever! As soon as the trumpeter came in the room followed by Rudolph, Noah's face lit up in excitement. He really loved it. The kids all had a good time and the lobby at the Roosevelt is just gorgeous.



Noah was very excited for Christmas this year and had a list for the man with the bag. His big wish list items were the Imaginext Batman Bat Cave, Star Wars Trouble, a Leap Pad and a Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Noah was in luck, Santa managed to drop all of these off to his house and his grandparents. What a good boy he must have been!

When we were at Target the week of Christmas Noah noticed they were out of stock for the Bat Cave and I said "Oh no! I hope Santa was able to get one before they sold out". Noah's response? "Well Momma, Santa doesn't shop at Target the elves only make it!". Touche Noah, touche!

The weekend of Christmas my friend Ann came by and we made Pioneer Woman cinnamon rolls. Yes, cinnamon rolls from scratch! I really thought Ann had used yeast quite a few times and knew what to do...but we were basically the blind leading the blind. The rolling of the cinnamon rolls made quite a mess but they were delicious. Maybe it can be a yearly tradition, what do you say Ann?

While we waited for the cinnamon rolls to rise and all that jazz, we decide to whip up some sugar cookies for Santa. Noah had a great time decorating them with Ann and I. It's amazing how well behaved Noah will act around company, I need to invite Ann over more often!

Noah was very anxious Christmas morning. Hearing his gasps of Ohhhs and Ahhhs was just great. It was a great morning. Santa even brought some presents for Liam! Noah did make mention to why Santa brought Liam his gifts under the tree and not leave his gifts at the NICU. Noah is one smart cookie that's for sure.



Our Christmas wouldn't have been complete if we didn't get to visit with our little Liam. Have I made mention of how great his nurses are? They are seriously the best! One of the nurses brought in a little snoman suit and Santa suit for Liam. He was the cutest little Santa I've ever seen! Santa even made a visit to the NICU, he is one lucky little guy.



I can't wait till next Christmas to have our first Christmas as a family of four at home.

Yellow Hat

Liam has grown out numerous hats lately which is a great thing but it's also diminishing his adorable hat collection. ;)

Tonight I was searching for a hat that actually fit him and came across this yellow hat. I remember how BIG this hat used to be just a few weeks ago and now it fits pretty tightly. Check it out for yourself!

It's so great to see how much he is actually growing. Since I see him every day I don't really notice until I look back at pictures. He is so amazing.

THREE POUNDS

YAY! Liam is now 3 pounds, what a milestone!

To celebrate one of Liam's favorite nurses brought in 3 pound cakes and we had a pound party, how adorable is that? I swear some of these nurses are sweeter than pie. We had a great time at the pound party and I can't wait till he reaches 4 pounds! I need to think of a creative way to celebrate, any ideas?

Feliz Navidad!

Yesterday we had family over for my mothers birthday and we were singing Christmas carols and having a fun time. We started to sing Feliz Navidad and Noah stopped everyone and ran to get his singing chihuahua.

Check him out singing with his chihuhua!



He cracked.us.up! We were dying laughing! He is such a little character lately. He is such a good comic relief during the hard times with Liam. In just a few short years Liam will be singing and cracking us all up and by that time I'm sure Noah will be way "too cool" to sing Christmas carols with us! I'm definetly soaking up my solo Noah time.

We Bring Gold!

Today was Noah's Christmas party at school. He was a wise man in the nativity scene. His line was "We bring gold" and he practiced and practiced for days to perfect it!

The play was so adorable. The kids were all on stage and I swear each kid had both of their parents video taping it and taking pictures on their phone like they were celebrities...and yes, we were right along with them taking a video and snapping away on the camera. You have to capture the memories, right?

They sang cute Christmas carols and it was so sweet. I just can't get over how big Noah is, I wish he would stop getting so big!

After the play we all had lunch together and I let Noah go wild and have his pick at lunch. He chose cupcakes, chips, cookies and pizza. I put 2 grapes on his plate but he didn't eat that, go figure.

