Little miss Taylor...all the excitement has finally caught up to her

Needless to say this summer has been a very eventful one and poor Taylor has just been on the go the whole time and has seemed to forgotten that she had a good schedule. That and sad as it is to me she is out growing naps. But finally this week everything has started to catch up to her and she has been very exhausted. That and she has been fighting a cold and sore throat and has not been her self. Any ways these are a couple of the funny pictures we have gotten of her this week. And the one where she is wearing her hat...I swear she was home with her dad all day and that was not of my doing. LOL.








Since most of the posts have been based around the babies I thought that I would do a quick top 10 list of Taylorisms.
1. clocklet milk (chocolate milk) must be asked for at least 10 times before 8am
2. gritting your teeth...making muscles and grring makes mom and dad laugh a lot...even though mom pretends to hate it
3.When in doubt dance...this girl will dance to anything
4. Wearing your flips on the wrong feet will result in falling...though you keep doing it
5.Playing with friends is a muchly loved activity
6. Tramping is really jumping on the tramp.(seriously she cracks me up)
7. Every bird is an owl.
8. Coloring book pages make great maps.
9. Tutus can be worn with everything
10. Cowboy boots look great with PJs.

Taylor is a very funny girl and will be a great big sister

Nurse Alexis is the best!!!!

So having been NICU parents for almost 6 weeks now we are finding that we and our babies prefer some nurses over others. Nurse Alexis has become by far my favorite nurse for our little trio. She is always so patient and kind, goes the extra mile for us and is a very easy person to be around, which in our case is very good. Nurses are assigned 3 babies per shift so usually they are working with three different babies/families and in 3 different curtain areas, seeing as we have 3 in our troop the nurse that has them only has them which means we get to spend a lot of time with our nurses. We greatly appreciate all the care we have received by the nurses, but some do stand out more then others. Alexis being one of them...she knows our babies personalities, there likes and dislikes and seems to be able to get them to progress in ways that marvel us. Also Taylor likes her...which for those of you who know her, she likes to play shy and give people the one over, so for her to like Alexis so much is great cause it makes our trips to the NICU so much easier. She still plays shy with her, but she trusts her so that is what matters.
The babies are all getting big and today Alexis had me hold all 3 at one time, wow what a great/overwhelming moment. It was so nice to hold all three at one time and get a good look at them so close together. Poor Luke looks absolutely huge next to his sisters. But the girls are quickly catching up. They are all doing well and are bottling most of their feeds.
As for Taylor she is very happy to be back at home with us and all her stuff...she had a busy week last week, going to the zoo and Heritage Park catching up on some greatly missed play time with her friends. This week will be a fun week too cause Aunt Myrna is coming to stay with us for a couple of days. I will admit that I am very excited to have her come stay with us.

There was 3 in the bed and the little on said...

We finally got a picture of the 3 of them all together. I love the nurses at the NICU...they are truly there for the families of the babies. I had brought in the girls headbands and tutus thinking that at least i could get cute pictures of them all on there own. I had left the camera in the van, so i ran out to get it and when i got back there where 8-10 nurses and 2 drs around one of the beds, so i panicked thinking that something had happened, but the nurses had just found the stuff i had brought in and thought that it would be fun if they got them all dressed up and put them all together for me to see when i got back. It was an awesome moment cause it was the first time that i had seen all 3 together at the same time.
Now that i am done telling about our first photo shoot of the 3 together i will quickly update how they are all doing. Luke has been growing fast and is now weighing in at over 4 lbs. the girls are both about 3.5 lbs. They have all gone 5 or more days with now A's and B's (basically no alarms going off...easiest way to explain it.) They are all taking the bottle part of the time and sometimes doing a whole feed with just the bottle.
Little tid bits of information we have found out this week...
1) when they moved the babies from the Foot Hills they all came in one islet
2) if you really like a nurse you can request that she is your nurse when she comes back after her days off
3) Your babies can change a lot in 3 days of not seeing them
4) That sometimes it is hard to find the balance between the 3 at the hospital and Taylor and sometimes you feel that no matter how hard you try that some one is lacking somewhere with the attention that they need
5) And that even when you feel that you are lacking telling each other that you love them and telling our kids that we love them...makes us realize that we aren't really lacking after all

Hello Bottles

Today was another one of those days that what seems like a little thing was a really big and exciting thing for us. Our nurse Alexis (who we love and adore), decided that they were all doing really well with there soothers and decided to try giving them part of their feeds through a bottle. They all did really well, especially our Little Livie. Livie did one whole feed with her bottle. All the nurses where so excited and she gets a certificate to go above her bed marking her accomplishment.

Just a side note to how much the nurses put into the care of our babies. All the babies had signs marking there first Calgary Stampede, made by one of the nurses on all of the beds in there today. I love all the little touches that the nurses do.