His Aunt Mo was even able to come and see his debut as the Wise Man!

Bottle Feeds

You can't imagine my excitement when I was told this morning they would start Liam on bottle feeds! This is another big step in coming home. He will need to be able to take 8 bottles in 24 hours in order to come home.

You start out getting 1 bottle over 24 hours and depending how you do they will then go up to 2 bottles, then 3, etc.

His feedings are 25ml and he was able to take 10 at his first feeding and 20 at the second. Awesome! I was surprised he even got anything. He really amazes me constantly, he is such a fighter.

Yo Gabba Gabba Live

Noah has been waiting for this day since June, the Yo Gabba Gabba Live concert! Let me just start by saying Noah is a HUGE Yo Gabba Gabba fan since he was a toddler and he still adores it. It's actually a show I can tolerate (thank GOD he never got into Barney) so I was pretty excited about it as well.

I bought the tickets way back in June. My sister actually had a code for tickets and guess what...it got us FRONT row seats! I have to admit, I was pretty psyched about our big day.

As soon as we got through the door he immediately saw the merchandise stand. He picked out a t shirt to buy which I allowed because it's always fun to rock the shirt of who you are seeing (I remember rocking out with my KNOTB shirt, thanks dad).

After we bought a Plex shirt we found our seats which were AWESOME! The show included all of the YGG favorites and Noah sang along to every song. During intermission we stopped and shopped again and bought a Muno doll.

I think Noahs favorite part was when Biz Markie came out to do his "Beat Of The Day" and when confetti/leaves/snow would come from the "sky". He had a great time and it was a nice thing for Noah and I to do together with everything going on.

Oh and on the way out Noah suckered me into a Brobee backpack, so yes that's right we walked out with a tshirt, a doll AND a backpack.

Hopefully Noah is still into them if they come back to town because I really liked it!

Big Brother Day

Today Noah finally got to "meet" Liam! I have to say all of Liam's nurses are incredible but some are just outstanding. Today his nurse said that we could bring Liam in the well baby nursery so Noah could see him through the glass. I was shocked and SO excited.

I couldn't believe that after 8 long weeks Noah could finally "see" Liam. He doesn't show much interest when we talk of Liam because it's hard for him to really realize he is real since he can only see him through pictures and videos.

I was able to hold Liam while Clint was with Noah during the viewing. As soon as Noah saw him I could tell how excited he was. We put Liam's hand up to the glass and Noah held his hand through the glass, it was adorable and I got a bit misty eyed I'll admit!

After we visited I decided to interview Noah on his meeting with Liam and this is what he had to say.



It was such an exciting day and I can't wait for them to actually meet and hold hands not through the glass.

I can wear clothes!

Today was the first day Liam was put in clothes! AHH! It's the little things that you take for granted when you have a healthy baby, like being able to dress them automatically.

After many weeks, Liam was finally able to not be naked 24/7. Once I knew he could wear clothes I was on the hunt for preemie outfits. I had no idea Target wouldn't carry preemie clothes. Luckily, Babies R Us had a great selection of preemie stuff! I picked up a pack of preemie onesies and preemie diaper shirts. I think he looks just adorable in the, don't you agree?

Transfusion

Liam has had quite a few transfusions in his NICU journey and unfortunately he had to have another one this past weekend. I always get nervous when he needs one but his blood work showed he was in need and also his complexion wasn't "pink enough". They put an IV in his head and that

Also, Liam is on a continuous feeding tube but they are going to switch him to bolus feedings and see how he does. They will start off first with feeding him for an hour and a half and then rest for an hour and a half. If he does well with that they will then feed for 1 hour and rest for 2 and if he does well with that then they will feed for a half hour and rest for 2 and a half hours. This is in preparation of being able to digest food in 30 minutes because once he starts bottle feeding they will only try to give him a bottle for 30 minutes because anything past that will burn more calories than he is gaining through feeding.

Wish us luck this week!