A Little Gary

So a conclusion has been made...Luke is a little Gary. I have decided there is no mom in him and he is all his dad. The past two weeks when ever I look at him all I can see is Gary. Even others who look at his say you can tell who is dad is. It amazes me that so many things that we think are learned behaviors that our kids end up doing are actually traits that they are born with. There are so many actions that Luke does already that are so much like his dad. It has been great to watch Gary bond with all of his kids...but I will admit that every time I see him hold Luke my heart skips a beat. Gary is such an awesome dad and husband and I couldn't have asked for better.

Good Bye Foot Hills---------Hello Rocky View

So after 24 days our time at the Foot Hills NICU has come to an end, we miss our fabulous nurses we had there and the friends we met, but graduating to the Rocky View means one step closer to home. Don't get me wrong when they called and said they were transferring the babies I was a little disappointed that it wasn't to the PLC. Who am I kidding I was hugely disappointed. It only took 5 minutes of being at the Rocky View NICU and I was in love with the surroundings...its nice to have big windows, the nurses, and the fact that we can be way more hands on with our little ones now. In the past 3 days Gary and I have logged way more cuddle time with them then we did the whole first 24 days of their lives, and it has been great!

So quick update on the three. Sophie is such a happy little girl who loves her cuddles. She weighs 3 pounds now and is eating every 3 hours.



Livie is quickly catching up, her last IV is out and she has increased her feeds and is eating every 2 hours, she loves cuddles but get over stimulated easily (she didn't get any holding or cuddling for 10 days after she was sick so it has been hard on her getting use to being held again-no worries though they say it won't last long). Her weight is up to 2lbs 15oz. Really good for a little one that at one point weighed less then 2 lbs.


Luke is growing big so fast he already weighs 3 lbs 8 oz, and is super long. He gets upset when his sisters are being held and not him, and when you are done holding him he needs to be placed on his stomach so that he doesn't get as up set that he isn't being held any more.

Seeing as something happened when i was uploading pictures I will add the ones of Luke and Gary with Luke in my next post.

The top picture is of Sophie, the middle one of Livie and the last one is of me being able to give kisses to Sophie for the first time with nothing on her face. (they were changing her g-tube)

What 18 hours can do...

When thinking over what can happen in an 18 hour time period, most people would say not much ever exciting happens on a daily basis in that time period. I use to be one of those people. The last 3 weeks has taught me differently though. We have learned that in that time period your family can go from 3 to 6 just that quickly, that a baby who was content and well when you left the NICU the night before can get sick and set her back a week in progression, babies can go from being on si-pap (sorry I know the spelling is off on that one) skip over c-pap and go on to nasal prongs and do great when 18 hours prior they couldn't.
Well 18 hours brought many changes to our three little ones today...the major one being that we finally have all 3 babies next to each other...technically we have 2 in one bed spot and 1 in another, but with only a desk and not a whole unit dividing them it is great. Luke no longer has his nasal prongs, Sophie is being bumped to 3 hour feeds and Livie should be getting her IV out by Sunday at the latest. Its hard to imagine a visit without nasal prongs or IVs on any of the babies. Holding them has just become a 100% easier.

The Little Things that Matter

While talking to another mom at the NICU, we were discussing how the littlest things that most parents take for granted, change once you have a child in the NICU, then those littlest things become big things. Such examples are touching them and holding them for the first time. the first time we got to hold the syringe while the babies ate through their g-tube, getting to dress them in sleepers for the first time and actually being the person who dressed them, even changing their diapers becomes a big thing. Every milestone they reach and surpass with flying colors gives us even more reason to be excited and relieved at the same time.
There has been many little things that have become big things this week, Sophie decided to pull her nose prongs off herself and they decided that if she was doing that then she no longer needed them, Livie got moved into the A-pod and they are hoping that in a few days she will be eating enough to take her IVs out, and Luke has been moved from 2 hour feedings to 3 hour feedings. A major little thing that was huge to us, was being able to hold Luke and Sophie together tonight. It was one of the best feelings ever, especially when they started to wiggle around and get in there comfortable spots with one another. We were lucky enough to have them together for about an hour. It was a little sad that one of them was missing, but we are hoping that it won't be to much longer till we can hold all 3 together.
Another thing that I have realized this week, is that as much as I hate having toys underfoot all day, and watching Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, Franklin and Little Bear, and listening to elmo's song EVERY time we get into the van....that I miss Taylor so much when she is gone and wouldn't trade being a mom for anything.

All 3 in A-Pod

So it has been a couple of days since our last post. Taylor left Sunday for Magrath for 2 weeks and I am missing her a lot. Monday I went into Calgary and spent the day with the babies and Gary came in later, while we were there they moved Livie into A-pod. We are very excited to have all 3 in the same area. They are all doing great and we were able to hold all 3 of them, very exciting cause it had been 10 days since we last held Livie.

They are all gaining weight and not having as many a's and b's anymore. We are now crossing our fingers that something will open up at the PLC so we can get transfered there.